Excited to head to Denmark next week for the Narrative conference, where I'll be talking about "The High School Canon & Its Genres"

Chronicling the story of literary agents in the United States from the 1950s to today, @lbmcgrath.bsky.social's Middlemen uncovers their critical role in the making of American literature. Out now (23 June UK pub). Read a free preview: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... #Publishing

🔮🔮🔮 Question for a brilliant undergrad thesis writer: Who are the contemporary American writers thinking about religion and faith in interesting ways? Who are the 21st c. descendants of James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Flannery O'Connor, Philip Roth, and Marilynne Robinson (who's still doing it!)?

🔮🔮🔮 Question for a brilliant undergrad thesis writer: Who are the contemporary American writers thinking about religion and faith in interesting ways? Who are the 21st c. descendants of James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Flannery O'Connor, Philip Roth, and Marilynne Robinson (who's still doing it!)?

When someone offers you a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask which one. Because the rocket ship is here, whether you like it or not. And besides, most of the seats are the kind that drain your blood to make the captain’s special peptide cocktail. Anyways, congrats Class of 2026!

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973)

Still in the middle of it but y'all, McGrath's Middlemen is so good! It's a history of literary agents but it also has tons of data and interesting stories about book publishing and I've already told 5 colleagues to read it so now I'm telling you! bookshop.org/p/books/midd...

a new model for US fiction : film adaptation of bestseller novel that's a bestseller novel because it was workshopped for film adaptation and given the hollywood PR treatment, with a main aspect of the book's hype being that it's so good it got picked up by film producers, who actually co-wrote it

I had a wonderful time talking about MIDDLEMEN with Ed Nawotka at Publishers Weekly!

Kids GET genre

Ordered and on its way! I so admire Martin's work on genre and contemporary fiction, and I can't wait to read this!

Now available! Rewriting the history of one of the past century’s most popular genres, this ambitious book reveals how the rise of mass incarceration transformed American crime fiction—and how crime fiction became a key battleground in the War on Crime. buff.ly/i6JYlcC #AmericanLiterature

If you're thinking about new classes to teach next year, @post45data.bsky.social is a great place to start, and a great classroom resource, for courses on... —SPECULATIVE FICTON —ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE —BESTSELLERS —THE HISTORY OF THE NEA ...and so much more! data.post45.org/our-data.html

The people who just read PLAYBOY for the articles ended up encountering some of the finest American writers of the 20th century. Now, thanks to Nora Shaalan and the Post45 Data Collective, we have a record of the more than 1,000 stories published by PLAYBOY from 1953 to 2020!

"A professor of English literature who has never worked in publishing, McGrath describes the mechanisms and eccentricities of the industry with a clarity and curiosity that insiders don’t necessarily have." A great interview on the making of MIDDLEMEN in @parisreview.bsky.social!

I talked with Rosa Lyster about literary agents for THE PARIS REVIEW.

It’s not about declining humanities majors or declining humanities enrollments (which are respectively overblown and not a thing). It’s about structural disinvestment.

Sometimes you get to review a great book by a great human for a great journal.

Those of us asking our students to read and think without AI *are* the ones teaching them the skills they need to thrive in the era of AI.

What a great time to purchase a little pink book, called "fresh" and "well-researched" and "thorough" and "entertaining" and "diverting" and "invaluable" and "enlightening" and "even definitive." press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

I was THRILLED to join the Planet Money team for their fab book publishing series to talk about Bestsellers! How the NYT makes the list, how writers can make the list, how to hack the list. All while mere feet from book rainmaker Terry Gross’s studio! Give a listen!

Ten years ago I flew to Austin to attend my first academic conference. Today I'm headed back to Austin, this time to accept the MELUS Book Award. A wonderful echo—and a time to reflect, with gratitude, on the opportunity to do this work alongside so many brilliant scholars, students, and friends!

Tasha's not on here, but her book is coming out, and it's incredible. I encourage everybody to read it! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

One of my very favorite stories that (sadly) didn't make it into the book beyond a brief mention is the (apocryphal?) story of the (alleged) first book auction, conducted in 1952 (or maybe 1964?) by Scott Meredith. The kind folks at @literaryhub.bsky.social let me tell it!

