Jump to navigation Skip to content
Sad as it may be, when poetry shows up on television it's big news. The blogosphere has been in a twitter over the recent appearance of Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency on Mad Men, the Golden Globe-winning drama series on AMC.
Tonight, just hours before the Olympic Games open in Beijing on Friday, PEN American Center will host “Bringing Down the Great Firewall of China: Silenced Writers Speak on the Eve of the Olympics,” an event to honor the work—and call once again for the release—of more than forty writers and journalists imprisoned by the Chinese government for expressing dissenting views.
The Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Virginians for the Arts Foundation recently announced that Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review has won a prestigous Governor's Award for the Arts.
Tao Lin, the author of two poetry collections, a novel, and a story collection, last Thursday posted a rather unusual offer on his blog. For two thousand dollars, readers can purchase a 10-percent share of the royalties, including all U.S. serial, reprint, textbook, and film royalties, for his unfinished novel, which is tentatively scheduled for publication next year by Melville House, an independent press in Brooklyn, New York.
Amazon announced on Friday its plans to acquire AbeBooks, the Canada-based online marketplace showcasing the wares of over thirteen thousand booksellers specializing in used, rare, and out-of-print books.
On August 10, a twenty-first century update on the traditonal roving library, the Digital Bookmobile will make its debut in New York City's Central Park, hosted by the New York Public Library.
The Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh's culturally vibrant Oakland neighborhood was hit with a bit of bookish graffiti early Monday morning, much to the chagrin of library staff.
The judges for this year's Man Booker Prize for Fiction yesterday announced the longlist of finalists. The list features thirteen books, including titles by five first-time authors as well as perennial favorite Salman Rushdie, who earlier this month was awarded the Best of the Booker Award for Midnight's Children (Jonathan Cape, 1981).
On Sunday, the eve of the tenth anniversary of the death of celebrated Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, an open-air performance of the play The Reconstruction of a Poet was held in Warsaw. The play, originally written as a radio drama, is one of five the poet produced in his life. The event also featured a multimedia installation on three giant video screens, including a selection of poems from Herbert's 1974 book Mr. Cogito, Chris Niedenthal's photos of Poland in the 1970s, and a television interview the poet gave in 1972.
On Saturday, novelist Toni Morrison gathered with a crowd of supporters on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, to dedicate a “bench by the road” celebrating the lives and legacy of millions of slaves.
Sony announced today that its Reader, the digital book viewing device released nearly two years ago, will now support electronic books and other publications released in EPUB format.
The man who attacked Holocaust survivor and novelist Elie Wiesel in a hotel elevator last year was found guilty of a felony hate crime charge of false imprisonment by a San Francisco jury on Monday. Twenty-four-year-old Eric Hunt was also found guilty of misdemeanor battery and elder abuse; he was cleared of five other felony charges, including kidnapping.
On Tuesday, the administrators of the Man Asian Literary Prize released their longlist of twenty-one semifinalists for the 2008 award, given for a novel by an Asian author that has not yet been published in English.
The Los Angeles Times is laying off two of its book editors and ending its standalone Sunday book review section on July 27, Publishers Weekly reported yesterday. Although Nancy Sullivan, executive director of corporate communications at the newspaper would not comment on the future of its book coverage, four former editors of the section wrote a joint letter complaining about the cuts.
The staff of Cadillac Cicatrix, a two-year-old literary magazine based in Carmel Valley, California, recently was forced to evacuate the magazine's office in the face of encroaching wildfires.
The sixteen semifinalists for the 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize, which is given to a poet or fiction writer under thirty years of age for a work in English, were announced on Sunday.
Kay Ryan has been named the sixteenth poet laureate of the United States, the Library of Congress announced today.
Mexican actor and producer Rodolfo de Anda recently announced that he has purchased the film rights to a forgotten screenplay written nearly a half century ago by Gabriel García Márquez.
During a series of question and answers following his speech in Fairfax, Virginia, last Thursday, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama made some comments about writing and reading.
Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel Midnight's Children (Jonathan Cape) was recently announced winner of the Best of the Booker award, a celebratory honor given to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Man Booker Prize.
Jhumpa Lahiri was recently named winner of the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, more than two months in advance of the scheduled winner announcement.
Three international PEN centers have found that over the past year, as buildup to the Beijing Olympic Games has reached a crescendo, freedom of expression in China continues to be squelched by the Chinese government.
