From Bennett Cerf’s oral history of publishing
Before her death, Dorothy Parker claimed to have advances from five different publishers for books that she had no intention of writing.
Before her death, Dorothy Parker claimed to have advances from five different publishers for books that she had no intention of writing.
Conversations You Have At Twenty, my essay which won second prize in Narrative’s Love Story Contest and is forthcoming next year in the Plume anthology Cross My Heart, Hope You Die, is online now. You can read for free, but you’ll have to register first. Mostly the piece, er . . . doesn’t lend itself to excerpt, but here’s a . . .
Omnivoracious gives the Reader of the Year Award to an intrepid Seattle woman standing in the street beneath her nicotine umbrella.
Bad news: Moscow’s eXile is shutting down. “Last night I met with my Russian publisher to ‘put one in its brain,’ as George Romero’s humans would say.”
Front Porch Journal posts a video clip of Mary Gaitskill reading from work-in-progress at the Katherine Anne Porter House. A fitting locale, I think; the foxy, mercurial, ever-prevaricating Texan author would make an interesting subject for Gaitskill should she turn her hand to biography. Previously the Texas State literary magazine has featured readings from Charles Baxter, Dennis Johnson, Percival Everett, . . .