Names don't matter, CVs don't matter, previous publications don't matter at all, because, in a certain way, the ideal is for someone to come completely out of left field. And still, of course, it is hard to say no to a writer who matters a lot to you and who you know matters to your readers.
Lorin SteinThe real threat to reading isnโt the time we spend hanging out, itโs the time we spend online.
Lorin SteinIf you wrote about sex the way Jim [Salter] writes about sex in nonfiction, you would be a sociopath.
Lorin SteinFor me the question that you have to ask, about any magazine, is whether it's needed, whether it's publishing things that no one else could publish, or publish equally well. So there's that.
Lorin SteinIn general, short stories are less read than before, they're less published than before and, not surprisingly, they're less taught than before.
Lorin SteinOur generation grew up with the Review as a fact of life. It was Americaโs literary magazine. To our minds, it still is. It has launched our favorite writers. It has made a special claim for the quarterly as such, being both timely and lasting, free of the news of the day or the pressure to please a crowd. Most of all, the Review has shown, repeatedly, that works of imagination can be as stylish and urgent as the flashiest feature reporting, and can do more to refocus our picture of the world.
Lorin SteinChekhov's stories are about the moment that a life goes off the rails and the price that will be paid - forever. That's a typical Chekhov story for you. Something that you're used to lying in bed worrying about at four in the morning, before you have the psychic defenses to kid yourself and tell yourself to get up and shower and go to the office.
Lorin Stein