Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Others Navigate the Modern Workplace with XEROX Ebook Partnership
October 26, 2017
On Monday, October 23, 2017, Xerox released an ebook entitled Speaking of Work: A Story of Love, Suspense, and Paperclips, featuring contributions from acclaimed writers Roxane Gay, Jonathan Safran Foer, Joyce Carol Oates, Billy Collins, Lee Child, and other notable authors. The collection of stories centers around conceptions of the modern workplace, and is a premier feature of Xerox’s new project: Set The Page Free. The book is a result of a partnership between the corporation and the 92nd Street Y, a New York-based cultural and community center.
“These stories take place on street corners and in classrooms, in parking lots and Genius Bars. And because this virtual office is occupied by writers, who are rarely in danger of under-thinking an issue, there’s also plenty of nostalgia, for longing for the days of warm photo copies and nubby carpeting,” says Sloane Crosley, author of The Clasp and I Was Told There’d be Cake.
In a report by Entertainment Weekly, Oates, author of A Book of American Martyrs, noted “It’s sort of like a playhouse putting on a production of Hamlet that happens to be partly sponsored by Xerox…. I’m really just a writer. I really focus my concentrations on my work. I wasn’t really aware [of Xerox’s presence]. I just use a laptop.”
The 92nd Street Y will host a book launch event on Friday, October 27 at Kaufmann Concert Hall. The ebook is available for free download.
Here is a complete list of the book’s contributors, as well as a few of their notable works:
- Billy Collins, The Rain in Portugal and Aimless Love
- Aimee Man, Save Me and Mental Illness
- Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How it Ends and The Story of My Teeth
- Jonathan Ames, Bored to Death and You Were Never Really Here
- Sloane Crosley, The Clasp and I Was Told There’d be Cake
- Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist and Hunger
- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated
- Chip Kidd, various award-winng graphic designs
- Joyce Carol Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys and A Book of American Martyrs
- Gary Shteyngart, Little Failure: A Memoir and Super Sad True Love Story
- Lee Child, Jack Reacher series
- Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End and The Dinner Party and Other Stories
- Alain Mabanckou, Black Moses and Broken Glass
- Jonathan Coulton, Smoking Monkey and Solid State
