In Frieze, Jennifer Kabat reviews two new memoirs: Lynne Tillman’s Mothercare and Édouard Louis’s A Woman’s Battles and Transformations. Kabat writes, “Both writers have fraught relationships with their mothers, neither of whom had a choice about being a parent, nor were they particularly good at it. The collateral damage is outlined in both narratives.”
The New York Times profiles writer and publicist Kaitlin Phillips. In the piece, she shares her PR philosophy: “So much of press is like, they teach you safe press. I’m incredibly into, like, edging.” For Bookforum, Phillips has written about LRB editor Mary-Kay Wilmers, the golden age of party reporting, Ling Ma, and more.
Beginning September 1st, Astra magazine will start accepting submissions for their third issue. You can find their submission guidelines here.
In the Washington Post, Mark Athitakis takes the Farmer’s Almanac down a peg and recommends how the classic how-to book could reinvent itself: “The almanac ought to be brought more in line with its original mission: to teach Americans how to live in this new place they invented.”
For BOMB, Nick Irvin considers Bad Reviews, a new book that takes a different approach than most to examine the “crisis of criticism.” Tim Griffin and Aleksandra Mir asked 150 artists to submit the worst reviews they have ever received, and reproduced the pieces to create a sort of “artists’ scrapbook under the ‘fair use’ clause.”