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Bret Easton Ellis answered questions about his disparaging remarks about David Foster Wallace; Bill Morris revisits the life, work, and childhood home of Henry Miller; Michael Saler examines the philosopical origins of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; and other news.
The Academy of American Poets asked Randall Mann, Marilyn Hacker, D. Nurkse, Matt Rasmussen, Patricia Smith, and Brenda Hillman to talk about the most important letters they've received.
In Writers Recommend, Amy Shearn extols the virtues of coffee and its importance in her daily writing routine. Write a dialogue in which two characters are deprived of something: caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, sweets—or perhaps something as seemingly banal as cellular service, television, or the Internet. Now give one character his or her fix, leaving the other without, and rewrite the dialogue.
Amazon workers in Germany have called a strike; Flavorwire gathered the handwritten outlines from several major authors; Sara Vilkomerson examines Judy Blume's relationship with Hollywood; and other news.
Katherine Noble, a senior in the English Department at the University of Texas in Austin, has received the Keene Prize for Literature for her collection of poems, “Like Electrical Fire Across the Silence.” She will receive $50,000.
Noble is the first undergraduate to win or even place in the Keene competition, one of the world’s largest student literary prizes, which has been given annually to University of Texas students since 2006. Graduate students in the university’s Michener Center MFA program typically take home the award.
“The judges were impressed by her audacious combination of spirituality with sexuality, by her wide range of literary reference, and her bold experimentation with the form of the prose poem,” said Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, chair of the Department of English and the award selection committee, of Nobel’s poems.
“I have been affected by images from biblical myths since I was a young girl,” Noble said in a press release, “and the narrators in my poems often wrestle to understand how God interacts with the physical world.”
In addition to Noble, three finalists will each receive $17,000. They are Corey Miller, a current Michener Center graduate student, for his collection of poems “The New Concentration”; Karan Mahajan, also a Michener Center graduate student, for an excerpt from his novel “Notes on a Small Bomb”; and Jenn Shapland, an English Department graduate student, for her essay collection “Finders Keepers.”
Fiction writer Fiona McFarlane, a Michener Center graduate, whose stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Missouri Review, and elsewhere, received the 2012 prize.
Established by the the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas, the Keene Prize is given in honor of E. L. Keene, a 1942 graduate of the university who “envisioned an award that would enhance and enrich the university’s prestige and support the work of young writers,” which would be given for “the most vivid and vital portrayal of the American experience in microcosm.” The award is given to enrolled undergraduate or graduate students for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or plays.
Directed by James Franco, who also stars as Darl Bundren, As I Lay Dying will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival later this month. Based on the 1930 classic by William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, which was filmed in Canton Mississippi, is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest to honor her wish to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson.
Print or write out a handful of unfinished poems you’ve had difficulty revising. Cut out each line and mix them up. Rearrange the lines to make a new poem. Consider using one of the lines as the title.
The Writers’ Union of Canada will soon decide whether to admit self-published authors; playwright David Hare will adapt Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers for the London stage; a long-lost journal composed by poet W. H. Auden has been discovered; and other news.
First published in 1925, The Great Gatsby has been reprinted in many different editions and in many different formats. Richard from AbeBooks.com counts down thirty of the covers used to illustrate the novel over the past eighty-eight years.
What is the best advice you can give young writers who are applying to MFA programs?
My advice is to understand that you don’t need an MFA to be a great writer. That said, getting an MFA is a wonderful thing! If you decide to pursue an MFA, you’ll get an automatic community of other burgeoning writers who will give you honest critiques of your works-in-progress, you’ll gain access to accomplished professors, and you’ll have uninterrupted time to focus on honing your craft. I would only caution that an MFA in no way guarantees you that your work will ever be published, nor does it necessarily provide access to a teaching job. It is, however, a wonderful luxury, and I advise you to savor every second of it.
