Great new(ish) stories from around the Web. Forget work for a minute and read some fiction. It’s good for you.
– The shoe was not a literal shoe but a shoe-shaped apartment, a long centre hall ending in a crimp. From above, it looked like a boot lain on its side. She rented, but two grandsons would later buy the place. Her upwardly mobile desires were reserved for progeny, though naturally some children succeeded where others didn’t. “Neither tragedy nor triumph,” she told herself, “just a life.” — J. David Stevens in The Journal
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Tagged as:
Literature in the Media,
New Literature Online,
Selected Online Writing
The Price Is Right
Richard Price is in Seattle this week, speaking on a double bill that will investigate his unusual and powerful ability to write novels, telescripts and screenplays. What’s interesting to us — beyond Price’s obvious awesomeness — is a man who’s notoriously bad at speaking publicly trying to hold sway over an audience. Of course, if interest is high, most anybody can control an audience’s attention. But it’s worth watching, especially when you think about constructing narratives, how Price pulls it off. Who knows, in his telling of the Writing Life he may actually show more than he tells. In other news, Dan Chaon talks to The Review Review about submitting to literary magazines, an author tries to find out what Jesus, really, would do, and a new book — flush with sexual affairs and exotic locations — is charred in The Complete Review. Still hungry? Good, there’s more: Alice Munro speaks! When India is in turmoil the Virginia Quarterly Review follows, and an author goes round for round with a bunch of Oregon toughs. Finally, Mavis Gallant dreams of bad prose and Granta reconsiders Rushdie, who, on this after-holiday Monday, is determined to let his feathers fly. — Kevin Murphy
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Tagged as:
Literature in the Media,
Monday's Body of Work,
New Literature Online
The turkeys have all gone to pasture, the families dispensed. We are thankful for an indulgent and leisurely holiday. But now it’s back to work. OK, not quite yet. It’s only Saturday, after all. So, until we really fire up the afterburners, let’s review the stories, poems, and literature news that made this week so gravy.
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Tagged as:
Literature in the Media,
New Literature Online,
Weekly Roundup
Making Off
by Charlie Geer
Apart from the actual content of Spanish television, the daily TV listings in the papers offer their own curiosities. First, it’s not exactly clear why the newspapers bother to publish these listings. With a few exceptions (the news, soccer matches), program start-times are fairly flexible. A network-television program scheduled to run at 10pm might run at 10:24, or 10:41, or closer to 11. A “tonight-at-11” advertisement might run at 11:25, during a program that theoretically ended at 11. So that “appointment TV” in Spain can recall a doctor’s appointment in the U.S.: the procedure could start on time, but probably won’t. None of this is the result of breaking news or any other unforeseen interruption in television’s circadian cycle. It’s as if, after the nightly news and the soccer match, the synchronizing is left to interns. So long as you aren’t an Appointment TV kind of person, the phenomenon can make for some fun. You can place bets with your friends as to actual starting times, for example. When a “tonight-at-10” promotional spot airs at 10:40, you can feel like a time traveler.
Continue Reading Noted Abroad
Tagged as:
Charlie Geer,
Literature in the Media,
Spain
