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A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
In 1966 Allen Ginsberg wrote the anti-war poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" (composing it as he spoke into a recorder while travelling across the Midwest.) Twenty-two years later the poet met composer Philip Glass in a bookstore in New York City's East Village, a chance encounter that eventually led to a collaboration that yielded this piece, which is featured on Glass's 1990 album, Hydrogen Jukebox.
The award-winning author most recently of Solar (Nan A. Talese, 2010) describes how he develops ideas and finds inspiration for his writing. "I do a lot of hiking," he says, "and the rhythm of walking is very amenable...to the rhythm of thinking."
Didn't like that novel? Disappointed with that poetry collection? Consider turning it into art using the simple steps in this brief how-to video.
In one of the more disturbing book trailers released in recent months, director James Lees presents his vision of David Whitehouse's debut novel, Bed, forthcoming from Scribner in August. Described as "masterful" by Publishers Weekly, the novel tells the story of two brothers, one of whom refuses to leave his bed on his twenty-fifth birthday.
According to Salman Rushdie, the key to writing is concentration, not inspiration. He tells the fine folks at Big Think that writing "requires deep attention to your characters, to the world they live in, and to the story you have to tell."
Melville House Publishing has announced the finalists for the 2011 Moby Awards, which honor the best (and worst) book trailers produced in the previous year. The awards are given in eight categories, including Book Trailer as Stand Alone Art Object, in which the trailer for Lisa Dierbeck's The Autobiography of Jenny X (OR Books, 2010) is a finalist. The winners will be named tomorrow night.
"Just because it happened doesn't make it interesting." Author and teacher Marion Roach Smith offers this and other priceless nuggets of advice for anyone thinking of writing a memoir in The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life, forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing on June 9.
The Welcome, which premiered at the Ashland Independent Film Festival in Oregon last month, is a documentary film about a group of veterans who met over Memorial Day weekend in 2008 to use poetry and storytelling to come to terms with their experiences in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. You can read some of the resulting poems and watch videos of the veterans reading them at The Welcome Home Project's website.
In a followup to last year's trailer for Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, Random House recently released this trailer, starring Paul Giamatti as the author's roommate, to coincide with this month's paperback release of the novel.
Looking for a distinctive cover for your homemade chapbook or writing journal? Check out book artist Pam Deluco's process of using recycled denim to make paper in this video, which was produced by Shape What's to Come, an online community of women sponsored by—who else?—Levi's. When your cover is ready, have a look at DIY: How to Make and Bind Chapbooks.
