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We can try to perform our inner lives, but we can’t actually reveal them. We can create a simulacrum, which is so much of what I see on social media, and that simulacrum is entertainment. It’s exciting because we all love the whiff of authenticity, and the more mediated our culture feels, the more we crave it, but we can’t actually give it away. We cannot actually break through the barrier of our individual aloneness.
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Literary events taking place virtually this week!
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Simply put, the novel’s heart is not political but sensual.
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Literary events taking place virtually this week!
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Literary events in and around NYC this week!
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Literary events in and around NYC this week!
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Literary events in and around NYC this week!
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Sharlene Teo discusses her debut novel, PONTI.
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Literary events in and around New York City this week!
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Literary events in and around New York City this week!
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A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
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Melissa Fraterrigo discusses her new novel-in-stories, Glory Days, writing speculative fiction, and how our formative years influence us later in life.
...moreLiterary events and readings in and around the Twin Cities this week!
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Carmen Maria Machado discusses her debut story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, her favorite horror writers and movies, and writing the book(s) she’s always wanted to read.
...moreLiterary events and readings in and around the Bay Area this week!
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Everyone, no matter how strong or independent, is subject to forces like war, or time, or the claims of family.
...moreLiterary events and readings in and around Chicago this week!
...moreRumpus editors share our Nobel Prize in Literature predictions with you!
...moreLiterary events and readings in and around Philadelphia this week!
...moreLiterary events and readings in and around New York City this week!
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Take a quick break from the apocalyptic news and end your week with this list of books to eagerly anticipate (assuming the world doesn’t end) instead!
...moreThe New York Times brought together two distinctly imaginative authors, George Saunders and Jennifer Egan, for a chat on writing the future, their famously fabulist impulses, and the core of why we turn to literature at all.
...moreWith giddiness over the National League Championship, Lit Hub imagines the amusing fantasy lineup of players if the baseball teams were made up entirely of writers. Pitting Jennifer Egan and George Saunders against Malcolm Gladwell and Alice Munro, the list is an entertaining interpretation of writers’ styles translating into athletic skill.
...moreThe Guardian reports that Neil Gaiman has added his name to a letter urging China’s president Xi Jinping to release dissident writers “languishing in jail for the crime of expressing their opinions.” In addition to Gaiman, several other famed authors, including Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Eagan, have contributed to the effort, calling for “immediate steps to defend and protect […]
...moreWell, one of things we have in common as writers is that we don’t work too much from personal experience. So, I feel like there’s a constant desire for readers to find parallels between one’s life and one’s work. And they do exist but I think in the case of people like us if we […]
...moreFor T Magazine, seven authors reflect on the experience of revisiting and annotating their early works for an upcoming PEN American Center fundraiser. George Saunders thinks his style in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline was “manic and abrupt.” Jennifer Egan still regrets that she failed to include an Epic poetry chapter in A Visit From the […]
...moreIt’s that time of year where we’re all craving a good scary story, be it told by candle light, on a screen, or in a book. Neil Gaiman’s middle-reader graphic novel Hansel and Gretel came out on Tuesday of this week, and he recently spoke to TOON Books editor Françoise Mouly and Art Speigelman about […]
...moreSaturday 4/26: Andrew Durbin and Rod Smith join the Segue Series. Durbin’s Mature Themes is forthcoming from Nightboat Books. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Brooklyn Zine Fest. Brooklyn Historical Society, 11 a.m., free. Sunday 4/27: Emily Brandt, editor of No Dear, hosts Walking Distance, a reading series featuring nearby writers including co-editor Alex Cuff, Natalie […]
...moreSaturday 11/9: The Comic Arts Festival features guest speakers, indie publishers, and self-published comic zines. Mt. Carmel Church -and- The Knitting Factory, 11am to 7pm, free. Colum McCann reads from his novel Transatlantic (June 2013), presented by Community Bookstore. Brooklyn Public LIbrary, 4pm, free. Stephen Policoff, Ifeona Fulani, and Michael Rectenwald join the Trumpet Fiction […]
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