Farrar, Straus and Giroux has decided to let readers peek behind the scenes at one of the most delicate parts of the publishing business: the writing of books, as they happen. Talk to any writer after a book has been published and she'll be able to detail every wrong turn, every failed plot attempt, every character that had to be killed off, all the pages that were written and ultimately discarded. All those false starts have a shape -- stubby, unfruitful branches hacked off a healthy tree -- once the book is finished. But while it's a work in progress? Well, then they're growing and budding and also dying. Sometimes painfully, one word at a time.

Yet Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of FSG, is pulling back the covers on his authors who are in that very work-in-progress state. A new website (and also monthly newsletter) is called, with editorial exactitude, FSG Work in Progress.

Carolyn Kellogg at Jacket Copy