Category: News

A Cluster of All-Purpose Book News: February 20, 2019

Quote of the Post: “Comics will break your heart.” – Jack Kirby Faith Erin Hicks’ debut YA novel “Comics Will Break Your Heart” pulls the covers back on the comic book world; fittingly its title is a quote by Jack Kirby, whose heart was probably broken by comics a thousand times. I’m not sure what’s…

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A Cluster of All-Purpose Book News: February 11, 2019

Quote of the Post: “Maybe everybody in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” – John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men.” And he never even read a Facebook post. It’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, so put down your protractor and pick up one of these books. Sidney Sheldon, who…

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

In my mind, no writer and illustrator were better paired than Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell. Go ahead, ask a Gen X’er: “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” and its sequels were more terrifying than “Nightmare on Elm Street” or even some of the creepiest “Little House on the Prairie” episodes. (You’ll have to…

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Kristen Roupenian Is Not Cat Person

As an apt follow-up to both my previous post about a writing career’s sure path to poverty, as well an earlier post about how an unknown writer’s first short story in the New Yorker led to a seven-figure deal with an S&S imprint, comes “What It Felt Like When ‘Cat Person’ Went Viral,” by Kristen…

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NYT: Writers Will Now Starve to Death, Die

Unless they’re Ernest Hemingway. In this edition of “Why did I major in English?” or, “Why did I go to a liberal arts college?” The New York Times‘ Concepci?n de Le?n presents us with this bit of news: “‘In the 20th century, a good literary writer could earn a middle-class living just writing,’ said Mary…

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