Monday's Body of Work

The Price Is Right

Richard Price is in Seattle this week, speaking on a double bill that will investigate his unusual and powerful ability to write novels, telescripts and screenplays. What’s interesting to us — beyond Price’s obvious awesomeness — is a man who’s notoriously bad at speaking publicly trying to hold sway over an audience. Of course, if interest is high, most anybody can control an audience’s attention. But it’s worth watching, especially when you think about constructing narratives, how Price pulls it off. Who knows, in his telling of the Writing Life he may actually show more than he tells. In other news, Dan Chaon talks to The Review Review about submitting to literary magazines, an author tries to find out what Jesus, really, would do, and a new book — flush with sexual affairs and exotic locations — is charred in The Complete Review. Still hungry? Good, there’s more: Alice Munro speaks! When India is in turmoil the Virginia Quarterly Review follows, and an author goes round for round with a bunch of Oregon toughs. Finally, Mavis Gallant dreams of bad prose and Granta reconsiders Rushdie, who, on this after-holiday Monday, is determined to let his feathers fly. — Kevin Murphy

– Price has written eight novels, including “Clockers” and 2008′s “Lush Life,” a crime novel set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His work pierces the veil between the affluent, educated reading public and the American underclass — his novels combine humor, tragedy and an eerily authentic recreation of American urban language. Price also writes screenplays (“The Color of Money”); he penned several episodes for the groundbreaking HBO series, “The Wire.” (David Simon has said he was inspired to create “The Wire” by Price’s “Clockers.”) — Richard Price in the Seattle Times

– I learned the most about literary magazines from year-end anthologies. Best American. O. Henry. And particularly The Pushcart Prize. These anthologies were my first introduction to the sometimes hidden world of “little magazines,” a way to discover where new writing was coming from. I would fall in love with a magazine because it had published a story that I was amazed by, and that would compel me to seek out the actual hard copy of the journal. Sometimes I would be able to find it in the library, though actually most of the time I’d have to make the effort to send off for a sample copy. — Dan Chaon in The Review Review

J.C. Ain't Listening

– “I plan to talk about my year of trying to live like Jesus, and more specifically, relating it to his incarnation or his birth,” Dobson said by telephone from Grand Rapids on Friday. “Since we’re approaching Advent, I thought I would focus on that specific dimension.” — Ed Dobson in the Battle Creek Enquirer

– Twofold Song is a fairly simple story, consisting almost entirely of a single episode, centered around a man and a woman who have been having an affair for some three years finally going their separate ways. With their spare dialogue and then a lyrical and surreal take on their meeting (and a brief coda that is almost clinically realist, and stands slightly apart from the rest), Yi evokes the complexity of relationships and loss. — Twofold Song in the Literary Review

– This week: A conversation with the short story master Alice Munro; Clyde Haberman on Capt. C. B. Sullenberger’s miracle landing on the Hudson River; Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. — Alice Munro Podcast in Paper Cuts

– All this happened far away from the offices of the literary magazine the Virginia Quarterly Review, but when editor Ted Genoways talked to contributor Jason Motlagh about the attacks, he felt there was a story to tell that went deeper than the TV news stories we’d seen. Motlagh, a journalist working in South Asia, had previously written for VQR about India and had a wealth of contacts there. — India in Jacket Copy

– Author Katherine Dunn spent more than 10 years training with the fighters of Knott Street Boxing Club in Northeast Portland’s Matt Dishman Community Center. But Dunn, best known for her novel “Geek Love,” had never fought for a purse until Tuesday afternoon. Dunn, 64, was carrying a bag of groceries from Trader Joe’s to the Northwest Portland home where she has lived for more than 30 years when someone yanked the purse strap on her left shoulder so hard it spun her around. — Katherine Dunn in Oregon Live

Overseeing Bad Prose

– A couple of months ago Mavis Gallant had a dream. A messenger came to the door carrying a cardboard box with a lid on it. On top was written “Mavis Gallant” in big letters – and underneath it “Bad Prose”. “I was devastated. Devastated for days. I thought, they aren’t telling me the truth.” — Mavis Gallant in the Guardian

– An essay by Salman Rushdie, rejected by former Granta editor Alex Clark for inclusion in the magazine shortly before her departure, has been reinstated by new editor John Freeman and will run in the next issue, Granta 109: Work, available from January. Granta owner Sigrid Rausing has denied suggestions that a row over the rejection of the Rushdie piece was a contributory factor in the twin departures of Clark, and later Granta Publications m.d. David Graham, during last summer. — Salman Rushdie in the Bookseller

Video: Salman Rushdie Toasts Google