weekend links: white publishers, Joy Williams, old Paree
Wu Hsing-kuo in Contemporary Legend Theatre’s production of Metamorphosis at the 2013 Edinburgh International Festival. Photograph courtesy of Murdo MacLeod andThe Guardian.
Apparently the publishing industry is 89% white—this is a problem. 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner Gregory Pardlo is venting his frustration with the invisibility that seems to cloak writers of color, and PEN has gathered together editors from various publishing houses to discuss ways to fix it. Hopefully we’ll start to see some real changes in the near future. [PEN]
Joy Williams recently released a compendium of new and collected stories, which will hopefully turn more people on to her wonderful writing. Her characters behave in strange ways, using language that, to quote from this essay, “forms the backdrop against which both the dramatic and quotidian resolve into scenes of a regular and uncanny familiarity, as in an off-kilter fairytale.” [The Point]
An unfortunate truth of the contemporary metropolis is that it’s clean, tourist-friendly, and expensive—all detriments to the inspiration and livelihood of the Artist. The story is nothing new, as this piece points out. But it’s fun to look back at the Paris of old and contextualize the inspiration behind so much of French literature. Just don’t get too lost in the nostalgic glow. [New Republic]
The Austin Film Festival is happening this weekend. Glide Magazine has trailers of the festival’s most anticipated films, and you can find more picks, as well as panel highlights and top parties, over at CultureMap.
And just in time for Halloween, it’s the hundredth birthday of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. What better way to celebrate than to dress up as a giant roach? Sure, nobody will get the connection, but if you wear it on Sunday, and on Monday, and the rest of the week, maybe people will start to get the hint. [NPR]
—Sean Redmond