An online audio archive at the University of Virginia features conversations between Faulkner and audiences, as well as the author reading his work (he fulfilled two terms as UVA’s first Writer-in-Residence from 1957-58).
A century and a half later, Melville’s Civil War poetry resurfaces.
Bruce Duffy, on writing a novel about Rimbaud: “Here’s a dilemma. You’re a writing fiction based on the life of an historical figure, and although you can stretch the truth, you cannot change the fundamental nature of your hero, a man roundly known at times to have been nasty, sadistic, and arrogant–even a jerk.”
What’s your poem about, anyhow?
Then meets now: see how artificial intelligence chatbots answered Proust’s famous personality survey.
From Byron, to Poe, to David Lynch, then Moby: what might influence look like, mapped out?
Below, Sugar House Review, via their Facebook page, confirms what you already knew about the insomniac habits of writers through a chart of the literary magazine’s daily traffic:
Mark Doty: “When I was a 17-year-old poet, and a dedicated young surrealist, I had a conference with William Stafford, a genuinely insightful and generous man. He read the three or four poems I presented to him while I sat quietly and watched. Then he said, ???Well, I have a feeling that these are poems in heaven, but they’re not poems on earth yet.’ I loved this. “What he said, and the way he said it, made me feel I was capable of doing that work. It wasn’t impossible, and if I applied myself, I’d be rewarded. We went on and talked for a while about the poems or whatever, but he didn’t really need to say another thing.”
Biographer Tracy Daugherty on subject Joseph Heller at the Paris Review blog–since this fall marks the fiftieth anniversary ofCatch 22.
William Vollman–or an impostor–wants to make sure you never read his book at the library.