Baratunde Thurston
Literary Death Match will return to the Oberon on Wednesday, Sept. 12, starting at 8:15pm sharp with How to Be Black author Baratunde Thurston and local writers Molly Birnbaum, Carissa Halston and Ori Fienberg. Continue reading
The monthly Dire Literary Series, hosted by Timothy Gager, next week will feature Chris Beldon, Michael Graves and Steve Macone.
Held at 8pm Friday, Sept. 7, at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery, 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge, the night features an open mic preceding readings by these authors.
Learn more about this month’s readers. Continue reading
From WGBHNews: Is being an author like being an entrepreneur in today’s world? E-books and social media are changing the world of publishing. Boston Public Radio’s Kara Miller spoke with Taryn Roeder, a publicist at Houghton Mifflin, and Eve Bridburg, a literary agent and the executive director at Grub Street, about how marketing and sales tactics, along with the authors’ responsibilities, are rapidly changing. Continue reading
Extract(s) has a sneak peak of The Language of Men, a memoir by Massachusetts writer Anthony D’Aries:
My father speaks his own language. A hillbilly twang of the Looney Tunes dialect – Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam – mixed with the African-American jive of the dirtiest comedians – Redd Foxx or Richard Pryor. His swearing is part of a well-oiled machine, except when a driver cuts him off – then higher-octane terms explode from his mouth. He cuts words in half, stresses whichever syllable he wants. Verbs become nouns and vice versa. He throws in song lyrics, movie quotes, even slogans from TV commercials. It all swirls together and all you can do is try to keep up.
Read more of The Language of Men at Extract(s). Visit the website of Anthony D’Aries.
Speaking of, D’Aries will be at the Brookline Booksmith this Tuesday, Aug. 28, at 7pm for a reading from the memoir. So, too, are these fine debut authors:
And earlier this month, local debut novelist David R. Gillham read from City of Women, Maryanne O’Hara read from Cascade, and Brookline local artist Joe McKendry read from One Times Square: A Century of Change at the Crossroads of the World.
Writer Tim Weed announced his short story Snarl has been nominated for Sundress Publications’ 2012 anthology.
Rebecca Harrington, author of Penelope. Photo by Michael Lionstar.
EW’s Shelf Life has an interview with 26-year-old author and Harvard grad Rebecca Harrington on her new novel, Penelope, about a young, socially awkward girl trying to navigate the culture at the Ivy League campus.
Penelope was inspired more by the tradition of British campus novels than her own experiences. “I was reading a lot of novels set at Oxford and Cambridge, like Lucky Jim and Decline and Fall, which viewed education less as this kind of transcendentalist, transformative experience and more as a series of absurd accidents happening over and over again,” says Harrington. “I decided to transpose that form and see if I can do it in an American setting. … Sometimes college can be more absurd and alienating than it is transformative and really fun. In America, you have these models of college where it’s either like Animal House or Good Will Hunting.”
Pushcart-Prize-winner Steve Almond will judge Fringe Magazine’s first flash fiction contest. First prize is $350 and publication in Fringe, second prize $100, and third prize is $50. All entries will be considered for publication. Submissions are now open and will close at midnight on October 15, 2012.
Writer/comedian Steve Macone
Grub Street members were treated to free drinks and snacks and a taste of live stand-up comedy by Tim McIntire (one of the most popular and prolific comedians in New England for over a decade), Steve Macone (contributor for The Onion), and Alingon Mitra (comedian-in-residence at the Comedy Studio in Harvard square). It was a wonderful night of drinking, mingling and shooting the lit. A slideshow is up at Grub Daily.
Mira Bartok, children’s book writer and essayist, reads from her memoir “The Memory Palace,” her first book for adults. She explores the relationship between herself, her sister, and their mentally ill mother.
WGBHForum has uploaded videos of readings and lectures from forum-network.org onto its YouTube site.
William Giraldi reads from Busy Monsters at Literary Death Match in November 2011.
Since the New York Times published William Giraldi’s review of Alix Ohlin’s novel and short story collection last weekend, many writers have criticized his review as being narcissistic and unnecessarily harsh. Some consider it an example of a reviewer who simply does not enjoy the genre of the artist’s work and who lambasts the genre without actually reviewing or acknowledging any merits of the works in question.
Two Grub Street instructors responded on the Grub Daily blog. Continue reading
Rosie Sultan’s historial novel Helen Keller in Love, published by Viking on May 1, has been featured in Good Housekeeping magazine, The Huffington Post, Deep South magazine, Library Journal and Booklist.
The Brookline resident won a PEN Discovery Award for a novel-in-progress, House of Teeth, nominated by historian Howard Zinn. She earned her MFA at Goddard College in Vermont and was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught writing at Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Suffolk University.
Boston Writers Review founder Stanley Dankoski interviewed Sultan about her experiences as an emerging writer in the Boston area. Read on for the interview, an excerpt of her novel, and upcoming events — including a Grub Street book club on Thursday night this week.
Grub Street members and their friends are invited to a member mixer Pub & Grub, tonight at 7pm at Grub Street, 162 Boylston St., Boston. The event features up-and-coming writer/comedian Steve Macone and comedians Tim McIntire and Alingon Mitra. Continue reading
Jane Dyer
“Children’s book illustrator Jane Dyer was the subject of a bizarre attack at her home in Massachusetts from which she is still recovering. The suspect allegedly entered Dyer’s house in the town of Cummington and struck her on the back of the head with a shovel; when she fell to the ground, he repeatedly beat her with a blunt instrument. The attacker ran off as she fended off blows and called for help.” Continue reading
Bestsellers cafe in Medford, MA
Bestsellers Café in Medford reopened last Thursday, more than five years after it shut down for renovations on its 19th-century building that were supposed to last five months. Continue reading
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich interviewed “Leaving Mundania” author Lizzie Stark about the rules and intricacies of live-action role-playing, or LARP. Continue reading
Boston Writers Review 