Publisher Thomas Nelson to Eliminate Book Imprints
Christian publisher Thomas Nelson recently announced that it will eliminate all of its twenty-one imprints and publish books solely under the Thomas Nelson name and logo.
Daily News from Poets & Writers
Perseus Books Group Plans Layoffs in 2007
Perseus Books Group recently announced that approximately thirty employees of the recently acquired Consortium Books Sales and Distribution will be laid off in March 2007.
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Dalkey Archive Will Still Move (but Not Very Far)
Dalkey Archive Press has finally found a new home. Less than a month after the twenty-two-year-old nonprofit publisher abandoned its plans to move from its current location at Ilinois State University to the University of Rochester, Dalkey Archive announced on December 1 that it is moving to the University of Illinois...
Irish Software Publisher Acquires Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin, the Boston-based publisher of books by Jhumpa Lahiri
and Philip Roth, as well as the "Best American" series of anthologies,
was recently acquired by the Irish educational software company
Riverdeep Holdings.
PBS to Air Documentary of L.A. Writer John Fante
On December 12 Independent Lens, a weekly program on PBS, will air a documentary of the late novelist John Fante.
Twenty-six-year-old Wins Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Iain Hollingshead, a twenty-six-year-old British novelist, has won the fourteenth annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his novel Twenty Something: The Quarter-Life Crisis of Jack Lancaster (Duckworth, 2006).
Mailer Wins Posthumous Award for Bad Sex in Fiction
The late Norman Mailer was awarded yesterday the fifteenth annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award for a passage in his last novel The Castle in the Forest (Random House, 2007). The award was established in 1993 by the London magazine the Literary Review "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it."
Philip K. Dick to Be Canonized by the Library Of America
The Library of America, the nonprofit publisher founded in 1979 to "preserve our nation's literary heritage," plans to publish a volume of four novels by cult writer Philip K. Dick next summer.
Indie Publisher Fence Books Joins National Poetry Series
Rebecca Wolff, the founding editor of the literary magazine Fence and the independent press Fence Books, announced yesterday that Fence Books has entered into an agreement with the National Poetry Series (NPS) as a participating publisher.
Mackey and Powers Win National Book Awards
At a ceremony in New York City last night, the National Book Foundation announced the winners of the 2006 National Book Awards.
Dalkey Archive Press Abandons Plans for Move to Rochester
Three months after Dalkey Archive Press announced that it would be moving from its current location in Normal, Illinois, to the University of Rochester, the twenty-two-year old nonprofit publisher of experimental fiction and translations asked to be released from its agreement with the university in upstate New York.
Welsh Writer Rachel Trezise Wins First Dylan Thomas Prize
On October 27, twenty-eight-year-old Welsh writer Rachel Trezise was named the winner of the inaugural Dylan Thomas Prize for her short story collection Fresh Apples (Parthian Books, 2005).
NEA Crosses Borders With Literary Exchanges
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced in September the creation of International Literary Exchanges, a program intended to “expand cultural exchanges between the United States and other countries.” The initiative includes funding for the publication of dual-language anthologies and their distribution in the United States and countries such as Greece, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, and Spain.
University of Minnesota Acquires Robert Bly Archive for $775,000
The papers of poet Robert Bly were purchased earlier this month by the University of Minnesota Libraries for $775,000.
New Directions Celebrates Seventy Years of Publishing
This year marks the seventieth anniversary of New Directions, the independent press founded by the late James Laughlin. To celebrate, the press will hold two events in New York City this fall—a private party in November at the used bookstore Housing Works and a public gathering at the New School on December 5.
Observer Repeats New York Times Survey and Names Disgrace Best Work of Fiction
Nearly five months after New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus surveyed several hundred writers, critics, and editors to name the best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years (Toni Morrison’s Beloved)...
New Esquire Fiction Editor Promises More Short Stories
The monthly men’s magazine Esquire announced last week that its newly hired fiction editor, Tom Chiarella, will publish twice as many original stories next year as were published in 2006.
Amazon, Penguin, Publishers Weekly, and Readers to Judge Novel Contest
Amazon.com recently launched the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, which will allow the public to weigh in on the selection process. The winning author will receive a $25,000 advance and publication by Penguin.
Penguin and Amazon Form Online Classics Reading Group
Penguin and Amazon.com recently partnered to create the Penguin Classics Reading Group, a regular online discussion of titles in the paperback line of Penguin Classics.
Family Settles With Sony Pictures in Running With Scissors Lawsuit
The Turcotte family—better known to readers of Augusten Burroughs's memoir Running With Scissors as the Finch family—has reached a settlement
with Sony Pictures in a lawsuit filed in June 2005 that accuses the
author of writing false information in his memoir about them and the
late Dr. Rudolph Turcotte. The Boston Globe reported yesterday
that while the suit against Sony Pictures, which is releasing a film
based on the book on October 27, has been settled, the family is
pressing on with the suit against the author and his publisher. That
suit, however, has been stayed by a Massachusetts court until the
release of the film.
New Arts Organization tto Award $50,000 Individual Fellowships
A new charitable arts organization called United States Artists (USA) announced last month that it will award annual grants of fifty thousand dollars each to fifty artists from around the country, including poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers.
Fire at Folger Shakespeare Library Extinguished Without Harm to Rare Books
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington reported yesterday that a fire broke out in a costume storage area on the third floor above the Folger Theatre on Monday morning. The fire, which was discovered by an electrician at approximately 9:30 AM, was safely contained and extinguished.
Graduate Student Rediscovers Robert Frost Poem From 1918
On October 2 the Virginia Quarterly Review published a previously unknown poem by Robert Frost.
Kiran Desai Becomes Youngest Woman to Win the Booker Prize
Salman Rushdie Joins Faculty of Emory University in Atlanta
Emory University in Atlanta announced on October 6 that Salman Rushdie, the former president of PEN American Center and the author of Midnight's Children (Jonathan Cape, 1980), The Satanic Verses (Viking, 1988), and most recently, Shalimar the Clown (Random House, 2005), has accepted a five-year teaching position in the university's English department.