Siri Hustvedt: “… I do think there is a relation between fiction and dreaming. It’s a kind of conscious dreaming. You know how, in dreams, you can have the composite of two people from your life? You know it’s supposed to be your brother, but it doesn’t look like your brother? These kinds of things–what Freud would call ???condensations mingling’–are part of the process of writing fiction. Most of it has happened unconsciously before it arrives on the page.”
After a hiatus and relocation, Carolyn Kizer’s Poetry Northwest is up and running again.
Oscar Hijuelos on Donald Barthelme: “There are two things I can say about Donald. One, he was a word man; he loved language. Even though he wrote a certain way–minimalist, sort of collage-like–if he read something that he thought had heart and if he admired the language, he didn’t care what he was reading. Second, the guy had a heart of gold with his students. He was not a snob. He would judge the work on its own basis.”
Pending approval, Borders could start liquidating its remaining 399 stores this Friday. A victory for indie bookstores and e-books, or another blow to the state of reading culture in general? You decide.
Speaking of disappearing acts, imagine libraries“ without books.
Thirteen-year-old poet Autum Ashante registered an IQ test score of 149, is fluent in Spanish, Swahili, and Arabic, and was scheduled to attend the University of Connecticut to study medicine next fall. But a few weeks ago, the college rescinded her acceptance; the official reason was that she wasn’t “academically ready,” but some are speculating it has more to do with her “radical poetry.”
What happens when poetry websites die? They get reincarnated as warped, eerie, search-engine-optimized versions of their former selves by someone out to make a buck. (Thanks to Nick Admussen for the tip-off.)
Stephen Wiltshire, a self-described “autistic savant,” is displaying his artwork in New York’s JFK Airport this month. Among his accomplishments: completing a hand-drawn panorama of the entire Manhattan skyline after viewing it from a helicopter. On sheer memory. In four days.