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Dustin Kurtz reports that the government of Iran may relax its literary censorship; Kenneth Goldsmith considers the connections between Internet culture and poetry; the Emily Dickinson Archive is now integrated and available online; and other news.
“Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction,” storyteller John Cheever once stated in an interview. Place your protagonist in an unexpected situation—trapped in a chimney, confronted by a ghost, or suddenly penniless. Unforeseen conflict reveals hidden character flaws and virtues. Don’t self-edit. Though it may not make the final draft, experimental writing deeply informs both style and character. Writing is the act of failing forward every time you sit down.
The Whiting Writers’ Awards, given annually by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation to ten emerging writers who show “exceptional talent and promise in early career,” were announced on Monday. Each writer will receive the $50,000.
The 2013 winners are Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, a fiction and nonfiction writer whose novella, The Man Who Danced with Dolls, was published in 2012 by Madras Press; Amanda Coplin, a fiction writer whose first novel, The Orchardist, was published by HarperCollins in 2012; Jennifer duBois, a fiction writer whose debut novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes, was published by Dial Press in 2012, and whose newest novel, Cartwheel, was published in September by Random House; Virginia Grise, the author of several plays including Making Myth; Ishion Hutchinson, a poet whose debut collection, Far District, was published by Peepal Tree Press Limited in 2010; Morgan Meis, a nonfiction writer whose collection of essays, Ruins, was published by Fallen Bros Press in 2012; C. E. Morgan, a fiction writer whose first novel, All the Living, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2009; Rowan Ricardo Phillips, a poet whose first collection, The Ground, was published by Farrar Straus & Giroux in 2012; Clifford Thompson, a fiction and nonfiction writer whose essay collection, Love for Sale, was published this year by Autumn House Press; and Stephanie Powell Watts, a fiction writer whose debut story collection, We Are Taking Only What We Need, was published in 2012 by BkMk Press.
The Whiting Awards honor works in the categories of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and plays, and are intended to identify writers “who have yet to make their mark on the literary culture.'’
Since 1985, the Mrs. Giles Whiting Writing Foundation has given over $6 million to 290 writers. Visit the website to learn more about this year's winners.
A new book reports that Amazon’s stance toward small publishers “was called the Gazelle Project after Mr. Bezos said Amazon ‘should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle’”; Hector Tobar looks at how Amazon and other online booksellers are reacting to compaints over pornographic content; Open Culture found an image of Mark Twain with Nikola Tesla; and other news.
Poetry is an act of appreciation. With our increasingly busy schedules, we lose our ability to appreciate. Poets must resist the modern temptation to overlook what holds meaning in our lives. Identify something in your surroundings—a rusted hoe draped in spider webs, an unfashionable dress abandoned by time, a wine cork buried in a drawer of unpaid bills—and write a poem that appreciates these lonely items.
Alice Munro will not travel to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature; the Telegraph published exclusive excerpts from Donna Tartt’s new novel The Goldfinch; Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild has inspired hikers to take to the Pacific Crest Trail; and other news.
Poet Charles Simic weighs in on the current state of American society; 2paragraphs speaks with Poetry magazine editor Don Share; Randy Susan Meyers examines the usefullness of an outline; and other news.
Harper Lee has filed a lawsuit against her Alabama hometown’s Monroe County Heritage Museum; Businessweek peers inside the corporate structure of Amazon; Joan Didion was advised by her doctor not to travel to California to receive a PEN lifetime achievement award; and other news.
What type of query letter piques your interest?
One that's as well written as the book itself. Even better is one that's short, pithy, and demonstrates the author's understanding of, and aspirations for, how the book will be received as part of the literary and cultural conversation. I'm much more interested in knowing why an author wrote something and what kinds of books and authors inspired her, than I am in a lengthy synopsis. The latter should take no more than one paragraph.
People often collect strange things for unknown reasons: ceramic elves from Europe, antique trout fishing lures, bamboo backscratchers from around the world. What we collect often reveals our idiosyncrasies, and therefore our true natures. Recall someone in your life who collected something intriguing or odd. Try to define the attraction, and in the process, bring that person to life.
