John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey died today.
posted by Xurando on Jan 16, 2009 - 26 comments

"I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work." Reclusive author J. D. Salinger today celebrates his 90th birthday. [more inside]
posted by Knappster on Jan 1, 2009 - 73 comments

Daily Routines features how writers, artists, statesmen, and others go about their day. [more inside]
posted by Korou on Dec 9, 2008 - 12 comments

"There's something very shabby about a noble grave... Political power and the power of wealth result in splendid graves. Really impressive graves, you know. Such creatures never had any imagination while they lived, and quite naturally their graves don't leave any room for imagination either. But noble people live only on the imaginations of themselves and others, and so they leave graves like this one which inevitably stir one's imagination. And this I find even more wretched. Such people, you see, are obliged even after they are dead to continue begging people to use their power of imagination." - Yukio Mishima via Kashiwagi in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. On this, the anniversary of Mishima's transformation into a headless god, a collection of video links. [more inside]
posted by eccnineten on Nov 25, 2008 - 11 comments

Joyce explained. (via)
posted by kliuless on Nov 15, 2008 - 23 comments

Dalkey Archive conversations with William Burroughs, Angela Carter, Robert Creeley, William Gaddis, William H. Gass, Danilo Kis, Harry Mathews, Richard Powers, Raymond Queneau, Hubert Selby, William T. Vollman, David Foster Wallace, and many other writers.
posted by Iridic on Oct 12, 2008 - 9 comments

Humiliation: Which book are you most embarrassed to admit that you have never read? Several "respectable" authors answer the question at the Ways With Words festival. (single-link Telegraph post)
posted by fiercecupcake on Jul 28, 2008 - 260 comments

Henry Miller Bathroom Monologues, part 2, part 3, and follow on - Miller takes us on a tour of the art in his bathroom. And a few years later, we have Dinner with Henry, 1979 . [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 6, 2008 - 13 comments

Home taping downloading is killing music authorship. The Society of Authors warns that authors will simply stop writing if they aren't compensated for piracy of their work (as unlikely as that seems). Perhaps they should follow the example of Jim Griffin, newly hired at Warner Music to persuade broadband providers to attach a $5 per month surcharge for the benefit of the major labels, in exchange for halting the lawsuits that have thus far been their mainstay weapon against piracy.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Apr 2, 2008 - 88 comments

Nicholson Baker, who in his book, Double Fold, argued for saving newspaper collections, explores "The Charms of Wikipedia" with insightful and hilarious results. He also has a new book, Human Smoke, coming out (excerpt)
posted by ed on Feb 29, 2008 - 25 comments

To The Best Of Our Knowledge is one of the most wide-ranging and literate public radio shows in the US, a two-hour "radio salon" featuring leisurely exploration of weekly themes like No Smoking, Identity Crisis, Weekend, and The Mind, Music, and Math. Host Jim Fleming approaches these big ideas through the works of authors - journalists of all stripes, memoirists, poets, fiction writers, essayists. Five years' worth of shows are available on audio archives; you can also search the impressive list of authors by name, or subscribe to the podcast. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Feb 27, 2008 - 17 comments

Pictures of writers in a thread on I Love Music. Lots and lots of pictures of lots of writers. Another thread from the same board with more pictures (some duplicates). Author photos are most often seen on dust jackets or in the back of books, a practice Frances Wilson wishes to see abolished. One famous connoisseur of pictures of writers is Javier Marías who wrote a whole book on the subject, Written Lives. Here are a few excerpts from the book: William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen) and an edited extract covering a whole lot of authors. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Dec 24, 2007 - 11 comments

The Page 69 Test --inspired by Marshall McLuhan's suggestion to readers for choosing a novel, a new blog, inviting authors to describe what's on page 69. One says: Not the best, but not the worst. If my pages were presidents, I’d put page 69 somewhere in the James K. Polk range.
posted by amberglow on Dec 11, 2007 - 28 comments

New York State goes after Amazon "affiliates." So if you, as a New Yorker, link to your book on Amazon, you are now an independent contractor and shall be taxed accordingly (PDF). [more inside]
posted by mattbucher on Nov 13, 2007 - 32 comments

B. Traven, A Mystery Solved [Flash video, 1hr] Excellent documentary on the astounding life and mysterious identity of the author of Treasure of the Sierra Madre [Flash video, 50mins] and The Death Ship.
posted by Abiezer on Sep 4, 2007 - 8 comments

LongPen from inventor (pdf) Margaret Atwood
posted by phoque on Aug 11, 2007 - 37 comments

