Saturday, November 23, 2019

Is Memoir Writing Selfish?

There Were Women Authors In England Centuries Earlier Than We’d Thought



The first female writers in the kingdom have generally been thought to be Marie de France in the 12th century and Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich in the 14th. But scholar Diane Watt argues in a new book that there were Englishwomen producing serious prose and poetry as early as the 8th century — and that much of their work was “overwritten” by men. – The Guardian
Instead of big, sprawling novels like White Teeth, we now have Knausgaard and Ferrante, who promise so little... White Teeth  


       Meanwhile, the Salzburg Festival has announced its programme for next year -- the 100th anniversary of the festival -- and while it isn't mentioned in Michael Cooper's overview in The New York Times, The Salzburg Festival Prepares to Turn 100, one of the highlights will certainly be the premiere of a new Handke play, Zdeněk Adamec; see also the Suhrkamp foreign rights page. 

25 Best Book Publicists and Promoters


Federal police carried out raids to seize draft memoir written by mysterious Canberra private






The Secret Life Of The Audiobook Star



Sore throat? All the time. Bored with what you’re reading? No doubt. Even when it’s your own work. And let’s not talk about the difference between words authors know how to write and words authors know how to read. – The Guardian (UK)




       The New York Times Book Review usually announces their '100 Notable Books' of the year before they get to their top 10, but this year apparently the pressure of competing lists got to them and they've now already announced their 10 Best Books of 2019. 



We think erotic energy is everywhere — in the deep breath that fills our lungs as we step out into a warm spring morning, in the cold water spilling over the rocks in a brook, in the creativity that drives us to paint pictures and tell stories and make music and write books, in the loving tenderness we feel toward our friends and relatives and children.





Cookbooks Go Way Beyond Recipes And Photography



Think memoir, travel, family history, history of the world. That’s what a good cookbook is. – Literary Hub










Is Memoir Writing Selfish?


Michelle Tea, author of several memoirs and novels, says (in her new book called, er, Against Memoir) that it certainly is. “Examining the need to record her experiences in the title essay, she writes: ‘Personal narrative is a mental illness, but you don’t want to be well.’ She tells me how the compulsion to write is similar to the craving to drink.” – PThe Guardian (UK)


Homing: A Memoir
by Mark Lyons


In this heart-twisting memoir, a teen boy is the object of his mother’s deep sexual urges. Does it cross the line into abuse? Is he responsible for her frequent retreats to mental hospitals? Can he ever forgive her? The son needs most of a lifetime to unravel, then free himself from, the mysteries of her demise.

Fourteen-year-old Mark Lyons awakens to his mother screaming at his father, threatening to tell the children her darkest secrets, including her sexual obsession with her son. The “Black Dog” soon drives her to mental hospitals, electroshock therapy, and addiction. Some days Mark is banished from home to avoid setting her off. He finds sanctuary in the greasy garage of his friend Richie and in training his pigeons to circle home to their roost. At seventeen Mark flees his home, but he never really escapes. As an adult he contends with guilt and rage and a profound fear of loving. Decades later, after circling back home time and again to reclaim his childhood, he finds a way toward peace and forgiveness







Why Do Movies About Classic Authors Have To Be So Serious… So Dull?



Let us count the ways in which we’ve been force-fed dour, vitamin-deficient biopics of our favorite authors. Why. So. Serious. On top of being ponderous, such work bristles with the insecurity of filmmakers timidly making the case for long-dead writers; every hushed scene screams the anxious question: Will people take their work seriously if we don’t present them seriously? – New York Magazine






Writing Versus The Performance Of Being A Writer



No doubt social media in particular seems to represent the triumph of the writerly type over the writing itself. But DeWitt, Baker, Whitehead, and Atwood are among our most accomplished writers; so what if they’re willing to play the type on occasion? It might seem possible to just perform the office of writer—thoughtfully curated Instagrams of to-read piles, tweets geo-tagged at the MacDowell Colony—but it’s still a publish-or-perish business. –The New Republi 









Trump’s Justice Dept. Threatens Publisher Of Book By Anonymous Administration Official



“The Justice Department is going on the offensive against the anonymous author of A Warning, telling them in a letter obtained by CNN Business that he or she “may be violating ‘one or more nondisclosure agreements’ by writing the anti-Trump book. The author’s publisher is rejecting the argument and saying the book will be released as scheduled. And the author’s agents are accusing the government of trying to unmask the author.” – CNN






Shop Dogs, Custom Roasted Coffee, And Other Wild Things On Author Websites



You’d think authors would have things like, oh, the titles of their books, links to buy said books, maybe a list of book tour dates, press contacts, etc. Sure, sure, but there’s so much more. – The New York Times








UK Publishers, Booksellers Wrestle With Selling Right Wing Books


With a divisive election looming and rising rates of hate crime, the question of how best to engage with opposing views is, says David Shelley of the publishing giant Hachette, hotly debated in acquisitions meetings. “It’s important to uphold free speech, but social justice is also a big part of our mission,” he says. He is proud that Hachette publishes authors from across the political spectrum, from Labour’s Jess Phillips to the controversial rightwing commentator Rod Liddle. “But we wouldn’t want to publish any book that played a part in oppressing minorities, or went against our inclusive ethos.” – The Guardian








A Bookstore With A Mission, Surviving In The Midst Of Book Business Upheaval



Must be nice to be able to say that people wanting bestsellers can just “ge them elsewhere.” Another Story Bookshop in Toronto was founded with a mission of social justice, with the purpose of getting “diverse books into diverse hands” – and though the founder died two years ago, the new owners are continuing the mission despite Toronto’s rising real estate market and, of course, the ever-present threat of Amazon. – The New York Times