Poets and Writers

Amazon's Jab at Apple, Pushkin Remembrance Day, and More

esmithrakoff — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:40:55 +0000

Evan Smith Rakoff

Amazon takes a jab at Apple's iPad in a new advertisement; the history, appeal, and common disdain of listening to audio books; the competitive nature of landing a job with one of the "big six" publishing houses; and other news.

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Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

Amazon takes a jab at Apple's iPad in a new advertisement for its Kindle e-readers. The Los Angeles Times reminds readers the two Kindles represented in the ad cost Amazon more to manufacture than their purchase price.

GalleyCat reports that Fox passed on the television pilot adaptation of Lev Grossman's The Magicians. Although there's still hope the project will go forward. On his website, Grossman writes, "We’re going to take the script to cable networks. We’re also going to renew talks on the feature-film side."

Meanwhile, the production company Legendary Pictures has canceled plans to adapt John Milton's seventeenth-century epic poem, Paradise Lost, which was to star Bradley Cooper as Lucifer. (Hollywood Reporter)

From the department of odd things found on the Internet come the Composites, a Tumblr created by multimedia artist Brian Joseph Davis, which uses law enforcement composite sketch software to create images of literary characters, such as Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Charlotte Brontë's Mr. Rochester, from Jane Eyre.

N+1 examines the history, appeal, and common disdain of listening to audio books.

Speaking of listening, the Contextual Life highlights a favorite book-related podcast, Bookrageous.

Today is Pushkin Remembrance Day across Russia. One hundred and seventy-five years ago, the celebrated poet Aleksandr Pushkin died from wounds inflicted in a duel with his brother-in-law, French military officer Georges d'Anthes. (RT)

Digital Book World examines what it's like working in publishing, and the competitive nature of landing a job with one of the "big six" publishing houses.

A Little Literary Love

klarimer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:12:29 +0000

Valentine's Day isn't until next Tuesday, but some particularly amorous books (and booksellers) at Skylight Books in Los Angeles are already in the mood. Enjoy!

Video URL:

http://vimeo.com/36355458

Pushcart's Winningest Magazines

Prize Reporter — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:59:42 +0000

The Pushcart Prizes, given annually since 1976 for poems, stories, and essays published by literary magazines and indie outfits, purport to highlight the "best of the small presses" in a yearly anthology.

Caitlin Flanagan Versus H. G. Wells, New Hemingway Movie, and More

esmithrakoff — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:49:26 +0000

Evan Smith Rakoff

A growing number of bookstores are joining Barnes & Noble's boycott of Amazon Publishing; Syrian author Khaled Khalifa writes of the current situation in his home country; Jason Diamond shares the hazards of moving from part-time barista to full-time writer; and other news.

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The Guardian reports on the growing number of bookstores joining Barnes & Noble's boycott of Amazon Publishing.

In this translated open letter by Syrian author Khaled Khalifa, he writes of the current situation in his home country, "I would like to inform you that my people is being subjected to a genocide." (Arabic Literature)

Hemingway and Gellhorn, a new film about Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, journalist Martha Gellhorn, will premiere on HBO in May. Clive Owen will play Hemingway to Nicole Kidman's Gellhorn, with Parker Posey, Robert Duvall, and David Strathairn in the supporting cast. (New York Daily News)

In this essay examining the merits and flaws of Caitlin Flanagan's provocative new book, Girl Land, the Millions wonders what free-love espousing H. G. Wells would have made of it all.

Vanity Fair takes a look at books with second lives, including Emma Straub's Other People We Married, which was published by a small press last year, and rereleased by Riverhead this week.

Given that there are 28,966 one-star reviews for Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby on GoodReads, book critic Lev Grossman ponders aesthetic judgment in the age of the Internet, "the weird way in which our response to a work of art, while intensely personal, feels like it’s universally and objectively true." (Time)

Jason Diamond shares the travails and hazards of moving from part-time barista to full-time writer. (New York Times)

Flavorwire assembles an essential postmodern reading list, including Donald Barthelme's Sixty Stories, and Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker.

Digital Pop-Up Book

klarimer — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:39:23 +0000

Amaranth Borsuk's Between Page and Screen, forthcoming from Siglio Press, is an "augmented-reality" book of poems. Think of it as a digital pop-up book: Get a copy of the book (or print out a preview and try it for free at betweenpageandscreen.com), turn on your computer's webcam, and the animations will appear on your screen.