Readersvoice.com is a lovely, low key site that interviews authors in a down to earth fashion that you normally don't see. The whole approach is wonderfully refreshing and endlessly fascinating.
posted by milkwood on May 15, 2007 - 3 comments

It doesn't seem like it was twenty years since Stanley Kubrick produced Full Metal Jacket based on the out-of-print novel "The Short Timers" by Gustav Hasford. While out of print, the full text of "The Short Timers" is available on his (memorial) website as is the followup, "The Phantom Blooper". Hasford's bid for an Oscar was colored by the discovery of nearly ten thousand stolen library books in the same year. Some say the experience of being caught red-handed broke him, leading to his death from non-treatment of diabetes at the age of 45.
posted by Ogre Lawless on Apr 2, 2007 - 52 comments

Booktribes is a new site from the creators of writing site Abctales where bibliophiles can compile lists of every book they've ever read. Replete with a simple, intuitive interface, compiling your life's reading list becomes strangely addictive, and for the whole of March, the best comment of the day on this as-yet underpopulated site wins a copy of David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, with the best comment of the month winning the entire 21 volume Sceptre Collection. And if you're worried your reading list isn't up to scratch, don't panic - you can always cheat.
posted by RokkitNite on Mar 3, 2007 - 20 comments

Pitch 'n' Putt with Joyce 'n' Beckett - (alerts: YouTube & nsfw language. via Exploding Aardvark)
posted by madamjujujive on Feb 1, 2007 - 26 comments

Heard of Alasdair Gray? He's a legendary Scottish author/artist. He's 72. He wrote the astonishing Lanark. And now he's got his own blog. Where he's giving away a new play. So you can "re-write it in a dialect or language" you prefer, and "give it a different title and announce that the version is based upon my play."
posted by ascullion on Jul 1, 2006 - 14 comments

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is pumping out a pile of podcasts that have covered the importance of offensive comics to Art Spiegelman, 600 bands over 54 shows, Captain America versus the American government, Amy Sedaris and geekdom, the journey of young immigrants, French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut and Harper's publisher John MacArthur discussing Europe and America perspectives since 9/11, the after life, sex with monkeys, what radio producers do, the french word "corps", Bonnie Fuller's "The Joys of Much Too Much: Go For the Big Life — The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted (Even If You're Afraid You Don't Have What It Takes)", Veteran Washington reporter Helen Thomas and some other bits & bobs [Breakdown inside]
posted by boost ventilator on Jun 5, 2006 - 25 comments

Virginia Woolf the cricketer, the beach belle posing in a stripy bathing suit or as the March Hare at an Alice in Wonderland-themed party.
For the first time, 1,000 photographs from Woolf's private album and that of her sister, Vanessa Bell, have been catalogued and published. More inside. (via litterae)
posted by matteo on Apr 15, 2006 - 27 comments

Gender differences in literary taste - The Guardian (inter alia) has been reporting two English professors' studies of reading habits and feelings about books by gender. Others (newest to oldest): most revelatory books by reader gender (for men), (for women), author gender by reader gender. The methodology may not be unassailable but the findings are interesting and plausible. [viaduct vianochicken]
Sidenote: I did a little research following a comment on MR and reached a non-obvious conclusion: women hate Akira Kurosawa (check out those charts; for comparison). Theories welcome.
posted by grobstein on Apr 10, 2006 - 36 comments

Looking for an ego boost? The fine people over at The Screenplay Agency are the place for you! No logline too stupid, no script too poorly written! Are you tired of agency after agency telling you that they don't want your 20 year old screenplay about how much you love peanut butter just because "It doesn't make any sense, and is written with crayon on a pile of dirty gym socks?" I know I was! Until I found out about The Screenplay Agency, who promptly accepted every criminally copyright infringing idea I threw at them until I just KNEW I was every bit as good I writer as I've always told myself I am. And all they asked of me was approximately $250 in fees paid to coverage agencies no one has ever heard of and which seem to be owned by the same company that owns The Screenplay Agency! Sure, you've heard of publishing scams like Publish America (part 2) thanks to the diligence of sites like Making Light and our own thread on the matter, but The Screenplay Agency is totally different! For one thing, they only rip you off boost your ego through screenplays. Now, some legitimate screenplay writers high and mighty hollywood types have gone and pranked this excellent automated delusion reinforcer. But don't let those spoilsports spoil your sport! (God, I am such a great writer. No wonder they loved my screenplay!) Go ahead and generate your own rave reviews!
posted by shmegegge on Feb 25, 2006 - 14 comments

