Jessa Crispin on Bookslut

Jessa Crispin is editor and founder of Bookslut.com "a monthly web magazine and daily blog dedicated to those who love to read. We provide a constant supply of news, reviews, commentary, insight, and more than occasional opinions." Author Jana Martin describes her this way:  "Certainly she’s a reader, a great reader, and she knows how to make one good party after another, whether in a beer-poster-clad upstairs room at the Hopleaf or Bookslut. She’s a hostess for all of us, a sundress’d impressario. In that way she belongs on the same hearty category as Mike McGonigal: self-made, peripatetic, generous but with standards and boundaries. The other thing is that, like McGonigal, she gives off a slightly timeless vibe: a bit San Francisco 1950s, a bit Chianti in Greenwich Village, a bit rockabilly, a bit Christina’s World." We met at her home in Chicago, and talked about, among other things, the origins of Bookslut, her under-employment at Planned Parenthood, ex-boyfriends, blog advertising, hiring writers, shrinking book review sections, writing for oneself, inexplicable successes, the name ‘Bookslut’ and thoughts of changing it, Somerset Maugham, favourite novels, and the future of blogs.   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebibliofile.substack.com/subscribe