Kevin Brockmeier Wins Original Voices Award
Kevin Brockmeier, the author of the novel The Brief History of the Dead (Knopf, 2006), was recently named the winner of the 2006 Borders Original Voices Award in fiction.
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Bertelsmann Names New CEO
Last Friday, Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate that owns Random House, announced that Hartmut Ostrowski will be its new chief executive officer starting in 2008. Ostrowski has been a member of Bertelsmann’s executive board for the past six years. He will succeed the current CEO, Gunter Thielen, who will become chairman of the company’s supervisory board.
After Sobol Award Controversy, Touchstone Finds Another Contest
Touchstone/Fireside, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, recently announced that it will publish the winning manuscript in the Gather.com First Chapters contest. Gather.com, a social networking site with 175,000 registered members, was founded in 2005. The publisher’s announcement comes less than two weeks after the Sobol Award, which offered $100,000 and publication by Touchstone, was cancelled because of an insufficient number of submissions.
Actor Directs Adaptation of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Fans of the television show The Office know him as the goofy character Jim Halpert, but actor John Krasinski (who has also appeared in the movies Kinsey, Jarhead, and Dreamgirls) will make his writing and directing debut with the film adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s short story collection, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.
Owner of Publishers Group West Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
On December 29 Advanced Marketing Services (AMS), the owner of the independent press distributor Publishers Group West (PGW) and the primary supplier of books to the Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Club chains of stores, filed for bankruptcy in a Delaware court.
Publishers Avalon and Perseus Plan to Merge
Perseus Book Group recently announced that it intends to acquire the Avalon Publishing Group, which includes the imprints Carroll & Graf, Seal Press, and Shoemaker and Hoard.
Senate Confirms Dana Gioia for Second Term as NEA Chairman
The U.S. Senate recently confirmed Dana Gioia for his second four-year term as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). President Bush reappointed Gioia to the position last September.
Million-dollar Manuscripts Are Lost and Finally Found
A rare book dealer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, recently reported that two handwritten manuscripts of short stories by the late Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges—valued at nearly one million dollars—had been lost, and possibly stolen, only to later find that the manuscripts had simply been misplaced.
Folger Shakespeare Library Celebrates Seventy-five Years
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. is marking its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2007 with Shakespeare in American Life, a yearlong schedule of events honoring the poet and playwright who inspired its founding.
Swashbuckling Depp Options Three Books
Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp recently acquired the film rights to three books, including James Meek’s novel The People’s Act of Love (Canongate, 2005), Variety reported last week.
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