March 2012
45 posts
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“It seems no coincidence that some of the most esteemed women writing today —...”
– Meg Wolizer in the New York Times
Read the entire essay The Second Shelf: On the Rules of Literary Fiction for Men and Women
On the Rules of Literary Fiction for Men and Women... →
annadevries:
“The top tier of literary fiction — where the air is rich and the view is great and where a book enters the public imagination and the current conversation — tends to feel peculiarly, disproportionately male.” —Meg Wolitzer
It’s an oft-made argument, but it bears repeating, and re-reading.
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A Panorama of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" →
From the Paris Review Daily. A drawing by Jason Novak.
Do you feel an affinity with Bartleby? I do.
When Authors Take Risks, That's Not Kid Stuff -... →
sarahreesbrennan:
plenilune:
It’s because adults are discovering one of publishing’s best-kept secrets: that young adult authors are doing some of the most daring work out there. Authors who write for young adults are taking creative risks — with narrative structure, voice and social commentary — that you just don’t see as often in the more rarefied world of adult fiction.
THANK YOU. YOU...
“Ever since puberty, ever since I was 11 or 12, I’ve had cyclical depression....”
– Rachel Maddow on depression (via nprfreshair)
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“Let’s call it an “asymmetrical judgment” between men and women. If Henry Miller...”
– Jeanette Winterson
Read the whole interview in Salon
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Happy Birthday Flannery O'Connor
Here is a picture of the Flannery O’Connor childhood home/museum in Savannah, GA, which I’ve shared with you previously.
And here is my favorite Flannery O’Connor quote:
“The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can’t make something out of a little experience, you probably...
“The trouble with satire is when we forget that it’s satire. I want to remind...”
– You are not fat, Bridget Jones. (an Open Letter) (via bookriot)
pantheonbooks:
“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”
― Franz Kafka
Great writing advice from a great writer. After all, nothing you could ever write could possibly be worse than something you never wrote at all.
(Psst - Wanna win a set of Kafka’s masterworks with eye-catching new jackets? Come on, you know you do.)
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“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a...”
– Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride (via monkeyknifefight)
Those last two lines
(via maritsa-met)
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Days of Yore Interviews Cheryl Strayed →
Confession: I often fantasize about the day when someone will interview me about the jobs I had before I became a successful writer. Here’s a teaser - every time I get an interoffice envelope, I look at all the crossed-out names to see if it’s one I’ve gotten before.
Of course, I’ll probably never have a line as good as this one from Strayed’s interview:...
“Workshops are where you first start hearing people say really dumb things about...”
– the Bret Easton Ellis interview (by Jon-Jon Goulian) in the new Paris Review is PERFECT IN EVERY WAY (via emilygould)
“The general snootiness about Franzen’s success that you could smell wafting off...”
– Bret Easton Ellis on why he lives in LA and makes shark movies now. Perhaps you’d like to buy the Paris Review and read the whole interview. (via emilygould)
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Oh literary community, here I am
Though I reported this morning that I am presently reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed, I often read multiple books at once, and as two books I had on hold through my county library system were available for pick-up today, I am now also reading one of them, the essay collection My Misspent Youth by Meghan Daum.* The book has certainly triggered my Jersey-born-and-nurtured inferiority complex when it...
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What I'm Reading
I finished Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda. I read Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It by Gabor Mate, M.D. and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Now I’m reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
“She reads a book about Zen and she writes down on a piece of paper the eight...”
– Lydia Davis, Five Signs of Disturbance (via insomnius)
“i was looking desperately for clues, because if there were no clues then i...”
– (via karaj)
yes to all of this.
(via emilygould)
“See, guys freak out. They hit critical mass and blast nuclear, white-hot anger...”
– Laura Wiess, Leftovers (via libraryland)
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an...”
– Walter Cronkite (via libraryland)
minutiae: On Depression & Getting Help →
robdelaney:
This was originally posted February 26, 2010.
I deal with suicidal, unipolar depression and I take medication daily to treat it. Over the past seven years, I’ve had two episodes that were severe and during which I thought almost exclusively of suicide. I did not eat much and…
“Turns out things aren’t going that well.
Turns out you wake up and you’re...”
– Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, “Close-Out Sale” (via mensahdemary)
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“I don’t think that writer’s block exists really. I think that when you’re trying...”
– Joyce Carol Oates (via ryanchavis)
I believe this too. Very much. Back off people.
(via libbywalkup)
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Do As Franzen Does. Do As You Like. →
Roxane Gay on social media for writers.
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Beware the Ides of Atwood! →
A review of I’m Starved for You in The Globe and Mail.
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Great American Losers by Elaine Blair | NYRblog |... →
Interesting. I think deep down the “loser characters” exude the same sense of entitlement to women and sex as the “alpha characters” and that is what’s most annoying to female readers, as to both.
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“[My day jobs were] Secretary and glorified secretary. For a while in my early...”
– Cannot. Stop. Reading.
The Bennett Madison Extravaganza: Jo Ann Beard on Day Jobs
read the New Yorker essay that made Jo Ann Beard’s silly employer look at her like a talking box of paperclips, The Fourth State of Matter.
(via emilygould)
One of my favorite obsessions - Being a Writer and...
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Welcome To The Girls' Club
Oh. My. God.
(I never do the “separate every word with a period” thing because I think it’s super annoying, but in this case, I don’t know, it seems called for.)
Fuck yeah, Elissa Bassist, and all the women linked to in your piece.
Welcome To The Girls’ Club.
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Tumblr: Online’s New Frontier for Publishers →
Well this is cool.
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Jean Rhys Gets a Plaque →
I’m glad Rhys is being recognized with an English Heritage plaque. I don’t really care for the subtitle of the article, which is, “A blue plaque will honour Jean Rhys, whose life was marked by alcoholism, prostitution and doomed affairs.” The article also inaccurately states that “Jean Rhys” was one of Rhys’ stage names, when in fact, Ford Maddox Ford...
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Why Jonathan Franzen Can’t Appreciate Edith... →
“Specifically, how Wharton was just like Franzen—an ambitious American author who strove to balance literary reach with public taste.”
Good point.
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AWP No. 9: "An Ex-Loner's Guide to AWP," by Katy... →
I went to AWP (for a day) in NYC in 2008. I wish I had been as courageous as this gal.
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What I'm Reading
I’m already starting to slack on my promise to keep better track of the books I read. I recently read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, and I’m now reading Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda.
