Post-Holiday Recovery Odds and Ends

I had to turn in three book reviews for first thing this morning, so here's just a little smattering of blog material to tide you over for a bit. And, of course, with BookExpo starting Thursday, you can expect things to be fairly light towards the end of the week...although I do have some fun party coverage coming from a surprise guest!

• Design Observer has a guest feature in which Roy R. Behrens offers memories of Guy Davenport, with whom the designer began corresponding in 1978. "The intensity of his letters," Behrens writes, "was forever a woeful reminder that I was writing not simply to an ordinary person but to a remarkably talented man whose powers of observation were astonishing at least. The muscles in my mind withstood a rigorous weekly workout throughout those years--in part because, being so junior to him, I felt as if I had to craft every sentence as precisely as possible. In sum, he taught me how to write by writing regularly to him."

• A few websites have already expressed opinions, from the postive but curious to the unhesitantly cynical, on the "Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers" contest Random House is throwing. I merely note that the contest exists and may offer some young writer a foot in the door. The table of contents of 1994's Next: Young American Writers on the New Generation may offer a useful example of the benefits of being in a "fresh young voices" anthology, since many of its contributors seem to still be working in some capacity today--on the other hand, they didn't land in that book through a contest.

• While we're on the subject of contests, Me Three is raising funds for its second print issue by raffling off $50 bar tabs at the Cedar Tavern and the Algonquin. (Of course, the person who wins the Cedar Tavern splurge is luckier, because their tab will go farther and could even include a burger, but you should still be able to get three or four martinis at the other place...enough for a decent date, at that.)

• Since it always takes me forever to get around to reading Gothamist, I didn't realize until the weekend that Rachel Kramer Bussel had done another round of interviews for them, including chats with authors Jeannette Walls, Molly Jong-Fast, and Joel Derfner.