Buckley Go Bye Bye

The New York Times > Washington > National Review Founder to Leave Stage: "Asked whether the growth of the federal government over the last four years diminished his enthusiasm for Mr. Bush, he reluctantly acknowledged that it did. 'It bothers me enormously,' he said. 'Should I growl?'"

The Morning News - Sentences of Discontent

The Morning News - Sentences of Discontent: "The Grand Hydra of the Serpent Keepers of the Sleezonian Nebula was having a lousy day, and it showed in the lackluster way that he whipped his slithering, many-tongued concubines."

Fantagraphics Books: The Complete Peanuts

Fantagraphics Books:

"THE COMPLETE PEANUTS offers a unique chance to see a master of the artform refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.
"

The New Yorker: BLOCKED, Why Do Writers Stop Writing?

The New Yorker: Fact: "No one is waiting for you to write your first book. No one cares if you finish it. But after your first, if it goes well, everyone seems to be waiting. You're suddenly considered to be a professional writer, a fiction machine, but you know very well that you're just getting going. "

Chick Lit for Black Chicks

Chick Lit for Black Chicks: "Black women approaching or already ensconced in their thirties are searching for their own print version of HBO's hit series Sex and the City. "

"Reading Chick Lit for black girls is akin to watching an extended hip hop music video. The male and female characters are up on the latest everything from what hot car to drive, which cocktail to drink, what sport to watch or play, and which slang to use. They are also culturally astute. They know the name of every kind of sushi and are familiar with every visual artist ever exhibited in a gallery. They have computer generated personalities, infallible with no humanizing quirks. The central issue, though ostensibly written as finding self-love and fulfilling work, is finding a good man and appearing like a good Christian woman. And the pile of them churning out of the publishing houses grows and expands every day."

Morning News - Jim Harrison Interview

The Morning News - [Robert] Birnbaum v. Jim Harrison:

JH: It’s just like young writers, of whom I am deluged—you have to be giving your entire life to this because that’s the only way it’s possible. This can’t be an avocation. It’s the whole thing. Or nothing.

RB: And what do they say?

JH: Most of them, that’s very intimidating. They really haven’t wanted to commit to it, to that extent. But they have to. It’s a strange thing—I didn’t want to understand it when I first read it but I was 19 or something—Dylan Thomas said in order to be a poet or a writer you have to be willing to fall on your face over and over and over. Everybody wants to be cool—

RB: You have to be willing?

JH: Yeah. Which is an interesting point, yeah.

RB: You have to know that that’s going to happen.

JH: You should. [both laugh]

RB: I may never get over Tibor Fischer’s story of having being rejected by 56 publishers.

JH: It happens doesn’t it? Portrait of the Artist went to 19. The old fun thing is when somebody typed up the first chapter of War and Peace. And then made a précis of the rest of it and sent it out and only one publisher recognized it.

RB: That does speak to the crapshoot nature of the enterprise.

JH: Yeah, somewhat. Persist, though, and it will happen

Required Reading

Amazon.com: Books: The Writing Life