News Around the Net

Readers, put down your books.  Writers, put the pen down (or stop typing, or whatever you're doing).  I have some bad news.  Fiction is dead again.

In the spirit of last year's Infinite Summer, readers have banded together this year to read the world's oldest novel, Tale of Genji.  Knowing nothing about it except the length, I wish all involved the best of luck.

The merry-go-round of publishing, told by an author.  I hope she didn't have to pay for all those lunches.  And hey, at least she got to make a bunch of new friends!

Using real-life characters in fiction.  Yay or nay.  I think I'll agree with what's said here: Yes, just don't suck.

There's a new poetry editor at The Paris Review.  Just another job I didn't get.

The lessons in recent American poetry.  The sort of reasonable study of writing that doesn't include the words "No one cares about poetry.  It is dead."  Well done.

The world where everyone can be a published author.  I tend to agree that, on the whole, it seems good, but that, yes, double yes, there is a painful amount of truly, just awful stuff out there in slush piles around the world that would be published en masse as well, so be ready.  That was a whopper of a sentence.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.