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MediaBistro.com (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
With over 2.3 million Americans currently incarcerated, prison outreach is a vital vocation. Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was Jackson Taylor , the novelist and Mediabistro teacher who has directed PEN's Prison Writing Program for the last 20 years. Taylor shared his experiences working with hundreds of imprisoned authors and creative writing mentors. The writing program will be celebrated...
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MediaBistro.com (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was Jackson Taylor , the novelist and Mediabistro teacher who has directed PEN's Prison Writing Program for the last 20 years. Taylor shared his experiences working with hundreds of imprisoned authors and creative writing mentors. The writing program will be celebrated on Monday at Breakout: Voices from Inside --a fundraising event with appearances by Mary Gaitskill...
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The Written Nerd (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
I don't often include pitches for others' events on this blog, but I've been thinking lately about the necessity of giving back, in light of all the support I've received for my own dreams. If you're a New Yorker, consider attending this event on Monday -- it's a great literary lineup, and a shot at hope for those most in need of it. The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC Presents BREAKOUT:...
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MediaBistro.com (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
As another Monday winds down, here are some odds and ends from the day's publishing news... Next week, Mary Gaitskill , Eric Bogosian , John Turturro , and others will read from stories written by inmates for PEN's Prison Writing Program . Author Stephen Fry defended Twitter and the Internets in a video interview about a generation of kids growing up online. In a True Slant interview about "...
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Emdashes (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
Pollux writes : This year marked my first ever New Yorker festival. It was also my first time in New York City, unless I'm counting a stopover on the way to South America and the time I was there to mark my second birthday. More momentous than my second birthday, which involved plucking buds off a large potted plant in a hotel lobby, was my introduction to my first event at the festival: short story...
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Emdashes (Free subscription) | 10/17/2009
Emily Gordon writes : We're in full Festival mode , Paul went back to his hotel just to draw about the Mary Gaitskill and T. C. Boyle event , and we're tweeting like the mid-flight rockin' robins we are, but in between bites of our hors d'oevres, you're going to want some equally tasty tapas, and that you can find at the official Festival blog , at which the co-author of our soon-to-be-upgraded-to-first-class...
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Of Books and Bicycles (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
I finished this book about a week ago and have thought of it off and on since then, and I’m still not entirely sure what I want to say about it. There were times when I thought it was incredibly moving and insightful, times when I thought it dragged a bit, times when I [...]
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East Bay View (mostly a food blog) (Free subscription) | 10/12/2009
Not a pure response to this , since my working definition of "of the decade" is more flexible. Though the Brits are overrepresented (too much reading of the Guardian) my list is more internationalist than the Millions list, plus I like some picture books a lot. Comics aside, there's very little genre fiction on the list: I find it hard to work out what's worth reading, as recommendations,...
Explore : Aaron McGruder,
Alice Munro,
Books,
Cartoonists,
Chris Ware,
Colson Whitehead,
Comic book artists,
Comics,
Dave Eggers,
David Mitchell,
David Mitchell,
E.L. Doctorow,
E. L. Doctorow,
Fine Arts,
Hockey,
Jonathan Franzen,
Orhan Pamuk,
Paul Auster,
Philip Roth,
Richard Powers,
Toni Morrison,
Zadie Smith
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Sound of the City (Free subscription) | 09/14/2009
We could tell you that this recording is from yesterday's day-ending, valedictory finale to the Brooklyn Book Festival, at which Don't Cry (and "Secretary") author Mary Gaitskill politely ...
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Gothamist (Free subscription) | 09/14/2009
Kathryn Kirk David Foster Wallace, in his essay "Authority and American Usage," spoke of a specific type of nerd: the "SNOOT." Ostracized by every other nerd group, the "SNOOT" was the nerd responsible for correcting your grammar. He knew when to use "whom" and not "who," would cringe any time you misplaced your modifiers, and complained about the...
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Political Partying (Free subscription) | 09/13/2009
pilgrimsoul : Mostly I just feel sorry for people who have their mind made up on every subject because they committed to some political team in some long-ago forgotten moment. You know, I identify as a feminist myself, but mostly I am tired of having conversations in which everyone throws out campaign talking points and all experience is lost in the wash. It isn’t the case that conservatives...
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Maud Newton (Free subscription) | 09/09/2009
Harper’s has posted video of an old Mary Gaitskill reading from her 1994 essay “On not being a victim.” (Via.)
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clusterflock (Free subscription) | 09/01/2009
The New Yorker Fiction podcast on iTunes is a free podcast that has contemporary authors reading and discussing the work of other authors. It’s a fantastic way to get an introduction to people you had heard of, or discover new authors to love. Get your iTunes open and search New Yorker Fiction. A sampling: Mary Gaitskill on Vladimir [...]
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Breed 'Em And Weep (Free subscription) | 08/29/2009
Go to the library. I know I'm chump change. So go read William Stryon, Virginia Woolf, Mary Gaitskill, Sylvia Plath, C.S. Lewis, Donald Hall, Edna St. Millay. Too much effort? Go to another blog. There are plenty of terrific ones. No? Go watch "Dancing with the Stars." I watch "Project Runway," and sometimes, that helps.
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