MFA vs NYC, edited by Chad Harbach | PANK
“But for all its multiplicity, MFA vs NYC, taken altogether, seems to toll the bells, not for the publishing industry as a whole or even the MFA era, but, from an aspiring writer’s perspective, the chance of any young artist hoping to make any kind of creative dent in this world. The book’s title would probably be more accurate as The World vs Writers.”
Month: August 2014
Kind of Just Telling the Story | Chautauqua, Issue 11
An interview I did with novelist and poet Jason Mott, author of The Returned (basis for ABC’s Resurrection) and the upcoming The Wonder of All Things. Click the photo to link to Chautauqua’s website and purchase a copy! I was also an assistant editor for the issue.
Books We Can’t Quit | Pank Magazine
“From my point of view, that opening sentence foreshadowed my own life. I, too, began my first stories in my early 20s. I, too, was already planning my own Bildungsroman. And I, too, was meeting a great man. This was one of my first Philip Roth novels and my first exposure to Nathan Zuckerman.”
The Art of Close Writing | The Millions
“Jonathan Russell Clark sits at his desk, writing an essay about free indirect discourse. Surrounding him are books by authors who employ the technique with considerable skill: Jane Austen, Gustave Flaubert, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Joshua Ferris. He recalls a time when he did not even know what free indirect discourse was, and a time, later, when he knew the term but viewed it more as a descriptor than a crucial component.”
Joss Whedon: The Biography by Amy Pascale | Slant
“Joss Whedon is a sycophantic enterprise, a serviceable document of his career, well researched, thorough, and topic savvy, but she spends more time tracking the ins and outs of Whedon’s many projects than she does on his actual life. Whedon, here, is more like a composite of all his creations, a Creator, and less like an interesting person deserving of a full-fledged biography.”
Jonathan Russell Clark 