A Measure of Control
At Mystery Fanfare John Barlow describes his leap from traditional publishing to self-publishing. Falling advances and the shunning of mid-list authors were the sharpest spurs.
Category: Writing
Oprah in a Sari
The Millions has Mythili G. Rao’s report from the Jaipur Literature Festival.
What was left to discuss? Anything but Rushdie. On guidance from the event organizers, everyone from Shashi Tharoor to David Remnick was talking around the debacle, momentarily alluding to it — knowingly, coyly — but never quite addressing it or the full array of issues it raised on India’s thorny history with censorship, religious fundamentalism, democratic and bureaucratic processes (and Salman Rushdie himself). It was a strange predicament for a symposium of ideas to find itself in.
What Is Usually Called Narrative
At The Millions Adam Boretz interviews Ben Marcus.
TM: Shifting gears a bit, when it was published, some readers said that Notable American Women was not experimental enough. So that is possibly something you’ll hear about The Flame Alphabet. Does being labeled an “experimental” writer” mean anything to you?
BM: Anyone who believes that you can make art from language is part of a small, nearly-vanishing community, and we should all form a wedge and march on the enemy. Do we need different uniforms in this struggle, different stripes on our arms so that it’s clear who the realists are? Maybe, but I care less and less.…
No Notes Were Being Taken, Jim
Harper’s has an excerpt from The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal.