Thursday, August 11, 2011

Terry Pratchett and Death

Death is a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and he's also a reality that Terry finds the need to contemplate. Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's. He has continued to work, "writing" his books by means of a computer voice to text program. But he realizes that his time of coherency is limited. Assisted death has become a cause that he advocates, traveling to Switzerland to be a part of a recent documentary on the process. This morning on NPR there was an interview with him aired, which will be available as an audio file on the site. HERE

As a reader who thoroughly enjoys the Discworld books, I anticipate the upcoming release of Snuff, but I regret the winding down of a creative spirit.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Faulkner Treasure Trove

William Faulkner was the writer in residence at the University of Virginia's Charlottesville campus for two terms beginning in 1957. UVa has 28 hours of tape of his readings, addresses and Q&A sessions available on line, plus transcriptions of the sessions to help where the audio is difficult. Story here