Among many Tweets of outrage: “Saw the news about the Bridget jones sequel, it comes out on my birthday and Mark Darcy is DEAD!!!! Awful news #birthdayruined”
Category: publishing
The University Of Toronto Isn’t A Fan Of David Gilmour’s Remarks, But Won’t Discipline Him
“It’s necessary to say now, ‘We’re not OK with this, but at the same time we also need to defend the principle of academic freedom.’ What we teach is largely, within reason, our prerogative. And that includes David Gilmour. We just have to be honest about what it is we teach.”
Here’s The Interview Wherein Novelist David Gilmour Went Off The Rails
“I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth.”
Will Amazon’s New Matchbook Service Provide The Final Print Death Blow?
“The urge to connect paper books to the digital sphere remains a strong one. We’re still not at the stage where we can ‘rip’ our own books at home. … But last week Amazon announced a service to reduce the gap a little bit more.”
North Carolina Students Will Get Free Copies Of Banned Book
“After the county’s board of education banned Ralph Ellison’s 1952 classic on black identity from school libraries, former Randolf County resident — and current New York-based Poets & Writers editor — Evan Smith Rakoff arranged for Vintage Books to donate copies of the novel, which local high schoolers can pick up for free starting September 25.”
Antonia Fraser Cuts Ties To Man Booker Prize
“Lady Antonia Fraser has resigned as an adviser to the Man Booker International Prize (she sits on its e-Council) because she was not consulted about the decision [to open the main prize to writers from all countries, including the U.S.]. ‘I have resigned from the committee since I was not warned about this when I was asked to join in August,’ she tells me.”
Why American Book Critics Rarely Do Hatchet Jobs Anymore
Lee Siegel: “[The] dissolution of literary ghettos, where the slaughtering review once reigned, … [has meant] that serious negative criticism – there had always been the brisk negative newspaper review – could, for the first time, have real-life consequences. Now that authors could make a living from their advances, a withering takedown could be a blow to someone’s livelihood.”
Why Donald Antrim Won’t Call Himself A Novelist
The new MacArthur winner says that an editor he once worked for “felt that a novelist was a person who had dedicated his or her life to the pursuit – the professional pursuit – of the art form. At the time, I thought that Ray’s opinions seemed curmudgeonly, old-school. Now that I’ve spent some years writing fiction, I am more inclined to see his point, the rightness of it.”
Eight Rules For How To Write Obscure Experimental Fiction
Ted Gioia is on the case…
For Those North Carolina Folks That Banned Invisible Man, Instant Karma Has Struck
“Ban or no ban, high school students in Randolf County, North Carolina, will have easy access to Invisible Man. Thanks to a former resident, the novel’s publishers will be giving away copies for free.”