Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff author Andrew Kirtzman is writing a biography of Rudy Giuliani. “Giuliani has led an operatic life,” Simon & Schuster editor Bob Bender said in a statement. “Andrew has been writing about him since his days as a City Hall reporter in the 1990s, and has an intuitive understanding of this extraordinarily polarizing figure. It’s a perfect match of author and subject.” The still-untitled book will be published in 2021.
At Vanity Fair, Maris Kreizman explains why the big-five publishers continue to publish works by controversial right-wing authors. “Instead of trying to stop the spread of disinformation, corporate publishers . . . are still putting out books by people who not only play fast and loose with the facts, but who actively spread hate,” she writes, something she finds egregious in an era in which “corporations in all industries are making business decisions based on internal ethical judgments.”
On the Maris Review, Deborah Levy discusses dialogue, writing in the first person, and her new novel, The Man Who Saw Everything. “The challenge of writing in the first person is to let in other subjectivities,” she said. “It’s quite claustrophobic. You need to open the windows a bit, let in some fresh air.”
Nothing to See Here author Kevin Wilson tells the Times about writing his latest book. Wilson and his wife are both writers, and regularly take solo trips away from home to relax and write. But a poor choice of cabin rental left Wilson with little to do but write. “There were trailers all around with ‘Beware of Dog’ signs. I went for a walk and was immediately on the highway,” he said. “I think if the house had been in the woods, where I could go on long, long walks, I wouldn’t have written the book in 10 days.”
As the Chicago Reader transitions into a nonprofit model, NiemanLab wonders if such a strategy is a viable option for other alt-weeklies.
A group of “superfan” investors have bought Nautilus and pledged to pay back the $186,000 the science magazine owed to writers.
Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge talks to the New York Times’s “By the Book” column about James Bond, Charles Bukowski, and who she would invite to a literary dinner party. “Definitely Shakespeare,” she said of her guest list. “I want to look that guy in the eye. I’d tell him there were other people invited, so he would definitely come. But in the end there’d just be an intense little table in a tiny room, lit by a single candle and me saying: ‘O.K. Come on. How the f—.’”