The Howling Fantods

David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97

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New Yorker's Deborah Treisman talks TPK with GQ

Cole emailed to let me know about an interesting interview with Deborah Treisman (head of the New Yorker fiction department) posted over at GQ's Verge - Yes, We Are Still Missing DFW: Part II.
 
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Good People was published in 2007, but the new story and Wiggle Room were published posthumously. How did this change your approach?
Both pieces came to me in a rougher state than usual; by the time David sent manuscripts to me, he had generally gone through several rounds of polishing already. Knowing that the manuscripts would have been cleaner, had he been alive, I tried to fix the problems (repetitions, confusing syntax, red herrings that referred to other parts of the book, etc.) as I thought he would have fixed them—or, when it was impossible to guess, I just tried to make the sentences as clear as possible without detracting in any way from the voice or style of the story. Being familiar with the ways in which David had responded to my suggested edits in the past was very helpful. And Michael Pietsch and David's agent, Bonnie Nadell, both discussed the edits with me and approved what I did.
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Infinite Zombies on All That

Keeping Infinite Zombies up there with my fave blogs is this wonderful post about All That by Daryl L. L. Houston (Hey, Daryl!). I can't recommend this short essay on DFW's new piece enough. Read it. 

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German IJ Success

The German translation of Infinite Jest has been a wonderful success:

KiWi didn’t expect Infinite Jest to be the commercial success in Germany that it is. Although pre-publication sales expectations were for only between 5,000-10,000 copies, they’ve sold over 50,000 copies since the book came out August 24th.

 

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Five Dials - DFW Special Issue

UPDATE:
Remembering David Foster Wallace - A Five Dials Special  
It's free (but you have to subscribe by email), and sounds great. From the Five Dials News page:
Here at Five Dials we are excited to be working on our first special — a novella-length collection of tributes to David Foster Wallace by friends and fellow authors, including Zadie Smith, Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders and Bonnie Nadell, with specially-commissioned artwork from artist Michael Schmelling, who recently put together a book for the band Wilco.
We will be emailing the DFW Special out to our subscribers for free as a PDF, beautifully designed as ever by Dean Allen, to be printed out and enjoyed (we hope) away from your computer. If you can’t spare the paper (or if you’re a designer who has issues with PDFs) you can definitely read it onscreen. We’re looking at the artwork right now. It looks good.
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Just discovered this twitter post:
FiveDials has just received some beautiful artwork for our special upcoming David Foster Wallace issue from NY photographer...
Which led to facebook and then to here: Five Dials, a pdf magazine by Hamish Hamilton (they won the UK publishing rights for The Pale King).
More info soon, I hope.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 January 2010 02:37
 

New DFW Short - All That

A new piece of short fiction by DFW has appeared in the New Yorker, read it online: All That.
(I wonder if this is another excerpt from It is an excerpt from The Pale King (Current confirmed release April 2011). Just about to sit down and read it.) 
It certainly is interesting to read all these excerpts first this time around. It was only after reading Infinite Jest that I started visiting libraries to track down all the publications with IJ excerpts.
I liked this new excerpt... quite a bit I think. I read it much more closely, and slowly, than I've read anything recently. The voice is different, markedly so, and totally believable.
It made me recall the kinds of games I used to play, when very young, where I had convinced myself of the existence of Smurfs living in my backyard. I was convinced that they only revealed themselves when I wasn't there, and I spent hours constructing elaborate traps to catch them (with no care for Smurf rights or subsequent cruelty).
UPDATES: I can confirm that it is indeed an excerpt from The Pale King and that the current release date is April 2011. I'm glad they're not rushing it (Thanks, Bonnie).
artisticsnorkel, I've asked about the new TPK release date of April 2011 mentioned over at GalleyCat, I'll let you know confirmed,see above.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 December 2009 07:42
 

DFW Grammar Quiz

HTMLGIANT have posted a beauty of a grammar quiz as set by DFW in a nonfiction workshop back in 2004. Grammar Challenge!
 
Update: Answers
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Last Updated on Saturday, 05 December 2009 17:33
 

Pale King Excerpt Update

Observant Howling Fantods reader, Jenn, reminded me that issue #6 of Australian publication The Lifted Brow is now (or more correctly, has for a while been) available for pre-order. The issue will contain an approx. 2000 word unpublished excerpt from The Pale King (previously).
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Last Updated on Thursday, 03 December 2009 17:19
 
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