“What I am sure of is this: Most readers hearing the news will not assume it was a deadlock. They’ll just figure it was a bum year for fiction. As a novelist and the author of an eligible book, I do not love this. It’s fine to lose to someone, and galling to lose to no one.” Ann Patchett on the lack of a Pulitzer for fiction this year. On the rediscovery of the music of John Jacob Niles by A Hawk […]
Weekend Bites: Poe’s Cottage, Slacker Novels, Art Talk at an Art Party, Ann Patchett, and More
“As a member of the generation that learned everything we know from that show, my interest in The Simpsons-approved Poe eventually led me to experiment with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Villon, and a bunch of other scumbags who tried to sweet-talk their way to easy street.” – Erik Bryan talks about Edgar Allan Poe’s cottage for The Morning News. The Millions takes a look at the slacker novel. Jon Cotner and Claire Hamilton go to a MoMA party to ask people what […]
Afternoon Bites: “Phonogram” Returns, Frankie Rose and Fleetwood Mac, and More
For fans of smart comics about smart music, it’s a fine thing to hear that a third volume of Phonogram is forthcoming. Writer Kieron Gillen has the details. “Rose’s voice is somewhere in the space between Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie’s respective affects, and though she doesn’t match their skill as songwriters and she certainly doesn’t have a genius like Lindsey Buckingham arranging her material, she is nevertheless quite good at building simple strands of melody to a gorgeous climax, particularly […]
Indexing: Chapbooks, Lynne Tillman, more Sheila Heti, Jessica Hopper gets Didion-esque, Ann Patchett, and more
A roundup of things consumed by our contributors.
Afternoon Bites: Ann Patchett, Ann Beattie, Kevin Sampsell, and more
“I…have no interest in living in a city without a bookstore.” Ann Patchett has opened a Parnassus Books, a bookstore in Nashville. In related news: fuck yeah, Ann Patchett. New poetry from Kevin Sampsell. Vulture chats with Ann Beattie about Mrs. Nixon. Ken Baumann puts in his two cents about Dennis Cooper’s The Marbled Swarm. Drag City is bringing the Groovy Records catalog back into print. The deadline for Word Riot’s travel grants for writers for the first quarter of […]