At Slate, Noah Gallagher Shannon dives into the Cormac McCarthy archives, turning up letters, an early draft of Blood Meridian, and a recipe for gunpowder.
Take a pencil (make that two) on the airplane. Also, do back exercises: Margaret Atwood offers up ten rules for writers. (Plus more from Zadie Smith.)
The Guardian’s poetry doctor is in: Tell William Sieghart what ails you, and the Forward Prize-winning poet will prescribe you a lyrical cure.
Justin Cronin is an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, PEN/Hemingway Award-winner, and all-around literary guy who just happened to get swept up in the vampire-novel craze. It’s made him a millionaire. Still, he's not ready for you to use the word vampire in his presence.
The New Yorker festival is in full swing, and the magazine’s blog is posting video highlights featuring the likes of Lena Dunham, Alison Bechdel, and Ben Stiller, as well as a panel on rereading David Foster Wallace, and an explanation for why Obama’s debate performance was so bad.
