My collective seashell,’ as Simon Stålenhag puts it, ‘sounds like that’—his artwork, his texts, and the new cinematic treatment of his first book created by writer-producer Nathaniel Halpern. Read More
Here be ‘unprofessionals’ “Writing offline” seems almost an odd phrase today. You’ll find it—online—in Words Unwired, a commentary by Lorin Stein in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. We understand, of course, when he gets to the even odder term, “unprofessional,” that Stein, The Paris Review editor, is writing in support of the book he has edited,… Read More
Turn Off The Lights I have to agree with Tony Frankel at Stage and Cinema on this one: Get into your headphones and shut your eyes. Invisible Cities wants to live inside your head. And the darker that place might be, the better. Never in all my travels had I ventured as far as Adelma.… Read More
“Hell Is Flutes” A writer who can pry that paraphrase from the jaws of Jean-Paul Satre’s “hell is other people” certainly has some chops. If she can then deliver it as a genuinely funny laugh line amid a global Huis Clos 20 years after the collapse of human civilization, she’s no slouch. Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven may hand her… Read More
Steve Almond: “My overall sense is that authors have to do a self-inventory of why they write and what they want out of the arrangement — and then should decide how to deal with the brave new world of the digital infinite.” Christine Munroe: “I feel it’s just a question of timing, and a great domino… Read More
Benjamin Samuel: “I think we may start seeing more unconventional formats, literature in spaces that are mostly unexplored. Digital publishing has more potential than just an animated page-turn on your iPhone. In other words, digital publishing is much more than just ebooks. As writers experiment more with apps and other platforms (Shelley Jackson’s Instagram story,… Read More
In this edition of Writing on the Ether at Porter Anderson looks on the comparative dynamics of literary fiction in the marketplace, amid discussions of Twitter’s effectiveness for authors. Read More
Writing on the Ether is a collection of news and perspectives on publishing. It is written by journalist and critic Porter Anderson for Jane Friedman and it appears at JaneFriedman.com each Thursday. Sponsorship opportunities are available and offer generous promotion. Join us on Tuesdays at Ed Nawotka’s and Frankfurt Book Fair’s Publishing Perspectives for the new Ether for Authors column. Read More