Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's new book,You Must Set Forth at Dawn, is a memoir—his fourth, in fact. But more than the story of one man's life, this memoir is the story of a nation.
May/June 2006
Features
One Man, One Nation: A Profile of Wole Soyinka
The Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning poet, fiction writer, and memoirist looks back again with his third memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn.
Expect the Unexpected: A Profile of David Mitchell
The British novelist returns to a more traditional style in his fourth book, Black Swan Green.
The Weschler Connection: A Profile of Lawrence Weschler
With a wandering mind and an obsessive index of notes, the nonfiction of writer Lawrence Weschler defies classification.
News and Trends
More to the Story: A.M. Homes
For this inaugural installment of More to the Story—an occasional feature in which we ask authors to list the movies, music, artwork, and books that inspired them during the course of writing their new books—we asked A.M. Homes about her fifth novel,This Book Will Save Your Life, which was published by Viking last month.
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The Law of Diminishing Readership
As marketing director of Copper Canyon Press, the thirty-four-year-old independent publisher of poetry in Port Townsend, Washington, I am required to read a lot. While most of the titles on my reading list are poetry collections, I recently read two nonfiction texts that got me thinking about the "economics" of creative writing.
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The Contester: The Collapse of Neil Azevedo's Zoo
Two years after the failure of Zoo Press's fiction contests in 2004, founder Neil Azevedo responds about more controversy surrounding its poetry contests.
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Q&A: Scott Hoffman’s Reasons to Rep
At the end of Folio Literary Management’s second month in operation, Scott Hoffman, who represents writers of fiction and nonfiction and receives between two hundred and five hundred queries a week, spoke about the role of agents in today’s publishing marketplace.
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Literary MagNet
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features One Less Magazine, the Women's Review of Books, Cream City Review, Global City Review, Bat City Review, Backwards City Review, and Poetry.
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Small Press Points
Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Seven Stories Press, Impassio Press, and BOA Editions, Ltd.
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The Literature of Lies
Sadly, recent revelations are forcing readers—confronted by a brand-new band of literary scallywags, hucksters, and hoaxers—to reconsider the veracity of the story as well as that of the storyteller.
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Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
This installment of Page One features excerpts from A Strange Commonplace by Gilbert Sorrentino, Genealogy by Maud Casey, and Visigoth by Gary Amdahl.
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The Practical Writer
Inside Publishing: The Business of Bookselling
The final installment in a three-part series on publishing focuses on bookselling.
The X Files: Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor
The editor of the literary journal Alimentum offers his unique take on the submissions process.
The Joy of Collaboration: A Ten-Point I-Told-You-So Guide
One afternoon in March 2003, I received an unexpected phone call from writer Julianna Baggott. "I've got a crazy idea," she told me. "It's so crazy, I feel a little nervous even bringing it up."
The Literary Life
The Art of Reading Joan Didion: Who We Are, Who We Used to Be
Joan Didion's creative nonfiction essays feature writing that is taut, precise, and emotionally honest.
Imperative: Why Truth Matters in Memoirs
A fiction writer explores the importance of "truth" in memoir.
Improvisers and Revisers: An Experiment in Spontaneity
It took a long time to write these words. I'm not referring to the psychosomatic affliction known as writer's block. I mean the delays caused by the process of composition and revision.
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