Matt Weiland

Tomorrow will be Matt Weiland's last day as an editor at The Paris Review. On November 10th he'll report for duty at the Ecco Press, the distinguished boutique house at HarperCollins that has been enjoying a massive year thanks to the breakout success of David Wroblewski's dog novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Mr. Weiland said the job came about as a result of the book State by State, an anthology of essays he co-edited and published through Ecco this fall.

Mr. Weiland said that while working in magazines was a thrill, it does not hold the same appeal for him as the high-stakes gambling involved in the book trade.  read more »

Later this month, Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey will publish a book called State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (Ecco), a collection of 50 essays, each one between 3,000 and 5,000 words long: Jhumpa Lahiri wrote about Rhode Island, William Vollman wrote about California, Jonathan Franzen wrote about New York, and so forth.

The book is nearly 600 pages altogether, and carries a list price of $29.95. These are big numbers, if you’re really just curious to read what Dave Eggers has to say about Illinois and the rest of it not so much.

Would Mr.  read more »

It could be a movie: After years of struggle, four writers, close friends and allies from their days working together in the early '90s on a small but highly influential magazine of politics and culture, are all suddenly enjoying varying degrees of success in the world of American letters. Matt is an editor at The Paris Review. Rick is a historian. The other two are both named Tom: one of them is a magazine journalist and the other writes a column for the Wall Street Journal. Each of them has written a book, and against all odds they are being published mere weeks apart.  read more »