Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar. To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

Night Watch novelist Linda Fairstein will appear at the Center for Fiction to share practical writing tips for aspiring crime fiction authors. Hear her on Tuesday, February 26th starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)

The 4th Anniversary Show of the “How I Learned” reading series will take place at the Happy Ending Lounge. Join the party on Wednesday, February 27th starting 8 p.m. (New York, NY)

Read more

In a new Los Angeles Review of Books essay, Jonathan Lethem expressed his disappointment in a review by book critic James Wood.

Wood dissected The Fortress of Solitude in a 2003 New Republic review, prompting Lethem (pictured, via) to write him a private letter. He received a short note back, and eight years later, responded to the letter with a public essay about the review. What do you think?

Check it out: “Wood, in 4,200 painstaking words, couldn’t bring himself to mention that my characters found a magic ring that allowed them flight and invisibility. This, the sole distinguishing feature that put the book aside from those you’d otherwise compare it to (Henry Roth, say). The brute component of audacity, whether you felt it sank the book or exalted it or only made it odd. These fantastic events hinge the plot at several points, including the finale — you simply couldn’t not mention this and have read the book at all. Or rather, you couldn’t unless you were Wood.”

So far, more than 1,300 writers have signed a new Writers in Support of the Occupy Movement petition.

The petition is composed of a single sentence: “We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world.” The site now includes short essays by different writers, including Francine Prose, Lemony Snicket, D.A. Powell, Duncan Murrell, Anne Waldman, Danica Novgorodoff and Michael Voll, Maureen Miller, Daphne Carr, Alice Walker, Paula Z. Segal, John McManus, David Hollander, Blair Braverman, Scott Sparling, and Joshua Cohen.

So far, the petition has virtual signatures from Alison Bechdel, Samuel R. Delaney, Jennifer Egan, Barbara Ehrenreich, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Lethem, Ann Patchett, Salman Rushdie and many other authors. You can sign at the bottom of the page, but the organizers are processing a huge influx of signatures.

Read more

The Paris Review has unveiled its first digital edition, selling four issues of the literary journal for $30 through Zinio’s digital newsstand.

The summer issue includes stories by Jonathan Lethem, Amie Barrodale, David Gates and Roberto Bolano.

Check it out: “For the first time, readers can buy a digital version of The Paris Review—for easy access anytime, anywhere. TPR digital can be read on your iPad, laptop, or mobile device. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s instant gratification!”

Denise Oswald has joined the It Books as senior editor.

Oswald (pictured, via) was the former Soft Skull Press editorial director. She also helmed the Faber and Faber list at Farrar, Straus and Giroux for more than ten years.  Her authors included: Anne Carson, Billy Corgan, Neil LaBute, Jonathan Lethem, and Courtney Love.

During her tenure at Soft Skull, we covered Oswald’s Roller Derby book deal and her decision to publish a novel that was first serialized on Twitter.

In a LA Times profile over the weekend, novelist Jonathan Lethem took a shot at all the novelists living and working in Kings County, declaring:  “Brooklyn is repulsive with novelists, it’s cancerous with novelists.”

What do you think? Can living in a borough packed with writers actually hurt a writer? Or will all the creativity ultimately help a writer develop?

Here’s more from our sibling blog, FishbowlLA: “A lot of people found it odd when Brooklyn novelist Jonathan Lethem decided to uproot last year and head to SoCal to take David Foster Wallace‘s former teaching position at Pomona College. After all, there weren’t too many writers more closely associated with a location than Lethem was with Brooklyn. But in what looks to be a Sunday LA Times story, posted early online, Lethem says the move was much needed, and is working out well.”

More than 80 Harper’s Magazine writers and friends signed an open letter to publisher John “Rick” MacArthur supporting the unionization of the magazine’s staff and urging the publisher not to cut two editors. The publisher has since  defended his actions in another letter.

The 84 signatures on the original letter included: Tom Bissell, Heidi Julavits, Naomi Klein, Jonathan Lethem, and Zadie Smith. The letter asked MacArthur to seek alternative ways to reshape the magazine’s financial budget, suggesting the publisher study the models of other not-for-profit magazines.

Here’s a quote from the original letter: “Editorial costs can only be cut so far without damaging the quality of the publication … At a time when there is much chatter about the death of print, publishing a magazine as brave and creative as Harper’s Magazine verges on a sacred trust.” (Via New York Magazine & Sarah Weinman)

Electric Literature has started off the year by shooting books, literally blasting titles by Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, and other writers.

In the video embedded above, Tom Shillue went to the Westside Pistol & Rifle Range in New York City to see how many books from 2010 could actually stop a bullet. The video was directed by Alex Markman.

Turns out 21st Century readers have little hope of protecting themselves with a book in a duel. Any suggestions for books that really could stop a bullet?

Yesterday Douglas Rushkoff (the author of Program or Be Programmed and one of our eBook Summit speakers) explored Softskull Press’ upcoming Deep Focus series for BoingBoing. The collection matches a great writer with a great cult film, beginning with Jonathan Lethem writing about John Carpenter‘s They Live and Chris Sorrentino writing about Death Wish.

Here’s an excerpt: “These are fun little books – little, meaning a hundred or so pages and in a tiny fits-in-your-back-pocket format suitable for reading anywhere at anytime. And they justify all the nights spent watching reruns of these films, never sure if we were allowed to like them as much as we do – even after we see through to their obvious faults. This book series considers such films “deliberate” B-movies. I read Lethem’s time-coded analysis of They Live on an airplane while I watched the film on my phone, for the perfect DIY mini-Criterion experience. Lethem is one of my favorite writers anyway, but experiencing him wax on about Nada and the ghouls was perhaps the highlight of my summer reading.”

As we noted last week, Counterpoint will shutter its New York offices and cut editorial director Denise Oswald and associate editor Anne Horowitz– causing many to worry about the future of this indie press.

As we enjoy a sunny weekend in New York City, enjoy that video of a 99-year-old poet exploring the iPad–along with the rest of the headlines you may have missed this week.

Casting opened for a new adaptation of a Stephenie Meyer novel–send your headshots today!

To celebrate a new genre of publishing publicity, Melville House launched a new book trailer awards ceremony.

Frustrated with his own writing, one writer created a documentary about Bad Writing.

Despite an embargo, Laura Bush‘s memoir was leaked, sparking commentary from the literary Twitter-sphere.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish a two-volume edition of the late Philip K. Dick‘s Exegesis & 39 backlist titles–Exegesis will be edited by Jonathan Lethem.

Finally, the great detective Nancy Drew turned 80-years-old.