by DrMabuse

Update

Life has us busy, but we do promise something pretty huge on this site in the next couple of days. That is all.

by DrMabuse

Update

I’ve been in the middle of packing (books — too many books), so I have no idea if the photocopies of Norman Mailer’s Xeroxed butt, which have caused at least three heart attacks and one epileptic seizure, have finally been released to the Internet. But Lizzie reports that there’s a new column in this month’s Poets & Writers in which Laila, Maud and myself were referenced. I haven’t read the column, but I appreciate that Poets & Writers has started to not only pick up on the stories and developments of my peers (Laila was the first to note the scandal), but also gone to the trouble to source them. With literary blogs beginning to develop beyond news filtering and ancillary zingers into full-blown profiles and reviews, I think this might be the beginning of a mutually majestic relationship. But more on this later.

I now return you back to your regularly scheduled hiatus, which means intermittent literary news in the next four days and a vague glow of activity until July 4th. After that, the hope is to up the ante and get this site pepping with some more meaty offerings (along with a design upgrade) within the time allotted.

Also, Rake has unveiled the perfect antidote to the Book Babes.

2 Comments

  1. Ed,

    The following comes from the Online Only aspect of P&W:

    TALK ABOUT WRITERS GIVING BACK!
    JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER RETURNS PEN MONEY

    Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated (Houghton Mifflin, 2002), recently announced that he returned the money he received from the PEN American Center when he won the PEN/Robert Bigham Fellowship last month. The fellowship carries with it a $35,000 annual stipend for two consecutive years.

    Responding to criticism on Edward Champion’s blog, edrants.com, that this year’s PEN awards were given to a large number of financially secure authors, Foer wrote, “Just wanted to let you guys know that I completely agree with most everything you said about monetary awards and whom they should go to. That’s why I gave the money—every cent of it—back to PEN, which is as deserving as groups get. I didn’t make a big deal about it, because it didn’t seem fair to any other winners, who might have needed the money at the moment. But on the other hand, I’d had to take flack for something I didn’t do.”

    The PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship is awarded to a promising fiction writer whose debut novel or short story collection represents a “literary achievement.” The other two recipients of this year’s fellowships are Will Heinrich (The King’s Evil, Scribner, 2003) and Monique Truong (The Book of Salt, Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

    posted 6.9.04

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by DrMabuse

Update

Other things tie me up. Cool, quasi-important things. Said things may tie me up further, depending upon what happens this week. And, no, it doesn’t involving that taffeta sun dress that I haven’t told you about or becoming a born again Christian. Sadly, sex isn’t involved at all. But it’s all good, I assure you.

What does this mean to you the reader? Well, instead of being deluged with 4,000 words a day, you’ll only be hit with 500 or so. At least for the next couple of days.

So Part 3 of The Huge Response to the Huge 2 Blowhards Post will have to wait. At least for now. Though I’ll still be here to offer the usual book links and smarmy asides. Thanks, as always, for reading.