Augusten Burroughs
The author of nine books, including the 2003 New York Times bestselling memoir Running With Scissors, opens up to Dr. Phil about his struggles with addiction and what caused him to relapse.
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The author of nine books, including the 2003 New York Times bestselling memoir Running With Scissors, opens up to Dr. Phil about his struggles with addiction and what caused him to relapse.
Poetry harnesses the power of metaphors and similes to reach a part of humanity that is inaccessible to all other forms of communication. Think about someone you love. Spend 15 minutes making a list of their notable attributes—both flattering and incriminating. Describe those attributes using simple metaphors and similes to explain the complex feelings this person evokes within you.
The New York City–based Center for Fiction has announced the long list for its 2013 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, given for a debut novel published in the current year. The winner, who will be announced in December, will receive $10,000.
In the prize's second year of partnership with the American Booksellers Association (ABA), the nonprofit trade association for independent booksellers, member booksellers around the country served as first-round readers. Ben Fountain—who received the prize last year for his novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco)—will serve as one of the final judges for this year’s prize, along with Victor LaValle, Roxana Robinson, Christine Schutt, and Luis Alberto Urrea. The short list will be announced in late August.
The long-listed finalists are:
Any Resemblance to Actual Persons by Kevin Allardice (Counterpoint)
The Blood of Heaven by Kent Wascom (Grove Press)
The Carriage House by Louisa Hall (Scribner)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (Hogarth)
Elders by Ryan McIlvain (Hogarth)
Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter (Alfred A. Knopf)
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi (The Penguin Press)
In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods by Matt Bell (Soho Press)
The Morels by Christopher Hacker (Soho Press)
Motherlunge by Kirstin Scott (New Issues Poetry & Prose)
The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones (Touchstone)
The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson (Bloomsbury)
The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski (Harper Paperbacks)
Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng (Ecco)
Tampa by Alissa Nutting (Ecco)
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri (Riverhead Books)
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma (Viking)
Wash by Margaret Wrinkle (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Wise Men by Stuart Nadler (Reagan Arthur Books)
Y by Marjorie Celona (Free Press)
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani (Riverhead Books)
You Are One of Them by Elliott Holt (The Penguin Press)
Short-listed authors, who will be announced in late August, will each receive a prize of $1,000. The winner will be announced at the Center for Fiction's annual awards dinner on December 11 in New York City. Submissions for the prize (which may be sent by publishers only) are considered annually in March.
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"To the young writers I would merely say, 'Try to develp actual work habits, and even though you have a busy life try to reserve an hour, say—or more—a day to write.' Some very good things have been written on an hour a day," says Updike in this June 2004 interview, less than five years before his death.
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"Hubert Selby was the underdog and the voice for the...downtrodden, and was marginalized because he spoke up for the little guy," says Henry Rollins. "But you see the great humanity and the warmth and richness that he brought to things." The author of nine novels who died in 2004 is celebrated by two of his greatest champions, Rollins and Amiri Baraka, in this video from Open Road Media.
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In writing, food never lies. Aunt Mary passes the peas, revealing a missing wedding ring. A brother's pained gaze at a nearby glass of wine exposes his alcoholism. At the head of the table, a feeble grandfather's gravy-splattered scowl condemns his spoiled family's inability to comprehend war. Write an essay about a family meal. Begin with the seating arrangements. Without using any dialogue, use details about the meal to bring to life each family member and the family as a collective whole.
The New York City–based PEN American Center recently announced the finalists for its annual literary awards, which this year will give nearly $150,000 in prize money to established and emerging writers and translators.
The awards are given in ten categories for works of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, translation, and children's books. “We are proud that PEN’s Literary Awards are the most comprehensive in the country,” said PEN Executive Director, Suzanne Nossel. “This year we saw a record number of submissions from both traditional and independent publishers, including an impressive showing of emerging authors.”
The final winners and runners-up will be announced later this summer and will be honored at the 2013 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on Monday, October 21, 2013, at CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium in New York City.