Video URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s-JFxEmtpY&feature=player_embedded#!

The Unterberg Poetry Center

mary — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:50:20 +0000

Located at the 92nd Street Y, Unterberg Poetry Center hosts a reading series of approximately thirty events each year, most of which are held in 92Y's 917-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall. A separate lecture series, Biographers and Brunch, features literary biographers exploring the lives of their subjects.

Website:

http://www.92y.org/Uptown/Tisch-Center-for-the-Arts/Unterberg-Poetry-Center.aspx

E-mail:

bschwartz@92Y.org

Phone:

(212) 415-5760

Contact Name:

Bernard Schwartz

Location

92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Avenue

New York, NY 10128

United States

See map: Google Maps

The Loft Literary Center

mary — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:33:19 +0000

Incorporated in 1975, the Loft Literary Center offers creative writing courses and hosts readings and other literary events, as well as sponsoring a series of awards for writers and publishing A View From the Loft, an online magazine featuring articles about the craft of writing. Writers may also rent studios at Open Book, where the Loft is housed along with Milkweed Editions and Minnesota Center for Book Arts, where the Loft is housed.

Website:

http://www.loft.org

E-mail:

loft@loft.org

Phone:

(612) 215-2575

Location

Suite 200, Open Book 1011 Washington Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN 55415

United States

See map: Google Maps

Woodland Pattern Book Center

mary — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:55:21 +0000

Founded in 1979, Woodland Pattern Book Center is a nonprofit organization and writing center that also houses a bookstore with over 25,000 small press titles. The center includes an art gallery where it hosts exhibitions, artist talks, readings, experimental films, concerts and writing workshops for adults and children.

Website:

http://www.woodlandpattern.org/

E-mail:

woodlandpattern@sbcglobal.net

Phone:

(414) 263-5001

Contact Name:

Chuck Stebelton, Literary Program Director

Location

720 East Locust Street

Milwaukee, WI 53212

United States

See map: Google Maps

Colum McCann on 9/11, Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing, and More

esmithrakoff — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:29:41 +0000

Evan Smith Rakoff

The Chicago Police Department has begun a voluntary writing workshop for officers; Melissa Febos interviews poet and professional dog trainer Susie DeFord about the pros and cons of self-publishing; ten suggested pairings of local craft beers with independent bookshops; and other news.

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The Chicago Police Department has begun a voluntary writing workshop for officers, taught by a novelist, Charlie Newton. He tells them, “Don’t dodge race, don’t dodge sex, don’t dodge the war on drugs because people told you they’re winning it and you on the street know that they’re not.” (New York Times)

John Sargent, who passed away on Sunday, led Doubleday during publishing's storied era of daily martini lunches, escorting Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis around Manhattan, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke sometimes sleeping in the bathtub. The Wall Street Journal has more on the life of this interesting figure.

A new series has launched on YouTube's Intelligent Television called The Paul Holdengraber Show—its premiere episode features novelist Colum McCann discussing numerous topics, including September 11, 2001.

Author Melissa Febos interviews poet and professional dog trainer Susie DeFord about the pros and cons of self-publishing. DeFord recently released Dogs of Brooklyn, an attractively designed book or poems recounting life as a New York City dog walker. (Rumpus)

A Kickstarter campaign has launched for a new project for the literary website Writers' Houses, created by A. N. Devers. Her aim is to "visit at least fifteen of Great Britain's writers' houses in fifteen days, photograph them, document them, learn their facts, stories, and mythologies, and bring the information back to the website."

Shelf Awareness lists ten suggested pairings of local craft beers with independent bookshops around the country.

Brown University has partnered with the University of Tulsa on a Modernist Journals Project—digital copies of magazines that showcased early modernist poetry have been scanned, cataloged, and made freely available online. (New Yorker)

The Paris Review Daily examines our complicated relationship with bookshelves.

How-to Manual

Writing Prompter — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:17:59 +0000

Using Lorrie Moore's "How To Be An Other Woman" from Self-Help (Knopf, 1985) as inspiration, turn a personal experience into a twelve- (or more) step, how-to manual. The piece can be a simple enumerated list, or it can be more detailed, conveying a broader story; but use the second-person, and keep it instructional.

Publish Date:

January 8, 2012 - 8:00pm