The Huffington Post's hit-mongering list of the 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Authors somehow manages to be sensationalistic and banal at the same time. John Ashbery? Louise Gluck? Junot Diaz? Really? Over at PW, poet and Bookforum contributor Craig Morgan Teicher has started an alternate list: Who are the most underrated authors in America? We agree with his opening sally: Stephen Elliott. And then there's Blake Butler's 15 "Towering Literary Artists" Who Are Still Alive, though sadly, that list has lost two of its members since it was published last year.
Role Model: Laptops are fine, but we admire John Waters's old-fashioned writing ritual, which involves a legal pad, Bic pens, Scotch Magic Finish Tape, and scissors.
We've never felt so good about our mistakes: Books about the benefits of being wrong are becoming a trend.
Price is Right: Mediabistro reports that Richard Price has signed a deal with Henry Holt to write a series of NYC-set detectives novels under the pen name "Jay Morris," which seems a much more soft-boiled nom de plume.
The San Francisco Chronicle gives you one more reason to skip Barnes and Noble and go to your local independent bookstore: cats!
