Round the ‘sphere

Dan Wickett, the tireless proprietor of the Emerging Writers Forum, conducted an online interview of many notable literary bloggers, including Maud Newton, Laila Lalami, Ron Hogan, Mark Sarvas, Carrie Frye, Dan Green, Scott Esposito, Tom Rakewell, C. Max Magee and yours truly.

Maud, meanwhile, conducts a wide-ranging interview with Terry Teachout about the role of the critic, how politics and arts do (or do not) intertwine, and what he’ll be working on next now that his brief life of George Balanchine is in stores* now.

Mark Sarvas just got back from his jealousy-inducing Paris vacation, where among other things, he attended a packed signing at Village Voice Books or Michael Ondaatje and Mavis Gallant. Read all about it and find out why the bookstore’s owner is a rather flighty whackjob.

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Lizzie’s got a spiffy new redesign]5, chucking Blogger and its flighty, schizophrenic ways for her very own domained site. Check it out.

Mad Max Perkins is conducting an email survey asking writers to contribute their thoughts (in anonymous fashion) about how they’ve really been treated by publishers old and new.

Jimmy Beck hilariously (and deservedly) skewers Deborah Solomon’s Q&A of National Book Award finalist Christine Schutt. But then, Solomon makes the Book Babes seem like excellent interviewers. Ed Champion goes further, offering a detailed history of Solomon’s tortured work history at previous newspapers and publications.

Where has Thomas Perry gone? Because it’s the crime world and not the literary one, radio silence since 2002 is considered to be a long hiatus instead of SOP. Anyway, David Montgomery provides the scoop on what happened and when Perry’s next book will be out. Color me excited, but then, he’s on his way to becoming an all-time favorite of mine.

It’s the current meme du jour but for good reason: Veiled Conceit is very, very funny. And so, too is this. (both links via Maccers)

And finally, meet the man with the World’s Worst Blog:

10-29-2004 Slept in. Ate leftovers.

10-30-2004 Shot another lemur. It came thru a hole in the screen door.

10-31-2004 (evening) Damn heartburn. What did I eat?

I expect equally brilliant posts from Mr. Gischler in the future.

*But not in Toronto, so far. Sigh.