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A lot of people are talking Twitter all of a sudden. Jennifer Egan and R.L. Stine are among those who have utilized it for story-writing purposes, and now here comes the Twitter Fiction Festival.

Get inspired by reading these 21 authors’ 140-character novels or Joyce Carol Oates on Twitter.

This novel-tweet, by the way, was particularly disturbing:

Patrick Neateur
profile pic: happy – smiling & smoking. ur last post: “home!” ur hrt gave out @35. ur profile undeleted 6 months on. ur epitaph: “home!”

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It takes a staff and other resources to host in-store events, and it’s the sale of books—or the revenue from tickets—that must cover the costs. If an independent bookstore is providing events as part of its mission to build community, why should anonymous, distant Amazon or a big chain profit from all of the indie’s work?

Reading a quick word on why our (D.C.’s) Politics and Prose bookstore encourages buying independent is always good for me, personally, since I tend to lean toward whatever method gets more books to more people more easily. I’m a teacher; I can’t help it.

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Christian bookstores hate vaginas?

“… What’s frustrating about all of this, of course, is that I can use the word ‘vagina’ when the context involves rape, but I cannot use the word ‘vagina’ when the context involves a certain degree of ownership and power over my own body.”

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The website Slate.fr added: “In Fifty Shades there is no intellectual construction; this is the glaring difference with Sade, and with the Story of O. Nor will you find that poetic eroticism that makes Anais Nin’s books so charming. It’s 50 shades of boredom.”

Let’s just say Fifty Shades of Grey doesn’t seem like such a big deal after, say… 120 Days of Sodom.

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A few months ago, the bestselling British thriller-writer Stephen Leather publicly boasted that he creates fake identities to promote his books online, and the New York Times revealed that the bestselling American writer John Locke kickstarted his success by bulk-buying Amazon reviews of his work.

Nevermind the rest of this; I feel so gipped to find out that John Locke is a fraud! John Locke was the first author I, personally, had ever heard of having crazy success publishing his own e-books. I know, I’m super naive and I should have seen it coming, but finding this out was quite a blow for me.

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A friend actually sent me a link to this on Facebook recently:

Book-banners are invariably idiots, or why I <3 Pat Conroy.

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What’s wrong with Amazon rating the most popular authors?

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Statistics on ebooks in infographic form – yay!

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OhmyGODIamsopsyched for the film adaptation of Just Kids, which was SO amazing-if-slightly-pretentious. This led to a few words from Patti Smith on young actors:

“I remember the very first time I saw Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson together, when they were younger, and I thought, ‘Those two kids could have easily played us when they were first starting,” said Smith. “There’s something in his eyes. And Robert [Mapplethorpe] was also a bit shy, and a bit stoic. Kristen has a very special quality. She’s not conventionally beautiful, but very charismatic.”

True. I think Kristen Stewart’s pretty horrible to look at, too.

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Out of everyone featured here, my handwriting is most like JK Rowling’s. If this analysis applied, I’d be pretty happy with it.

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H.P. Lovecraft and the Other is among the stuff I’ll be reading this week.

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The New Yorker is endorsing Obama, in case you were wondering.

“The President has achieved a run of ambitious legislative, social, and foreign-policy successes that relieved a large measure of the human suffering and national shame inflicted by the Bush Administration. Obama has renewed the honor of the office he holds,” the editors wrote.

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Here’s another reason to love Stephen King if you were still on the fence.

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James Franco is busy attempting to deliver on his promise to turn As I Lay Dying into a movie. An awesome one, I can only hope.

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The Wildest Teenagers in Literature make my students seem positively angelic. Most of them. Especially that Alex fellow.

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These bookish pumpkins are so happening at the wedding!

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More bookish Facebook feeds, courtesy of BookRiot.

… who, by the way, wants to know your three favorite novels.