Moby Lives seems to agree with Criswell.

Have you ever kissed another writer’s ass or falsely bestowed praise in hopes of getting something in return or making friends? Did it work? Did it make you happy? Feel free to respond anonymously.

I go to the beach. I ask what you are reading, your ‘beach book.’ 99.4 % of the time it is a novel. Why?

I’m tired of people using David Foster Wallace’s championing of “heart” in fiction as an argument for watery, sentimental prose. Have you read the man? Perhaps he was less in tune to humans than he imagined: more alien math than home-ec. This is part of what makes him so by-the-throat. By the way, he gave up. If you want to grab my heart, don’t use grease.

Sherman Alexie got banned in the state of Missouri. One down, forty-nine to go.

The Republican Party in Arizona is recruiting homeless people to run as Green Party candidates in order to siphon off Democratic votes.  Short story writer Richard Grayson won the Sixth Congressional District Green nomination with six votes, and says he is now being sued by the Green Party for being a sham candidate.

My friends over at RapGenius put up a pretty excellent post on the triple entendre in hip-hop.  I tried to think of some triple entendres off the top of my head, and now the top of my head hurts.

The New York Times op-ed page publishes fiction?

According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll, in one year, the typical American reads four books. One in four adults reads none.

Art & language dehumanize their subjects, words & pictures are not human; they do not lift them up, they just put them down.