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A group of writers unhappy with PublishAmerica have filed a lawsuit alleging it charges fees for services that traditional publishers perform at no cost; entrepreneur Seth Godin funded his new book on Kickstarter within three hours; George Saunders explains why Donald Antrim's The Verificationist is an underappreciated masterpiece; and other news.
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?
Net sales for the first quarter of 2012 are down for adult hardcovers, and up for e-books; the Wall Street Journal takes a look at the strange world of fan fiction; Nathan Englander reveals his love for the international storytelling series called the Moth; and other news.
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.
For lovers of Irish literature, and the work of James Joyce in particular, June 16 is a special day. Bloomsday is a celebration of the life of the Irish author on the day in which the events of his novel Ulysses (which stars Leopold Bloom, hence the name) is set. To commemorate the thirtieth annual observance, we present Adam Harvey's performance of pages 193 to 195 of Finnegans Wake.
GalleyCat's recent list of self-published best sellers included SpellBound Cafe by Nora A. Roberts—a pen name that attempts to fool readers into mistakenly believing the book is by best-selling author Nora Roberts; the editors of n+1 examine the vagaries and pleasures of Twitter; Book Riot rounded up the best covers of BookExpo America; and other news.
Thomas Pynchon has reached an agreement with Penguin Press to publish his entire backlist of titles as e-books; novelist Alix Ohlin writes of childhood synesthesia and how the visual has shaped her writing; the Paris Review Daily features the drawings created by Sylvia Plath; and other news.
Write a story that begins with a description of a distinct scent. Devote at least one paragraph to describing the smell, whether it’s the layered aroma of a well-cooked meal or something distressingly malodorous. Allow this opening description to lead you to a larger scene or a revelation about one of the story’s central characters.
"Helps us to believe / That it’s no great sin to give, / Hoping to receive," writes Richard Wilbur in this poem, read by the iPhone-wielding video artist Faith Eskola's five-year-old child and brought to life by Motionpoems.
The Academy of American Poets named Jennifer Benka its new Executive Director; paidContent wonders why the State Department signed a multi-million dollar no-bid contract with Amazon to purchase Kindle e-readers; a debate is raging over the future of the main branch of New York City's public library; and other news.
