The Heroic Return of the Baffler
After a hiatus of a few years, the intellectually-engaging, always interesting, often confrontational and downright maverick literary/cultural magazine The Baffler has returned! I just picked up my copy at the…
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writing
377 posts
What Happened During The Blackout
Just when I thought I was unique, just as I’ve been spending the last six-odd months editing a short story about the misadventures of retail workers during a city-wide blackout…
The Boring, Unplayful, Unoriginal Global Novel
“What are the consequences for literature? From the moment an author perceives his ultimate audience as international rather than national, the nature of his writing is bound to change. In…
Cars are Always Funny and So are Landlords and Sex
“The affect, here, stems from the naive individual’s skewed encounter with systems larger than himself, an encounter which, reprised again and again, plays out Bergson’s first rule of comedy: that…
You Mean Writing Can’t Be My Career?!
“What the profiles fail to reveal is that the literary apprenticeship is a lengthy one for the majority, that getting published at all is difficult, and to get paid enough…
Things Not To Do In Your Debut Novel
“To sit down to read a novel is a mere fraction of the commitment required to write one, but in both cases the commitment must be made, and it needs…
Writing While (Not) Loving, Loving While (Not) Writing
“Edmund Wilson encouraged his second wife Mary McCarthy’s first forays into fiction by shutting her in a room for three hours and asking her to write a story. Author Shirley…
This Dictionary Has Oral Sex In It!
I just learned from Jacket Copy that “Menifee school district in Riverside County has removed the 10th edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary from all school shelves after a parent complained…
Rumpus Books Sunday Supplement
This week, Rumpus books published pieces about fucking and writing, A Common Pornography, and Folksy Fruit. Also, there was an interview with Jonathan Lethem.
Fucking and Writing: The Rumpus Conversation with Jami Attenberg
“Perhaps we should talk about fucking. Fucking and writing, fucking and talking, fucking and thinking, fucking and whatever else it is that fucking goes with…”
A Bosnian Novelist And An Irish Novelist Walk Into A Bar
If you have any doubts about the power of the novel, or its lasting cultural significance, or its transcendent ability to deepen and enrich our chaotic earthly experiences, look no…
The Bravery Of Uncertainty
“When you’re not religious, sacredness means something that fills you with awe. The creation of something awe-striking requires a pure offering, an opening up to the universe. It’s not always…