While gearing up to reread F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night,* I decided to take a look at Fitzgerald’s Contemporary Authors profile. It includes this brief excerpt from a letter Fitzgerald wrote to John Peale Bishop about the differences between Gatsby and Tender is the Night: The intention in the two books was entirely different…. Gatsby was shooting at . . .
Because I bowed out of the Litblog Co-op citing personal and other obligations, I can see why some people, including the proprietor of The Literary Saloon, would take umbrage at this section of Joy Press’ Village Voice article about book blogs: Newton says she declined because she’s already juggling a full load among her blog, a novel in progress, freelance . . .
Despite occasional entreaties from readers, I haven’t been very good at staying on top of The Paris Review‘s DNA of Literature Project. It’s so impressive — so accessible and extensive — that I end up stalling every time the magazine posts another decade’s worth of interviews. The 70’s interviews went up a few weeks ago, and I’ve finally read Linda . . .
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Alan Greenblatt calls attention to bloggers’ habitual “too busy to blog” excuses. He highlights offenders like James Wolcott, Alex Ross, Terry Teachout, Roger Simon, and me. (He’s right, of course. I just can’t shut up about my bad teeth.) Greenblatt said “habitual excuse notes” bugged him: until I realized that blogs perform much the same . . .
At the University of Florida, where I went to school, you don’t find many dedicated writers in undergraduate creative writing classes. In fact, you don’t meet many liberal arts majors there who are interested in doing too much more than getting laid, partaking of the local weed, trying to make a $150 paycheck cover a month’s worth of meals (supplemented . . .