Pub date's today & Huff Po too

Pub date means that the book should be for sale in 3-D bookstores and on-line. For the occasion, I did a slight revision of the introduction to the book for Huffington Post, which you can read by clicking right here.

"The Scholars and the Pornographer" - Really

Carolyn See's English professor from England and her father - who turned to writing hardcore porn at the age of 70 and cranked out 73 books before he died - are the subjects of her remarkable essay, which The Rumpus has brought to you on-line right here. Impossible to read without laughing out loud and crying.

Editor's Choice - Chicago Tribune

It concludes: "Every one of the essays here ... is wise and full of heart."
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/printers-row/

Elle Likes Us

3Ms is in good company in the November Elle, appearing with Philip Roth's new novel and a Louisa May Alcott biography.

Alexander Chee's essay on studying at Wesleyan with Annie Dillard caused something of a sensation when it appeared on The Morning News three days ago and then on Facebook. When you read it, you'll see why.

Samantha Hunt's amazing piece on Breece DJ Pancake just came out in the print edition of Poets & Writers.

A Rave in Booklist-Just Out

To die for, from Booklist 11/1/09:

"Even when writing teacher Benedict is writing fiction, she’s writing about writing—her novel Almost (2001) is about a best-selling novelist. So the subject of this irresistible anthology was a natural for her. People become writers by virtue of literary inspiration, be it a book, a place, or a mentor, so why not invite writers to write essays about their literary influences? The response was overwhelming and avid. Benedict reports, “I seemed to have hit a nerve.” What’s more, these exceptionally animated essays feel as though the writers couldn’t get the words down quickly enough. And what an array of experiences and voices. Mary Gordon remembers Elizabeth Hardwick. Sigrid Nunez shares vivid memories of Susan Sontag. Joyce Carol Oates ponders the “singular” book of her childhood, Alice in Wonderland. Carolyn See portrays her father, who at age 69 began writing hard-core pornography. Julia Glass, Dinaw Mengestu, Caryl Phillips, Jane Smiley, Jonathan Safran Foer––all share profound and moving tales of transformation that encapsulate the entire collective experience of literature, a living force tapped into, handed down, cherished."

Oprah and AARP Like the 3Ms

There's a spread about the book in the November issue of Oprah's magazine, "O", (p. 148) and a review in the November/December issue of AARP.

And ... Maud Casey's essay, about the influence of her writer parents, "A Life in Books," is in the current issue of the Oxford American (paper, not on-line), and a reader sent me this comment about the book yesterday, "I just wanted to say I'm adoring your anthology, content-wise a triumph! There are other books out there like this, but here the quality is so much higher than usual.... I think writing instructors should start ordering paperback versions for their workshops. It's that varied and rich.

Later today I'll post information about the book tour-events in Washington, DC, Cambridge, MA, New York City, and Charlottesville, at the Virginia Festival of the Book.

More Sneak Peaks at Mentors, Muses & Monsters

It's usually bad form to brag about a book, but in the case of "Mentors, Muses & Monsters," I'm not so shy: 29 of the 30 essays are written by someone other than me, and, well, they're really, really good. So good that a bunch of them, as you can see, have been reprinted in other publications and one, Edmund White's piece on Harold Brodkey, appears in White's latest memoir, just reviewed in the New York Times.

Arnon Grunberg's splendid essay, "The Moment" debuted in August in "N+1", and you can wait to read it in the book, or you can take a look here.