Archive for the 'On Writing' Category

Joshilyn Jackson, in the carpool lane

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Roxanne Ravenel over at All Things Girl conducted a wonderful two-part interview with Joshilyn Jackson, whose new novel, Backseat Saints, will surely satisfy her fans and earn her many new ones. Joshilyn talks about her love-hate relationship with the South (”I am truly happy nowhere else, and yet I am angry with it, so I [...]

Would you read a story on your iphone?

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

I don’t have a Kindle yet, or a Nook, or an ipad. But I do have an iphone, on which I occasionally read short sections of books while waiting in the security line at the airport. Although I’ll never, ever give up ink-and-paper books, I can imagine a kind of reading schizophrenia, wherein I read [...]

Flirting with Married People

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Just in case you’ve ever wondered what happens when a whole bunch of writers get together, Steve Almond lays it out for The Rumpus, in the aftermath of the annual sort-of literary free-for-all known as AWP. I have to say, it’s my best cameo yet, hands down. (Dr. D! Dimplelingus? Really? I’ve never tried it, [...]

Who, Me? Mistress of what?

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Today from The Daily Mail, to mark the British publication of The Year of Fog:
IN JUST two novels (No One you Know was the first), Michelle Richmond has established herself as mistress of the kind of literary mystery which packs the punch of a fine thriller but with added insight and wisdom…Mesmerising and harrowing, [...]

Jose Saramago quits blogging

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The AFP reports that Nobel prize-winning author Jose Saramago, known for his haunting novel Blindness, will say goodbye to the blog that he began writing last September. Why? He needs to finish his novel. Saramago was 85 when he started the blog with a love letter to Lisbon. In his last blog entry, Saramago [...]

Google Books, The New Rumpelstiltskin

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

There’s a new Rumpelstiltskin in town, but he’s not going after the miller’s daughter. This Rumpelstiltskin has set his sights on authors, who, according to critics, may unwittingly spin him buckets full of gold. Judging from the panic issuing from home offices and cafes across the country, you’d think he was trying to steal our [...]

Readings for Writers

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The Kenyon Review has just published a new anthology of work culled from the magazine over the past seventy years. Editor David Lynn writes:
Readings for Writers is a very different creature from your usual anthology…A different principle of selection comes into play: choosing stories, poems, and essays from across the decades to provoke lively responses [...]

Two From the World of Ink

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

I met Georges and Anne Borchardt at Sewanee Writers’ Conference in 2003. The couple co-founded their literary agency in 1967, and are known for introducing American audiences to the work of Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Pierre Bourdieu, Marguerite Duras, Franz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Eugene Ionesco, Jacques Lacan, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Elie Wiesel.
When [...]

Amazon Goes All “All” on Us

Monday, April 13th, 2009

No, it’s not a typo. If you caught a recent episode of Celebrity Apprentice, you’ll notice that the clean-minded folks at All Laundry Detergent have a lot against anything dirty. They don’t like sex, they don’t like humor, and they definitely don’t like dirty words, even if they’re bleeped out. All wants you to go [...]

Wireless Amber Alerts/Sandra Cantu

Friday, April 10th, 2009

Sandra Cantu’s murder has tragically brought the plight of missing children into the spotlight once again. Although no Amber Alert was issued after Sandra’s disappearance, the Amber Alert is, in many cases, a very important part of the search for the child. The longer a child is missing, the less likely it is he or [...]

Booknotes, Litlife, & Writing Prompts from bestselling author Michelle Richmond