Catherine Lacey: ‘That constant nervous Twitter energy repels me’

The American novelist, whose latest work is a fake biography of an avant-garde artist, on growing up in Mississippi and why her fiction has ‘never actively involved cellphones or the internet’Catherine Lacey, 37, is the author of three previous novels, including The Answers, currently being adapted for television by Darren Aronofsky, and Pew (2020), about a nameless amnesiac of ambiguous race and gender. Her new novel, Biography of X, set in a parallel America, follows a widow untangling the life story of her wife, an avant-garde artist known as X. The New York Times has called it “sprawling and ambitious… strange and dystopian”. Lacey, one of Granta’s best young American novelists in 2017, was speaking from her home in Brooklyn.Which part of the book came first: the alternate history or the fake biography?I liked the idea of writing a fake biography and the biographies I like best are usually written by someone with some kind of compromised perspective. I thought the worst person to write a biography would be a surviving spouse with a bit of a grudge, but I didn’t want to get into the heterosexual dynamics of a man writing about a woman or a woman writing about a man; it had to be two women. At the same time, I wanted the novel to be set in the mid-20th century but I wasn’t interested in writing about the actual struggles a prominent lesbian couple would have gone through in that time. So my alternate history grew out of that problem. I thought, if I have an America... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-04-01 17:00:01 UTC ]
News tagged with: #alternate history #mid-20th century #takes place #novelists

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How To Lose Friends And Alienate Twitter Followers: 5 Stupid Social Media Mistakes

When I interviewed entrepreneur and author Guy Kawasaki recently, I chatted with him at great lengths about his Twitter publishing habits. Take a look at his feed, and every few minutes you'll see a new post, from why videos go viral to Playboy's plans for a strip club. With so much tweeting, I... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2012-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twitter's Android and iOS app get updates; out on Kindle Fire now, Nook soon

The official Twitter app has just received an update on iOS and Android, bringing new features to both platforms, plus an "optimized" Ice Cream Sandwich experience as seen above. The app is also currently available on Amazon's Appstore for the Kindle Fire now, and the company says it will pop up... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2012-02-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'PW' Tops 200,000 Twitter Followers

Publishers Weekly now has more than 200,000 Twitter followers, passing that mark last week and as of today has more that 203,000 following the magazine via @PublishersWkly. Eileen Gardner, a self-professed pop culture junkie and aspiring author, was the 200,000th PW follower. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Editors Share Best Practices for Twitter

Twitter has become part of the daily routine for almost every editor, but are you using it as effectively as you can? Here, four very different editors offer their advice for engaging and growing readership via Twitter. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #daily routine


Editors Share Twitter Best Practices

Twitter has become part of the daily routine for almost every editor, but are you using it as effectively as you can? Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #daily routine


Lord Sugar to hold Twitter book signing

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Wed, 28/09/2011 - 08:39 Pan Macmillan will be holding the world's first live Twitter book signing to launch Lord Alan Sugar's book The Way I See It: Rants, Revelations and Rules for Life. The signing will be held over www.lordsugar.tv at 1pm... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #lord sugar #twitter followers


Twitter Rolling Out Analytics Tool

On Tuesday Twitter announced that it's launching a new analytics tool that will initially be available to a select group of partners as a pilot program, but will be made available to everyone in the "next few weeks." Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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2011: Where the Imprints Rank on Twitter

It's been two years since PW took the first snapshot of the publishing world on Twitter. In May 2009 we looked at the followings 16 imprints and publishers had on the social networking site. At the time, a lot of imprints weren't even on Twitter, and we thought the word "twittering" was an... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bennett's Newsnight library defence becomes Twitter trend

Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Wed, 25/05/2011 - 09:52 Author Alan Bennett trended on UK Twitter last night following a BBC2 Newsnight interview in which he reiterated his previously expressed view that closing libraries constitutes child abuse. Bennett told the programme that... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Catherine Cookson estate goes direct in ebook deal

Written By: Bookseller staff Publication Date: Mon, 28/03/2011 - 08:53 Catherine Cookson's estate has signed a deal to release 100 of her novels as ebooks directly through Amazon, cutting out her publishers Transworld and Simon & Schuster. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Grace Dent to Leave Twitter for Faber/Guardian Books

Publication Date: Wed, 09/03/2011 - 14:40 Faber and Guardian Books have acquired a title by columnist and author Grace Dent about social networking phenomenon Twitter. Guardian Books publisher Lisa Darnell and Faber publishing director for non-fiction Julian Loose jointly acquired world rights... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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