August 2, 2012 On the Shelf Wit, Wisdom, Financial Advice By Sadie Stein A list of some of Gore Vidal’s best bons mots. J. K. Rowling will have a cameo in the official new Harry Potter book club. The Beinecke has acquired a wealth of Ezra Pound manuscripts. The economics of freelancing. (It’s easier if you live in one of these writer-friendly cities!) [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
August 1, 2012 First Person Dr. Collier By Julian Tepper My novel, Balls, is a book in which the protagonist contracts testicular cancer. I’d done an extensive amount of research, but I still wasn’t an expert. I needed one, lest I publish a work that didn’t get it all right. The fear of this had me up at night and fretting during the day. So I called my uncle, who was a doctor and knew many urologists. He gave me the number of a Dr. William Collier, whom he described as a fine man, with a passion for literature. “He likes books then?” I asked. “Yes.” “Well, that’s great.” Asking anything of a stranger excites the nerves. You’ve got to dial him, introduce yourself, tell him what you’re after, and hope, in the end, that you haven’t offended his ego by requesting that he use his precious time on the likes of you. But knowing Dr. Collier affirmed the written word did take some of the pressure off. Read More
August 1, 2012 Studio Visit Pirate Queen: In the Studio with June Glasson By Charlotte Strick Years ago, while biding my time at a doctor’s office, fortuitously flipping through a stack of well-exhausted magazines, I spotted an article on affordable portraiture. June Glasson was one of the featured artists, and I scribbled her name down and contacted her later to do a drawing of my better half as part of her “Near and Dear” series. My husband and I had many times joked about how we wished we were royalty, deserving of grand portraits. June captured my husband so completely that I’m sometimes taken aback by the likeness. My twin toddlers frequently point to it and announce “Da-da!” with great delight. June was a natural choice to do illustrations to accompany Rich Cohen’s “Pirate City” essay in the current issue. I’m drawn to her gorgeous layers of colored ink that make using this unforgiving medium look easy. She paints landscapes and people with equal charm and interest. As June lives in Wyoming, she was kind enough to be interviewed via e-mail and to send photographs of an enviable studio space filled with natural light and plenty of inspiration. Read More
August 1, 2012 In Memoriam Gore Vidal, 1925–2012 By The Paris Review “The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is the business of surprise. I never know what is coming next. The phrase that sounds in the head changes when it appears on the page. Then I start probing it with a pen, finding new meanings. Sometimes I burst out laughing at what is happening as I twist and turn sentences. Strange business, all in all. One never gets to the end of it. That’s why I go on, I suppose. To see what the next sentences I write will be.” —The Art of Fiction No. 50 [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
August 1, 2012 On the Shelf Wharton, Borges, and Grey: Fan-Fic Galore! By Sadie Stein The latest Dead Authors Podcast features Jorge Luis Borges. In all honesty, who isn’t interested in lists of famous literary feuds? A new generation takes over Doonesbury. A new generation discovers The Babysitters Club. Leigh Stein explains how to read in public. Marc New York’s Fifty Shades–inspired ad campaign. An excerpt from The Age of Desire, Jennie Fields’s Edith Wharton–themed romance. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 31, 2012 Arts & Culture A Snail’s Pace By Casey N. Cep Edward Lear, self-portrait as snail. When John Ashbery reviewed Elizabeth Bishop’s Complete Poems in 1969 for The New York Times, his review was accompanied by an illustration: two giant snails stretching from under their shells to touch one another. Ashbery never mentions the mollusks in his review, but beneath the image is an excerpt of Bishop’s prose poem “Giant Snail.” “I give the impression of mysterious ease, but it is only with the greatest effort of my will,” Bishop’s mollusca persona muses, and one senses how very likely a proxy it is for the poet herself. Bishop is not the only writer to have found solace or some of herself in a snail. Her coil-shelled critter was an homage to a paean by her mentor Marianne Moore. Moore’s “To a Snail” is a discourse on poetics that culminates “in the absence of feet” and “the curious phenomenon of your occiptal horn.” Moore seized on the snail’s self-sufficiency and endless ability to contract, praising its “grace” and “modesty.” Read More