carolyn kellogg

How far do you have to go to get to the International Festival of Authors? Oh, it’s in Canada. I can get to Canada, someday.

If you must go to the worst city in the US for your MFA, try Hunter.

Or stay home and watch My Name is Earl to learn to write HR Pufnstuf fan fiction.

Cecil Castellucci wears a beautiful purple dress to the Southern California Independent Booksellers Awards but fails to tell us who won for (not YA) fiction.

Callie Miller sees Junot Diaz in LA and spills a few details, holding others for later.

Anne reels when literary mentorship meets burlesque (in a good way).

You go, Laila.

“Only in America in the 1960s and early 70s could a gun-worshipping, atavistic, pill-popping paranoid like Thompson come across as an innocent.” – The Guardian on Hunter S. Thompson (but when he was good, guys, he was very, very good).

An interview with Steven McDermott, the editor of Storyglossia and member of the International Raymond Carver Society.

So Tess Gallagher wants to publish the early (ostensibly expansive) drafts of Raymond Carver’s stories. Is she trying to enhance her dead husband’s legacy, or is she just hard up for cash? I’m with Gary Fisketjohn, who “would rather dig my friend Ray Carver out of the ground” than see the drafts in print.

At the Washington Post, Ron Charles’ take on The Abstinence Teacher is a lot like mine. Cool.

The holidays are coming! Pittsburgh’s Santarchy is set for December 8.