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)

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Paris Review

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!”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The text will be edited by Jonathan Lethem and Pamela Jackson. The conglomerate publisher had more news for Dick fans–they will also bring back 39 titles from Dick’s backlist to republish under the Mariner imprint. The reprints will begin in fall 2011.

Adult Trade publisher Bruce Nichols had this comment: “Philip K. Dick’s books remain as provocative and cutting-edge today as ever … Each generation wants to claim him as its own and we look forward not only to the landmark publication of The Exegesis in fall 2011, but to inspiring a new generation of readers with his significant backlist and its potential in all formats.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

They collect the results at the CoverSpy Tumblr page. Each post describes the reader, filling a literary voyeur gap left since Seen Reading went on hiatus last October.

The CoverSpies spotted the expected books: “The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown (Older M, 45ish, wire glasses & Hemingway beard, book flat in lap, F train)” and the slightly more unexpected books: “The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost (F, 28, long blondish hair, sitting in corner seat, B train).”

The website also features the occasional photo of a Kindle, the book’s identity forever shrouded in digital mystery: “Title Unknown, Author Unknown (F, 37, a well-put-together lady overall w/ Prada purse, exited F at Delancey).”

Finally, the site also prowls for writers: “(Jonathan Lethem, typing, Clover’s in Brooklyn).”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Our Australian reader Alister McMillan contributed these thoughts: “Michael Connelly advocates restricting any writing soundtrack to instrumental music. I can see the point that singing and lyrics might distract a writer. But what about the moments when blockage, doubt and fury paralyse the word count? At those times we need to know that someone else feels as bereft and hateful. Anything by Elvis Costello will do — it’s literate yet offers the right line of spite and self-pity. I’m also a fan of You Are All My People by I’m Not Jim (pictured, via) otherwise known as novelist Jonathan Lethem and songwriter Walter Salas-Humara.”

Reader Sue Keck sent in her favorite writing songs: “‘Blues When You Need Them’ and ‘A Thousand Small Things’ by Rodney Jones can take me deeper into a character every time. ‘Surrounded’ by Laurence Elder As a friend of mine said the first time he heard the song, ‘This guy sings like wings fly.’ Lifts me above writers block everytime. ‘So Easy’ by Laurence Elder provides a steady groove for writing.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ceridwen Dovey for “Blood Kin” (Viking, 2008), chosen by Rachel Kushner.
C. E. Morgan for “All the Living” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009), chosen by Christine Schutt.
Lydia Peelle for “Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing” (HarperCollins, 2009), chosen by Salvatore Scibona.
Karen Russell for “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” (Vintage, 2006), chosen by Don Chaon.
Josh Weil for “The New Valley” (Grove Press, 2009), chosen by Lily Tuck.

The ’5 Under 35′ celebration will take place on November 16 at PowerHouse Arena in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. Here’s more about the party: “That evening, each author will be introduced by the writer who selected them and will read a brief excerpt from their work to an audience of their peers: young writers, editors, publishers, agents, journalists and bloggers. This year’s emcee is musician, novelist and publisher Richard Hell, founder of the seminal punk band Richard Hell & the Voidoids. The evening’s DJ will be novelist, essayist, and MacArthur fellow Jonathan Lethem.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Editors visited signing booths around BEA, getting some reading intelligence from writers: Gaiman recommended one of the more controversial BEA authors and Karr plugged an Australian historical novel.

Here’s an excerpt: “We tracked down some of our favorite writers to ask them what we should take to the beach this summer. Despite Neil Gaiman’s weariness after signing 170 books in a row, he couldn’t resist a chance to share several of his favorites. Jonathan Lethem opted for a classic. ‘Outlanders’ series writer Diana Gabaldon plugged her favorite crime fiction.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.