Will Allison, whose beautifully written debut novel, What You Have Left, was released in 2007, discusses his followup, Long Drive Home, published this month by Free Press.

In this trailer for Scott Sparling's debut novel, Wire to Wire (June), the author talks to his editor at Tin House Books, Tony Perez, about his book, which features a cast of "train-hopping, drug-dealing, glue-huffing lowlifes in a stunning homage to...the American crime novel."

Seth Fried has a little fun with the book trailer format in this teaser for his debut story collection, The Great Frustration, published this month by Soft Skull Press.

Next month Harper will publish Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms, in which Carmela Ciuraru tells the stories of more than a dozen pseudonymous authors, including Mark Twain, Isak Dinesen, Lewis Carroll, and George Eliot, and explores the creative process and "the darker, often crippling aspects of fame."

This short film, based on the poem "The Straightforward Mermaid" by Matthea Harvey, was filmed and directed by Ani Simon-Kennedy. It was selected for the Short Film Corner at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. You can read the poem, which appeared in the New Yorker last August, here.

Melville House Publishing has announced the finalists for the 2011 Moby Awards, which honor the best (and worst) book trailers produced in the previous year. The awards are given in eight categories, including Book Trailer as Stand Alone Art Object, in which the trailer for Lisa Dierbeck's The Autobiography of Jenny X (OR Books, 2010) is a finalist. The winners will be named tomorrow night.

In one of the more disturbing book trailers released in recent months, director James Lees presents his vision of David Whitehouse's debut novel, Bed, forthcoming from Scribner in August. Described as "masterful" by Publishers Weekly, the novel tells the story of two brothers, one of whom refuses to leave his bed on his twenty-fifth birthday.

• Winner of the 2009 Shirley Jackson Award for his story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, Kevin Wilson discusses his new novel, The Family Fang, which will be published in August by Ecco. About the difference between writing a story and a novel, he says, "The short story is this car and you just drive it into a tree... With a novel I had to keep reminding myself to drive as far as I could, to get as many miles as I could out of it before I crashed it."

Poet Kelle Groom's memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, about her recovery from alcoholism following the death of her fourteen-month-old son, is published this month by Free Press. Check out this and other new and noteworthy books in the July/August issue's Page One section.

Musician Steve Earle talks about his newest album and his recently published debut novel, both titled I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive. Be sure to check out Benjamin Percy's take on Earle's work here. And listen to a song from the album here.