Month: February 2022

What we’re witnessing in the Ukraine will go down in history for a number of reasons, not the least of which, for me, is illustrating how important an education in the arts is, especially for a spot in politics. Zelensky is not just a guy who knows how to work a camera, but also one who knows how to evoke and manipulate emotion to move hearts and minds. He’s smart enough to be a politician without being a career politician, and he therefore acts based on with his heart, but filtered through his critical thinking skills, as opposed to the usual strategic shilling for votes that goes on in politics. We need more like him. Worked in the Czech Republic as well. More poets, musicians, and clowns in power, pls.

• Russia was already engaged in trying to destabilize Ukrainian publishing;
• A Ukrainian poet reflects;
• Sarah Polley on writing for the screen vs writing for the page;
• Ragazzi Award at Bologna (when I lived there, I realized I was finally speaking proper Italian the day I yelled at a bunch of kids lighting fireworks in the street late at night, “Eh, ragazzi! Che cazzo fai?”)
• Stats are in: most Americans don’t support book bans;
• Is it still possible to judge a romance book by its cover?;
• The January 6 Report will be published as a book… Gee, I hope it has more resolution than the actual January 6 Report;
• Is fan fiction the sincerest form of literary flattery?;
• Beattie on book covering the history of censorship for Freedom to Read;
• Why didn’t Poe have children? Who knew people were investigating this?;
• Another tone-deaf celebrity tries out a poem on Twitter and gets dragged, but she’s standing up for herself now (ie, digging herself out of a hole);

So, I get that they’re trying to justify their literary necrophilia with a late life quote, but frankly, in late life the guy was desperate. He’d been ripped off while trying to find his way spiritually, and went back on tour and started releasing substandard books to recover. His final album was brilliant, but once it sold well, the people around him dug out the outtakes and scrips and scraps of creative slag and tried to sell that too. And now they’re doing the same with his writing. If he was so proud of this material, why did he not publish it himself? I don’t know. I hope I raise my own children better than this. And I hope whoever handles whatever literary legacy I might leave has a modicum of intellect untempted by capitalism. Make no mistake, publishers don’t do this sort of thing to “benefit fans and scholars”, they do it because they think they can make money from it. It’s a business decision, not an artistic one. And I suspect THAT’s why he didn’t publish this material in his lifetime. Anyone who tells you otherwise is engaged in marketing.

A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories includes short fiction, a radio play, and an early novel, all of which were written between 1956, when Cohen was still living in Montreal, and 1961, when he was living in Hydra, Greece.

“Leonard said before his death that his life’s true masterwork was his archive, which he kept meticulously for the benefit of fans and scholars one day to discover. I’m pleased that, with this book, his readers and listeners can begin that rich journey,” Robert Kory, trustee of the Leonard Cohen Family Trust, said in a release.

• Today in “I Wish It Would Happen to Me”: Canadian poet Russell Thornton sees massive spike in interest for old poetry book based on dream of TikTok psychic…. You can’t make this shit up, people!;
• Writers Trust releases Rising Stars list;
• Censorship and book banning: it’s not just for Americans;
• Bears repeating: Right wing censors are barely a fraction of a half of us;
• The Nazi’s are back with impunity… A great bridging article between the above and the below;
• Well, back to fear of nuclear war, thanks nutso ex-KGB agent who is butthurt over some perceived slight… International publishers condemn Russia’s actions, support Ukraine…. that oughtta do it, thanks, Ray.
• Melville House celebrates 20 years of publishing! (I was in their first book!);
• What happens to the police procedural when you can’t trust the police?;
• Filing for later use: how to conduct a literary life in prison;
• Which books do you think shaped you? Now, which books actually did?;
• I40-year-old Miyazaki graphic novel to get English translation;
• On typing and eccentricities in Virginia Woolf;
• In the cavalcade of shit that is the news, at least there’s still Dolly Parton;

A wee interview in Kirkus got me thinking. Here’s a woman who wrote SFF and who has now published a mainstream novel for adults. Mostly we see this going the other way. People like Marlon James, Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, etc, have been dipping their toes (and whole legs in some cases) into the spec fic waters for years, but I’ve seldom seen it go the other way. Does this mean we’re finally starting get rid of all these silly lines? I suppose not, if it’s still news. But interesting times, that it’s happening at all.

Beloved worldwide for her epic Ember in the Ashes fantasy series, Sabaa Tahir’s latest, All My Rage (Razorbill/Penguin, March 1), follows high school seniors Salahudin and Noor, who live in Juniper, a small California desert town. Flashbacks to Lahore, Pakistan, where Salahudin’s mother Misbah’s story began, provide context for his family’s current situation as financially struggling motel owners. The sole survivor of the earthquake that destroyed her village in Pakistan, Noor was brought to Juniper to live with her uncle, who runs a liquor store. Inseparable from childhood, the teens navigate family secrets as well as their currently strained friendship—and the fragile tendrils of something more. College applications and high school social dynamics sit alongside questions of faith, culture, racism, love, abuse, loyalty, betrayal, and more. Grounded in richly evoked settings, the book’s deep emotional honesty will speak to a broad swath of teen and adult readers.

