Book blogger Maud Newton interviews new Paris Review executive editor Brigid Hughes. Fun fact: Ms. Hughes demanded a review of the interview before publication, to assure herself that Maud transcribed the interview properly. In addition to being a writer, Maud is also a lawyer, so we're fairly certain that the little lady can handle a bit of transcription.

ICM mini-agent Kate Lee was subject to a round thrashing after last week's Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker, which prematurely exposed her burgeoning (and, as of yet, imaginary) empire of books by bloggers.

The first of what are sure to be many corrections regarding yesterday's item on The Right Address are in. First, from W's Rob Haskell:

Scenes from New Yorker financial writer Jim Surowiecki's book party last night, featuring Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff farther downtown than he's ever been in his life. We hear he complained for the whole 60-block cab ride down to Canal and Orchard.

As we all know, The Right Address, by Jill Kargman and Carrie Karasyov, novelizes (is that a word?) real details from the uptown society circuit.

Sam, the wildly annoying reality show contestant who got booted early on The Apprentice, is having ICM shop his book proposal. It's... actually kinda good, despite his obsession with the phrase "thinking outside the box." EXACTLY WHAT BOX ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, SAM?

Now that a couple of losers have figured out how to get paid for writing weblogs, along comes someone with a smarter scheme: how can I get 15% of that? Today's New Yorker introduces us to Kate Lee, ICM agent and blog enthusiast. Avast, bloggers! Thar be agents, ready for their percentage.

Plum Sykes, New York socialite and author of best-selling Bergdorf Blondes, wants more from a literary agent than making her over $2 million in book deals before her book even comes out. She wants the best movie deal EVER, or something along those lines. When she complained about being strong-armed into a deal with Miramax for the rights to her best-seller, she decided to fire her agent Elizabeth Sheinkman over voicemail.

You've always wanted to explore New York but you worried about the smell, safety, sidewalk electrocutions, cost, and abundance of: hipsters, Jews, gays, gangs, assholes, plus every other offensive stereotype that's painted in large strokes through the media. Now you can experience a worry-free trip through town in the same way you used to slay dragons in your 4th grade book club. Choose Your Own Adventure - web interactive stylee. Just watch out for the subway and remember, it's like a *total* New York experience:

Last week, mega-agent Andrew Wylie — he represents McSweeney's, VF editor Graydon Carter and VF scribe Michael Wolff, fashion queen Diane Von Furstenberg, and other little outfits, like the New York Times itself — trashed pop fiction classic Peyton Place, saying publishers of work such as Hemingway and Faulkner made much better investments.

New York socialite, Vogue refugee, and author Plum Sykes takes her publicity tour back to England, and things go really poorly. (The Telegraph interview is headlined "Bergdorf Bitch," and the working theory is that Vogue editor Anna Wintour made her evil.) At lunch, the interviewer confesses that Plum's publisher wouldn't send her Plum's new novel, Bergdorf Blondes, and chick loses it:

Former Talk editor and chat-show host Tina Brown threw down the book deal announcement this morning. A book! Yow, that's so much bigger than a magazine. Color us stoked, Tina!

The winners of the fourth annual Lyttle Lytton worst first-sentence-of-a-novel contest have been announced. Taking the top prize this year: "This is the story of your mom's life." Yow, that does suck.

It seems production on the Paris Hilton book is well under way. Reportedly, Paris suffers from ADD so advanced she can't deal with reading through the book in progress, so she's having someone read it to her over the phone. (We call it "being cracked out.") Says a recent entry on a Brookyn-based LiveJournal:

Dave Eggers and his gang who run 826 Valencia, the tutoring center for kids in San Francisco, are ready for their New York invasion. At least, that's what their new website says:

I know you've all paid careful attention to the 18 episodes of Dave Eggers' serialized novel on Salon. If anyone wanted to hide a map of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or pictures of Tom Cruise having sex with children in Malaysian sweatshops, inside Eggers' book would be the place to do it.

Okay: We're willing to put money (not that we have any) down on the identity of the anonymous author of the Salon "Confessions of a Semi-Successful Writer" piece. We dismissed this candidate fairly early, but plenty of puzzle pieces fit: She just accepted a job (fiction editor at Ms.), she published her first novel at the approximately correct time, she's raised a child (three in fact), she's often been publicly vocal about the private/public line, she's changed publishers and agents, and one of her earlier books was nominated for a major prize. (There's lots of stuff that doesn't fit, but what do we care? If you want "accuracy," go read Romenesko.) In the end, we're plenty happy to finger — as it were — Amy Bloom.
The World According to Bloom [Advocate]
Amy Bloom [Identity Theory]

Neal Pollack, Mr. "World's Greatest Living Writer," makes a confession of his own in a letter to Salon. Responding to everyone's favorite anonymous semi-successful writer's confessions, he 'fesses:

Sloganeering has a three-step program for how to seduce whiny mid-list women writers:

We always hear writers bitching about the publishing industry, but who will bitch about the writers? Class warfare works both ways, says our anonymous publishing correspondent: