WORDS

"There is plenty to uncover in this fairy-tale-noir story of illicit sex, betrayal, obsession, and suicide, but you have to believe it is worth digging. Perhaps if I tell you the story is older than the Bible." - 3 Quarks Daily

"You can see that even in the small space of a workshop — I constantly have to say to people, 'It’s okay. You can actually write that'. Because you can see that they’re very worried about what the people in the workshop are going to think." - MSN (The Atlantic)

This attitude toward reading — in which the only well-meaning response to a text is uncritical approbation, and anything else is tantamount to censorship — is not only disingenuous but ultimately, I think, also hostile to literature itself. If no book invites our disapprobation, what is the value of our esteem? - The New York Times

"It has come to our attention that some schools have planned events next week October 1-7, to mark the American Library Association’s “Banned Book Week.” If this is the case, all principals are requested to cancel all events and messaging associated with this observance." - WFAE

The list includes "the usual suspects—Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Michel Houellebecq, Anne Carson (who won’t win the year after Annie Ernaux, come on, the literary cool girls can’t have everything), and Can Xue, who is pretty much always in the mix." - LitHub

The novelist also translates others. She says translating is "an act of radical change." - The Guardian (UK)

"Her fans are legion – among them Ali Smith, Colm Tóibín and Dave Eggers – and she has won many honours, including the International Booker prize." But you'll never find her work at the behemoth online. - The Guardian (UK)

Oh, you thought C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien did it? Nah. It was Lester del Rey, and a lot of cynical marketing (that totally worked). - Slate

Memes feed fandom, and Austen fandom can be "chronically online." - LitHub

Basically? Author Donna Leon doesn't like it. - Washington Post

Gabriela Wiener is "the most irreverent and daring voice of the new literary generation of Latin American women." - The New York Times

Then you obviously become a literary historian. - Los Angeles Times

Yambo Ouologuem insisted he had done nothing wrong in writing his 1968 novel Le Devoir de violence (Bound to Violence). But he refused to explain why and stalked away from Paris back home to Mali to stew in his fury. Were his borrowings actually a literary technique? - The New York Times

A string of job postings from high-profile training data companies, such as Scale AI and Appen, are recruiting poets, novelists, playwrights, or writers with a PhD or master’s degree.  - Rest of World

This comes after the not-for-profit journal’s applications for funding were rejected by Arts Council England for three consecutive years. The charity relied on this funding for “a substantial portion of its annual budget” between 2011-2021, read the statement. - The Guardian