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Black Sparrow Press, based in Santa Rosa, California, began in 1966 as a vehicle for John Martin to publish the work that he loved, but went on to become a financial success. It published more than 650 titles, with annual sales eventually rising to more than $1 million, which is why it came as a surprise to many in the publishing industry when Black Sparrow went out of business last spring.
Over three hundred poems, short stories, and essays written in response to the events of last September have been collected in three new anthologies: September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond, Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets, and 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11.
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features One Story, Chicago Review, Boston Review, Agni, Ploughshares, Poetry, Blackbird, and Creative Nonfiction.
Giving a public reading, for most writers, involves a good deal of anxiety, a powerful dose of pride in one's work, and the cool relief of getting through the experience without humiliation. Payment often comes in the form of applause. But for those writers whose names regularly appear on book jackets and prize announcements, public readings can mean big business—and big paychecks.
In January, National Geographic Books launched a series that offers a different kind of travel book—one that uses the unique perspective of a writer to explore the larger implications of place.
Writers, publishers, and bookstore owners who have profited a great deal from the success of Oprah's Book Club reeled from the announcement on April 5 that Oprah Winfrey had made her last monthly book club selection, for nothing else could elevate a book to the status of best-seller quite like it.
This is not an essay. Though maybe, in a way, it is. Because it's a strange thing about essays—even talking about them, trying to get at what they are, it's hard not to cleave to the spirit of the essay, that inconclusive, most outwardly formless of forms, which spills and seeps into so many other kinds of writing-memoir, feature, commentary, review—and punctuates every assertion with a qualification, a measure of doubt, an alternate possibility.
On April 1 Tree Swenson took up the post of executive director of the Academy of American Poets, the New York City–based membership organization responsible for founding National Poetry Month. Swenson succeeds William Wadsworth.
Public allegations of plagiarism are leveled at unsuspecting authors at least once a year, but their frequency doesn't diminish the calamitous results: bruised reputations, soured accusers, disenchanted readers, and riled media. This spectacle isn't, however, an invention of our media-saturated age. Public fascination with plagiarism is as old as our appetite for scandal.
A new publishing model is emerging. Companies like Context Books, MacAdam/Cage, and McSweeney's Books are breaking with what has become standard publishing practice, and authors, agents, and the media are taking notice.
