Here is the problem with your Twitter feed, Joyce Carol Oates: It is, as we like to say on the internet, the worst. You fundamentally misunderstand the medium. Your continued presence there does nothing but undermine your own authority and annoy other people. You should delete your Twitter account.
Seventeen editor-in-chief Ann Shoket turns 37 today. Author Joyce Carol Oates is turning 71. Famed photographer Irving Penn is 92. Former New York Sun editor Seth Lipsky is 63. New York's marketing chief, George Fertitta, is turning 63. Architect Richard Gluckman is 62. Univision CEO Joe Uva turns 54. Hedge funder Michael L. Gordon is turning 65. American Idol runner-up Diana DeGarmo is 22. And professional golfer Phil Mickelson turns 39 today.
• Former president George W. Bush has signed a deal with Crown to publish a memoir. Rumor has it he landed a $7 million advance for the book. [AP, NYP]
• For his part, Barack Obama has two books in the works with Crown. He plans to release an abridged, youth-oriented version of Dreams From My Father as well as write a nonfiction book once he leaves office. [CBS News]
• CNBC's keeping it classy. Larry Kudlow set a dollar bill on fire today. [CJR]
• Jim Cramer is still rattling on about Jon Stewart. [Gawker]
• NBC is planning to launch a "singing competition series" that sounds a lot like—yes, you guessed it—Fox's American Idol. [THR]
• CBS is keeping Two and a Half Men on the air through 2012. [NYT]
• The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize include E. L. Doctorow, V. S. Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. [NYT]
• The noms for the National Magazine Awards are out. [AdAge]
• The cable channel Starz would like to remind you that it exists. [NYT]
• How screwed is the newspaper biz? Here's a pic that sums it up nicely. [BI]
An epically prolific and moving novelist, a creative writing professor at Princeton, and mentor to many (past protégés including Jonathan Safran Foer, Richard Greenberg, and Jonathan Ames), and a constant New Yorker contributor, Oates is a literary legend whose fiction and non-fiction revel in the bleak and the violent.
This week's New Yorker features a letter from Mandee Wilton of Ringoes, NJ. Ms. Wilton writes to complain about "Landfill," a recent work of fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, details of which are "partly drawn from the case of John A. Fiocco Jr., 19, who went missing in March from The College of New Jersey. His body was later found in a Pennsylvania landfill." Ms. Wilton is not alone in her displeasure; the College has also complained about the story, suggesting that it caused pain to the community. New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman responded that, "While there is a long history of fiction drawing on factual events, we regret it if the overlap here caused any distress," Treisman said.
Ung Lee, a 2002 Princeton senior and Joyce Carol Oates protégé (shades of Jonathan Safran Foer) was recently awarded several fiction prizes. The only problem is that at least one of his prize-winning stories was plagiarized. [Ed. notewhat, daddy's trust fund manager couldn't buy you an original work? Oops. Sorry. It's Princeton. Involuntary response.] Seth Shaferthe author of the storycomments.
Accidental strength [TMN]
