Mona Simpson has been chosen as the new publisher of the Paris Review. Simpson has previously been a senior editor at the magazine, as well as a professor at Bard College and UCLA. Simpson takes over for Susannah Hunnewell, who died last year.
Adam Sternbergh talks to Charles Yu about television writing, imposter syndrome, and his latest book, Interior Chinatown. “Not having an M.F.A., having a day job, there was always a feeling like I came in through the back door, or at least the side door,” he said of his career. “Even to this day, it all feels a bit D.I.Y. It’s like I don’t play an instrument, I play a shoebox guitar I made in my garage.”
At Literary Hub, Cynthia Drake explores a disappearing LA with Francesca Lia Block.
Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street is being adapted for television, Deadline reports. “I write because the world we live in is a house on fire, and the people we love are burning,” she said in a statement. “Television has grown up in the last 20 years and now is the time to tell our stories.”
The Standards department of the New York Times is taking over the work of the paper’s Reader Center. The department will also work more closely with the Opinion section. “While our news and opinion journalists will continue to have separate, distinct missions, their work is rooted in common standards for accuracy, fairness and integrity,” they explained in a statement.
At The Guardian, Alex Christofi complains about our societal agreement that “we should not chop books in half, even if they are very long.” Christofi began slicing longer works into more manageable sizes a few years ago, and says that this helps him read more. “I used to think I didn’t like long books. But then I realised that I just didn’t like carrying them around or holding them open with one tired thumb, squashed into someone’s armpit on the tube in rush hour,” he writes. After posting picture of his dissected reading material to Twitter, he was surprised at the reaction he received. “Although the majority of the responses were urging me to get in the bin or the sea, I was strangely heartened that people care so much,” he reflects. “How amazing that we still value books when so much else is digital or disposable.”