Category: words

“The current generation of fictional drugs, rather than bubbling up from nature’s underworld, parachute into stories and novels from the corporate-technological top down. The recent nightmare drugs — for they are, exclusively, nightmares — are pharmaceuticals. … The self’s integrity is under assault not by illicit indulgences but by capitalism’s imperative to market us shiny neurological upgrades — and by our complicit desire to be thus reworked.” — The New York Times Book Review

This “cheeky literary salon” (ahem) has been taking place for six years in an east London gay bar: curators pick readings on a particular theme and willing audience members (of varied ages and shapes) read them, on a stage and in the buff. The Economist‘s audience engagement editor shares his experience reading at a science fiction night. — 1843 Magazine

In one sense, “the end of Rookie represents another nail in the coffin of small, independent internet publishing. But in another sense, it is an object lesson in how voraciously creative writing is being absorbed by the online marketplace. Maintaining a publication’s integrity in that environment is an exhausting challenge.” – The New Republic

“Carme Font, a lecturer in English literature at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has been awarded a €1.5m grant by the European Research Council to scour libraries, archives and private collections in search of letters, poems and reflections written by women from 1500 to 1780.” — The Guardian

“The seanchaithe were Ireland’s traditional storytellers, itinerant poets, entertainers and historians who travelled the island regaling audiences with ancient lore. They thrived for centuries … before petering out in the era of radio and television.” But now they’re back. — The Guardian

Despite the occasional marketing hurdle, clearly these books are selling just fine. That’s the surprising thing about all of these supposedly irreverent titles. The premise of their humor is that they’re shocking, but they’re now so prevalent that it’s hard to imagine being shocked by them. They are “the product of a culture in which transgressing social norms has become an agreed-on social norm.”  – Slate

Duh, right? That’s what independent booksellers have been saying for years. As a collective, we may finally be getting it. “The best booksellers are not, strangely, just there to sell books: their knowledge allows them to arrange the books you see on shelves in a concerted way, not just to pack the shelves on the offchance they’ll make a profit.” – The Guardian (UK)

Turns out a banner year for publishing (which is what 2018, improbably, turned into) means that printers are running as fast as they can, and it’s not fast enough. That’s “creating a backlog that has led to stock shortages of popular titles.” (They do have these things called ebooks and audiobooks? But … anyway.) – The New York Times

Sure, the site, and its books and workshops, will continue, but losing the literary magazine is a real blow. Karen Russell: “Tin House was so inviting, so beautiful and so playful. … You sort of felt like readers all are welcome here, and these are your people. These are the lovers of language, the super weirdos, the poets and the wizards that you want to be with.” – NPR

Creator and editor Tameka Stotts won an Eisner Award for her anthology Elements: Fire — A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color, and she’s making plans for a lot more. “We’re the main characters, we’re not the token characters, and we’re taking our adventures on a completely different level where our narration is no longer whitewashed and it’s no longer controlled by a medium that would like to see us palatable for a national audience.” – NPR