This post was written by Friday blogger Annie Reid. There’s a bit of a firestorm over on the Guardian web pages over the editors’ introduction to the new anthology New Writing 13, compiled by Ali Smith and Toby Litt, who apparently use the opportunity to “make a sweeping condemnation of the subject matter, writing style and preoccupations of female writers”: . . .
That’s it from me for the week, folks. The Bitter Fruit-loving Annie Reid takes over tomorrow and most Fridays. Have a good weekend.
This year marks the centenary of Jules Verne’s death. In the current Smithsonian, Doug Stewart lays blame at Hollywood’s doorstep for Verne’s U.S. reputation “as a lightweight.” Poor translations and a formula-happy editor also helped pigeonhole him as a writer of simplistic sci-fi, Stewart argues: Verne’s most popular novels, written in the 1860s and ’70s, seem to be upbeat paeans . . .
This early laptop weighed 24.5 pounds — and was, from the look of it, just as likely to induce carpal tunnel syndrome as the computers of today. (Via Boing Boing.) I’d lug a 24-pound machine around with me if it were a repetitive stress-busting gizmo like this (although I’d like it in pink, please). My wrists are keeping me up . . .
Shalom Auslander talks with Nextbook’s Sara Ivry about the inspiration for his impressive short story collection, Beware of God, which appears next month. The second half of one answer (the italicized part) reminds me of the prologue to my novel-in-progress, but of course it’s smarter and more succinct and makes me want to throw all 55,000 words of my manuscript . . .