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How James Wood works

Sophie Ratcliffe likens Wood’s How Fiction Works to a satirical James tale in which heaven is “a sort of kindergarten.”

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How publishing likes its Southerners?

In the current Oxford American, David Payne charges that the Northeastern publishing establishment disdains Southern writing. Partly this is a result, he contends, of economics and demographics, but mostly it is due to the “otherness” of the region. Some of this warmed-over lit-crit lingo grates, especially when placed in service of some strained and troubling arguments about race, but I . . .

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Judy Blume at 70

“I never did figure out whether she equated Communism with menstruation or religion.” Judy Blume, profiled. (Via.)

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