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 ]
News tagged with:
#moral imperative
#gertrude stein
#literary community
#national book award
Hachette companies Orion and Hodder & Stoughton are jointly publishing a new story by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hodder stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton has released a free ebook, No, It's Us Too!, today (11th September)... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hart ebook
#hodder stoughton
#free ebook
John Bond, former m.d. of Press Books at HarperCollins, has teamed up with former HarperPress... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john bond
#press books
Penguin Press has snapped up a title by two professors that deals with the relationship between... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#penguin press
John Lewis has been named as the first retailer to sell Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john lewis
#sell nook
#nook e-reader
Costa has launched a new award for a single, previously unpublished short story, with the winner... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
John Wiley is proposing to close its Edinburgh facility in June 2013, expanding its outsourcing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-06-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john wiley
Mail Newspapers group advertising director John Teal is to leave the newspaper publisher in the autumn after 25 years. Continue reading at Media Week
[ Media Week | 2012-06-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Rielle Hunter writes that Edwards was 'temporarily insane' when he denied paternity of her child. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-06-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john edwards
The latest story from a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer will appear in 140-character chunks. The New Yorker is publishing Jennifer Egan's "Black Box" in installments on Twitter, the New York Observer reports. The tweets, which began yesterd ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#latest story
#black box
Orion has bought the first adult novel from the Blue Peter award-winning children's author... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Hilary Mantel returns to the vicious world of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell's maneuverings.Bring Up the Bodies Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-05-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#book review
#henry viii
#thomas cromwell
Just as president Obama comes out in favor of gay marriage, a new book takes a close look at American same sex couples, from Walt Whitman to Greta Garbo to Jasper Johns. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-05-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#president obama
#gay marriage
#book takes
#walt whitman
Next month, the Slate Audio Book Club will discuss Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
HarperCollins has bought world rights in The Real Lady Detective Agency, an account of a true-... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Faber is releasing a series of six short ebooks, called Faber Forty-Fives, which each draw... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#short ebooks
Two weeks after BEA ended last year and all the booksellers left town, something magical happened in New York: 10 more blocks of the High Line, our beloved “park in the sky,” finally opened to the public, doubling it in size. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#high line
World Book Night founder Jamie Byng spoke about the "need" for stories as the 2012... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Penguin Children’s has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Penguin US division Dutton... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#penguin children
#acquired uk
These delightful biographies of 294 authors begin with John Bunyan in the 17th century and ends with Rana Dasgupta, born in 1971.My assignment: Read almost 300 literary biographies in more than 800 pages, all of English-language authors, beginning in the 17th century and ending in the present... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#reference book
#17th century
#rana dasgupta
#present day