Tomorrow marks the 124th birthday of Thornton Wilder—and we’re celebrating by watching the opening monologue of the formally innovative Our Town delivered by another theatrical innovator, Spalding Gray. Spalding Gray as the Narrator in Our Town seems like perfect casting: Read more >
When I was a kid, there was nothing I loved more than a fresh new sketchbook (so much so that I tended to abandon them after filling out four or five drawings of people standing on tippie toes because I Read more >
Beware—there’s a new wave of COVID! It’s novels. The latest writer to be infected is Super Sad True Love Story author Gary Shteyngart, whose newly announced novel Our Country Friends follows the shifting relationships of a group of friends at Read more >
When we first meet Geoffrey Chaucer in the very fine medieval sports movie A Knight’s Tale (2001), he is naked. Butt-naked, I should say, considering the camera work. “Oi sir,” says Heath Ledger, aka William, aka Sir Ulrich. “What are you Read more >
At long last! Today, the first full trailer for the Amazon Original adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad was released. South African actress Thuso Mbedu plays Cora, a woman enslaved on a Georgia plantation, who decides to escape to Read more >
Today marks 21 years since the death of Edward Gorey, known for his playfully macabre illustrated books. His crosshatched drawings warped Edwardian settings into worlds so distinctive they’re now described as “Goreyesque”—and today, we’re celebrating how he carried his heightened Read more >
In this 1968 episode of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, Jack Kerouac (who is clearly drunk) joins Ed Sanders (of The Fugs) and square sociologist Lewis Yablonsky (author of The Hippie Trip) to discuss a then-hot topic: hippies. When the Read more >
The Goethe-Institut, Germany’s cultural institute promoting the study of German culture and language, has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize. Funded by the German government, the Translator’s Prize celebrates an outstanding literary translation from Read more >
They say that in this world nothing can be said to be certain—except death and taxes. Well, it’s Tax Day, friends! No, don’t have a heart attack. They pushed it back this year. (They did, right? I won’t go like Read more >
This evening, in a virtual ceremony, the Whiting Foundation announced the recipients of its 2021 Whiting Awards, which seek to “recognize excellence and promise in a spectrum of emerging talent.” These ten writers, working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, Read more >
In a one-sentence aside in The New York Times, Ben Smith revealed that Bustle Media Group is rebooting controversial news and gossip site Gawker, three years after BMG bought Gawker for only $1.35 million at a bankruptcy auction. Bustle Media Read more >
Prepare the discourse: Hanya Yanagihara’s next novel, To Paradise, will be released on January 11, 2022, by Doubleday in the US and Picador in the UK . This will be Yanagihara’s first book since her controversial 2015 novel A Little Read more >
In May, the UK’s Fourth Estate and William Collins will launch a new list of redesigned modern classics. The publishers describe Collins Modern Classics as “a paperback library of literature featuring some of the most significant books of recent times.” Read more >
Since there has been monetized writing, there have been scams intended to profit off it—predatory editors, fake agents and the like. Henry Brooke once declared in rhyme that scamming is the oldest profession, and he’d be happy to know it’s Read more >
COVER REVEAL REVEAL: Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s Press have revealed the cover of Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny’s novel State of Terror, which they will publish jointly in October. If you need a refresher, here’s what the publishers Read more >
On this day in 1952, Random House published Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. The novel is narrated by a nameless Black man living in 1930s America. The narrator explains, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Proper Read more >
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