Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In 1957 and 1958, the great Amer­i­can writer William Faulkn­er spent two years as Writer-in-Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. Dur­ing this stint, he pre­sent­ed sev­er­al pub­lic speech­es, gave many read­ings from his lit­er­ary works, spoke at count­less pub­lic events, and answered ques­tions from hun­dreds of stu­dents. The talks were orig­i­nal­ly record­ed on reel-to-reel tapes, and now UVA has dig­i­tized the audio col­lec­tion and made it avail­able through a new web site: Faulkn­er at Vir­ginia: An Audio Archive. In total, the archive presents 1690 min­utes (over 28 hours) of Faulkn­er record­ings. It also includes an archive of pho­tos and news­pa­per items, as well as an audio record­ing of a press con­fer­ence the Eng­lish depart­ment gave when Faulkn­er died on July 6, 1962. A real trea­sure. You can dive into the audio trove right here.

Note: To access the audio, you will need a Quick­Time play­er. If your brows­er does­n’t already sup­port Quick­Time, you can down­load a free Quick­Time plug-in here.

via NPR

Mark Twain died a good cen­tu­ry ago. But new Twain writ­ings keep com­ing out. Lat­er this fall, his auto­bi­og­ra­phy will hit book­stores for the first time. And just this week, PBS pub­lished online a new Twain essay called “Con­cern­ing the Inter­view.” It begins:

No one likes to be inter­viewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for inter­view­ers are cour­te­ous and gen­tle-man­nered, even when they come to destroy.

You can read a high res­o­lu­tion, hand-writ­ten copy of the essay here.

via @alyssa_milano

Even at the age of 81, the Beat writer William S. Bur­roughs was still resist­ing lit­er­ary con­ven­tion. This footage was shot in Lawrence, Kansas, just two years before his death in 1997.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gus Van Sant Adapts William S. Bur­roughs: An Ear­ly 16mm Short

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His First Nov­el, Junky

William S. Bur­roughs’ “The Thanks­giv­ing Prayer,” Shot by Gus Van Sant

Ben Green­man, a fic­tion writer and edi­tor at the New York­er, has a short sto­ry col­lec­tion com­ing out this June. What He’s Poised To Do makes let­ters and let­ter-writ­ing a the­mat­ic focus, and even before its offi­cial pub­li­ca­tion, Green­man’s col­lec­tion has inspired a blog that encour­ages every­day peo­ple to write let­ters to great lit­er­ary char­ac­ters. The sam­ple below gives you the gist of the project … and then some. If so inspired, send your own let­ter to: Le******************@***il.com.

Ernest Hem­ing­way | The Sun Also Ris­es | 1926

Dear Brett,

I find myself in the hor­ri­ble posi­tion of telling you what a tru­ly ter­ri­ble human being you are. I know what you’re doing with Jake and Robert when you’re very much engaged to Michael. Now, don’t give me any sob sto­ry about how you lost your “only true love” at such a young age. This gives you NO right to be a tramp. Also, half the women in Paris would agree that you are NOT charm­ing when you are drunk like you think you are. In fact I would go as far as to say you are repul­sive in all forms of the word. Occa­sion­al­ly, I cringe when you speak because it is always to use some­one. You’re despi­ca­ble. Dis­gust­ing. You’re a pedan­tic wee­nie.

Sin­cere­ly,
Alexan­dria Smith