A thing to do this coming Saturday: "Transmissions," a day-long conference on literature and the first thirty years of HIV. Three events throughout the day, at the New School's Wollman Hall: READ MORE

"Since 'Gucci Gucci' landed on the Internet this summer, Kreayshawn’s face, her song and her name — that name! Ooh, I want to crush that name flat between two good, old, important books — have been everywhere, including at the MTV Video Music Awards, where she was nominated as best new artist; on the cover of Complex magazine; and on the payroll of Sony Records, where she signed a deal for an album due out early 2012. (For a million dollars! A figure no one will confirm!) She was even recently on NPR. 'The rapper describes L.A. as overly materialistic,' reads NPR’s adorably NPR-ish online description of its interview, 'where dress and possessions divide people.'" READ MORE

“I grew up in a house that had a whole lot of trouble,” she said. “As much trouble as you could imagine. In the daily paper, there were all these comic strips, and there was one that was a circle. It seemed like things were pretty good on the other side of the circle. No one’s getting hit. No one’s yelling.” READ MORE

I keep forgetting to link to this really excellent piece of writing! Aspie Rhetor is the site of a hyperlexic Asperger’s autistic English professor and ELO fan. (A love of ELO we can all have in common.) It starts here: READ MORE

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"When there is no writing out there to speak for itself, the writer talks about writing. Maybe they write a story about it. Or an essay. Or they read a story/essay about writing, which is an elegant way of avoiding writing, because it provides a writerly fog that nearly simulates writing itself. It’s all very tiresome, because of course you can’t properly write about writing — you just drone on about 'the process,”'or your close attention to the texture of this world, or your drinking problem, or whether MFA programs destroyed the craft (as if there was anything to destroy). Leaving aside the obvious benefits of a good writing workshop — deadlines, clashing viewpoints, sex — it’s clear they feed the fantasy that writers can coexist at a single set of coordinates. They allow a frivolous, narrow habit to resemble a vocation." READ MORE

Just because an agent approaches you doesn’t mean you have a good book idea. READ MORE

"I’ve never read Janet Malcom [sic], and I doubt I ever will." READ MORE

The title of a book, along with maybe the cover, is most often what’s going to lead a potential reader to pick up your baby book. Which isn’t to say coming up with a good one is easy. To the contrary, it’s the sort of thing, like naming a band, that can cause everyone involved a lot of agony, particularly when an author has settled on something very early in the process and someone else (usually involved in selling it) however many months or years later decides that the book might be better served with something different. READ MORE

I’m all ready to make this week’s Mr. Wrong column, but sometimes I can’t remember what I want to column about, you know? I mean, c’mon, I always have some sorta Topic, and no, I do not sympathise with any of this “Writer’s Block” stuff people whine about, like that article I looked at in READ MORE