What both of them believed was that writing has the power to turn the bad things that happen to you into art.
Jacob Bernstein, in a reflection on his mother, Nora Ephron.
It's not surprising that the poet who began his first great poem with the words 'I celebrate myself' would be one of the originators of the book blurb.
A brief history of the blurb, via NPR.
Mary Karr's advice to give up literary shame in favor of wonder is very wise. See more in her “About the Book” in this weekend’s New York Times Book Review.
A room of your own was never going to be enough, her career seems to say. Build a life apart and live there instead, and throw your books out over the wall through your publisher. Don’t let them see the rest. Don’t let them in, don’t play nice. They’ll try to treat you like a woman instead of a writer anyway, no matter how much you show.
Alexander Chee in a fabulous essay on Elena Ferrante’s anonymity and the pressures on today’s authors to self-promote
Every day a writer starts over. No one breaks through permanently. The only person who's arrived and proclaimed himself done is Philip Roth. Good for him.
Ask Polly’s response to “Should I Just Give Up on My Writing?”
Have you heard anyone say recently about any book written by a man, It’s really a woman who wrote it, or maybe a group of women? Due to its exorbitant might, the male gender can mimic the female gender, incorporating it in the process. The female gender, on the other hand, cannot mimic anything, for is betrayed immediately by its 'weakness'; what it produces could not possibly fake male potency. The truth is that even the publishing industry and the media are convinced of this commonplace; both tend to shut women who write away in a literary gynaeceum. There are good women writers, not so good ones, and some great ones, but they all exist within the area reserved for the female sex, they must only address certain themes and in certain tones that the male tradition considers suitable for the female gender. It is fairly common, for example, to explain the literary work of women writers in terms of some variety of dependence on literature written by males. However, it is rare to see commentary that traces the influence of a female writer on the work of a male writer. The critics don’t do it, the writers themselves do not do it. Thus, when a woman’s writing does not respect those areas of competence, those thematic sectors and the tones that the experts have assigned to the categories of books to which women have been confined, the commentators come up with the idea of male bloodlines. And, if there’s no author photo of a woman then the game is up: it’s clear, in that case, that we are dealing with a man or an entire team of virile male enthusiasts of the art of writing. What if, instead, we’re dealing with a new tradition of women writers who are becoming more competent, more effective, are growing tired of the literary gynaeceum and are on furlough from gender stereotypes. We know how to think, we know how to tell stories, we know how to write them as well as, if not better, than men.
October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The other are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
I'd like to have money. And I'd like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that's too adorable, I'd rather have money.
Dorothy Parker, born today in 1893
I guess these people are more into low-rise.
I have written a lot on the novel— mostly at night and a little in the mornings but I don’t know whether it’s good or not because my writing away from your influence is like a new-baked cake. It is neither good nor bad until it is tasted by the person for whom it was baked. And all my cakes are made for you.
Dawn Powell to her husband Joseph Gousha in a 1926 letter
My agent insisted it must be cut, I argued it could be trimmed, but in the end, I agreed with her and cut the whole thing. Still, it completed the book thematically and symbolically in a way that was painful to lose. Don’t even talk to my husband about it. 'It was a tragedy!' he shouts whenever it comes up. 'That was the best part of the book!' And even though it wasn’t the best part of the book, I love him dearly for saying so.
Rufi Thorpe, author of The Girls from Corona del Mar, at The Millions
An extremely incomplete list of things I would like to know David Foster Wallace’s thoughts on. (via)
Something about the image on the new Tolkien cover just seemed so familiar...
I do not intend to do anything for Troubling Love, anything that might involve the public engagement of me personally. I’ve already done enough for this long story: I wrote it. If the book is worth anything, that should be sufficient. I won’t participate in discussions and conferences, if I’m invited. I won’t go and accept prizes, if any are awarded to me. I will never promote the book, especially on television, not in Italy or, as the case may be, abroad. I will be interviewed only in writing, but I would prefer to limit even that to the indispensable minimum. I am absolutely committed in this sense to myself and my family. I hope not to be forced to change my mind. I understand that this may cause some difficulties at the publishing house. I have great respect for your work, I liked you both immediately, and I don’t want to cause trouble. If you no longer mean to support me, tell me right away, I’ll understand. It’s not at all necessary for me to publish this book. To explain all the reasons for my decision, is, as you know, hard for me. I will only tell you that it’s a small bet with myself, with my convictions. I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t.
Elena Ferrante on her refusal to do publicity for her book (via the London Review Bookshop)
Best headline ever from an August 18, 1963 New York Times article about what authors do during the summer.
I remember a young woman at Union Square, how she had been planning to buy a book for her boyfriend but then spotted him at the head of the line holding hands with another girl. Will you still sign a book for him? she asked, tears in her eyes. Tell him he’ll never see me again.
Junot Diaz, recalling a story from one of his book tours
Living in New York intensifies the common life experience of having daily pleasures and terrible accidents coexist in close proximity. Terrible things can happen right near you, and chance determines whether your life is changed.
Sarah Larson's "The East Village Fire," at the New Yorker: http://nyr.kr/1D95TkF
The world of the books I read to him — at first the ones with more pictures than words — became a space in which we existed together. It wasn’t just that I was reading him a story and we were each relating back to that mediating experience, it was as if we’d both entered the same conjured notion, as palpable as the room in which we sat. It was this agreed upon real unreality, outfitted similarly for us with sounds and sights, flavors and textures. It was like meeting someone whose sense of the Divine matches up with yours, and the agreement itself serves as a corroboration.
The Listener author Rachel Basch, in a gorgeous essay on art and motherhood at The Millions