Seasonal bipolar disorder?
“We get multiple Jesuses in the ER this time of year.” Reality Sandwich posts an excerpt from Weekends at Bellevue.
Emma Garman on the new, rebellious “Heeb heroines”
From Ivanhoe’s Rebecca to Bee Season’s heroine, Emma Garman argues, fictional Jewish girls have tended to be idealized, self- sacrificing creatures. Until now.
T.C. Boyle’s early fiction
T.C. Boyle inaugurates Fictionaut’s new Line Breaks feature by sharing his first published story, “The OD & Hepatitis RR or Bust.”
Now I know how the Archangel Michael felt
In case you missed the excitement: MaudNewton.com was compromised again. Although the attack was less dramatic than the Russian pharmaceutical hacking of 2008, it took more time than expected for us to get everything back up and running. Some of the posts still look a little buggy — garbage [...]
Geek Love author fends off thief
“Getting a tetanus shot, it made me feel young again.” Geek Love author Katherine Dunn, 64, uses her kickboxing skills to fight off a purse snatcher. (Via.)
Inside Louis Armstrong’s days
For his Louis Armstrong bio, Pops, Terry Teachout had access to 600+ hours of recordings — music, “dinner parties, getting high in the dressing room…”
Stray questions for Bolaño
“I would like to have been a homicide detective, much more than being a writer.” From Roberto Bolaño’s last interview.
Mavis Gallant, interviewed
“To those students who showed any promise she would give copies of Nabokov, or EM Forster… Otherwise, she would give them Raymond Carver.” (Via.)
Fears, impulses & dangers I’ve been sensitized to
I’ve written plenty of autobiographical essays, and I’m sure I’ll continue to write them, but at the LA Times I try to explain why I’m working on a novel rather than a memoir, even though I’m mining my own life for the book. An excerpt:
When I was 12, I [...]
The hardest thing for a novelist to write
Haven’t read National Book Award winner Colum McCann’s fiction yet, but I like the advice he gave Marlon James: Risk sentimentality.
Other miscellany venues
Working overtime at the office for the next little while, so check Twitter if it’s quiet here.
Susan Ramsey interviews Bonnie Jo Campbell
Poet Susan Ramsey and I have been corresponding for years, since she worked as a bookseller and I actually had time to answer my email, and she’s been urging me to read her friend Bonnie Jo Campbell almost that long. When I finally do crack the spine on American Salvage, I’m sure I won’t be [...]
For Stevenson’s 159th birthday, a massive online archive
Alert Tartt & Tinti: Robert Louis Stevenson’s archives, partly held in private collections, go digital.
Aunt Maude: teacher, car dealer — and Twain fan?
Maud is a nickname now, one most of my friends call me, but it started as a pen name. I chose it years ago as a sort of homage to Maude Newton, my great-great aunt, a woman nobody wanted to answer questions about.
For the longest time, I only really [...]
Banville on Nabokov’s last, unfinished novel
Nabokov’s Laura, says John Banville, is “little more than a blurred outline, a preliminary shiver of a novel. And yet.”
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