I have heard this sentiment used a bunch of times (not necessarily about me).  Something like, “you can tell a young person wrote this” or “this was handled in a young way” or “this is the type of thing a young person would write.”  What is meant by this? I don’t mean young topics or stories about young people, I mean stylistically or tonally or whatever, what makes something young?  Is it bad?  Wtf urrybody?

So, you sit down and you write something. And you write for a while. And you get to a certain point and you think you’re done because you have finished a “story.” How do you know? (You, readers/writers.) What’s a story?

Best American Poetry blog has recently been having authors share their favorite book covers, so far including Nick Flynn and Don Share, today is Jesse Ball.

Thomas Pynchon’s LA is growing as people contribute their own annotations — and while I’m on the subject of him, you think “Smells Like Teen Spirit” got its hook from a Pynchon song? And is this funny or cruel?

I cannot recommend this enough:  an interview with Bob Dylan.

Cronenberg to do DeLillo.

I’m really agiggle about all this scrambling for new models of publishing. It’s like redecorating a boat halfway underwater. The thing about a sinking boat is that things left on the boat that float will float regardless. When the boat is gone there will be a slightly more calm ocean. And then there’s all that land.

Curious: when you are published in a magazine, how often do you read the whole issue when it arrives, or even most of it, eventually, over time? How often do you read only your thing and maybe 1-2 things by people you know or have heard of? How often do you just put it on the shelf or blog the link and not read anything in the magazine at all after looking at your own pages, and perhaps reading the bios in the back? Why?

Via my homeboy Jamie, here’s news on a consignment chapbook store freshly opened in St. Louis: Stirrup Pants. It’s only open on Saturdays, but that’s cool because, as the article says, “The store’s Saturday-only hours give Ginesta [the proprietor] a chance to read through the new chapbooks during the week so she’ll be able to discuss them with her customers.”

What could be better?

Hey check it out! That literary tattoo project I posted about the other day got blogged at the LA Times.