Department of Reading: Pete Townshend, Book Guy
Besides smashing guitars and banging out beautiful noise on world stages for the past few decades, The Who’s Pete Townshend is something of a reader. This would be surprising in and of itself, classic...
View ArticleWriter’s Room: Regarding Editors
Writers need editors, and vice versa. Of course, from the vituperative correspondence between the two sides, you might never know it. Some writers see editors as meddling parasites, while there are...
View ArticleReader’s Corner: London Book Fair
Solid advice, always Neil Gaiman gave the keynote talk at the start of the 2013 London Book Fair, where—after, before, and while doing the actual business of publishing—everybody will again go through...
View ArticleReader’s Corner: Beatrice Warde
Beatrice Warde (1900–1969) was an American typographer with unusually potent and gracefully articulated opinions on her craft. Instead of simply eulogizing the glories of beautiful books, she threw out...
View ArticleReaders’ Corner: J.K. Rowling and Pseudonyms
There’s a piece of mine that published at PopMatters today about the recent kerfuffle over J.K. Rowling being unmasked as the real author of the little-noticed mystery novel The Cuckoo’s Clock,...
View ArticleQuote of the Day: On Publishing
A great joke once told by Charles Scribner III to new novelist Heller McAlpin: “How do you make a small fortune in publishing?” “Start with a large fortune.” (h/t Jacket Copy)
View ArticleWriter’s Corner: The Patterson Factory
James Patterson is seen at times as more machine than writer. There’s good reason for this. His advertising background; those couple dozen credited co-writers; a happy malleability when it comes to...
View ArticleWriter’s Desk: Don’t Be Afraid of the Block
Every writer gets blocked. The words don’t flow. Or they do, and you simply can’t stand them. Nothing works out. But you have to work through it. There is no other option. Except, well, giving up...
View ArticleWriter’s Desk: Listen to Your Editor
In the current publishing environment, one thing remains the same as in years past: Nearly all writers with a publishing contract have an editor. However, not all editors and not all publishers are...
View ArticleScreening Room: ‘Non-Fiction’
In Non-Fiction, the newest movie from Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria), a clutch of Parisian intellectuals have affairs, drink wine, and talk about the state of publishing and reading in the...
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