Procrastination Station #130
Friday, August 22nd, 2014Is it, you may be wondering, good? No. But neither is it entirely bad. “Directing Herbert White” is the sort of collection written by reasonably talented M.F.A. students in hundreds of M.F.A. programs stretching from sea to shining sea. Which is perhaps not surprising, since Franco actually has an M.F.A. in poetry. I’m obliged here to note that this actor is well acquainted with the educational system, having apparently attended graduate programs at Yale, Columbia, New York University, Brooklyn College, Warren Wilson College, the Rhode Island School of Design, Le Cordon Bleu, Quantico, Hogwarts (Ravenclaw), the Vaganova School of Russian Ballet and the Jedi Academy.
This review of James Franco’s “jesus age” poetry collection is actually mildly complimentary!
If you read nothing else in this post, read the poem not an elegy for Mike Brown, by Danez Smith. alternate names for black boys is another beautiful and devastating piece of his.
Are you feeling despairing about the state of poetry today?
Her website (since removed) claimed incorrectly that she had been a Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet, when in fact she had been in a program to be mentored by a Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet.
Riiiight. SEEMS LEGIT.
Here are some kids moaning about great books on Twitter (Or I should say great books, except The Mayor of Casterbridge. I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU, CHILD.)
This article, though mostly common sense, had some smart ideas for marketing your novel — especially if you self-publish.
(Related: How to screw up a book proposal.)
Technology has upended the business of publishing at precisely the same time as writers with a broader range of stories to tell about human experience are finally gaining a platform. In the past year I have scarfed down novels by and about survivors of the mental health system, as well as immigrants, queers and angry young women whose experience informs their prose but does not define it. On those nights when I wake up worrying that some day I’ll have read all the interesting novels, I am comforted by the sure knowledge that there are more than seven billion stories to tell, and they’re being told better than ever.
Here’s Laurie Penny (quoting here does not equal endorsement!!!1!!!eleventy!!) doing the apparently-obligatory Journo Speculates On The Future Of Fiction piece.
I am so not a wedding-y woman, but these literary wedding ideas are rather lovely nontheless.
And while we’re being whimsical, here’s a cute literary Etsy treasury!
The internet is your friend, but not your best mate.
Never a truer word, sir! Matt Whyman on creating setting and place in your writing.
50 novels by women under 50… also known as My New To-Read List.
The Hand Drawn Map Association is a stunning collection of creative and alternative maps of everything from London to the human heart.
“As a writer who is also a woman, I increasingly feel that writing is a political act whether I intend it to be or not,” she writes, because we live in a culture in which [rape apologism] “is permissible and publishable. I am troubled by how we have allowed such intellectual distance between violence and the representation of violence. We talk about rape, but we don’t carefully talk about rape.”
I really, really, really want to go out for a beer with Roxane Gay.
I’m a sucker for these “Top 10 Most whatever whatevers!” posts, I know… but this Powerful Social Issue Ads one is really rather interesting.
Edible cupcake wrappers. You’re welcome.
I remember and cherish that scene: him running, naked thighs flashing, penis bobbing, her gasping and chasing after him in her old-fashioned white nightgown, the dogs barking outside.
I’m sorry, but It Happened To Me: I Broke My Boyfriend’s Penis is one of the funniest things I’ve read on the internet for quite a while.
It’s OK, you can stop looking. I found the best Tumblr ever. (My fav post.)
What lifting weights taught me about being a woman is GREAT. (It made me, allergic-to-exercise-woman, want to go and join a gym.)
Bleeding glaciers, blue lava, rainbow mountains, UFO clouds: these are Real Things In The World.
How tattooed people were saved from their terrible past choices.
Have I posted this stand-up before? Rape jokes: you are doing it RIGHT.
And I have needed this SO MANY TIMES lately.
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