Rick Moody, Ben Yagoda

From Rick Moody's essay at NPR:

"I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket. I believe in reading books because others dislike them or find them dangerous. I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book, and then making up my own mind."

and

"I believe there is not now and never will be an authority who can tell me how to interpret, how to read, how to find the pearl of literary meaning in all cases."

Listen to or read the full essay here. Anyone can submit an essay for consideration.

Ben Yagoda, author of the excellent writer's resource The Voice on the Page writes in Slate about My Life as a Hack and why he's getting out of the non-fiction freelance biz:

"New York magazine paid $1 a word in 1996 and pays the same rate in 2005. Catholic Digest's fees were $200 to $400 in 1989 and are the same today. The Village Voice was in the news this month for planning to slash its already low fees: Short pieces that used to go for $130 will now fetch $75. There are a few glossy exceptions, but stagnant rates are the rule. That's even worse than it seems. Magazines commonly pay by the word and have been assigning ever shorter articles—which means that writers are virtually certain to get less for a typical piece."