Sunday Reading List
Over at The Rumpus, Elissa Bassist offers great advice on how to write like a funny woman.
The National Book Critics Circle has announced the finalists for their 2011 book awards.
Edith Wharton turns 150 on Tuesday and she still looks great. The New York Times gives her a nod as they talk about heiresses and social climbers and such.
Anil Dash discusses the web as a medium for protest.
On her blog, Anna Leigh Clark shared an image of the most amazing writing group that included Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, June Jordan, Lori Sharpe, and Audrey Edwards, among others. I want to know absolutely everything about this group now.
Margaret Atwood revisits The Handmaid’s Tale, which has remained in print since 1985.
Cory Doctorow’s essay about a vocabulary for speaking about the future is really interesting.
Are you watching Downton Abbey? Team Mary, right? And Edith; she is the worst. Over at The Millions, an essay about the literary pedigree of the show. Also, Shit the Dowager Countess Says and Downton Abbeyonce. You’re welcome.
Jennifer Weiner looked at the gender breakdown for reviews in the Times for 2011.
In The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan wrote a… curious essay about Joan Didion that included the assertion that to really love Didion, you have to be a woman. Like I said, curious.
Black Jack Johnson NYC, R-O-C-K-I-N-G.
The title of this post consists of lyrics from one of my favorite Mos Def songs, on his album The New Danger. Many of the tracks on this album are about Jack Johnson, the first ever black heavyweight boxing champion. I could listen to it all day. And it’s in my head this fine Sunday morning because I’ve been catching up on Dexter Season 6, in which Mos Def, I mean Mos, I mean Yasiin Bey, plays Brother Sam, a born again murderer who Dex befriends. I am on episode 4, and I already love this character. I was curious, so I Googled Mr. Bey and I found a great clip from The Colbert Report in which Mr. Bey graciously gives no explanation as to why he changed his name, and from which I learned that Black Star has a new record. READ MORE >
Back Flash: Margaret Atwood
–like she’s pretending to write a story but really examining plot, the art, the control, all that writer shit. It’s like a trick and a lesion.
–Yes, I know. But it’s a book I’m saying, not just that story.
–Well, people only know that plot story. It’s a trick, you know, meta, but a legion, sort of supposed to teach you—like with Buddha, a Kola. You could use it in class plenty.
–You mean a Koan.
–Yeh, a colon. A story not about the story. Sharp as a cat’s eye. Lorrie Moore did it and then Grace Paley, too.
–No, no, you’re off-focus. Forget the plot picking. I’m saying it’s a book. Atwood did a whole flash book. It goes out of print because so many people think flash fiction is the lining of a diseased lung. Well, it was coughed up and won the Booker. I don’t know how these things work.
–You mean Fletch?
–No, no, phlegm, not Fletch. Just read the book, if you can find it.