Does a millennial writer deserve a $3.5 million book advance?
Lena Dunham, the creator of HBO’s ‘Girls,’ sparked a debate this week for her seven-figure book advance. Plus, the challenges of writing in China, emails and tweets offer less personality than written letters, the accuracy of quotes is questioned, and more.
Frequently, this column focuses on stories that offer insight into the writing process, or a particularly good discussion about grammar. But this week, the Nobel for literature was handed out, and a book advance for a famous young writer sparked a bit of a controversy—so let’s start there.
Lena Dunham’s book deal: I don’t remember an author’s advance ever getting this much attention, but Lena Dunham’s $3.5 million deal to write a book of essays seems to have polarized the writing world. Dunham is the creator of the HBO series “Girls.” On one side, there’s a group that is happy and impressed by the 26-year-old’s accomplishments; and on the other side, there are people who think the publishing industry should be paying more writers anything instead of giving such a huge sum to one popular millennial. In this blog post for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that you can blame the publishing industry, but don’t blame Dunham.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today
Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.
