We attended a reading last night, and, as is our habit, eavesdropped shamelessly on others. At one point, a writer (we can identify them quite readily) put her hand on her hip and, addressing a younger (chronologically) writer, said, “So, are you first or third?” Which makes it sound a bit like you’ve registered in a particular party and must henceforth remain there. Then we encountered a post about Norman Mailer on The Elegant Variation where a comment on point of view caught our attention, especially in light of what we’d overheard. We didn’t quite get what we wanted from […]

Have we mentioned how much we love reading what authors have to say about their work? We suspect so, but it bears repeating. The Elegant Variation turns the blog over to Gayle Brandeis to offer a twist on the author reading story. Instead of describing the event from an attendee’s perspective, we learn what the author is feeling (apparently a sense of profound calm is bad. Must remember this.). P.O.V. – Gayle Brandeis

We don’t enter many writing contests (having retired from the field due to extreme laziness — all those deadlines and postage and whatnot), but we often wonder about the wide variety of options we see as we scan our magazines and email. Of course we want to believe they are legit and worthwhile. Given that we rarely hear screams of anguish from our peers, the majority probably are. But it’s the bad apples that make us leery of the contest circuit. Maud Newton discusses the Zoo Press contest, its (non) outcome, and related ethics (i.e., if you take someone’s money,

We don’t normally link to book reviews — we find them interesting, but not necessarily fascinating. But Salon’s review of David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion made us pause. So much so we had to make a second pot of coffee to think it through. Laura Miller describes Wallace’s shift in humor as shedding his inner Thomas Pynchon (how nice that someone mentions Pynchon’s humor) toward his inner Samuel Beckett (also funny, which we do so adore in a man). Underlying her observation is the sense that Wallace’s earlier readers may not be willing to follow him down his new path. Why

We have mixed feelings on outsourcing — it’s our darn ability to explore every twist and turn of an idea. Economies are rarely static; sometimes outsourcing feels like a natural evolution. Despite this, we try to buy locally (and domestically produced) as much as possible (thankfully, California has an excellent wine industry which makes this fun and easy). So, we read this article about the outsourcing of writing and illustrating with…well, a heavy stomach. Maybe it’s because it makes art feel like a commodity instead of a calling. Or maybe it’s the implication that a style guide is all you

Authors, as we know too well, put their pants on one leg at a time. Okay, perhaps some do that weird two-legged thing, but we suspect they’re looking for attention. In this Los Angeles Times profile, we see a glimpse of the author as a rock star. Except, perhaps, without dry ice and drummers singing off key. David Sedaris is playing to sold out audiences and messing with their minds (priority line placement to smokers? sure, why not let an oppressed minority see what it’s like at the front of the line.). It’s nice to see that he’s enjoying his