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"I ended up being the one that fell through the cracks," says poet, novelist, and journalist Luis J. Rodriguez, whose memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. (Curbstone Press, 1993) elevated him as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature. In this video from Open Road Media, Rodriguez tells his story and explains how books helped him escape a dangerous life on the streets of Los Angeles.
There's nothing understated about this one. Check out Rebecca Migdal's trailer for Andrew Laties's Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Bookstores Represent Everything You Want to Fight for, From Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities (Seven Stories Press, 2011), which pits an online retail giant against a chain bookstore monster (who kidnaps Emily Dickinson)! Can the Rebel Bookseller save the day and bring back a community of books?
Research the news for an event or incident that occured during your life or during the life of a close relative. It could be an historic sports event involving your home team, a crime that happened in your town or city, or something else that had a significant effect on the people nearby, such as the building of a major bridge or highway. Write an essay about this event, blending it with anecdotes from your (or your relative's) life that took place during the same time the event occured. Use the personal to elucidate the historic and vice versa.
While essentially a promo for the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world, this clip does offer a valuable look at the jobs of a few of the many people who work at Random House, from editorial and design through production, marketing, sales, and distribution.
Lest we forget the simple pleasures of the imagination, we present John Boswell's incredible tribute to the person who nurtured a lot of writers before they ever knew how to write: Mister Rogers.
Write an essay about a small part of the country or the world with which you are intimately familiar. Focus first on the landscape, wildlife, and architecture: What flora and fauna are native to the area? What do the houses and centers of town look like? Then introduce the people: What do they look like? What do they do for a living? Incorporate dialogue into this section, including words, phrases, and colloquialisms that are specific to the area. Using as much detail as possible, bring the place and its language to life.
The twenty-fourth annual Lambda Literary Awards for LGBT literature, also known as the Lammys, were announced last night at a ceremony in New York City, where authors rubbed elbows with luminaries in other arts, including actress Olympia Dukakis, Broadway performer Anthony Rapp, and drag legend Charles Busch.
Dukakis and National Organization for Women founder Eleanor Pam presented Lambda's Pioneer Awards for lifetime achievement to novelist Armistead Maupin, author of the San Francisco–based Tales of the City series, and feminist writer Kate Millett. Fiction writers Stacy D'Erasmo and Brian Leung won Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prizes.
The Lammy for gay poetry award went to A Fast Life, the collected poems of the late Tim Dlugos (1950–1990), edited by David Trinidad and published by Nightboat Books. The prize for lesbian poetry went to Leah Lakshmi Piepza-Samarasinha for Love Cake (TSAR Publications).
In lesbian fiction, Farzana Doctor won the Lammy for her novel Six Metres of Pavement (Dundurn Press). Colm Tóibín won in gay fiction for his story collection The Empty Family (Scribner). The award in bisexual fiction went to Barbara Browning for her novel, The Correspondence Artist (Two Dollar Radio). Debut fiction writers Rahul Mehta and Laurie Weeks were also honored, Mehta for his story collection, Quarantine (Harper Perennial), and Weeks for her novel, Zipper Mouth (Feminist Press).
In lesbian memoir, Jeanne Córdova won for When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love & Revolution (Spinsters Ink). Glen Retief won for gay memoir with The Jack Bank: A Memoir of a South African Childhood (St. Martin's Press). Justin Vivian Bond won the transgender nonfiction prize for Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels (Feminist Press).
For the list of winners in all categories, including erotica, young adult literature, and mystery, visit the Lambda Literary Foundation website.
In the video below, poetry awardee Piepza-Samarasinha performs a poem from her winning collection at a finalists reading held in April.
When you get right down to it, writing is (or used to be) all about putting marks on a piece of paper. And while there are plenty of inspiring photographs and videos celebrating the typewriter, this clip of John Mottishaw writing with a custom fountain pen (using an ink called Iroshizuku Tsuki-uo Night Sky, or Greenish Deep Blue) is oddly captivating. (The writing starts at about the 1:58 mark.)
Anyone who sits down to write a brand-new poem, story, essay—anything—will likely relate to this short film by Henrique Barone, who completed it while he was a student at Vancouver Film School last year. "Maybe a giant robot...or a crazy musician...no,no, an old lady...and a snake...well, this idea is not working."
