The best book you are not reading because it's been widely ignored is Matthew Specktor's That Summertime Sound. How does a book this intimate and honest and real get overlooked? It's depressing to think about. The book's about obsession and...

I briefly step on KT's toes to note that today marks an astonishing 29 years since John Lennon was murdered, a loss that's surprisingly raw all these years later. One day I'll write about my memories of my 16-year-old self...

Over a year ago, in a conversation with my editor, I confessed that I'd been struggling -- really struggling -- with the second novel. I speculated that this could have something to do with the publication of the first novel,...

In the fall of 1997 I had a lot of raking to do, but my friends dragged me up to the University of Chicago instead. Kurt Vonnegut was there, reading from his new book, Timequake. During an extended discussion with the moderator, the old man made a keen point about what challenges an audience’s sympathies [...]

This Saturday I gave a one-day seminar on Gordon Lish and the Lish school(s) of writing at The New School. A lot of what I spoke about I’ve written about on this site, and some of it may be posted in the future, when its written form is a bit more polished than lecture/discussion notes, [...]

Perhaps the trend that was at least partly inspired by W.G. Sebald’s practice of embedding photographs within his works of prose fiction is starting to wane a bit.��� Only two years ago in 2007 there were more than fifteen such titles.��� In 2009, the number has been far fewer. Here is my list of...

It was a rough year for the publishing industry, from the conglomerate publishers down to the indie bookstores. While preparing for a podcast interview with Beyond the Book, this GalleyCat editor compiled a temporary list of the worst moments in publishing in 2009.

A best moments in...

Three holiday-themed web videos showed up in GalleyCat's inbox this December. In the spirit of holiday competition, we've collected them in a special Holiday Book Video Showdown.

First up the Penguin USA site (creators of that screening room graphic) has a video featuring a few authors...

As mediabistro.com's eBook Summit nears next week, we've built a special Twitter list collecting the 140-character wisdom from registered summit attendees--a list that includes digital publishers, writers, and journalists.

The list will live at @eBookNewser, the Twitter feed for...