Thanks to the good folks at @publicbooks.bsky.social for publishing this excerpt: "What Literature did Agents Build?"

You will hear more from us very soon on this book but: MIDDLEMEN by Laura McGrath is terrific, the book on the publishing industry you've been waiting for. Go get it. Truly.

MIDDLEMEN: LITERARY AGENTS AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN FICTION is out today! Today marks the culmination of a decade's worth of work on this project: I conducted my first interview in fall of 2016. I'm so thrilled to share it with you.

In 2009, half a century after TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was published, Harper Lee received a royalty check for over $1.6 million—and that was just for the first six months of the year! If you want to know why, join me tonight on Zoom at the Stanford Humanities Center! shc.stanford.edu/stanford-hum...

Our online book history festival is all about connecting with bookish compatriots! Join us for three, action-packed social events: a bookish craft session, a book recommendation hour, and an early-career mentorship session (spots limited, pre-registration required!) events.zoom.us/ev/Ap9iEZwmC...

In 2009, half a century after TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was published, Harper Lee received a royalty check for over $1.6 million—and that was just for the first six months of the year! If you want to know why, join me tonight on Zoom at the Stanford Humanities Center! shc.stanford.edu/stanford-hum...

We do these things not because they are easy, but because we *thought* they’d be easy…

And we're just OK with this?!

The Montreal Poetry Prize early-bird deadline is only one week away! Submit your poetry at www.montrealpoetryprize.com for the chance to win $20,000! We eagerly await your submissions! #poetry #montrealprize #poets #poetryprize #poetrycommunity

Excited to chat with @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and @gbarnhisel.bsky.social as part of this! Come join us!!

Another fun one from the archives...

Picking up @praddenkeefe.bsky.social’s LONDON FALLING, I couldn’t help but think of Twain, and of course @mattseybold.bsky.social, when I saw the word “gilded” in its subtitle. It’s a connection that Keefe makes explicit in the epilogue to this riveting and artful “Tale of Today”!

Exemplary review of Manshel's Writing Backwards by @sarahlwasserman.bsky.social in latest Novel read.dukeupress.edu/novel/articl...

Hard to put into words how I feel about this review of my book in the latest issue of NOVEL from the brilliant @sarahlwasserman.bsky.social. To have my work read this closely, and (I feel) seen this clearly, is an honor that I will not soon forget! drive.google.com/file/d/1oNLF...

This is such an important conversation! The decline of the English major begins with our youngest learners. How children see and do literacy is how adolescents and teens see and do English in high school, which is why fewer decide to pursue a literacy life post-high school. #EduSky #TeacherSky

3.) My neighborhood/front yard in full bloom! 🌸 4.) This pretty pink cover (sorry not sorry)

Saving the English department by relabelling our chronological survey course "the eras tour"

I really truly love to talk to students! Let me talk to yours! I hope you’ll keep MIDDLEMEN in mind as you’re planning your courses or speaker series for 26-27. (Resources need not be an obstacle.)

My grad students were positively beaming at the end of Laura’s visit! If you get a chance to teach from MIDDLEMEN, or to bring Laura to campus, take it!

Wonderful conversation! And definitely a great way to start a Friday morning before teaching a 12th grade English class.

Very excited to share my most recent episode of Conceptually Speaking! No matter where you’re situated in the English Studies penumbra, @manshel.bsky.social’s research on the history of English education is must-read scholarship. #literacies #edusky #academicsky open.substack.com/pub/trevoral...

Such a pleasure to talk with @mraleosays.bsky.social about the history of high school English, and why the problems faced by K-16 English teachers demand a K-16 response!

If you're near Champaign, come see @mellymeldubs.bsky.social reveal the big, weird picture of literary circulation on the internet — "memes, viral quotations, fanfiction, selfies, and more"! 3pm this Friday. (Alas, no current plans to record or livestream.)

🔮MONTREAL! If you don't feel like doomscrolling tonight, please join me and Zach Williams for a reading from his outstanding collection, BEAUTIFUL DAYS, tonight at De Stiil Books!🔮

“I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil!”

Ted Martin is one of the most insightful, learned, and lively scholars of 20th/21st c. American fiction working today, and I cannot wait to get my hands on this exciting book!