Book news: Proulx not a fan of “Brokeback” fan fiction, and more
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Promoting her new collection of Wyoming stories, ‘Fine Just the Way It Is,’ Annie Proulx is quoted in Britain’s Independent as telling the Wall Street Journal that her story ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is ‘the source of constant irritation in my private life.’ The author said, ‘There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story. They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me.’ Gawker checked out some Brokeback fan-fic and found it pornish indeed.
Moving on: Esquire’s list of the 75 Most Important People of the 21st Century (all eight-plus years of it) includes a few fictioneers -- Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers -- although it’s heavily weighted toward entrepreneurs. Galleycat claims several others as ‘literati’ -- but I’d say that no matter how many pages Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Jon Stewart or Bill Clinton may pen, they’re still better known for their day jobs.
Speaking of writing: Zoetrope: All-Story’s short fiction contest is accepting submissions -- at $15 per entry -- until Oct. 1. Elizabeth McCracken (‘An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination’) will the judge the entries -- the winning story takes the $1,000 first prize.
Words and pictures: io9 looks at the independently published, elaborately illustrated ‘A Field Guide to Surreal Botany’ and finds it a welcome hybrid: ‘fiction written to resemble science, and which comes out sounding almost like poetry.’
Words in person: If you’re in L.A., you should be able to get tickets at the door tonight to see Paul Auster with Michael Tolkin at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills at 7:30pm.
--Carolyn Kellogg
Photo credit: AP/Focus Features, Kimberly French
