paper trail

Feb 28, 2013 @ 12:46:00 am

Benjamin Moser

Benjamin Moser has signed on to write the first authorized biography of Susan Sontag, who died eight years ago at the age of 71. Moser agreed to the project after being approached by Sontag’s son, David Rieff, and literary agent Andrew Wylie. He is the author of Why This World, a biography of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector (if you’re unfamiliar, read Rachel Kushner’s essay on her fiction) and expects that he’ll finish the book in three to four years.

Bret Easton Ellis explains why, after years of having no interest whatsoever in writing fiction, he “began making notes for a new novel in the last week of January.”

The Paris Review has just released its sixtieth-anniversary issue, with contributions by Vivian Gornick, Frederick Seidel, David Gates, and Deborah Eisenberg.

After scouring Penguin’s end-of-year financial statement, Jason Kottke reports that “Thomas Pynchon's next novel will deal with ‘Silicon Alley between dotcom boom collapse and 9/11’ [and that] the title is Bleeding Edge.”

Celebrity ghostwriter Michael Malice is raising money on Kickstarter to write an “autobiography” of deceased Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards will be announced today, but before they are, here’s a chance to read excerpts from the nominated books.