David Foster Wallace
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A Postcard from David Foster Wallace
In the current age of Twitter and Facebook, some authors seem just one click away–a kind of celebrity that is still accessible to the common fan. Frank Cassese tells a story in Guernica about when he received a postcard from David…
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Improve your prose with Math
Alright fiction writers, put down your pens for a moment and let’s talk math. If you recoil when hearing the “M-word” or brace your index fingers into a cross at the sight of algebra or calculus books—you’re not alone. But…
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“Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” by D. T. Max
Like many latecomers to his work, my introduction to David Foster Wallace began with a reading of his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address. I remember being struck initially, immediately, by its honesty, its rhetorical courage, its compassion.
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Cataloging Gets Personal
If you’ve ever been curious about what it’s like to be a cataloger of an author’s work, much less David Foster Wallace’s final book, you may want to give Jenn Shapland’s gorgeous essay, “The Human Heart is a Chump: Cataloging…
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David Foster Wallace Was A Comedy Nerd
Blythe Robertson unpacks David Foster Wallace’s thoughts, and impacts, on American comedy for Splitsider. Wallace often worried about the overwhelming amount of irony on television – talking heads poking fun at those watching the show while viewers laugh along at…
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A Glimpse Into Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace
The Millions allows readers the opening paragraphs of DT Max’s David Foster Wallace biography: “The Wallaces ate at 5:45 p.m. Afterward, Jim Wallace would read stories to Amy and David. And then every night the children would get fifteen minutes…
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A Virtual Tour Of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
Attention All David Foster Wallace Fans, Writer William Beutler is compiling real life Boston, MA locations featured in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: “About each I will write some 300–500 words, endeavoring to say something interesting about the role a given…
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On “Proper” English and Objective Legislation
It’s no secret that English is a constantly shifting, malleable, many-headed beast of a language, yet, much of the time, writers and speakers insist emphatically on obeying its many ostensibly rigid rules. At The New York Times, linguist John McWhorter writes…
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Previously Unpublished
The forthcoming paperback edition of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King contains four previously unpublished scenes. The Millions shares the full text of one of those additional scenes.
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Please Stop Yelling: An Openly Subjective Review of The Lifespan of a Fact
Essayist John D’Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal co-wrote a book called The Lifespan of a Fact. I have read every review about the book since. It seems that Lifespan isn’t being reviewed, but instead a status quo is being swiftly and aggressively defended.
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A People of Savage Sentimentality
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead should be hailed not simply as a fabulous piece of writing but as a landmark debut of a new genre, invented by others but perfected here.