Minn Post’s Amy Goetzman writes about the popularity of writing programs in trying financial times and talks to Amy Shearn a U of M MFA Graduate about her first novel, How Far is the Ocean From Here.
Largehearted Boy’s Best Books of 2008 continues to grow and grow.
I found this on Larghearted boy, and it’s gonna make Christa super happy. Klosterman’s Killing Yourself to Live is gonna make its way to the big screen.
Drugs in Literature: A Brief History. All the examples are men. Don’t women use and write? Maybe I should send The Guardian some of my finer drunken blog posts [via]
Okay, I cannot resist sharing with you not just this link but the total cheesedog headline that goes with it. From the PiPress: Minnesota fiction writers offer a winter wonderland of new works.
Over at the LA Times Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellogg asks How do you write what you know when all you know is writing?.
The Strib gathers up a handful of book for young readers (a topic I am especially interested in lately with Christmas coming up).
In case you missed it: The Bad Sex nominees are out, and the National Book Awards were, um, awarded? (I still haven’t forgiven the NBF for that fucking awful The News from Paraguay.
Here are some great t-shirts for the Twilight hater in your life. Also, The Dairi Burger’s Over-analyzed Twilight study guide is hilarious.
Oh! To go along with the death of reading, the death of the short story, and the death of the novel, we now have the death of the blog. There is much eye-rolling here in my corner.
The Onion’s AV Club lists 27 Web sites that became books. MN Reads did not make the list.
10 best literary insults. Which reminds me that I have a book on my non-fiction shelf upstairs called Literary Feuds. I should probably read that, I’d probably dig it.
Amazon’s Ominvoracious’ The Books of the States feature finally hits Wisconsin and Iowa. We should be soon. I predict F. Scott Fitz, Tim O’Brien, and Charles Schultz will make the cut, and secretly hope Joshua Furst’s Sabotage Cafe and David Carr’s The Night of the Gun get a nods.
Girl Detective reviews The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell.
i have to admit that i hated “killing yourself to live.” it seemed like a good way for spin to pay for klosto to drive around the country staring at himself in the rear view mirror. this is mostly why i assumed i’d hate “downtown owl.”
but i’ll totally go to the movie. just like i’m totally going to twilight.
I am torn on Twilight. I want to see it because I bet it’s about 10,999 times better than the book. But then I don’t want to pump anymore money into the sparkly vampire machine.
Amy Shearn is great (she did a wonderful Book Notes essay for her novel).
I thought that Killing Yourself to Live would make a much better movie than book when I was reading it.
All I know is they get Michael Cera or John Cusack to play Klosterman, I will hurt someone.