David Samuel Levinson's Blog, page 8

The Literary Gothic

Do yourself a favor. Pick up a copy of The Woman in White.

Lit Chicks Gun For More Press

Over at The Huffington Post, Jason Pinter interviews Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, two bestselling authors of chick lit, who are sick and tired of being left out. They have a beef with the paper of record, The New York Times. Like Stephen King, master of horror and suspense, who wrote one of the best [...:]

Literary Chicks Gun For More Press

Over at The Huffington Post, Jason Pinter interviews Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, two bestselling authors of chick lit, who are sick and tired of being left out. They have a beef with the paper of record, The New York Times. Like Stephen King, master of horror and suspense, who wrote one of the best [...:]

Dear Jodi Picoult

Dear Jodi (if I may), You are a rock star and I don't say that lightly. Though white and male, I am far from one of publishing's literary darlings. (No one knows my name; it's a lovely place to be.) Like you, I have often thought similar things about the publishing world, in fact—that it's [...:]

Some Of Them Are Heroes

… and because I love this guy, Edward Champion, and actually you might too, and because linking to other people's stuff is just so darn fun and he uses the word tenebrous and called Wells Tower what he is, a Young Turk, and he is also the host of The Bat Segundo Show (Champion, not [...:]

More on TNYTBR

I knew I wasn't crazy or living life in a vacuum. Well. Some might say differently, but not Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits or Scott Esposito. These guys have really thought about contemporary fiction and where it stands vis a vis The New York Times Book Review. Writers who review books are not critics. They're simply [...:]

Hurrah! Another Straight White Writer Endorsed By The NYT!

Jonathan Franzen's new novel, "Freedom," like his previous one, "The Corrections," is a masterpiece of American fiction. So, what do you do when this is the first sentence of a book review and that review is written by Sam Tanenhaus, the Supreme Editor of The NYTBR? You can read the whole piece or you can [...:]

Dear Mr. Metaphor

If you were so worried about keeping your metaphors, then I suppose you should've locked them up. And to your accusation that I stole one from you, all I can say to that is: you knew what you were getting yourself into. As for the other, who chimed in that night as well, his attack [...:]

Death And The VQR

When Kevin Morrissey walked to the old coaling tower near the University of Virginia campus late last month and shot himself in the head, he not only ended his own life, he exposed turmoil within the small staff of The Virginia Quarterly Review that now threatens the future of the high-profile journal.
~ Robin Wilson, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Literary Matter: Andrew Porter On Contests, Collections, and Cat Burglars

So often these days I hear how tired editors are of reading the "psychological" story. Well, I have late-breaking news for them—every story ever written is a psychological story. A writer can dress it up any way he wants to, but in the end, if he's doing anything right, the psychology of his characters will have a way of creeping into the narrative.