Article Archive: News and Trends

Workman Publishing imprint Black Dog and Leventhal reissues King Lear and Macbeth, the illustrated Shakespeare plays originally published in the 1980s—before graphic novels acquired a mainstream audience—as part of its Graphic Shakespeare series.

Although Janet Fitch's Paint It Black, published this month by Little, Brown, is a work of fiction, the author drew inspiration from many genres, most notably poetry, while she was working on her follow-up to White Oleander.

As the number of poetry readings in communities across the country continues to grow, a format that was once relatively rare—the marathon—is becoming increasingly popular.

Fueled by equal parts biodiesel gas and small press ambition, the Wave Books 2006 Poetry Bus Tour is scheduled to roll through forty-nine cities during the next two months, beginning in Seattle on September 4.

Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Blue Moon Books, Soft Skull Press, Grove Press, Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Clear Cut Press, and Broadsided Press.

This installment of Page One features excerpts from Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Adrienne Martini and The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee.

For the second installment of this occassional feature, in which we ask authors to list the movies, music, artwork, and books that inspired them during the course of writing their new books, we asked two-time Booker Prize–winning author Peter Carey, whose ninth novel was published by Knopf in May, for his list; he replied with this essay.

Poetry in America, the 2006 report released by the Poetry Foundation, has spurred efforts to revitalize an interest in poetry among the general population, and in doing so, has also sparked a debate among those in the literary community.

Penguin and the National Basketball Association (NBA) recently teamed up to launch a literacy campaign featuring the retired Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Ray Allen of the Seattle SuperSonics, Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat, and Becky Hammon of the New York Liberty, a team in the Women's National Basketball Association.

Two years after the failure of Zoo Press's fiction contests in 2004, founder Neil Azevedo responds about more controversy surrounding its poetry contests.

Sadly, recent revelations are forcing readers—confronted by a brand-new band of literary scallywags, hucksters, and hoaxers—to reconsider the veracity of the story as well as that of the storyteller.