[Image taken from Scott Turis's 2008 Onion AV Club article*] Three key sentences from “Kafka and His Precursors” by Borges: The word ‘precursor’ is indispensable to the vocabulary of criticism, but one must try to purify it from any connotation of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that each writer creates his precursors. His work [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Musings'
Jarmusch Translated Kafka into American Western in 1995
August 16th, 2010 2 Comments
Tags: Daniel Birnbaum · Dead Man · Franz Kafka · Jim Jarmusch · Johnny Depp · Jorge Luis Borges · movie adaptations · movies · Orson Welles · The Castle · translation
Segregation for Unicorns
July 7th, 2010 9 Comments
During a conference with one of my writing professors to discuss one of my short stories, my professor said to me, “You know, you should write more black stories like this, it’s very in right now.” The story in question had no reference or markers to the character’s race. I can only assume that she [...]
Tags: Add new tag · African-American fiction · Borders · Ethnicity · literary segregation · unicorns · ZZ Packer
Immense Journey
June 24th, 2010 2 Comments
A summer event that is worth your attention: Mark Baumer is currently walking across America. He started from Tybee Island, Georgia and has been walking since May 10th. Right now he is somewhere in the middle of Texas. The trip begins here. One of Mark’s many observations: “I found some cheese, looked at it, touched [...]
Tags: Brooks · publishing industry · writers' habits
BPL delays four branch closings
June 22nd, 2010 No Comments
Relatively good news from the mountain of budget purgatory. That is, until you reach “[an] anticipated 68 positions will be cut from the Central Library and in system-wide operations on October 1, 2010.” At least there’s Iwasaki, invaluable if nothing else for offering unfettered access to the OED and early uses of “budget”: “c1550 Wyll [...]
Tags: Boston Public Library · OED
This (seriously) Won’t Take but a Minute, Honey: a review
June 15th, 2010 1 Comment
I came across Steve Almond at the Redivider launch party in May. There he sat, tall and thin, charm coming out of every pore, shaggy hair, religiously bitter and funny. He’s a politically charged rock star who has been published in Playboy and The Wall Street Journal, who has expertly ripped Sara Palin in an [...]
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On Onanism
June 15th, 2010 11 Comments
“The contract that is signed with a reader is a contract with the devil.” -William H. Gass
Tags: audience · Brooks · literary taste
Book Proposals and Query Letters
May 31st, 2010 No Comments
Howdy, Howdy I was recently asked about publishing proposals. A friend of mine has just finished her first novel and is currently working on “shopping it around” as she so called it. Before beginning my MFA I worked as an Acquisitions Editor with Elsevier for two years and have seen and written more proposals than [...]
Tags: book proposals · bookscan · elsevier · publishing · queries
Review of Light Boxes by Shane Jones
May 24th, 2010 14 Comments
Light Boxes is Shane Jones’ first novel, and for a book originally published by an independent press with an initial print run of only 600 copies, it has garnered much success—largely due to the buzz generated by literary blogs. Since its publication just last year, the book has been optioned by Spike Jonze and picked [...]
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Links for Your Enjoyment and Edification and Some Probably Unwelcome Commentary
May 17th, 2010 No Comments
Over at Publishr, author/artist Brian Joseph Davis begins a post by stating what must be obvious to many publishers and future MAs in publishing— The distribution channels of digital art and music operate at global speed, but the apparatus that creates and markets literary fiction is only now stepping out of business models from the [...]
Tags: brett sandusky · brian joseph davis · china miéville · drm · fiction · matthew diener · publishing · publishr · the city & the city