When Robert Loomis joined Random House in 1957, there were only four parking spaces. The new publishing house shared an eight-space lot with a nearby church, and the company’s co-founder, Bennett Cerf, was consistently irked by one confused clergyman, who parked in a Random House space each day and left his Bible resting in the Read More
When I first encountered Mulholland Books, it was a foggy April night in the Financial District, the kind of night that makes you think the man upstairs might not be such a bad guy, if he’s got the decency to take your mind off the things that go on in the upper floors of the Read More
“You look hot.” The first words Lynda Carter spoke to me were a variation of the same ones I had spent more than 30 years waiting to say to her. But Ms. Carter did not mean “hot” that way. What she meant was that I was a mess, and sweating. By the time my long Read More
A certain literary discourse, about what others should or shouldn’t be doing with their art, will probably always exist as a distraction from writing novels. I discerned this afresh while studying said discourse for my addition, arguably, in terms of “the future of the novel,” to the discourse. My addition–herein, itself a distraction from the Read More
Three pairs of stockings were fluttering above a stainless-steel fan in the basement backstage of the Palace Theater, currently home to Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical. In a moment of calm before the pre-curtain storm, Brian Bustos, the production’s associate costume designer, was explaining the origins of the fire-orange rubber lizard costumes, reminiscent Read More
Lynne Tillman was laughing and talking about when she’d be famous. “When I’m dead, I’m dead, and it doesn’t matter,” said the writer. “And I don’t believe in posterity.”
Posterity, though, may yet believe in Ms. Tillman. The author of five novels and a number of story collections, she is a writer-in-residence at the University Read More
“I think if you’re in the theater, of course, the idea of coming to Broadway is exciting, the same way that if you’re a baseball player, you want to play in Yankee stadium,” said the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis.
It was a little after noon on March 10, and Mr. Guirgis was sitting on the Read More
Last Thursday morning, the publisher John O’Brien put out a cigarette and walked into the Washington Square Hotel for breakfast, where he greeted William H. Gass. The novelist was reading The New York Times and eating a bagel and fruit with his wife, Mary.
“You never know who you’ll run into,” Mr. O’Brien said. They Read More
“Did she see you had an entourage with you?” asked Bobby.
“Yes, she definitely noticed,” The Observer replied.
The Observer had just had a close call on the floor of the Armory Show. Looking at two large photographs by Candida Hofer, he had been accosted by an ex-girlfriend.
“Hey,” The Observer had whispered. “It’s good Read More
“I liked how you pinned me down and asked me if I was naughty like Mila Kunis,” Jack Ferver told The Observer. “I was at an Armory party—I was invited—and I wore this Comme des Garçons piece, which is, like, just lapels, so when you’re wearing a jacket, it looks like you have a suit Read More
