Tin House’s Theft Issue spends some time in the larcenous land of literature with stolen stories, embezzled essays, and pick-pocketed poetry.
“Talent borrows, genius steals” is usually attributed to Oscar Wilde, and occasionally Pablo Picasso. There is, however, no record of either one actually saying or writing this. T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, wrote, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” Theft and appropriation have always been artistic engines, and in this issue of Tin House, those engines run hot . . .
Featuring new work from Laura Lippman, Kevin Young, Mary Ruefle, George Singleton, Victor LaValle, Alissa Nutting, and more.
Win McCormack
Win McCormack is publisher and editor-in-chief of Tin House magazine. He has been in the magazine and book publishing business since 1976. He published Oregon Magazine from 1976 to 1988, and has also been involved in publishing Oregon Business, Oregon Home, Travel Oregon, Military History Quarterly, and Art and Auction magazines, and was involved in the start-up of Mother Jones. He is editor of the books Profiles of Oregon, Great Moments in Oregon History, and The Rajneesh Chronicles, and won a William Allen White award for his investigative coverage of the Rajneesh cult from 1982-1986. He writes on politics and wrote the article "Deconstructing the Election: Foucault, Derrida and GOP strategy," about the presidential election debacle in Florida in 2000, for the Nation. He holds a BA in Government from Harvard College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.