A blog invitational - Jazz group The Bad Plus came up with a list of conceptually similar authors and bands. They now invite readers to add their own submissions. The type of similarity between the band and the author is up to you: examples from the band's original list include Tom Waits/Charles Bukowski, Jewel/Danielle Steele, and Rush/J.R.R. Tolkien. Here is the first set of fan submissions, and here is another blog that is participating.
posted by ism on Nov 20, 2005 - 61 comments

Studs Terkel, lengendary historian and radio host pays a visit to Democracy Now! today. Audio and Video, as well as the transcript of this historic interview are here. Also, the WBAI pledge drive is this week too, please give what you can.
posted by wheelieman on Oct 5, 2005 - 16 comments

Infected warthog anus boogers!Author and iconoclast; or freak? If you spent any time in downtown Toronto in the 80's you likely saw Crad Kilodney, Dead Man Talking.
posted by arse_hat on Apr 26, 2005 - 12 comments

In those days, he could do no wrong. In the Sixties, he was the man who published Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint and Hemingway's A Moveable Feast; he put John Lennon's doodles into cold print, launched the careers of John Fowles and Gabriel García Márquez, looked after Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut and later, in the early 1980s, was the godfatherly mentor of Amis fils, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie. He was equally adept at commissioning inspired non-fictions such as The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris's zoological inspection of human behaviour.
The Independent profiles Tom Maschler, publisher, founder of the Booker Prize. (via Bookslut)
posted by matteo on Mar 17, 2005 - 7 comments

Richard Price: The Comeback Kid of American Literature. [MI]
posted by jonmc on Jan 27, 2005 - 20 comments

Have you heard of Will Christopher Baer? He writes twisty, noir fiction. His trilogy of Phineas Poe books (Kiss Me, Judas, Penny Dreadful, and Hell's Half Acre) have just been re-released, and Kiss Me, Judas was optioned for a movie. (more inside)
posted by braun_richard on Jan 26, 2005 - 7 comments

Will Eisner Dies at age 86 The father of the modern Graphic Novel and hugely influential comics figure has died today from heart surgery complications. His concept of Sequential Art helped move comics out of the idea of being solely "kid's stuff" and was seen as a cannon in the comic art world. He was working on a book called "The Plot" due out later this year. He will be missed. More info and Eisner Bio at Newsarama
posted by Jeffy on Jan 4, 2005 - 54 comments

Unproduced Screenplays "The Writers Guild of America registers approximately 30,000 screenplays every year, most of which never make it anywhere near the silver screen. Some of these are by "big name" writers like James Cameron and The Wachowski Brothers." Presented here for your reading pleasure are: "Edward Ford" by Lem Dobbs, "One Saliva Bubble" by David Lynch & Mark Frost, "Red, White, Black, and Blue" by Andrew Kevin Walker, "Carnivore" by The Wachowski Brothers, "Alien 3" by David Twohy, "A Crowded Room" by James Cameron, and "I Am Legend" by Mark Protosevic.
posted by miss lynnster on Jan 2, 2005 - 27 comments

How much money do first-time novelists make? Author and upcoming first-time novelist Justine Larbalestier is constantly asked by aspiring writers what first-time novelists should expect in advance payment for their beloved texts. So she asked some of her author friends what they got for their first novels. The responses ranged in time from 1962 to 2004. What didn't change in all that time was the basic amount: Not much. Quoth Larbalestier: "The life of a novelist is, financially speaking, a mug's game. Enter at your own peril."
posted by jscalzi on Dec 24, 2004 - 66 comments

Although cancer got these three young writers before their books were published, their now-acclaimed work -- from children's inspirational to humorous fantasy to coming of age (book and movie) -- was brought to life by the efforts of parents or a brother or friends.
posted by escorter on Dec 14, 2004 - 1 comment

Fascism in America? It Can't Happen Here is a masterful satire in which a popular, dimwitted politician rises to dictatorial power on the backs of radio evangelists, opponents of urban, yacht-owning, college professor liberalism, common people, and the Rotary Club. America is pushed into a manufactured war by all-powerful corporate interests, liberties are restricted in the name of national emergency, and all is coordinated by a behind-the-scenes political maestro sometimes called "the brain." Sound familiar? It's nothing new: the book was written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935.
posted by socratic on Nov 29, 2004 - 50 comments

