There was an interesting article in the NY Times Business Section this week about how e-books can/might/do change business models for publishers — with a focus mainly on the economics of slashing twelve bucks or so off the cost of a new hardcover by putting it on an e-reader. “At a glance,” writes Times resident [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Musings'
Boston Area Museums under $5!
March 1st, 2010 2 Comments
It’s cold. Winter is long. And so cold. And so damp. Anyone else getting intensely stir crazy? If so, I’ve assembled this list of warm, dry museums to stimulate the imagination and excite ones intellectual faculties!
1. Harvard Museum of Natural History. Free to Massachusetts residents 9am-noon on Sundays (always) and 3pm-5pm on Wednesdays (Sept-May). [...]
Tags: Boston · cheap · museums · things to do
On Drinking Networking
February 24th, 2010 5 Comments
Of course, everybody knows that the AWP annual conference (being held this year in Denver, CO, if you haven’t heard) is all about making connections with other people in the industry, and hearing great authors speak, and discovering wonderful new journals that you’d otherwise never come across. But occasionally, at the end of a long [...]
Tags: Andrew · author readings · Brooks · networking · publishing industry
The Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction
February 23rd, 2010 2 Comments
If it takes you a long time to read The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, edited by Tara L. Masih, it is only because immediately after completing each chapter you will want to stop and write.
Tags: Brooks · Very Short Fiction
Not that any of you are thinking about it
February 19th, 2010 No Comments
Bill Pannapacker, one of my former professors at Hope, goes on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show to warn you about doing 8-10 in a Ph.D.-Humanities program.
“I think that students who are not expecting to become professors at the end of the process, who are going there for intellectual reasons, and who are prepared not to be [...]
Tags: academe · debt · foresight · grad school · pannapacker · professor · teaching
A Fan in a Yankee’s Court: the Mark Twain House
February 4th, 2010 No Comments
I have always been interested to see, up close, where writers worked and lived. Pablo Neruda’s house in Santiago, Chile, for instance, demonstrates his obsession with boats and the sea. All of the ceilings are low to the ground and the windows shaped like portholes. The house’s title “La Chascona,” comes from [...]
Tags: Alexis · Connecticut · Hartford · Mark Twain · Travel
On National Character, Pt. 2
January 24th, 2010 No Comments
Coincidentally, a few days after I wrote my post comparing British and American book covers last month, I went home to Britain for the holidays — and was struck by another subtle but (to me, anyway) interesting difference between the publishing industry in the two countries: reading in Britain is a lot more “lowbrow” than [...]
Tags: Andrew · bookstores · publishing industry
In Which You Are Strongly Encouraged to Go Read Something Someplace Else
February 17th, 2010 2 Comments
Specifically, I Am Not Sorry I Have A Vagina at HTMLGIANT.
Highlight from the comments: “reading this comment through the lens of masculinity, you and i seem but two apes in an htmlcongo, sparring to see who is alpha.”
Insightful highlight from the comments: “please don’t fuck my poems, leidz.”
Insightful highlight from the comments, this time I’m serious: “Stuff [...]
Tags: Comment Spectating · Guernica · Sex · Women