Last week Vol 1. Brooklyn touched upon the concept of the “angry writer” with the inclusion of the infamous J.D. Salinger photo (at left), to which the good folks at deckfight responded:

that picture is awesome, b/c authors no longer get angry. everyone is looking coy & smart in their jacket photos. not since hunter thompson looked angry, yelling & shooting stuff. mailer looked angry sometimes, yelling & swinging his fists. maybe william vollman is now ticked off.

The photo at left was taken by two, in Salinger’s words, “shitty literary kids,” who essentially ambushed him for the sake of the photograph. “The wonder is that I have any kind of face at all left, grim or otherwise,” he said. “Piss on ’em all.”

There’s definitely a certain appeal about the “angry” writer. I don’t think I’m the only one intrigued with this idea; the Examiner recently put out a much talked about list of the best “author vs author put-downs of all time.” Maybe the “angry writer” appeals to us because in an oblique way the idea reminds me of some of the literary greats–yes, Salinger, and also Hemingway and Vonnegut and Twain, among others–writers who generally didn’t give a damn about what people thought of them and weren’t preoccupied with their sales ranking in The New York Times Book Review. If only we could be so free.

Times have changed, I guess, and like deckfight said, no one really gets angry anymore. But I still get a kick whenever authors “let loose” and refuse to censor themselves. Accordingly, I’ve put together a few of my favorite “angry writer” quotes. Hope you enjoy: Read more »

J. D. Salinger became one of our most-beloved literary hermits.  And Steig Larsson is holding strong on The New York Times Bestseller List six years after his death.  Though I cannot mathematically prove that hibernation/extreme unavailability makes you an instant bestseller, it does seem that it doesn’t hurt to be either A.) extremely accessible a la Maureen Johnson or B.) extremely inaccessible, like Jane Austen.  (She might not have been a hermit in her day, but if she had a dollar for every time she was referenced today…)

So for those aspiring writers that would prefer to be extremely inaccessible, as opposed to the alternative, here are ten easy steps to hide from today’s world: Read more »

A visualization of some odd writer rituals from Lapham’s Quarterly. Victor Hugo wrote naked in the bedroom, Emily Dickinson wrote poetry in the pantry, John Cheever wrote in his underwear in the basement. Lots of nude or semi-nude writing going on, I can see.

A pre-Catcher Salinger writes to Hemingway.

“He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.” This and more best metaphors ever, via.

In this week’s edition of Life’s Not Fair, Jersey Shore castmates JWOWW and Ronnie have landed a book deal.

How to become a literary star.

5 “wonderfully weird” book videos to add to the list.

What do David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Wikipedia have in common? Via.

James Franco edited by the New York Tyrant.

Robot Rilke, via.

Snarkmarket’s Robin Sloan writes a piece of flash fiction with near real-time editing help from Twitter.

The problem with fairy tales.

Aaaand because it’s hump day, here is a plastic bag with the voice of Werner Herzog: Read more »

Yum.

I would totally read a novel based on Craigslist Missed Connections.

I would also totally enjoy book reports made out of cake. (See left.)

Teenagers on Salinger.

Interlinked short stories via geocaches.

For you book design lovers: 45 beautifully designed book covers and classic titles turned into cigarette packs.

Finnegan’s Wank.

McSweeney’s reimagines The Baby-sitter’s Club for the new decade.

How to be a literary manboy of New York City.

Aaand to get you through the rest of your week: the ultimate graphic novel, in six panels: Read more »

This week: the J.D. Salinger tizzy resurfaces (um, in a funny way), Sarah Palin’s tips for writing a book, and a Twilight parody, all after the jump. Read more »

This week: dramatic interpretations of literary hatemail, Twitter film adaptations, fun facts about the reading habits in Guantanamo Bay, and more after the jump. Read more »

With 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and even Star Trek, the notion of transformative work has been a particularly hot topic these past few months. Transformative work not only plays havoc with intellectual property law, but also with the audience as storytellers take our familiar, beloved characters and then subvert them entirely. Holden Caulfield is 76 years old and on the run from a nursing home, Elizabeth Bennett defends her family from hoards of zombies, and James Tiberius Kirk finds himself without a father and a long way to go before he can become captain of the USS Enterprise. The result is all the more shocking and enlightening given the juxtaposition of the transformed work with our knowledge of the original work.

It’s a compelling artistic endeavor. And transformative work is nothing new. Fans of Homer’s The Odyssey and The Iliad wrote their own books based on his works. Cervantes’ Don Quixote saw more than a few unauthorized published sequels. John Gardner’s Grendel, a re-telling of Beowulf from the monster’s point of view, was published to great acclaim (which, being one of my favorite books, I definitely recommend you giving it a read). Gregory Maguire’s best-selling Wicked, an alternate take on The Wizard of Oz, is now one of Broadway’s biggest hits. You get the idea.

But what about fan-made transformative works? While there are countless pieces of fan fiction and fan art out there, in which fans take their favorite characters and merely continue their stories, genuine transformative works are far less common. But as few and far-between as they may be, their stories really resonate.

After the jump, a short list of lesser-known, but by no means lesser-quality, fan-made transformative storytelling that challenge the old adage “there are no new stories.”

Read more »