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The NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown recently spent some time with poet Natalie Diaz, author of the collection When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), who is working to preserve the rapidly disappearing Mojave language.
Karen Thompson Walker's debut novel, one of the books generating a lot of prepublication buzz this summer, sets the coming-of-age story of an eleven-year-old girl against the backdrop of a natural calamity unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Foreign rights to The Age of Miracles have already been sold in more than two dozen countries; Random House will publish it in the U.S. later this month.
"When you start out on a career in the arts, you have no idea what you're doing. This is great," says bestselling author Neil Gaiman in his commencement address to the class of 2012 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. "People who know what they're doing know the rules and they know what is possible and what is impossible. You do not. And you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you can."
"Now that I'm a grownup, I'm appalled to find out how much of my time is spent having unbelievably boring conversations," says satirical cartoonist Tim Kreider in this trailer for his new book of essays and cartoons, We Learn Nothing (Free Press), in which he turns his funny, brutally honest eye to the dark truths of the human condition.
This animated short film based on Leni Zumas's first novel, The Listeners, published by Tin House Books this month, features art and animation by Luca Dipierro and music by Father Murphy. Zumas was featured in the magazine's First Fiction Annual back in 2008 for her debut story collection, Farewell Navigator (Open City Books).
This short film, starring comedian and author Mike Birbiglia and "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross, was part of last week's live "This American Life" show that was seen in movie theaters across the country. Birbiglia's 2010 book, Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories, was made into a movie that will be released by IFC Films this fall.
The trailer for Are You My Mother? offers a glimpse into Alison Bechdel's fascinating "metabook," published this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in which she investigates her mother's life in search of clues about the mother-daughter gulf. For a closer look, check out this issue's installment of The Written Image.
The trailer for Patrick Somerville's second novel, This Bright River, forthcoming in late June from Regan Arthur Books, will likely strike a chord with anyone who grew up in the pre-Internet age playing text adventures such as Zork (which also factors into the back story of one of the new novel's main characters, Ben Hanson). "I hoped that the 'user'—as well as the viewer—would be a little creeped out, but also intrigued," Somerville says. Mission accomplished.
In this video from the Daily Beast, literary agent and author Bill Clegg, who was one of four agents featured on the cover of our July/August 2011 issue, talks about shame, recovery from drug addiction, and his new memoir, NInety Days: A Memoir of Recovery. When you're done watching the video, listen to an audio clip of Clegg reading an excerpt from the book.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land speaks about his new novel, Canada, to be published by Ecco next month.
