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I’m not toying with her; she’s serious about me, and vice versa. But as Caaron said, we’ve put each other in a “certain special – undangerous – place.”

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From two strong voices in today’s publishing commentary, questions of how books can be accommodated in a digitally-fast age, and whether we’re doing all we can to make them worth the effort.

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“I write in the morning and then go home about midday and take a shower, because writing, as you know, is very hard work, so you have to do a double ablution. Then I go out and shop — I’m a serious cook — and pretend to be normal.”

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Why do we need to talk about women writers as opposed to just writers? First off, there are the statistics, reports, and articles that all address the gender gap in publishing and marketing of women writers.

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Esquire just posted a list called “12 Authors Every Man Must Know.” With entries like Stephen King and Philip Roth, it was the most phoned-in list I’ve read recently…

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In the photograph I was staring at there was a woman who appeared naked. I couldn’t really tell because she was facing away from the camera, lying across a hammock made from a fish net.

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Anyone who likes David Sedaris is automatically good people. If you catch him reading Amy Sedaris, though, you marry him.

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“Getting the Fear,” Manson called it—embracing the dry-mouthed jitters of sheer terror, riding that moment when your heart is thudding so hard it feels like something trapped inside your ribcage, trying to get out.

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To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.

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You’re never too old to start reading Harry Potter (or read it all over again).