First conceived as a blog that appeared in 2009 and 2010, these short essays cover a range of topics, most notably, what it means to write in the age of the web. The ways in which the written word is disseminated have constantly evolved. The Recalcitrant Scrivener examines this and other matters, including the history of book publishing, what it means to write literary fiction, and the economic and power dynamics involved in the writer-publisher relationship.
Now, I can picture the interested parties sitting around a table—publisher and editor, representative of a large bookstore chain, maybe even an agent. Everyone except a writer, who couldn’t make it that day. Or maybe the writer just couldn’t find his voice. What I can’t imagine is any writer willingly saying, “Right guys, we writers want the smallest piece of the pie.”
The new edition incorporates the blog entries written after the first series of essays was published. Now included are pieces on vampires, the history of Random House, the role of small presses, and the poet Jim Carroll, as well as a new Afterword.
