Booker Prize Longlist Released
Starting out this post, I originally wanted to use an image of the janitor from Good Times but then I found out that his name was Bookman, not Booker. So then I stumbled across some wrestler guy named Booker T. but the WWE website didn’t seem to like me taking their images. And no one…
continue readingCan We Please Outlaw Mirror Descriptions of Characters?
I’m utterly amazed how this can actually be used by a professional writer, in a professional magazine. This is something that we all have done, so don’t act like you didn’t, but usually we outgrow this after the first few stories. So I’m just shocked to see it in an otherwise decent story I read…
continue readingEditor and Agent Moves
There has been a number of press items about editors and agents moving here and there. Here’s a roundup: MediaBistro reported that Maureen Graney has been named executive editor of The Globe Pequot Press. The website also reported that Steve Zeitchik is leaving Publishers Weekly after a tenure of nearly seven years in order to…
continue readingBoD: Paris Review Book of People with Problems
Just about every movie, every song, every book, every play, and every other form of art deals with people with problems. Without a problem, what’s the plot? What’s the conflict? It’s a universal aspect of life. We’ve all got problems. So it’s a testament to these writers, and to the The Paris Review, that something…
continue readingInterview: George Saunders, Author
One of my favorite literary experiences was sitting in Off Square Books, as the darkness settled outside, and hearing George Saunders read Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz. I hadn’t read his collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, yet but everyone else raved about it and after the reading, I knew why. This story is undoubtedly one of…
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