Essay John Weir Adapted from a photo by Jake weirick on Unsplash Like a dead pop star, Susan Sontag left behind a lot of fans who claim they knew her. After the release last September of Benjamin Moser’s new biography, Susan Sontag: Her Life and Work, they were all over the internet, sharing stories. Writers, of course. Especially queer writers. Does every queer writer who lived in New York City and published a book sometime between 1960 and 2000 have a Sontag story? I do! Here’s mine: Eighteen years ago, shortly after she won the National Book Award for her fourth novel, In America, some of which she had been accused of plagiarizing, and a few months before she published, in the New Yorker, maybe the only response to the 9/11 attacks, in their immediate aftermath, that was worth considering, she was invited, along with John Updike and Norman Mailer, to read at Queens College CUNY, where I teach creative writing. Surely the most impressive trio of literary bigwigs of a certain era ever to read together in Flushing. Three idols. I had long regarded their work with awe and envy. In my early twenties, in the 1980s, in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, hot and airless in summer, frigid in winter, I read—eagerly, jealously—everything they wrote. I was an aspiring writer, and they were my workshop instructors and problematic literary parents. Updike’s Couples taught me how to do a party scene. Mailer’s An American... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-01-07 22:09:56 UTC ]
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As with the printing press and the dotcom boom, initial frenzy and speculation obscures the lasting legacy of new technologies“Innovation,” wrote the economist William Janeway in his seminal book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, “begins with discovery and culminates in speculation.”... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-12-30 16:00:37 UTC ]
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The book business in 2023 in a nutshell: Amazon got hit with a federal antitrust lawsuit, Scholastic got mired in a censorship controversy, Simon & Schuster finally found a buyer, AI fever gripped the book business, and publishers stepped up to book bans. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-29 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Bless me, Gaben, for I have sinned. In a moment of weakness I turned off the adult content filters in my Steam search, and now my game library has been tainted by the shame of tender, undulating flesh rendered in Unreal Engine. But fear not, fellow naughty gamers: Steam will soon let you... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2023-12-21 15:29:02 UTC ]
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More growth in the seemingly unstoppable manga category and the ongoing struggles of librarians and comics retailers were among our most read stories on comics and graphic novels this year. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-20 05:00:00 UTC ]
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In talking about my debut story collection, House Gone Quiet, with friends and family, I’ve often found myself pitching the merits of the short story form itself. Due to habit or book marketing or a lack of exposure, it’s simply the case that most fiction readers who enter a bookstore are... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-12-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The literary world may have a complicated relationship to popularity—see every literary novelist’s love/hate (and almost always unrequited) relationship with the bestseller list—but the internet does not. Simply: it’s good to be read, and so we thank you, our readers, for consuming, commenting... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-18 09:52:49 UTC ]
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John Chrastka, founder and executive director of EveryLibrary, the nation’s only political action committee dedicated to supporting libraries, stepped up for the library community in 2023. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-15 05:00:00 UTC ]
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From a look at how bestselling novelist Colleen Hoover is fueling interest in contemporary Christian fiction to interviews with evangelical superstars David Platt and Beth Moore, here are PW’s most-read religion stories of 2023. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The publishing world made plenty of news in 2023, but not only because of the books themselves Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2023-12-08 14:55:07 UTC ]
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PW looks back at the library stories that captivated the publishing world this year, and what they portend for 2024. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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This week, the 42nd John Dos Passos Prize was awarded to novelist and short story writer Patricia Engel (Vida; The Veins of the Ocean; Infinite Country; The Faraway World) by Longwood University. The Dos Passos Prize is the oldest literary award given by a Virginia college or university, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-05 16:21:20 UTC ]
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Storing online data in perpetuity is not just about photos and texts but thoughts and ideas. Platforms such as WordPress are starting to act, but it must be at a realistic priceWay back in 2004 the two founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, thought that it would be a cool idea to scan... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-25 16:00:53 UTC ]
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Pan-Universal Galactic Worldwide, a new publisher of books, comics, games, and other media from Wildstorm cofounder and longtime comics veteran John Nee, is getting ready for a 2024 debut after four years of preparations. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-20 05:00:00 UTC ]
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“Going Infinite” may have missed the big takeaway, but it offers at least one undeniable pleasure: deep access. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-11-17 14:25:02 UTC ]
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Titles geared toward women are applying a faith-based lens to mental and physical wellness. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Amid ongoing challenges, Black authors and editors are creating the love stories they want to read. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Netflix’s new prestige sci-fi show is delayed until March 22, 2024. 3 Body Problem was originally scheduled to debut in 2023, before being pushed back to January 2024, and now March. Just as the initial delay was accompanied by a teaser trailer, so too is this one: 3... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-11 00:44:30 UTC ]
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Nicholas Cornwell will return his father’s best-loved spy to the page in a new novel set between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier SpyFans of thriller writer David Cornwell – better known by his pen name John le Carré – may have thought they had seen the last of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-10 14:00:10 UTC ]
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The awards recognize the best in Canadian books across 7 categories in both English and French. Other winners include Kyo Maclear, Hannah Green and Cliff Cardinal. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2023-11-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“The world here beats faster than a hummingbird’s wings,” writes Alexandra Chang in her new collection Tomb Sweeping. Chang, the author of Days of Distraction and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 recipient, writes poignantly about tenuous connection. In these stories, a wealthy housewife... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-11-02 11:00:00 UTC ]
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