Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

Don't Worry Be Happy dance video French style with François Hollande

France's Canal + Guignols hit the nail on the head with this MTV-style video of François Hollande's puppet signing "Ca m'enerve pas" ("That doesn't bug me!")

 

As if the French president didn't have enough credibility problems already!

Upcoming events at the American Library of Paris

Don't let the rain intimidate you! Interesting events this November at the American Library in Paris

"She wants it all, on every platform." Allrecipes, mega digital site, expands into paper.

Allrecipes.com, the "largest digital site in the world", was recently acquired by the number one media company serving women, a company called Meredith Corp. In this fascinating Bloomsberg interview, Meredith's CEO Stephen Lacy talks with Deirdre Bolton about their strategy for making Allrecipes.com available, not just on mobile devices, but as a magazine.

(Did Mr Lacy really say they send out a BILLION emails a day?)

 

Mark Tronco on Editing Panache, the newsletter for the Paris Alumnae Network

 

Mark Tronco, editor-in-chief of the Paris Alumnae/i Network (PAN)'s newsletter Panache, is stepping down this month to devote more time to his racehorses (the suggested version of the story that Mark prefers...at least for the movie) and / or to let someone else “have a go” (probably closer to the truth although Mark is spending about 40 hours a week with the horses).  We posed a few questions to Mark.

Anton Gill, author of Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim, on research and writing non-fiction

Non-fiction makes special demands on a writer: many talented authors wrestle for years with the fruits of their research, struggling to corral all the facts and details into a coherent, compelling and accurate narrative.

Enter Anton Gill, author of over thirty critically acclaimed works on a wide range on topics, both fiction and non-fiction, most recently The Sacred Scroll.  I first discovered Anton's work with Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim,  realizing only later that this was the tip of the proverbial iceberg (he's also written on The Titanic).

Actor, director, author of both history and historical fiction, biographer, mystery writer, Anton Gill is a man of many talents (and several pennames).  How, I wondered, does he do it?

October literary events, readings, seminars, and new books in Paris

This month, events with Pierre Assouline, Pierre Bergé, Jerome Rothenberg, Yves de Manno, Anthony Flint, Max Bryd, Lisa Pasold, Paul Griffith, Denis Hirson, Fiona Sze-Lorrain, John Mateer,  Kathryn Maris, Patricia Wells, Cara Black, Jerry Fielder, Matéi Visniec, Louis Armand, Thor Garcia, Louis Armand, Jennifer K. Dick, Andrew Hodgson, Jane Lewty, David Vichnar, Joshua Edwards, Michelle Noteboom, Lynn Xu, Margo Berdeshevsky. Jerome Rothenberg, Pierre Drogi, Kate Noakes, James Brookes, Paul Emond,  Hubert Lucot, Eugène Nicole, Jonathan Coe, Nicholas Manning,  Bertrand VAN RUYMBEKE, Marie-Jeanne ROSSIGNOL, Andrew Davidson, Seb Emina, David Lebovitz, Debra Wiess and Lance Tait

What a fool (Dummkopf) I was - Fritz Thyssen, businessman and major contributor to Nazi party

...from William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:

"...the businessmen, who had welcomed Hitler's regime so enthusiastically because they expected it to destroy organized labor and allow an entrepreneur to practice untrammeled free enterprise, became greatly disillusioned. One of them was Fritz Thyssen, one of the earliest and biggest contributors to the party. Fleeing Germany at the outbreak of the war, he recognized that the 'Nazi regime has ruined German industry.' And to all he met abroad he proclaimed, ' What a fool [Dummkopf] I was!"

 

Steven Sampson, on writing books in French, Philip Roth, and Jewish satire

I first heard Steven Sampson speak at a seminar on the America of Philip Roth, organized by La Règle du Jeu in Paris. His knowledge, insight, wit - and incredible mastery of French - blew me away. Who was this Philip Roth scholar who navigated the deep waters of literary Paris with such ease?

Emily Zuckerberg's Guide to Social Media Etiquette Tip Number 1 : Mocking Spammers

Lately, Typepad spammers have pulled out all the stops, assailing blog posts with comments designed to look vaguely like the real thing but linking back to objectionable sites.

Every day I've been dutifully 1) marking them as spam, 2) deleting them and 3) adding significant key words to the block list.

Yet they keep coming!

What's on in literary Paris this September: Paris Writers News

This month news from Ann Mah, Timothy Jay Smith, Sarah Churchwell, Thomas Gatus, Marina Warner, the Bilingual Actors Workshop, Poets Live, Shakespeare and Company's Sylvia Whitman, the American Library in Paris, Cathy Altman Nocquet, WICE,  Jennifer K. Dick, The International Fine Art Photography Award, Ivy Writers, Jamie Cat Callan, the Festival des Ecrivains du Monde, Mille-Feuilles, Clotilde Dudoulier, Aliette de Bodard, Kilian Tep,  Mary Duncan, and more. Update ongoing....