The owners of Editor and Publisher, once dubbed the "bible of the newspaper industry," have laid off the three staff members who survived the journal's sale earlier this year.
The University of Virginia has released its investigation of the Virginia Quarterly Review in the wake managing editor Kevin Morrissey's suicide this summer, and while editor Ted Genoways has been cleared of bullying charges, the report does recommend that "appropriate corrective action" be taken for Genoways's brusque managment style and his "failure . . . to follow institutional procedures in a variety of areas." As the report dryly notes: "It is sometimes difficult to define where the line gets crossed between a tough manager and an unreasonable one."
Tonight at Brooklyn's 177 Livingston, Triple Canopy is hosting a tete-a-tete between two octogenarian writing legends. In this corner: rogue CIA agent (well, that's up for debate, but see his memoir My Life in CIA), novelist, and OULIPO member Harry Mathews, who has just released his first poetry collection since 1992, The New Tourism. And in this corner: Brooklyn novelist Joseph McElroy, author of the influential 1987 novel Women and Men, who has a new collection of stories, Night Soul, forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press.
The Village Voice names Tea Obreht the "Best New York Writer Young Enough to Make You Slit Your Wrists."
Via Bookslut: The world's most expensive book ($8 million, give or take) is about to go on sale. It's an edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America. Scoff if you must, but Audubon's book inspired, in some way or another, both Lorrie Moore and Mary McCarthy. And birds, though not quite as sexy as vampires, have inspired other writers as well: Daphne du Maurier, John Ashbery, and Jonathan Franzen.
Starting today, Publishers Weekly will post thirty-three tweets by Rick Moody about the future of publishing. Hashtag: #pwmoodytweets.
