The new blog on newyorker.com. The writers so far should be familiar to you from the more recent volumes of the print edition’s now nearly 83 years: Shauna Lyon, Andrea K. Scott, Ben Greenman, Russell Platt, Andrea Thompson, John Donohue, and, of course, Richard Brody. Will this also be a proving ground for young employees, interns, assistants, and fledgling Leo Careys of restaurant-review prose poetry? I hope so!

You have until 5 p.m. today to get your manuscript to the 92nd St. Y for Antrim’s advanced fiction master class, which begins February 7 and continues for nine weeks. Not only will this class be scintillating and rewarding (you’re advanced—don’t you want to be in that room with all those other serious writers?), I have a hunch that it’ll be pretty damn entertaining. Hurry! I don’t want to hear any of your excuses!

Woody Allen, in support of the Writers Guild of America:



Even if you leave politics out of it, it’s a swell experimental short, too. —Martin Schneider

Or so it seems; here’s another interview with Brown in the Indian Express (this is the other one from earlier this month) in which she discusses her New Yorker tenure, among other things.

Go forth and swoon; John Lahr will be glad to see that Cate Blanchett also makes the list. What, no Leo Carey?

So we’re told hardly anyone’s reading. Not so fast, according to a friend of Emdashes (and sometime reporter) who was riding the Q train the other day:

Here’s something to make you feel better: The other day I was on the subway, and noticed that the person standing next to me—a fairly conventional-looking 20-ish girl—was reading something by Oscar Wilde. Looked closer, and it was The Picture of Dorian Gray. Pretty standard, but heck, Wilde on the subway is still cool. Then I looked around the car and happened to see a guy a little ways away, also reading. And what was he reading? The Picture of freakin’ Dorian Gray! I’m tossing any possible explanations for this, and enjoying the craziness of the unlikelihood of such a thing ever happening.