Novelist and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman went on tour to promote his new novel, Please Step Back, which has its own theme song courtesy of funk legend Swamp Dogg. In Portland Greenman stopped at a coffee shop, Powell’s Books, and a strip club. His dispatch is below. When I landed in Portland, I deplaned indifferently and went through . . .
Tibor Fischer, on Pynchon’s latest: “If you had handed me the first 30 pages, I would have staked my life I was reading … the new Elmore Leonard.” (Via.)
With Alex Clark’s departure, American editor John Freeman has stepped into the role of Granta’s acting editor and will divide his time between NYC & London.
Many writers say that they write what they do because the novels they want to read don’t exist. I don’t think about my own book quite that way, but to me one of the most frightening things about writing fiction is the corollary to this idea: namely, if you have an individual voice and any skill whatsover, it will occur . . .
Francis Wyndham waited nearly thirty years to publish his own stories after they were rejected during World War II. (Via.)