reeling and writhing

a pile of stuff #30

Oh dear, busy 2013. Busy, busy. Children boating and flying past fires and floods, as they do. (Yes, mine. It astounds me.)

But I did find these fine things recently:

According to Maud, this lady is the Flannery O'Connor of the internet age. 

Everyone needs to know how to do this. Yes, you! From Pat Grant.

Patti Smith sings William Blake. From Jacket2.

Via things magazine: what happens when you photograph a car on fire, asks J.M. Colberg?

The act of photographing, the gesture, has become part of our interaction with the world. You photograph just like you look. You know that you can never look at all of those photographs again (in all likelihood you never will - who has the time?), but it’s not about the photographs - it’s about the photographing. The act of photography might have turned into the equivalent of whistling a song, something you do, something that might or might not have beauty, a communicative act just as much as an affirmative act: I was there, and me being there means I had to photograph it.

And from Jessamyn West, a link to a NYT discussion, "Do We Still Need Libraries?"

(Crossposted at Mulberry Road.)

 

The pile of stuff has migrated. Here is the latest.

Over at Cordite, Adam Ford tells us why he would like to have Thirty More Australian Poets.

Margaret Atwood is sharing her writing online at Wattpad, a social writing site.

"I didn't think they were going to disapprove," said Atwood. "I've already looked at quite a bit [of writing] on the site but haven't commented yet. I think it would be too crushing for me to comment. Out of millions of users, how am I going to single somebody out? It's enough to judge the poems."

She will, she said, be listening to feedback from her readers, however. "I think any feedback is interesting, and this is not your usual poetry reading group," she said. "This is nothing new. [It's] simply being reinvented by the internet ... The Pickwick Papers was published serially and people would respond to the chapters by letter. That's why Sam Weller became such a big part of the book." (The Guardian)

Something marvellous the Guardian has offered over the past couple of months: a series of posts on John Donne's life and work by Roz Kaveney.

Kevin Murphy reports at the Melville House blog that Seth Godin's selfpublishing venture is over.

Also from Melville House comes the news that the Folger Library is releasing its New Folger Library editions of Shakespeare as e-books.

An  illustrated  review of a cartoon-artist's view of New York in the twenties at The Ember, by Nick Terrell.

And finally, an update on Susan Johnson's blog on the progress of the reloaded Queensland Literary Awards.