• Huge: new bill to protect freelancers introduced in New York State;
• On the science behind bookstore design;
• 20 writers on being rejected (my favourite ever rejection came from a lit mag that send a tiny, logo’d card back in my SASE with one word in ballpoint pen: “Nope!”);
• How Octavia Butler came to writing — via a bad scifi movie;
• A new translation press for women in England;
• Speaking of translators: scenes from a life;
• Waterstones Children’s book prize;
• Back when literary feuds were conducted by index rather than subTweets;
• Bertnay gets $15m to “write” memoir;

A shitty little buzzfeed article brings up a good topic: when is the movie better than the book? Quite a few times, it turns out. Personally, having read the book and seen the film. I agree with many of these. Blade Runner, The Shining, 2001, Jaws, Fight Club. But can you think of more? The boys were just telling me that the Harry Potter movies fit into this category as well. I couldn’t get through the whole series (I did like book 3), because they were so bloated and poorly done towards the end, but I don’t doubt it.

In an LA Times letter to the editor, a former teacher advocates for letting kids read. This is a battle I’m going through myself right now. I have four kids — two read, two don’t. The youngest is in eighth grade and has yet to be assigned a book to read in his English class. IN HIS ENGLISH CLASS. When I approached the teacher to ask why it was January and they hadn’t yet read a book, I was first told that they in fact ARE reading a book. The Hunger Games. I checked with my boy. Nope, the book is being read aloud to them. Sometimes by the teacher, sometimes by a YouTube video of someone else reading the text. When I responded that this is in fact NOT reading a book, it’s passively listening (and we all know how well 13-year-old listen, esp during distance learning) to a book, I got a mishmash answer about learning outcomes and what amounts to a lowest common denominator. The entire system is being chipped away to create a future full of stupid people who are easy to fool into doing the bidding of big business. (cf Ottawa truckers). Anyway, I dig this teacher’s mojo.

To the editor: As a longtime teacher of kids having difficulty in school, I’m worried about The Times’ description of new L.A. Unified School District Supt. Alberto Carvalho as a leader “acutely focused on testing and other data to improve school and student performance.”

I just worry about how much of that “other data” involves how much time kids spend freely reading books of their choice.

My class was grouped as the “lowest scorers” in third grade. We started the day with an hour of silent reading. The kids chose the books to read. As a teacher, I showed them lots of possibilities for good reading.

And I told my talkative principal, “No interruptions, please.” The kids, who’d probably never seen an adult reading, saw me read during that hour.

• Upcoming NYT piece on Sarah Polley book reveals details of violent encounter with former King of Spain Jian Gomeshi (my understanding is now he vacuums the turf at Skydome);
• Beattie looks into Freedom to Read Week and book banning in general;
• What lies beyond the pandemic horizon for indie publishers?;
• A brief history of the Oddest Title of the Year;
• Young superstar Patricia Lockwood interviewed at NYer, incl about reviewing;
• Writers and Co takes on the legacy of Joan Didion;
• Before Word, etc, Jane Austen used pins to edit her manuscripts;
• I didn’t know this existed: a tv show with poets discussing great poems… feels like the 1950s… oh, wait, it’s PBS – that makes sense then;
• Indie bookstores owned by writers;
• Today in Floof: Queer poetry by Zodiac sign;

• Canadian middle grade preview headed up by Lawrence Hill;
• Indigo sales jump in last quarter;
• Italy’s publishers sound alarm over rising costs of paper;
• This enterprising little literary sneak should be just want you needed to read about today;
• How is it even still possible to get plagiarized work through the publishing process?;
• How big do you gotta be to get a serialized branding for all your books?;
• Art Spiegelman interviewed at Vulture;
• What it’s like to get your kids book “challenged” in schools;
• An old friend I worked with ran a Samizdat student resistance magazine in the Ukraine back in the 80s… some incredible stories there;
• RIP: PJ O’Rourke, satirist, dead of cancer at 74;
• Hey, ageing nerds like me! Eyedrops instead of cheaters?… Will try;
• Today in Floof: book recs by phase of the moon (honestly….);

• Note: this anonymous sex book is not about my life in the 90s;
• When does a curriculum update become a book ban?;
• Old ‘Ninja pal Sheila Heti getting the reviews in the Guardian and NYer;
• Why diversity and inclusion is important for writers;
• Leipzig cancelled;
• Matthew Perry (‘member him?) tells his side of things;
• Can friendships be romances? Left Hand of Darkness edition;
• Marlon James interviewed;
• Scribd marketing team sees opportunity in book bannings;
• GRR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss fans take note: there’s a joy to waiting;
• Nietzsche’s 10 rules for writing with style (rule 1: know that nothing matters);