Computer as author. (NYT) "Dave Striver loved the university - its ivy-covered clocktowers, its ancient and sturdy brick, and its sun-splashed verdant greens and eager youth. The university, contrary to popular opinion, is far from free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world: academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace. A prime example is the dissertation defense: to earn the Ph.D., to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one's dissertation. This was a test Professor Edward Hart enjoyed giving." by Brutus.1
posted by semmi on Nov 22, 2004 - 16 comments

The Writings of Charles Darwin on the Web. Thanks to the British Library.
posted by plep on Nov 9, 2004 - 11 comments

Enter a world where friendship is king and smiles abound. Owly is continuing graphic novel series created by Andy Runton. The series uses no words to tell the stories, instead relying solely on the art (which recalls classic cartoons), creating something fun and cute to read for pretty much any age. But don't take my word for it.
posted by drezdn on Nov 1, 2004 - 2 comments

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2004: Elfriede Jelinek, probably best known for the story behind Michael Haneke's La Pianiste.
posted by mr.marx on Oct 7, 2004 - 22 comments

100 key books “Cyril Connolly chose 100 key books from England, France and America first published between 1880 and 1950 to represent ‘The Modern Movement’.”

The Greatest War Protestor of All Time --Wise, hilarious, and kind words from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. If you don't know who he is, fake it.
posted by chinese_fashion on Sep 15, 2004 - 7 comments

Critique Magazine's On Writing III - Each year, Critique Magazine's staff compiles essays by and interviews with writers, teachers, and translators of merit for inclusion in the special anniversary edition "On Writing".

Basically, a shitload of authors provide thoughts on, ahem, writing. {Both sites are worth a look, imo.}
posted by dobbs on Sep 15, 2004 - 18 comments

The inauguration of September heralds the opening of the current opera season within the United States. Predictable mainstays of standard repertoire will return, but a few notable performances will make their debut this season. One of the new performances that has been already generating excitement is Margaret Garner, to be hosted by Detroit’s Michigan Opera Theater in May. With the libretto composed by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, the opera is a musical extrapolation of her 1987 novel Beloved. Margaret Garner is the autobiographical account of a Kentucky slave who journeys to Ohio with her family to live in freedom. However, the Garner family is intercepted during their pilgrimage by slave traders who threaten capture, and rather than have her daughter live in bondage, Margaret murders her. Top mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves stars as the lead, and it will be directed by Kenny Leon, last seen conducting P. Diddy in Broadway's Raisin in the Sun.
posted by naxosaxur on Sep 1, 2004 - 13 comments

Two Writers Drinking, Sitting Around, Talking About Stuff. That about says it! Two online veterans get drunk and exchange e-mails. (An ongoing series. The above link is part one. Part two is here, and part three can be found right here). (Via Maud)
posted by braun_richard on Aug 22, 2004 - 4 comments

Why does no-one recognise my genius? A guide for aspiring authors on how not to deal with rejection slips.
posted by etc on Jun 17, 2004 - 21 comments

Kinsley goes Zola on Brooks "In his writing and on television, he actually seems reasonable. More than that, he seems cuddly. He gives the impression of being open to persuasion. Like the elderly Jewish lady who thinks someone must be Jewish because ''he's so nice,'' liberals suspect that a writer as amiable as Brooks must be a liberal at heart. Some conservatives think so too." via A&L Daily
posted by leotrotsky on May 22, 2004 - 6 comments

NASA Fired Will Carpenter for writing a short story. "Some kind of harrassment," they said, and since Texas is an at-will employment state, there's not much he can do about it. Is this story a valid means of self-expression or a harrassing glimpse into jilted anger? I've stumbled across more and more news stories about people being fired for writing, and students expelled for writing "dark poetry" in the classroom. How much do you have to keep secret from your classmates and co-workers?
posted by keef on May 20, 2004 - 28 comments

"If this was Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, there would be a national outcry". Thousands of personal papers belonging to Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, fetched $1.7 million at an auction Wednesday, with many items sold to private U.S. collectors. The auction was a great disappointment to scholars who had hoped the papers would be donated to a public institution. The archive also became entwined in a mystery worthy of Conan Doyle's fictional detective: the bizarre death of a leading Holmes scholar. Lancelyn Green, 50, was found dead in his bed on March 27, garroted with a shoelace tightened by a wooden spoon, and surrounded by stuffed toys. (more inside)
posted by matteo on May 19, 2004 - 11 comments

Choose Your Own New York You're in town to visit your wealthy and eccentric Aunt Ginny, who is spending the day having her blood replaced with Botox on the Upper East Side. Now you have the entire day to yourself to explore the most exciting city in the world! -- A Choose Your Own Adventure story, updated.
posted by amberglow on May 18, 2004 - 11 comments