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Poet and founder of UbuWeb, Kenneth Goldsmith, speaks about the "conceptual writing" movement and the art of transcription. "There can be no such thing as writer's block, there's no lack of inspiration—there's always something to transcribe, there's always something to rewrite, there's always something to refrain."
Darren Aronofsky to adapt Margaret Atwood's dystopian trilogy for HBO; e-books to outsell print in the U.K. by 2018; Ohio’s potential poet laureate position; and other news.
Last night at the Southbank Centre in London, Irish author Eimear McBride won the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. She received £30,000 (approximately $50,385).
Established in 1996, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize, is given annually for a novel written in English by a woman and published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The shortlisted finalists included Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Americanah (Knopf); Hannah Kent for Burial Rites (Little, Brown); Jhumpa Lahiri for The Lowland (Knopf); Audrey Magee for The Undertaking (Atlantic Books); and Donna Tartt for The Goldfinch (Little, Brown).
The judges for this year’s prize were Mary Beard, Denise Mina, Caitlin Moran, Sophie Raworth, and chair of judges Helen Fraser, who called McBride’s winning book “an amazing and ambitious novel that impressed the judges with its inventiveness and energy. This is an extraordinary new voice—this novel will move and astonish the reader.”
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, which tells the story of a young woman struggling with sexual abuse and her brother’s brain tumor, is written in an experimental stream-of-consciousness style. McBride wrote the book in six months, and spent almost nine years trying to get the book published. It was finally picked up by the small UK-based Galley Beggar Press, which published it as their second book. The book has gone on to win the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award and the Goldsmiths prize.
At last night’s award ceremony, McBride said of her win, “I hope it will serve as an incentive to publishers everywhere to take a look at difficult books and think again. We are all writers but we are all readers first. There is a contract between publishers and readers which must be honored, readers must not be underestimated.”
Photo: Reuters
"We're all going to die—and poems can help us live with that." In this TED talk literary critic Stephen Burt uses his favorite poems to help convey how poetry (simply a set of techniques used to make patterns that put emotions into words) can help us further understand and cope with what it means to be a person.
It's easy to slip into a bad attitude, and even easier once you're there to stew in all that negativity. For most it's a passing phase, but for some it can color their whole outlook on life. Would you describe yourself as a cynic? If not, do you know someone who fits the bill? Today, write down what happens to you using a cynical perspective. If you keep a journal, compare today's entry with those of previous—perhaps more positive—days and note the similarities and differences in style, tone, and word usage.
A seven-year Twitter project completed; Stephen Colbert promotes Powell’s Books; Egyptian author receives five-year sentence for novel; and other news.
For the eighth installment of our Winners on Winning series, we spoke with Chris Hosea, the winner of the 2013 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets for his debut collection, Put Your Hands In. The prize, given annually to a poet who has not yet published a book, includes $5,000, publication, and a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Hosea's winning manuscript, selected by John Ashbery, was published by Louisiana State University Press in March. Hosea received his MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and is a senior copywriter at H4B Chelsea. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
What kind of impact has winning the Whitman Award had on your career?
I'm pretty sure the Whitman Award helped me recently to land a new job, with better pay and more impressive-sounding title, in advertising. Creative distinctions, and particularly established institutional honors, are valued in such industries.
Has winning this award, or previous awards, changed the way you approach your work?
I'm certain that contest judge John Ashbery's comparison between my poems and Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descebding a Staircase, and even more Ashbery's remarks about derision and eroticism in Put Your Hands In, will affect my writing for the rest of my life.
Have you ever entered a contest that you didn't win?
I have entered hundreds of contests and spent thousands of dollars on fees. If you don't play, you can't win.
What advice would you offer to writers thinking of submitting to writing contests?
Sequencing is important. Give yourself at least a month to order and reorder the poems in your book. Also, contest screeners are often (though by no means always) young students who haven't read a lot of poetry before: so include some lyrical candy up front.
For more Winners on Winning, read the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and check back next Wednesday for a new installment.
Hosea: Myles Paige
Most of us associate the phrase "Wheel of Fortune" with the popular television game show. There is, however, another wheel of fortune—the tenth card in the tarot deck. This wheel isn't as glamorous as its television counterpart, but it can be equally exciting; the card represents a pivotal point in your life when new options become possible and which signals that luck is on your side. This week write a short story about a character spinning the wheel of fortune. She could be on the game show, in a casino spinning a roulette wheel, or at a summer carnival. Include some element of dramatic change once the wheel is spun, whether it's winning the grand prize, or taking the first step on a new and unfamiliar path.
The University of Texas in Austin launches McSweeney’s archive; booksellers slash prices on Hachette titles; new history diagnoses James Joyce with syphilis; and other news.
Dr. Maya Angelou's joyous poem "Phenomenal Woman" trumpets: "I'm a woman / phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman, / that's me." After her passing last Wednesday, many who have been touched by her words and wisdom have been reflecting on Angelou's rich life. Today, take a moment to reflect on a phenomenal woman in your life and write a poem in her honor. Think about what makes her unique, and attempt to translate the essence of her spirit into the written word.
