The Open Road Blog

“The short story is where some of the finest creative juices are flowing, and Peter Cameron is one of the form’s finest practitioners.” —People

Open Road Integrated Media announces the ebook publication of four titles by acclaimed author Peter Cameron, praised for his “rare ability to take an ordinary event and invest it with heart and significance” by the Los Angeles Times. Cameron’s first collection of short stories, One Way or Another, is joined in ebook release by Far-Flung, The Half You Don’t Know, and Leap Year. 

One Way or Another was awarded ...

There is an interesting article on the works (and women) of H.G. Wells in this week's New Yorker. "Wells sincerely believed in sexual frankness and women's liberation, at a time when Victorian chastity was curdling into a burdensome hypocrisy." The article speaks to H.G. Wells' relationships with (many) women, including biographer, journalist, feminist, essayist, critic, and otherwise famous figure Rebecca West. West's disdainful 1911 review of H.G. Wells' novel Marriage elicited both ire and an invitation to lunch from the author—a meeting that resulted in a love affair with the married Wells. Read more about Rebecca West and ...

Today marks the release of four diverse new ebooks from Pegasus Books and Open Road Media. Featured titles include The Schoolmaster’s Daughter, a gripping historical novel set during the American Revolution; By Accident, a poignant novel spanning themes of love, loss and grieving; The Story of Brutus, a heart-warming story of a man and his 800-lb grizzly bear; and Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth, a witty celebration of great eccentrics whose dangerous experiments have benefitted humankind.

In the tradition of Sally Gunning’s Bound and Diana Gabaldon’s A Echo in the ...

In preparation for Hurricane Irene here on the East Coast, the New York Times has put up a very helpful Tracking Map. Stay safe, everyone!—Lara

I enjoyed John Tierney's essay on decision fatigue in the New York Times, adapted from his forthcoming book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Tierney states that the very act of making decisions depletes our ability to make them well and asks how to navigate a world of endless choice given this reality. Click here for his interesting read on self-regulation.

Also: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone ...

Today we bring you the final installment of our Critical Symposium on the importance of Andre Dubus. In a new essay, Edward J. Delaney, a writer and filmmaker, offers a moving portrait of the great writer in his later years. Delaney produced an award-winning film about Dubus called The Times Were Never So Bad. Click here to see a preview of the film, which is available for purchase through Amazon. Delaney's writing has appeared in The Atlantic and other magazines. He is the author of the forthcoming novel Broken Irish. Learn more about him and his work ...

Earlier this year Open Road debuted a new feature on its blog called the Critical Symposium. Our first symposium introduced three essays by critics discussing Stanley Elkin's status as a Jewish American writer. Today marks the 75th year since the birth of Andre Dubus and, as a special tribute, we are initiating a new Critical Symposium about the enduring significance of his work. Our first installment in this series is an essay by the writer Thomas E. Kennedy, who met Dubus in 1983 while earning his MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Kennedy is the author of numerous ...

Enjoyed this fascinating essay by James Gleick on "How Google Dominates Us" in The New York Review of Books. And, of course, the "beta version was better"—the funniest use of blog comments ever from Paul Simms in New Yorker's Shouts & Murmers. —Laura

This morning I read about the Poetry Foundation's new Poetry app for Android and iPhone on Largehearted Boy. Sure enough, it's what the Poetry Foundation describes: shake your phone and find any poem to fit your mood. Download it here for instant access to endless great poems on grief, gratitude, joy, anger, nostalgia, passion, and ...

Here, a young Scott Spencer appears alongside his father Charles on their 1958 Arizona vacation. Spencer’s parents urged him to read at an early age, and his passion for books likely contributed to his later interest in the beat subculture and literary movement.

Growing up in the South Side Spencer witnessed Chicago's racial and political turmoil up close. His parents refused to embrace the mob mentality of the McCarthy era, and Spencer, too, emerged as a cultural dissident. His early work, including Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball (1975) and Preservation Hall (1976), centers on the highly personal themes ...

Editor's note: Today we continue our celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month with a new essay by David C. Dougherty on Stanley Elkin's relationship to the Jewish American literary tradition. Dougherty is the author of Shouting Down the Silence: A Biography of Stanley Elkin and professor emeritus of English at Loyola University Maryland. This essay is part of our "Critical Symposium" series, an ongoing effort to include in-depth commentary about Open Road authors on the blog. Click here to read "Top of the Bill" by Daniel Green, the first essay in the series. 

“That Ounce of the Ecumenical”

(The MacGuffin, 1991)

When Stanley Elkin exploded onto the ...