WSJ – Curse of the Greedy Copyright Holders, by Tony Woodlief (author of the memoir on fatherhood and marriage, “Somewhere More Holy”)

Further, this editor noted that one reason literary anthologies and college-course syllabi have replaced classics with less edifying sources like newspaper articles and diaries is simply that major artists in the American literary canon are too expensive to procure en masse, if not totally off limits. The estates of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway have historically restricted which stories can be used in anthologies, which means that students often have a narrow exposure to two of our country’s finest writers.

Here I thought it was a conscious decision to expose us to avant garde.

In other so-that’s-why-we-were-reading-that-author-all-the-time news, an author I read TWICE in high school was recently in the news…

Telegraph – Orange Prize won by anti-Bush writer Barbara Kingsolver

After the September 11 atrocities she enraged many Americans by saying she was reluctant to let her daughter wear the stars and stripes.

She said: “Patriotism threatens free speech with death. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder. Who are we calling terrorists?”

During the first Gulf War she moved to the Canary Islands, so disgusted was she by what she saw as the jingoistic mood.

And that explains that.