curated by the Atticus Books staff
Hell Yeah! Worthy is a weekly Friday feature where our staff distills the plethora of scat on the Internet into a succinct list of the best you haven’t seen, the best you ignored, and the best you should visit again.
This week, we write to you from the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Chicago.
painting: Henry O'Hara Clive
Where Are the Women?
Earlier this week VIDA, an organization that seeks “to address the need for female writers of literature to engage in conversations regarding the critical reception of women’s creative writing in our current culture,” released their breakdown of women contributing to and reviewed by major literary publications, including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Times Literary Supplement. The statistics are revealing, though not surprising: women are written about and write at a disproportionally dismal rate. As several commenters note, however, the next step isn’t to pinpoint the severe discrepancy; it’s to take active and meaningful steps to address it. (Lacey)
Books Sweep The Oscars
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore has been flying around the web the past few days, ever since winning Best Animated Short Film at the Academy Awards on Sunday. And boy, did it earn it. Inspired by “Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books,” the film is visually and emotionally stunning and seeing the miniature set and animation artwork gives you a whole new appreciation for the hard work and artistry involved in crafting this little gem. (Libby)
Visual Verbal Diarrhea
I must be getting weird. Or old. Or both. I can just hear my wife on my self-description of weird: “What do you mean by ‘getting’?” Perhaps it’s simply a desire to shut down before liftoff. My mind is knee-deep in the blitzkrieg of AWP and all I can do is scroll through strange frames of mixed media with even stranger descriptions. The original collages at the new gravy cake are the work of Stephen Knezovich. Where the “other assorted visual stimuli” come from, I know not; I only know I find the images altogether satisfying in an obstacle-surpassing way. With an impending assault of the senses in Chicago this week, I owe it to myself to decompress before compressing. As the site’s creator, Knezovich, explains:
“i pretend that this helps me learn.
that this is what language feels like.
it does not. but we all need hobbies.”
(Dan)
Tim Tebow Can Read!
Well, kind of. (Lacey)