The Howling Fantods

UPDATE 11/4/12 Joe Winkler's review at Vol 1. Brooklyn.

27/3:  Charles Isherwood's New York Times review, Volleys of Words From a Writer of No Brevity: David Foster Wallace Inspires Piece at Chocolate Factory. [25/3/12]

From March 22nd - April 7th 2012 at The Chocolate Factory Theatre, Daniel Fish's - A (radically condensed and expanded) SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN (after David Foster Wallace):

Wow, what a weekend.

New site / back end with slight re-branding went live before the symposium...

e.g. No exclamation mark after fantods, "News and Resources" rather than "News, Info and Links" etc. Everything is running significantly faster now, but there are still broken links all over (especially search engine traffic links - but I've redirected and/or fixed all the major ones so I don't think that will be an ongoing issue). If something points you to the 404 page, be sure to follow the link there to report the problem. I'm making my way through each section - slowly - correcting things.

Comments and registrations are back on (login via the drop-down module top right). ALL the old accounts have been migrated, so your old logins and passwords should work. If they don't drop me a line and I'll fix it for you ASAP.

Blogroll. Long time coming, but these are sites that often (sometimes always) have a DFW focus and I like checking up on them regularly. Maybe you will too?

RSS feed. Take a moment to subscribe to the new feed, the old one (poorly functioning one) will be disabled soon.

Design wise I've modified a basic template. Emphasis on basic. Things were getting too crowded, and I know most visits are to the front page to check up on the latest Wallace news. Additionally, I know plenty of you follow me on twitter, and often I have related tweets/retweets that I may not have had time to post to the full site (or are things that are already here) so I've added the little twitter plugin - it's an experiment. I'm hoping it will mean that those of you not using twitter will have quicker access to breaking updates, but that I won't feel as much pressure to complete the cross post absolutely everything. I guess we'll see.

(Heaps more after the break)

The Legacy of David Foster Wallace essay collection has been released early over at Amazon, and Stephen J. Burn's Second Edition of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide is due on April 19th (You can pre-order on Amazon now).

I'm looking forward to both of these publications (the first is in the post right now) and you can read a preview of the opening 20 or so pages of Burn's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide by clicking right here.

Thus, I've added the new reader's guide to the 2012 publication list. It's shaping up to be a great year.

Recordings of the panels:

Official videos from the live webcast (final recordings added 17/5/12)

1. "Everything and More: A Conversation About David Foster Wallace." Literary agent Bonnie Nadell and Little, Brown editor Michael Pietsch spoke with Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin about their work with David Foster Wallace.

2. "A Life through the Archive." Cultural critic and reporter Seth Colter Walls and D.T. Max, staff writer for The New Yorker, spoke with writer and historian Douglas Brinkley about the life and work of David Foster Wallace through his archive. Wallace's archive is housed at the Ransom Center.

3. "Writers on Wallace." Authors Elizabeth Crane and Amanda Eyre Ward spoke with Little, Brown editor Michael Pietsch about their connections with David Foster Wallace and his work.

4. "Editors on Wallace." Editors Colin Harrison, Bill Tonelli, and Deborah Treisman spoke about their involvement with David Foster Wallace's work with Wallace's literary agent Bonnie Nadell.

Join us in web-based IRC CHAT at #dfwsymposium on freenode during the stream. Click the link, select a username, and join.

Twitter hash tag #dfwsymp (Follow me @nick_maniatis)

Next up Writers on Wallace at 1:30pm Austin Time. Check the program and links below for details. I'll be in the irc chat, keeping an eye on the #dfwsymp hashtag and watching the streams as before. I hope some of you will be able to join me.

Don't forget that the Harry Ransom Centre's David Foster Wallace Symposium kicks off with, "Everything and More: A Conversation About David Foster Wallace" which will be available via live webcast on Thursday April 5th from 7pm (Austin time).

In Australia this equates to 10am on Friday April 6th, perfect! I'll be watching, and I hope you'll join me. I'll update this post with links to a couple of places where you can join in for a live chat/discussion while we watch.

Even better, it appears that all panels from Saturday's session will be webcast too. It's going to be a long night for me on Friday! (Day 2 starts at 1am on Sat for me)

Here's the pdf version of the program.

• 1st April 2012 Conversations with David Foster Wallace, edited by Stephen Burn. 208 pages. Available now.
  

• 27th November 2012 Both Flesh and Not: Essays by David Foster Wallace. 272 pages (Amazon Pre-order).

• Later this year: A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies, edited by Stephen J. Burn and Marshall Boswell. (alternate cache link)

During the discussion at the Ransom Centre this evening Michael Pietsch spoke about how he used Excel to organise all of the fragments of The Pale King. Later he pulled a printed copy of it out... I'd love to see a close-up!