Search Results for: fiction

The Andrew Wylie Rules

Longreads Pick

The renowned literary agent on his hatred of Amazon, commercial fiction, and the future of book publishing:

"I didn’t think that [in 2010] the publishing community had properly assessed—particularly in regard to its obligations to writers—what an equitable arrangement would look like.

"And I felt that publishers had made a huge mistake, because they were pressured by Apple and Amazon to make concessions that they shouldn’t have made.

“These distribution issues come and go. It wasn’t so long ago that Barnes and Noble was this monster publishing leatherette classics, threatening to put backlists out of print. Amazon will go, and Apple will go, and it’ll all go.”

Published: Oct 8, 2013
Length: 9 minutes (2,336 words)

Longreads Member Pick: 'A Semester with Allen Ginsberg,' by Elissa Schappell

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This week we’re excited to feature Elissa Schappell‘s essay, “The Craft of Poetry: A Semester with Allen Ginsberg,” as our Longreads Member Pick. Her recollections are an intimate window into the Beat legend. The piece originally appeared in the Summer 1995 issue of the Paris Review and was later anthologized in their 1999 collection Beat Writers at Work. Thanks to Schappell and the Paris Review for sharing it with the Longreads community:

Of all the literature classes I have ever taken in my life Allen Ginsberg’s “Craft of Poetry” was not only the most memorable and inspiring, but the most useful to me as a writer.
First thought, best thought.
It’s 1994 and I am getting my MFA in fiction at NYU. I’m sitting in the front row of a dingy classroom with a tape recorder and a notebook. The tape recorder is to record Allen Ginsberg, the big daddy of the Beat’s “Craft of Poetry” lectures for a feature I’m writing for The Paris Review. No. Lectures is the wrong word—Ginsberg’s thought operas, his spontaneous jet streams of brilliance, his earthy Dharma Lion roars—that’s what I’m there to capture. His teaching method is, as he explains it, “to improvise to some extent and it have it real rather than just a rote thing.”
It was very real.
The education Ginsberg provided me exceeds the bounds of the classroom, and far beyond the craft of poetry. Look inward and let go, he said. Pay attention to your world, read everything. For as he put it, “If the mind is shapely the art will be shapely.”

—Elissa Schappell, 2013

Read an excerpt here. 

Become a Longreads Member to receive the full ebook.

Photo via MCDarchives

‘You’re in Trouble. Am I Right?’: My Unsentimental Education

Debra Monroe, 1977 (Photo courtesy of the author)

Debra Monroe | 2012 | 20 minutes (5,101 words)

Debra Monroe is the author of six books, including the memoir “My Unsentimental Education” which will appear in October 2015. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The American Scholar, Doubletake, The Morning News and The Southern Review, and she is frequently shortlisted for The Best American Essays. This essay—which is an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir—first appeared on John Griswold‘s Inside Higher Ed blog, and our thanks to Monroe for allowing us to reprint it here. Read more…

We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

Longreads Pick

New fiction from Dave Eggers, adapted from his new novel The Circle, about a woman hired to work for a social network:

“Dan winced. ‘No, it’s not that. You handle your workload just fine. But we missed you at the Industrial Revolution party last Thursday night, which was a pretty crucial team-building event, centered on a product we’re all very proud of. You missed at least two newbie events, and at the circus the other night, it looked like you couldn’t wait to leave. I think you were out of there in 20 minutes. Those things might be understandable if your Participation Rank wasn’t so low. Do you know what it is?'”

Published: Sep 28, 2013
Length: 32 minutes (8,067 words)

Required Reading from Journalism Professors

Photo by Seth Sawyers

Below, six syllabi from journalism professors on what you should be reading.

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1. Journalism 494: Pollner Seminar In Narrative Non-Fiction With Esquire’s Chris Jones (University of Montana)

“The purpose of this course is to teach students how to write publishable magazine-length narrative non-fiction: In other words, my aim is to help you learn how to write good, long, true stories. The course outline will mirror a typical writer’s progress through the birth of an idea to a finished, polished piece, including reporting, writing, editing, and fact-checking. In addition to classroom discussion, course readings will help students understand the difference between good and bad work. My hope is that by the end of the semester, you will have written the Best Story of Your Life So Far (BSOYLSF) and it will help you reach your future potential as an award-winning literary journalist.”

2. Journalism 141: Professional Problems and Ethics in Journalism (by Philip Meyer, University of North Carolina)

“The subculture of journalism is no longer as confident of its success. 
Its old values are increasingly under question. The topic of this course
is therefore a moving target. We shall approach it with two organizing principles:

“A critical study of traditional journalistic values, the historical forces that created them. An evaluation of social and technological changes that threaten that subculture – and possibly its value system.”

