Article Archive

The former editor of Ellipses…Literary Serials and Narrative Culture shares six tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of a literary journal start-up.

In our seventh annual profile of first-time fiction writers, we introduce Rishi Reddi, Jeff Hobbs, Frances Hwang, Phil LaMarche, and Sunshine O’Donnell.

Greg Bottoms has demonstrated that the truth is rarely black and white in all three of his books of creative nonfiction, but never more vibrantly than in his latest, The Colorful Apocalypse.

Oh that mine enemy were to write a book. It’s a line, paraphrased from the Book of Job, that was uttered last Friday morning at BookExpo America by Christopher Hitchens—author of the recently published book God Is Not Great—as the motto from his earlier book reviewing days. It was an odd sentiment to be heard at a panel called “Ethics in Book Reviewing: The More Things Change…?” but it certainly made the crowd, which was packed in and spilling out of the conference room, laugh out loud. And it set the tone for the rest of the panelists’ comments.

It was Saturday morning and Matthew Sharpe was late, but for a good reason. The author of Jamestown was supposed to be signing copies of his book in the autographing room of BookExpo America (BEA), but he’d just been named a finalist for a Quill Book Award, part of a program organized by NBC Universal and Reed Business Information that honors books in nineteen different categories at an awards show televised on NBC. Sharpe was busy being interviewed for MSNBC.

Best-selling novelist Jonathan Lethem has stepped into the copyright spotlight with an unusual proposal that he hopes will make the industry think differently about copyright protection and how it's used.

Balancing parenting with a career is a challenge for any professional, but for writers, it can require a fresh outlook on life.

Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Coffee House Press, Alice James Books, City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, Graywolf Press, and Salt Publishing.

Page One features a sample of titles we think you'll want to explore. With this installment, we offer excerpts from Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash and Music for Landing Planes By by Éireann Lorsung.

Those lucky enough to have tickets to “A Believer Nighttime Event” on Saturday, part of last week's PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, received program notes that contained a list of the night’s proceedings, complete with short descriptions and estimated times (“Introduction, Eric Bogosian commences the evening in his fashion, seven minutes, thirty-four seconds”), as well as bios of the seven participants.

Fort Tilden is near the end of the Rockaway Peninsula in the borough of Queens, New York, a collection of modest, wind-whipped buildings between playing fields and driveways, not far from the beach. On April 22 it hosted the first Rockaway Literary Festival, organized by Stuart Mirsky. “The Rockaway Literary Festival was something I’d always thought about when I was working,” said Mirsky, who ran for State Assembly of Queens County, New York, in last November’s election. His loss—to Democrat Audrey I. Pheffer—was disppointing, but it freed him up to work on more literary projects.