Housing Works

The Fascinating Self-Portraits of 20 Famous Authors, over at Flavorwire. Above: Borges after he’d gone blind, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy (the text says, I think, “Them old dreams are only in your head,” because sure).

flavorpill:

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-Aaron

“Mr. Melville is evidently trying to ascertain how far the public will consent to be imposed upon. He is gauging, at once, our gullibilty and our patience. Having written one or two passable extravagancies, he has considered himself privileged to produce as many more as he pleases, increasingly exaggerated and increasingly dull.”— New York United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 1852 (via Flavorwire » 15 Scathing Early Reviews of Classic Novels)

These folks would beg to differ.

“I do experience some version of the tension or gap between the virtual and the actual whenever I write: there is always a difference between what I intended to make and what I’ve made. The materials always resist. But this doesn’t have to be described in terms of doom. It can also be described as discovery, that you discover the form and content of the work in the act of writing.”

— Ben Lerner (Leaving the Atocha Station, a book you NEED to read) via Flavorwire » The Future of American Fiction: An Interview with Ben Lerner

P.S. I love the crazy graphic-photos of writers in this series on Flavorpill.

“But if a character — like Emily — has tap water to drink and Go-Gurt in the food closet, then the story becomes about the less obvious needs she might have. We always wants something, even if we seem to have everything, and if you can find what it is that’s missing, you may have found a story.”
—Alison Espach

(via Flavorwire » The Future of American Fiction: An Interview with Alison Espach)

A page from Herman Melville’s journal, about meeting Captain Pollard of the Essex. [via] (via Flavorwire » A Peek Inside the Notebooks of Famous Authors, Artists and Visionaries)