In our morning reading: the 2014 VIDA count is announced, a review of James Hannaham’s new novel, Chelsea Hodson’s sartorial collaboration, an excerpt from Masha Gessen’s new book, and more.
Due out next month from Outpost19, the new anthology A Book of Uncommon Prayer finds dozens of writers revisiting the invocation. The book was edited by Matthew Vollmer, and features contributions from the likes of Leslie Jamison, Gabriel Blackwell, Scott Cheshire, Courtney Maum, Benjamin Samuel, Robert Lopez, and Catherine Lacey. And there’s a trailer for it, featuring music by Alicia Jo Rabins, which you can watch below.
In our weekend reading: Alexander Chee on researching your life, interviews with Ben Yagoda and Brian Alan Carr, new writing from Gabriel Blackwell, new music from Waxahatchee, and more.
Interviews with Margaret Atwood and Gabriel Blackwell, new music from Chris Forsyth, Marc Maron chats with Bob Mould, and more.
Writing this column poses something of a conundrum, as nearly all of the reading I’ve done this week has been for upcoming freelance assignments. So expect to see more of a focus on shorter works this time out: stories and essays I’ve encountered in publications in print and online. Plus one novel about attraction, a declining Iowa town, and giant bugs.
Elizabeth McCracken made a Thunderstruck playlist, notes on novels and politics, Chris Gethard on punk rock, adapting AM Homes for comics, and more.
Gabriel Blackwell has been productive as hell lately, lurking under the radar of most readers as a fully able, hyper-intelligent chronicler of darkly imagined fictions. His newest release, The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised Men (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2013) is Blackwell’s treatment of the long lost final letter of master of horror H.P. Lovecraft. In fitting fashion, we corresponded (albeit electronically) about dominant metaphors in our time, the trickeries of inspiration and perspective, how the future looks, and the ins and […]
When we interviewed Gabriel Blackwell earlier this year, he noted that his next novel would be inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Blackwell went on to make the case for why he was intrigued by Lovecraft: “He was before his time not only in his fiction: he interacted with the world in a very virtual way, spending much of his time in his room writing letters to people he would never meet. That seemed applicable. And, of course, I am a fan […]