3. Introduction to Literary Reportage (by Robert S. Boynton, NYU) (PDF)

“The goal of this course is to help you create a distinctive body of work and, eventually, a capstone piece of literary reportage. It has three basic components. First, it will guide you through the research, reporting and thinking to refine and focus the project you will begin in Portfolio I. Second, it will introduce you to some of the authors, editors and publications of the genre. Third, it will familiarize you with some of the journalistic strategies you will use in your own work.”

4. Journalism 676: Investigative Reporting With Pulitzer Prize-Winner Deborah Blum

“I’m happy to share a syllabus, although they’ve gotten more and more abbreviated over the last few years. That’s because, as you know, investigations never seem to follow a planned path. Basically these days, I just do an oral presentation and assignments and we build deadlines, etc. in to the semester, depending on where we are. We do a lot of oral reports and feedback in this class and in the last month of the semester, we start writing/fact-checking/filling in gaps based on the information we’ve assembled.”

5. Syllabus for Telling Stories: the Art of Narrative Non-Fiction (by Alex Kotlowitz, Dartmouth) (PDF)

“This course will explore the art of telling stories – true stories. The craft is often called Literary Journalism or Creative Nonfiction. The writer John McPhee calls it The Literature of Fact, which I prefer for its lack of pretention and for its lack of ambiguity. In this class, we’ll talk about finding story, about reporting and of course about writing, about how one goes about making sense of the tale at hand. I want to push people to find stories outside of the familiar. 
“It’s what makes this craft so exhilarating, to find yourself in places you’d never have reason to be or with people you’d never have reason to meet. What could be more exciting. More challenging.”

6. JOU 6309: Journalism as Literature – Fall 2009 (by Dr. Ronald Rogers, University of Florida)

“This course lies at the crossroads of journalism and literature. During the next 15 weeks we will explore the journalistic, historical and critical tangents that make up the notion of literary journalism as we read and analyze some of the best reportage ever written. In the process of reading the works of many fine journalists, we will weigh how form and content work together to create great factual literature.

“This course has a six-pronged approach. It is a smorgasbord of delectables – all, or any one of which, I hope, you will find tasty. We will explore:

“1. Literary journalism’s historical antecedents – or should we say founders?

“2. Literary journalism’s future in the age of the connected computer.

“3. The criticism literary journalism has received from friend and foe alike.

“4. The theory behind this genre.

“5. The techniques that comprise and define this genre.

“6. Ways of toppling the inverted pyramid in developing our own individual writing styles using the techniques of literary journalism.”

Bonus: What’s On Your Syllabus? (Nieman Storyboard)

Featuring Jacqui Banaszynski, Mark Bowden, Madeleine Blais, Robert Boynton, Jeff Sharlet and Rebecca Skloot.

First Chapters: ‘White Oleander,’ by Janet Fitch

Longreads Pick

This week we’re excited to introduce First Chapters, a new series on Longreads dedicated to sharing your favorite first chapters, nonfiction or fiction, past or present. Our first pick comes from Longreads contributing editor Julia Wick, who has chosen Janet Fitch’s 1999 novel White Oleander. If you want to recommend a First Chapter, let us know and we’ll feature you and your pick: hello@longreads.com.

Source: Longreads
Published: Sep 22, 2013
Length: 18 minutes (4,708 words)

College Longreads Pick: 'The Media Diet' by Stephanie Maris, Ryerson University

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Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick:

The Internet may have turned us all into self diagnosticians, but we still crave health guidance from the media. “Eat this, not that,” admonishes Dave Zinczenko. Exercise 30 minutes a day, three times a week. Or 10 minutes, three times a day. But writer Stephanie Maris suggests that it’s not just conflicting science that confuses us, it’s bad health reporting. In her compelling critique of health journalism, Maris identifies why readers love health and wellness news, and how journalists can sometimes confound more than elucidate.

“…[I]n many ways health reporting has come to mimic tabloid entertainment: stories on nutrition, fitness and lifestyle are ubiquitous and hard to sift through, which makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction. The result is a cycle of (often inaccurate) “bad for you” and “next big thing” stories that risk discrediting the entire health beat. On top of that, in place of real health help, readers and viewers are left following a potentially harmful “Media Diet” based on miracle cures, fad diets, superfoods and food scares.”

The Media Diet

Stephanie Maris | Ryerson Review of Journalism | Jan. 8, 2013 | 14 minutes (3,561 words)

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Professors and students: Share your favorite stories by tagging them with #college #longreads on Twitter, or email links to aileen@longreads.com.

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Podcast Pick: 'Dec. 31, 1995'

Random Tape is a podcast by David Weinberg, and it’s exactly what its name implies—it’s audio from a random tape. The most recent episode (discovered via @samlistens) is “Dec. 31, 1995,” and it records a troubling argument between what appears to be an older couple, Kenneth and Miriam. 

