December 7, 2017 Bulletin A Message from The Paris Review Staff By The Staff of The Paris Review Dear Readers, Before we continue with our regular programming on the Daily, we’d like to take a moment to address the distressing news of our editor’s recent departure. The staff of The Paris Review comprises hardworking women and men who are devoted to championing excellent writing and new voices. We believe in the power of literature to connect us, change us, and heal us. The Paris Review has, as you know, a rich and storied history. It also has an exciting future. We recognize our role as leaders in the literary community. We see this as an opportunity for growth and positive change, both for The Paris Review and in the publishing world at large. We remain committed to our work and to publishing the very best writing, in print and online. Thank you to our writers, readers, and supporters. Sincerely, The staff of The Paris Review
December 5, 2017 Bulletin Joy Williams Will Receive Our 2018 Hadada Award By The Paris Review Joy Williams, 1990. Photo by Reg Innell Save the date: The Paris Review will honor Joy Williams with the Hadada Award for lifetime achievement at our annual gala, the Spring Revel. Williams is the author of five short-story collections, four novels, a book of essays, and a guidebook to the Florida Keys (which Condé Nast Traveler described as “one of the best guidebooks ever written”). Williams’s writing first appeared in our Fall 1968 issue with the short story “The Retreat.” In 1973, George Plimpton decided to published her first novel, State of Grace, under the Paris Review Editions imprint; the novel was nominated for the National Book Award when Williams was only thirty. Over the decades, the Review has published nine of her stories (and will publish a tenth this spring). In our Summer 2014 issue, we interviewed Williams for the Art of Fiction series. Her interviewer, Paul Winner, noted that Williams used a flip phone, typed postcards in lieu of email, had never owned a computer, and wore prescription sunglasses, indoors and out, night and day. She told him that she didn’t have a TV or Internet or air-conditioning at her home in Arizona, and that she owned seven Smith Corona portable typewriters for writing while traveling. She is particularly noted for her writing on the environment. As she said, “Cultural diversity can never replace biodiversity, though we’re being prompted to think it can. We live and spawn and want—always there is this ghastly wanting—and we have done irredeemable harm to so much. Perhaps the novel will die and even the short story because we’ll become so damn sick of talking about ourselves.” We, however, refuse to be sick of talking about Joy Williams. Her work has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Books Critics Circle Award for Criticism, and she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. We’re thrilled to add the Hadada to that list: it’s presented annually to a distinguished member of the writing community who has made a strong and unique contribution to literature. Last year’s honoree was Richard Howard; previous recipients are John Ashbery, Lydia Davis, Joan Didion, Paula Fox, Norman Mailer, Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton (posthumously), Barney Rosset, Philip Roth, Norman Rush, James Salter, Frederick Seidel, Robert Silvers, and William Styron. John Waters—writer, director, “counterculture demigod” (the New York Times)—will present the award. Please join us in April to celebrate Williams’s extraordinary career.
December 1, 2017 Bulletin An Alternate Recipe for Chestnuts By The Paris Review Brian Ransom, our beloved digital intern, is not from the East Coast, and so we occasionally amuse ourselves by making him try, for the first time, things like burrata, korean pears, and smoked salmon. Yesterday, he told us that he had bought himself a chestnut, but that it had been very difficult to peel. We asked if he had … eaten it raw? He had. Read More
October 10, 2017 Bulletin Women at Work By The Paris Review We are proud to announce Women at Work—our first collection of interviews in nearly a decade. Introduced by Ottessa Moshfegh and illustrated by Joana Avillez, the twelve interviews in Women at Work span the history of The Paris Review, from Dorothy Parker (1956) to Claudia Rankine (2016)—by way of Isak Dinesen, Simone de Beauvoir, Elizabeth Bishop, Marguerite Yourcenar, Margaret Atwood, Grace Paley, Toni Morrison, Jan Morris, Joan Didion, and Hilary Mantel. Intimate, deep, full of surprises, these classic interviews will be a source of inspiration and instruction to writers, students, and anyone else who cares about the creative process, or about the specific challenges faced by creative women. Printed on acid-free paper, in a limited edition of five thousand copies, Women at Work is available exclusively from The Paris Review, with all proceeds going to support the magazine.
September 19, 2017 Bulletin Six Young Women with Prize-Winning Book Collections By Nadja Spiegelman Jessica Kahan’s collection of romance novels from the Jazz age and Depression era. Imagine a book collector, a person who has devoted their life to seeking out rare tomes in dusty shops, who arranges their finds, these prized possessions, purposefully and carefully, on a shelf just out of reach. Chances are you will have imagined a man, perhaps one with graying hair and spectacles. And a pipe. Heather O’Donnell and Rebecca Romney at Honey & Wax Booksellers, in Brooklyn, are hoping to broaden our imaginative capabilities. This summer, they announced their first annual book-collecting prize, open to women under thirty. O’Donnell and Romney had observed that although the young women who entered their store were passionate about their collections, they rarely referred to themselves as collectors. Their hope is to “encourage young women who are actively collecting books to own and share that part of their lives, and to think strategically about the future of their collections.” An advisor warned them to expect eight to ten submissions, a dozen at most. When the dust had settled, they’d received forty-eight essays, from young women, age fifteen to thirty, around the country, all with accompanying bibliographies and wish lists. We are pleased to unveil their first winner, who will receive a thousand dollars, as well as five honorable mentions, who will each receive two hundred dollars. Read More
September 12, 2017 Bulletin Announcing: Free Pencil Day! By The Paris Review “Sometimes just the pure luxury of long beautiful pencils charges me with energy and invention.” —John Steinbeck, The Art of Fiction No. 45 Pencils are a writer’s best friend—we’ve got sixty-four years of testimonials to prove it. We also have a few extra pencils … which is why we’re offering a special back-to-school offer. Subscribe to The Paris Review and we’ll send you ten Paris Review pencils (no. 2, of course). For one day only—subscribe now! Read More