Paul Berman suggests that fledgling writers should specialize in something very peculiar where competition is thin. “I earnestly recommend Canada,” Mr. Berman said in deadpan at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he took part in a panel discussion on “Writers & Editors” with Jeremy Eichler, Edward Rothstein, Jean Strouse, and James Wood.

The moment will arise, he said, when Canada will be the subject of a news story and a journal or paper will have no one on hand who knows anything about the topic – not even where Saskatchewan is. “And you will be that person, and this really is how to begin.”

Mr. Berman said that by simple defect he lacked the partition in the brain that divides topics from one another. The disciplines that appear in the university, he said, are artificial constructions. Reading an economist can lead one to a study of history. It’s only the university that often thinks there are these boundaries, he said. A goal of writing is to engage with life – actual life – and perhaps not always to engage with other books, he said. For Saint-Beuve and Edmund Wilson, these distinctions don’t exist, “and maybe that’s the reason these critics were the greatest of critics.”

Mr. Berman also spoke about the Internet, saying, “Now it’s impossible to be an unpublished writer.” He also broached the subject of small presses and journals: “Forget about all the ones you know of. Find the one’s you’ve never heard of.”

He told how early on he found books that were reasonably new and of interest to him, reviewed them in the style of the journal he hoped it to appear in, and sent it in. “If it is readable and publishable, you just solved the editor’s problem for the day.”

“It doesn’t matter where it appears. … Sooner or later your name is going to leak out,” he said. Recalling one of his early reviews, he said, if it hadn’t gotten accepted, “I would have sent it to a weekly shopper in Nevada.”

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JOHN’S JOLT

At Glucksman Ireland House at New York University, panelists discussed author John O’Hara (1905-70), whose perceptive prose examined class in America, known especially for the books “Appointment in Samarra,” “Butterfield 8,” and “Pal Joey.” Panelists described how O’Hara’s prose burst with speed and energy. “He’s writing like he’s double parked,” Pete Hamill said.

New Yorker magazine senior editor Roger Angell told an amusing anecdote about O’Hara from a night at the 21 Club. He ran into Algonquin Roundtable figure Robert Benchley, who told him he had just seen the musical comedy version of “Pal Joey” and that it was “even better” than the last time he saw it – when he raved about it in the New Yorker. A little later, O’Hara was back staring down at Benchley, saying, “What was wrong with it the first time?”

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POLITICS AND HISTORY

The Queens College Evening Readings, organized by English professor Joseph Cuomo, concludes its 29th anniversary season on April 21 with Edward Hirsch, Richard Howard, and Adam Zagajewski. The trio are scheduled to participate in a roundtable on the art of writing.

At the last program, writers Ian Buruma and Louis Menand spoke with Leonard Lopate in a wide-ranging conversation about modernity, the West, politics, and history. When Mr. Lopate’s microphone suddenly went on after a delay, Mr. Menand observed, “That’s modernity. Modernity at work here.”

Mr. Menand read from a New Yorker essay he wrote about whether Americans actually vote knowledgeably. At one point, Mr. Menand said that 5% – “enough to swing most elections” – made up their minds on the day on which they voted. Mr. Lopate interjected, “That scares the s- out of me.” Political scientists, Mr. Menand responded wryly, have a different term.

Toward the end of the evening, Mr. Lopate mentioned that he liked to have the author’s books with him onstage. “Last week,” he said, commenting on a particularly prolific author, “we had Joyce Carol Oates. I refused to bring out all 90 books.”

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GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION

A highbrow crowd gathered at Cooper Union for an unusual event. The president of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Edward Hirsch, said it was the very first reading held in the eight-decade history of the foundation.

“We think things over before we rush into them,” he joked. “I first felt we should present 80 readers,” he said. In the end, the program named about 20, including Gerald Stern, Grace Paley, Shirley Hazzard, Joyce Carol Oates, Oscar Hijuelos, Jessica Hagedorn, and Karen Finley.

Standing in the Great Hall of Cooper Union, where Lincoln gave an immortal speech, Mr. Hirsch told the audience it occurred to him that he could begin his speech with, “Four score years ago” the Guggenheim Foundation began.

“I’m going to read three poems regardless of how long it takes,” said Billy Collins when he came to the podium, pausing to add, “Be thankful I’m not Dante.” Mary Gordon read prayers she wrote for people who are not used to being prayed for. She movingly described oft-overlooked people, whose work is forgotten or invisible but important, such as surgeons who suture or those who make insoles of shoes.

Wendy Wasserstein told the audience that “it’s time to embrace sloth” and compared living a tightly scheduled, goal-oriented life to laying in a hammock eating cream puffs and watching a plasma screen television attached to a palm tree.

Jonathan Ames read a selection that referred to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the American Automobile Association (AAA). He said if one gets drunk and has an automobile accident, one can quickly look at the first page of the phone book to reach both organizations.

Performance artist Pat Oleszko told the audience that so many artists had been saved by the foundation, there should be a new term for it: the “Guggenheim-lich maneuver.”