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Stories 81 - 100 | << Prev   Next >>

Need a Blurb? Meet the Usual Suspects
Need a Blurb?
Meet the Usual Suspects
OPINION
Jan 7, 2009 5:43 PM CST

Need a Blurb? Meet the Usual Suspects

New writers' book jackets reveal the top 10 lazy comparisons

(Newser) - Blurbs for hot new writers' books unfailingly liken them to a handful of known quantities, Chris Rovzar observes in New York. Here are some of the most-abused blurb comparisons:
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald or Edith Wharton. Writing about crumbling, decadent high society? "If you're a boy, you're Scott; if you're
...

Above All, Pinter Was Remarkable, Loyal Friend
Above All, Pinter Was Remarkable, Loyal Friend
Appreciation
Dec 25, 2008 2:12 PM CST

Above All, Pinter Was Remarkable, Loyal Friend

Playwright lives on in his plays, already considered modern classics

(Newser) - He didn’t always like the plays of Harold Pinter, who died yesterday at 78, but Guardian theater critic Michael Billington says he’s sure they “will endure wind and weather, because he understood the insecurity of human life.” Billington, also Pinter’s biographer, remembers the “poet’...

Theater Giant Harold Pinter Dead at 78

Outspoken playwright was awarded Nobel in 2005

(Newser) - Harold Pinter, one of the foremost playwrights of the 20th century, has died of cancer at the age of 78. He began his career as a poet before writing such classic plays as The Caretaker and The Homecoming, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005. His widow, Antonia Fraser,...

Sontag's Early Journals Mesmerize
 Sontag's 
 Early 
 Journals 
 Mesmerize 
book review
Dec 16, 2008 6:15 PM CST

Sontag's Early Journals Mesmerize

Journals tell a touching tale of earnest self-creation

(Newser) - The newly released diaries of a young Susan Sontag provide an invaluable glimpse of how the writer-to-be came to be, critics say. “I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person," the late Sontag writes of journaling. "I create myself."...

Sci-Fi Guru Forrest Ackerman Dead at 92

Magazine editor coined term 'sci-fi'

(Newser) - Fright-film magazine writer and editor Forrest J Ackerman—credited with coining the term "sci-fi"—died this week of heart failure, the Los Angeles Times reports. He was 92. Ackerman introduced new generations to horror films with his magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland; he was also known for his...

One Month, 50K Words: Writers Race to Finish Novels

National Novel Writing Month gives creative types an unrelenting deadline

(Newser) - Aspiring novelists are packing coffee shops in the Twin Cities and elsewhere as the frenzy of National Novel Writing Month heats up, Minnesota Public Radio reports. Founded roughly a decade ago, “Nanowrimo” challenges writers to conquer procrastination and get 50,000 words down during November. The emphasis, say the...

Onion Preps Timely Election Coverage—No, Really

(Newser) - The Onion, bucking a 20-year trend, plans to cover tomorrow's election results in something resembling real time, the AP reports. The "satirical newspaper of record" and its website have prepared articles and videos in advance, requiring long hours unfamiliar to its writers. “It has become sort of necessary...

Death Takes a Holiday in Saramago's Latest
Death Takes a Holiday in Saramago's Latest
BOOK REVIEW
Oct 10, 2008 6:24 AM CDT

Death Takes a Holiday in Saramago's Latest

Author of Blindness deals with death in new novel

(Newser) - The premise of Jose Saramago’s Death With Interruptions seems a bit cutesy at first, with a Buffy-esque Grim Reaper deciding to take some time off her job, writes Shannon McBeen in Radar. But as Saramago explores the ramifications of universal immortality, he manages to transform “the admittedly weak...

Rodanthe Author Still Loves Himself
 Rodanthe 
 Author Still 
 Loves Himself 
glossies
Oct 3, 2008 7:11 PM CDT

Rodanthe Author Still Loves Himself

(Newser) - Nicholas Sparks may run low on creative gas, but that only lasts for a minute or two. The multimillionaire author of The Notebook and Nights in Rodanthe works out for nearly 3 hours a day before writing 2,000 words and coaching track at his son's school. ''I'm efficient,"...

Wallace Kept Up 'Debate Inside His Head'

Infinite Jest author was an 'astute observer' and 'prose magician'

(Newser) - David Foster Wallace was remembered today as a complex novelist who engaged in layer upon layer of self-examination. The author of Infinite Jest "wrote about the maddening impossibility of scrutinizing yourself without also scrutinizing yourself scrutinizing yourself and so on," Laura Miller writes in Salon. Wallace's suicide remains...

Writer David Foster Wallace Found Dead

46-year-old Infinite Jest author hangs himself in California home

(Newser) - Author David Foster Wallace, best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, has been found dead in his California home at the age of 46, the Los Angeles Times reports. His wife, who found his body Friday, told police that he hanged himself. Wallace gained worldwide renown for his ambitious...

Unreleased Kafka Materials May See Light

Israeli women under pressure to share inherited documents

(Newser) - Franz Kafka, who died in 1924, is in the news because of the actions of his disobedient literary executor. Max Brod, who fled Prague in 1939, left a valuable collection of the Czech existentialist's papers with his secretary. She died last year at 101, and her daughters may be keeping...

Aspiring Novelist? Read This
 Aspiring Novelist? Read This
OPINION
Aug 11, 2008 2:15 PM CDT

Aspiring Novelist? Read This

Fiction writer offers tips on juggling creativity, career

(Newser) - “I’ve always wanted to write” is something novelist Allegra Goodman hears a lot, so she lays out some advice in the Boston Globe for the doctors, venture capitalists, and lactation consultants with stories to tell:
  • “To begin, don’t write about yourself.” Writing is about imagining
...

Palestinian Poet Dead at 67
 Palestinian Poet Dead at 67
OBITUARY
Aug 10, 2008 7:56 PM CDT

Palestinian Poet Dead at 67

'Poet of resistance' depicted life under Israelis, supported and slammed PLO

(Newser) - Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died yesterday from heart surgery complications in Houston at age 67, the Los Angeles Times reports. Considered Palestine’s unofficial poet laureate, Darwish penned the territory’s symbolic Declaration of Independence in 1988 and depicted life under Israeli rule in his work. "He was the...

Conservative Artists Should Stand Tall
Conservative Artists Should Stand Tall
Opinion
Aug 9, 2008 5:57 PM CDT

Conservative Artists Should Stand Tall

They can't 'battle this state of affairs with silence' in Hollywood

(Newser) - There are conservatives in Hollywood, writes Andrew Klavan in the Washington Post. Unfortunately, they are all tip-toeing and cowering, afraid of being dismissed by liberals who run the town—and it’s time that stopped. Liberal values pervade TV and movies, and not just in message films. It is artistic...

Du Maurier: Neglected Genius?
 Du Maurier:
 Neglected Genius? 
OPINION
Aug 2, 2008 7:51 PM CDT

Du Maurier: Neglected Genius?

Author of Rebecca was more than pop-lit hack

(Newser) - Novelist Daphne du Maurier’s works have been read by millions, adapted into films, and kept in print for decades—yet she has been unable to shake her reputation as a pop-lit hack. Cynthia Crossen looks at her career in the Wall Street Journal and argues that the author of...

'Realish' Sedaris Book Skirts Memoir Scrutiny

Genre 'the last place you’d expect to find the truth,' humorist says

(Newser) - With his new book of nonfiction essays, Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris finds himself engulfed in questions of truth and accuracy. In America, the recent explosion of memoirs has been followed with one scandal after another, prompting more scrutiny of the humorist’s work. “I do think Sedaris exaggerates...

Graphic Bod Novel Jars Germany
Graphic Bod Novel Jars Germany
Jun 6, 2008 4:16 AM CDT

Graphic Bod Novel Jars Germany

Female author delves way deep into sex and femininity

(Newser) - A highly explicit novel that explores every body crevice of its teenage female narrator has scandalized Germany—and topped bestseller lists, the New York Times reports. The controversial novel, which mixes the anatomical and scatological with the erotic, is a feminist statement challenging a world that expects women to be...

Striking Writers Enlist Kids
Striking Writers Enlist Kids
Nov 12, 2007 6:20 PM CST

Striking Writers Enlist Kids

Writers use Veterans Day to teach kids and garner attention

(Newser) - Striking scribes took advantage of Veterans Day to bring their kids to picket lines in Los Angeles today, the AP reports. The move garnered attention and gave parents a chance to tutor youngsters in payments and residuals. "It's a little rude for the producers to take so much and...

Literary Bull Blundered and Thrived
Literary Bull Blundered
and Thrived
Nov 10, 2007 7:33 PM CST

Literary Bull Blundered and Thrived

Time and Salon critics recall brilliant, failed, iconic Mailer

(Newser) - Egotist, chauvinist, brawler, Mailer battled "a culture subsiding into room temperature," Time says. His work vented "his own inner conditions" as he lurched from fame at age 25 to so-so books to his "brilliant" Armies of the Night in 1968. He made big gaffes—blaming patients...

Stories 81 - 100 | << Prev   Next >>