Some news to share regarding criticism. My review of Justin Taylor’s Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever will be appearing on The Millions early next month! It was just accepted this week.

And my review of Lydia Peelle’s Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing is slated to appear in the Summer 2010 issue of Prairie Schooner. This had been previously accepted, but I learned that it’s scheduled for publication today.

It’s been surprisingly fun to work on literary criticism again after grad school–albeit in a way that isn’t so strictly scholarly. It’s a bit nerve-wracking to critique a young writer’s work in public way also, but I’m not too afraid of doing so, it turns out. When I started thinking about reviewing books, I promised myself that I’d only review books that I really liked. For one, I wouldn’t have to trash another writer. Second, it seemed boring to put that much effort into something that I couldn’t connect with. And finally, it didn’t make sense to help promote work that I didn’t care for when that effort could be applied to promoting work I actually want others to read. Seems like sound logic to me.