March 20, 2024
A reminder for friends in the northeast: next Wednesday at 6:30pm, Alexander Sammartino and I will chat about his debut novel, Last Acts, at Grey Matter Books in New Haven. Please do join us.
This week I’ll note a few exciting spring issues that have cropped up since I wrote you last:
The Paris Review, featuring Joy Williams, Alice Notley, Samanta Schweblin, Eliot Weinberger, and more. Williams’s Concerning the Future of Souls, a sequence of stories in the vein of 99 Stories of God, is forthcoming this summer. Hear her read for the magazine’s podcast here.
NOON’s 25th anniversary issue, with more diary fragments from Lydia Davis and prose from Vi Khi Nao and Clancy Martin, among others.
n+1. A new story by Paul Soto is not to be missed!
Giramondo’s HEAT, with prose by Anna Poletti available online.
The Yale Review has announced its spring festival, April 16-19, featuring Aria Aber, Catherine Barnett, Hernan Diaz, Brian Dillon, Merve Emre, Katie Kitamura, Claire Messud, Namwali Serpell, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Christine Smallwood.
Most of my recent reading has taken place in a deep dark chamber. It is for work that won’t see the light of day for a while.
[Image of Timothée Chalamet reading on subway.]
“This reminds me of that recent South Park episode with the Worldwide Privacy Tour,” [Timothée Chalamet] said, referring to a send-up of Harry and Meghan flying around in a private jet and appearing on a talk show to demand: We want privacy! We want privacy! “Sometimes, people are going to be hella confused when you say you’re trying to live a private life.”
I did however enjoy this short essay on Kafka by Enrique Vila-Matas in The Threepenny Review.