3Ms in Blue Hill, Maine

Last Thursday, two wonderful writers - Heidi Julavits and Ayelet Waldman - joined me to talk about mentors, muses and influences, at the Blue Hill LIbrary, in Blue Hill, Maine. In the audience were Bill Henderson, editor and publisher of Pushcart Prizes, which awarded prizes to two of our essays, and novelist Rafael Yglesias, author of the acclaimed A Happy Marriage.


Heidi and Ayelet told stories of their own literary influences (Heidi: a "very, very, very, very famous writer" who read the ms. of her novel and excoriated it and helped her in the process; Ayelet: Tobias Wolff, who said she didn't need to attend graduate school in writing and that her first non-mystery novel was "great"), and both had fascinating comments on the effect of motherhood on writing (profound and positive), and the clued us in on how their writer spouses (Ben Marcus, Michael Chabon) influence their work (ditto).


Thanks to all for a terrific evening. One of the book's pleasures is that the conversation about influence keeps going and growing.

Books, Nooks, Everything Apple, Kindles & Your Laptop

The question this summer isn't what to read but how to read it. So many devices, so little time.

Some shortcuts and tips on where to find 3Ms beyond your local bookstore:

For those sans Kindle, you can download Kindle software for free on Amazon.

* Buy the Kindle edition and/or download Kindle software for free onto your computer:

* Buy the ebook for the Nook and many other ebook devices.

* Download 3Ms onto your iPad through the iPad bookstore. It's $11.99.

Email me if you have difficulties with any of these programs: info@elizabethbenedict.com. And thanks for clicking through.

2 Essays Win Pushcart Prizes

Sigrid Nunez's essay on Susan Sontag, "Sontag's Rules," and Cheryl Strayed's essay on Alice Munro, "Munro Country," were both selected for Pushcart Prizes for 2011, after appearing first in Tin House and the Missouri Review, respectively. Both essays are scheduled to appear in the annual Pushcart Prize anthology this fall.

3Ms reunion in Santa Monica

Carolyn See, whose smashing 3Ms essay, "The Scholars and the Pornographer," first appeared on The Rumpus, was one of my mentors, though I didn't write about her in the book. She has been a model for me of literary generosity, good humor, and taking the long view. In Santa Monica earlier this week, we had lunch at Michael's, whose wonderful garden you get a sense of in these photos

Writers and Their Influences at UVa

Alice Randall joined the 3Ms last night for a panel at the Virginia Festival of the Book, along with contributors John Casey and Maud Casey. Our conversation will soon be available on the book festival website . I'll let you know when it appears. Thanks for checking in.

March 18-U Va Festival of the Book

Mentors, Muses & Monsters writers John Casey and Maud Casey will join me and author Alice Randall (The Wind Done Gone, Rebel Yell) on Thursday, March 18, at 8pm, for a panel on writers and their influences, on the opening night of this wonderful book festival held every year at UVa, in Charlottesville. John Casey is a professor in the graduate creative writing program and Maud Casey grew up in Charlottesville. Here's information on our event (tickets required) at the Festival and here's info about the Festival itself.

Writers Sing Praises of Their Mentors

The March issue of The Writer has a long, generous review of Mentors, Muses & Monsters. There's no link directly to the review, but it examines contributions by John Casey, Alexander Chee, Michael Cunningham and Anita Shreve, and concludes by describing 3Ms as "a unique collection of essays about the infinite varieties of literary mentoring. To this reviewer's knowledge, [Benedict's] is the first book to do so - and it does it very well." Thank you to reviewer Chuck Leddy, who is a contributing editor at The Writer.