Below is the full list of finalists in each category:
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize ($25,000): Given to an author whose debut work—a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2012—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.
A Land More Kind Than Home (William Morrow), Wiley Cash
A Naked Singularity (University of Chicago Press), Sergio de la Pava
My Only Wife (Dzanc Books), Jac Jemc
Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain (W.W. Norton & Co.), Lucia Perillo
Battleborn (Riverhead Books), Claire Vaye Watkins
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): To an author of a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which has been published in the United States during 2011 or 2012.
Iron Curtain (Doubleday), Anne Applebaum
Behind the Beautiful Forevers (Random House), Katherine Boo
Moby-Duck (Penguin Books), Donovan Hohn
God’s Hotel (Riverhead Books), Victoria Sweet
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000): For a book of essays published in 2012 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.
What Light Can Do (Ecco), Robert Hass
The Story of America (Princeton University Press), Jill Lepore
Waiting for the Barbarians (New York Review Books), Daniel Mendelsohn
PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000): For a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical or biological sciences published in 2012.
The Forest Unseen (Viking), David George Haskell
The Violinist’s Thumb (Little, Brown and Company), Sam Kean
Subliminal (Vintage Books), Leonard Mlodinow
Spillover (W.W. Norton & Co.), David Quammen
Rabid (Viking), Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
PEN Open Book Award ($5,000): For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2012.
Gun Dealers’ Daughter (W.W. Norton & Co.), Gina Apostol
When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press), Natalie Diaz
Allegiance (Wayne State University Press), Francine J. Harris
Our Andromeda (Copper Canyon Press), Brenda Shaughnessy
The Grey Album (Graywolf Press), Kevin Young
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000): For a distinguished biography published in 2012.
James Joyce (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Gordon Bowker
All We Know (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Lisa Cohen
A Difficult Woman (Bloomsbury), Alice Kessler-Harris
The Lives of Margaret Fuller (W.W. Norton & Co.), John Matteson
The Black Count (Broadway Books), Tom Reiss
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000): To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2012.
Over Time (Grove Press), Frank Deford
Road to Valor (Broadway Books), Aili and Andres McConnon
Like Any Normal Day (St. Martin’s Press), Mark Kram, Jr.
Floyd Patterson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), W.K. Stratton
PEN/Steven Kroll Award for Picture Book Writing ($5,000): To a writer for an exceptional story illustrated in a picture book published in 2012.
Snakes (Scholastic), Nic Bishop
Oh, No! (Schwartz & Wade Books), Candace Fleming and illustrator Andrea Castellani
I Lay My Stitches Down (Eerdmans), Cynthia Grady and illustrator Michele Wood
Those Rebels, John & Tom (Scholastic), Barbara Kerley and illustrator Edwin Fotheringham
The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau (Eerdmans), Michelle Markel and illustrator Amanda Hall
PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000): For a book-length translation of poetry into English published in 2012.
Spit Temple by Cecilia Vicuña (Ugly Duckling Presse), Rosa Alcalá
Diadem by Marosa di Giorgio (BOA Editions), Adam Giannelli
Tales of a Severed Head by Rachida Madani (Yale University Press), Marilyn Hacker
The Smoke of Distant Fires by Eduardo Chirinos (Open Letter Books), G. J. Racz
Almost 1 Book/Almost 1 Life by Elfriede Czurda (Burning Deck), Rosmarie Waldrop
The Shock of the Lenders and Other Poems by Jorge Santiago Perednik (Action Books), Molly Weigel
PEN Translation Prize ($3,000): For a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2012.
A Long Day’s Evening by Bilge Karasu (City Lights Books), Aron Aji and Fred Stark
Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (New Directions), Alison Entrekin
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Rosalind Harvey
The Cardboard House by Martín Adán (New Directions), Katherine Silver
The Island of Second Sight by Albert Vigoleis Thelen (Galileo Publishers), Donald O. White