This just in: Munro still not retired
One of the most interesting book stories of the week started in the Edmonton Journal, when books editor Richard Helm wrote that Alice Munro was set to announce her retirement at Wednesday’s PEN Canada benefit and Writing Life launch in Toronto. It’s understandable that one would leap to this conclusion based on Munro’s contribution to Writing Life, an essay in which she writes about plans to give up, er, the writing life. We here at Q&Q were also alarmed, but a few weeks ago we contacted Munro’s editors at M&S, Douglas Gibson, and The New Yorker, Deborah Treisman, who both reassured us that this was not to be taken seriously.
Munro, of course, did not announce her retirement on Wednesday, although the Journal item had already been picked up by the National Post and blogged by Bookslut, Bookninja, and The Elegant Variation (at least most of the bloggers used question marks to denote some amount of skepticism). Whoops! On Thursday, Helm had a follow-up describing how Munro “may not be through with books after all.” (Many thanks to our Alberta correspondent Gordon Morash for following this for us.)
In other Munro news, the apparently press-shy author (for example, there are no pictures of Munro in Q&Q’s photo gallery of the PEN event because she asked that her photo not be taken) is the subject of a lengthy Q & A in the forthcoming issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review (hat-tip to Bookslut).
Related links:
Click here for the Edmonton Journal story
Click here for The Elegant Variation item
Click here for the VQR interview
