Category: literary life
James Atlas’ article on Dale Peck in the New York Times, which was mentioned on Moorishgirl earlier this week, led to this interview with Choire Sicha over at Gawker. When I read the interview the first time, I swear, I thought it was a spoof, because the answers seemed, so, well, dalepecky. Really, for someone who dishes out so much grief, he should be able to take some criticism from people without having to call them “ditch-dirty stupid.” The Atlas article inspired a guest column by Steve Almond over at Moby, and some letters in response.
This review of Tobias Wolff’s new novel, Old School, starts, oddly enough, with a mention of Wolff’s brother, Geoffrey.
In the sometimes collegial, sometimes cutthroat hothouse of graduate creative writing instruction in California, two brothers exert a remarkable degree of influence. Directing UC Irvine’s renowned master of fine arts program is Geoffrey Wolff, who has half a dozen novels and a recently published biography of “Appointment in Samarra” author John O’Hara to his name.
Kid brother Tobias serves as co-director of Stanford’s no-less-prestigious curriculum, and has published several story collections and two memoirs, but no novel since his first — 1975’s long-out-of-print “Ugly Rumours” — until now.
Then the reviewer comes to his senses and focuses on the book for the remainder of the article.
D.H. Melhem will be reading from her sixth collection at Dutton’s tonight. Since the L.A. Times has made its book calendar section for susbscribers only, you can go to the L.A. Weekly‘s readings list for other events
T.C. Boyle writes about the California fires, for the New York Times:
It is dark here today, the generous golden sun of the Golden State reduced to a pink gumball hanging powerlessly over the treetops. Indoors, the house is a wash of strange, muted colors, the floors glowing red, the kitchen countertops thinly painted in the hue of vin rouge. Outside, the birds are holding their breath as fine threads of white ash roll down out of the sky and the distant thunder of aircraft rumbles through the leaves.
Old Hag has a new “skin.” I’m envious. I need to get a facelift myself. Contact me if you’d like to donate cells.
La Muselivre is back at long last.
Maud had a strong cup of coffee. The entries and articles for this morning alone should tide you over till the evening.
Why is it called a longlist if it only has five books on it? It’s nice to see a collection of short stories get a nod. I haven’t read A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies, but I’ve heard it’s pretty good.