Author Archives: George Perkins

Fragmentation of the book business has made it nearly impossible for writers to find publishers, unless, of course, they already have publishers who are willing to take chances on their new books. Publishers need to make money, and times are hard. As a result, conventional publication by major publishers has become nearly impossible for great [...] Continue reading →

It is no secret to serious writers that much of what we used to consider the vibrant literary world we lived in has collapsed into an unhealthy morass. In his new book, Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West, Anthony Grafton, a Princeton professor with a distinguished history as a [...] Continue reading →

In The New Yorker’s current Summer Fiction issue (June 8 & 15, 2009), in an essay that is called “Can You Teach Creative Writing?” on the contents page and titled “Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing be Taught?,” on the page where it begins, the critic Louis Menand makes great claims for the general excellence [...] Continue reading →

You don’t need to be paying close attention to notice the fragmentation that characterizes much of America’s contemporary life. Your home town newspaper has ceased to print or will soon do so. This is happening to the ANN ARBOR NEWS (never a very good newspaper, but one that did a fair to middling job of [...] Continue reading →