"The whole magic of a plot requires that somebody be impeded from getting something over with." —Renata Adler

"Much fiction depends on people who never forget. This clinging, this refusal to 'get over it,' is very useful in fiction, however inadvisable it may be in real life." —Joan Silber

This is incredible. If you know the work, it's just added clarity compared to the existing recordings, but somehow the effect is transcendent.

Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World. (Short story collection: Lydia Millet’s Love in Infant Monkeys.)

Hans Ulrich Obrist Owns More Than 40,000 Books. Here Are a Few of His Favorites. As a memoir tracing his life in art comes out, we quizzed HUO on the literary predilections that started it all.

Admirable and enviable, from Hans Ulrich Obrist: "I have a ritual where I buy a book every day" www.culturedmag.com/article/2026...

“Thanks, but last time I went to take a nap you left him in a pool of diarrhea for an hour and your physical therapist scolded me for not reporting it and gave me a tedious explanation of why it wasn’t good and how to work the nurse button he had actually been pushing for an hour.”

Opinion | Just Because I Wrote This Doesn’t Mean I’ll Be On Your Panel About A.I.

“Everybody’s using AI for everything nowadays, and if you don’t, you’re a misfit outsider who should be stoned to death in the town square, and then resurrected virtually from your data so you can be stoned to death in the virtual town square, for infinity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

This Colby Hall shitshow is a reminder to all journalists, editors, writers, that if you use AI—“in a limited way,” “like many editors” as “part of your editorial workflow,” etc—it’s a matter of *when*, not if, your entire reputation will be thoroughly fucking trashed. Take note.

!!!!!!!

[Carousel by Eugène Atget]

For fate may hang on any moment and at any moment be changed.

~Jeanette Winterson

Can't believe a good thing has happened

Thank you. So much.

The Writers Who Can’t Let Go of the South Southern experiences and traditions can be deeply compelling, even exotic, to Americans who live in other areas.

Really wish the Atlantic had thought to ask the southern publisher (that's also bringing nancy's books back into print) if they had thoughts about Americans exoticizing the south.

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

It’s wild how much of the solution here is just “invest in humans”

Reading John Banville's Venetian Vespers, which includes remarkable descriptions of both drunkenness and urination. #FridayReads

sometimes student evaluations are so hurtful

Will Blackwell's Memorial Explore Will Blackwell's digital memorial and tribute page. Contribute photos, recollections, or videos, extend your condolences, and assist in preserving t...

My dad’s obituary: www.altogetherfuneral.com/obituaries/d...

“You will forget. You will forget that this is you.”

—L’homme atlantique, Marguerite Duras

I posted a fair amount of promotional stuff around the release of my memoir SHE'S UNDER HERE. Did it help? Who knows. But this interview with Guardian does a good job of capturing what the book is about and why I wrote it.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Bye, Geno. (But respect to the UConn women.) On to the final!

Gino! Language!

An environmental science major and part of the University of South Carolina’s Honors College, Edwards also shines in the classroom.”

Go Gamecocks. (I could really use this.)

I asked A.I. to complete my novel using my own writing style and it did my laundry, went shopping, cleaned the kitchen and spent the rest of the day dicking around online.

Headshot of striking young woman with short dark hair and blue eyes, wearing a dark blue denim collared shirt.

Julia Phillips speaks at The Open Book today at 6 pm. Campus Room, Capstone Building, University of South Carolina. She's awesome, it's free, and there will be snacks.

Thanks, Matt. I know you’ve just been through your own version of losing your father. I was moved by your posts about being saddened by the calendar turn.

Thank you!

What memoir are y’all talking vaguely about? (I’ve been under a sad rock.)

He would absolutely love that someone was reading his poems. Thank you for that and your condolences, Mark.

A Final Death Wish, etc. by Will H. Blackwell, Jr.. From the memory bed where we once lay as lovers, your death-rattles crawl up the solemn walls—like lines of rasping insects discovering, does reward await, or does death, simply, call?

Before he got sick he published some horror poems about death, which are difficult to read now. www.exquisitedeathezine.com/a-final-deat...

Will Hoyle Blackwell, Jr., 11/15/39-3/28/26. Botanist and polymath. RIP, Dad.