The Legacy of David Foster Wallace

Last week saw the arrival of The Legacy of David Foster Wallace, a wonderful collection of essays by Wallace critics, friends and colleagues. My piece in the collection, "Becoming Yourself: David Foster Wallace and the Afterlife of Reception," considered Wallace's legacy through his communities of readership on Amazon and I feel very lucky to be in such august company. For example, my essay is nestled between Dave Eggers and Jonathan Franzen!


Here's the full list of contributors:

Samuel Cohen (co-editor)
Don DeLillo
Dave Eggers
Ed Finn
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Franzen
Paul Giles
Heather Houser
Lee Konstantinou (co-editor)
David Lipsky
Rick Moody
Ira B. Nadel
Michael Pietsch
Josh Roiland
George Saunders
Molly Schwartzburg

Thanks very much to Lee and Sam for including me!

An Interview with Scott Z. Burns

I had a chance to interview Scott Z. Burns, screenwriter for Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum and The Informant (not to mention producer for An Inconvenient Truth) for Slate last week. We talked about his deft ability to smuggle real science into Hollywood movies, the difference between Contagion and Outbreak, and his new comedy about mirror neurons.