We asked Weinberg for some context:

“The Kenneth and Miriam tape came from a stranger—a guy who liked the podcast and sent it to me. He picked the cassette up at an estate sale, I can’t remember where though. The unedited tape is so dark. It just goes on and on. There’s no redemption in it. Kenneth and Miriam just get drunker and drunker and meaner and meaner. There’s little forensic evidence of anything other than a bitter marriage and Fox news is playing in the background. Not one sweet moment in the whole recording.

“The first time I listened to it I was in an airport. I distinctly remember watching a stream of people emerge from a plane and feeling really sad for Miriam and disgusted with Kenneth and wondering which of the people walking past me were actually monsters. It was one those recordings that haunted me. (In a strange coincidence I found out later from the man who sent me the tape that Kenneth was an airline pilot.) And at the same time I was a little elated. I had the feeling I get when I come a cross a really great piece of undiscovered tape. And of course I wanted to know more more about Kenneth and Miriam. So I made it up. It’s the first time I tried to do a kind of hybrid piece of writing fiction around found tape.”

Check out more from Random Tape here.

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18 Deep Interviews with Great Writers

"Frost/Nixon" — Imagine/Working Title Films

Kevin Smokler is the author of Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven’t Touched Since High School, an essay collection on the year he spent rereading 50 canonical texts from high school English class as a 39-year-old adult.

Out of everything shared in the #Longreads community, I particularly love the interviews. I even created my own hashtag (#deepinterviews) and you can find my most recent picks here.

And when it comes to authors, a great interview can completely reframe a book that you’ve read a thousand times, or give you the onramp into an writer’s work you haven’t yet experienced. Below are five of my favorite sources and recent discoveries for outstanding author interviews:

1. The Paris Review

Favorites: Take your pick. I’m particularly fond of authors you know are great talkers (Dorothy Parker, James Ellroy), who don’t show up much in MFA programs (William Gibson, Maya Angelou) and those who work in more than one genre (Joan Didion, Lillian Hellman).

2. The Millions

Favorites: Adam Mansbach, Michelle Orange and Katherine Boo.

3. AV Club

Favorites: Terry Pratchett, TV Critic Alan SepinwallJonathan Franzen.

4. eMusic Q&A

I’ve been an eMusic subscriber for years and had no idea they trafficked in audiobooks. That is until I ran across a very fine Q&A with short story writer Elissa Schappell. The audiobook of Schappell’s collection “Building Blueprints for Better Girls” was the excuse to talk with her not only about her work but the music that inspired it.

Other favorites: Eddie Huang, George Saunders, Greil Marcus, Ernie Cline.

5. Book Riot

Favorites: “Their 15 Minutiae” (with Emma Straub here) in which writers are asked about everything EXCEPT books and writing. Conceived and executed by bookseller Liberty Hardy, it’s a brilliant example of how an interview with an author should reveal the author as an interesting person who writes books not someone interesting because they write books.

Addendum: Ms. Hardy is also the creator of Paperback to the Future, a Netflix/Personal Shopper for Books kind of program. Which means she is crazy busy these days and “Their 15 Minutiae” is on temporary hold. We understand why but still say “come back soon.”

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Share your favorite interviews in the comments.

Our Longreads Member Pick: A Look Back at New York Woman Magazine

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This week a debate erupted about “serious journalism” in women’s magazines—and as part of this discussion, several magazine editors reflected fondly on the work of the late, great magazine New York Woman and its founding editor, Betsy Carter. New York Woman was published from 1986-1992; Carter went on to work for O, the Oprah Magazine and write books including Nothing to Fall Back On: The Life and Times of a Perpetual Optimist. She also just finished her fourth novel. 

We asked Carter to share a story from the New York Woman archives, and she chose “The Jogger D.A.,” by Victoria Balfour, from 1991. Carter explains: 

“It was the harrowing New York crime story of the late eighties and every woman’s nightmare: a twenty-nine-year old female investment banker brutally beaten, raped and left for dead in a remote area of Central Park. Eventually, five teenage boys from Harlem were found guilty and sent to jail. As a monthly magazine with a three month lead time on a story that was in the papers nearly every day, New York Woman decided to focus on ‘The Jogger D.A.,’ the prosecutor in the case, Liz Lederer, a young newcomer to the DA’s office.

“Now, twenty-two years later, the story has re-emerged with the discovery that the five young men were wrongfully convicted, and Liz Lederer has been vilified for coercing false confessions from those men. This piece revisits the hysteria that surrounded that crime, and the pressure on the woman in the DA’s office to get it solved. It’s also an example of how, at New York Woman, we tried to find our own take on a story of the moment, and how we gave it the kind of time and space it warranted.

“The goal of New York Woman was to speak to women of the city much as they would speak among themselves. We did investigative pieces, cartoons, reviews, fiction, humor—using the best writers in the city. No topic was off-limits. We tried to capture whatever was in the air and give it a unique spin that spoke to our readers.”

 
Thanks to Betsy and Victoria for sharing this story with Longreads Members.