Writer Alexander Chee recently said that he found trains to be great places to write. “I wish Amtrak had residencies for writers,” Chee remarked. Amtrak is now granting his wish. Amtrak has plans to offer some writers free round-trip tickets. In fact, the program has already started: Jessica Gross has taken the “test run” residency.
When New York magazine announced that it would become a biweekly last December, a press release promised a more “ambitious” print publication. At the New Republic, Isaac Chotiner takes a look at the first issue of the new New York, and finds it more or less the same.
“Is it possible to read a piece of literary writing without imagining that the author has a gender (perhaps an unusual gender, or maybe two gender or three genders, but at least one)?” In an open letter to VIDA, critic and poet Stephen Burt poses thirty-one thoughtful questions about gender and identity.
Two longform pieces of note: At the LRB, Andrew O’Hagan’s publishes an epic and engrossing essay on Julian Assange; at the Oxford American, John Jeremiah Sullivan considers the life and legend of Junior Braithwaite.
Tonight at McNally Jackson books, Jenny Offill reads from her new novel, Dept. of Speculation.