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If this simple, evocative video shot at Shakespeare and Company in Paris and set to Melody Gardot's "Over the Rainbow" doesn't give you an almost irresistable urge to visit an independent bookstore today, you've probably been buying all your books online.
Research the origins (Latin, Greek, biblical, or otherwise) of your first name and develop an alter ego for yourself based upon those origins. If your name is Alex, for example, whose origin, Alexandros, originates from the Greek root "to defend," your alter ego could be "The Defender." Free-write for twenty minutes from the perspective of that alter ego, writing about anything that comes to mind—and see what kind of patterns, ideas, or thoughts emerge.
Doris Betts, an award-winning Southern author, died on Saturday at her home in North Carolina; Tor/Forge eliminates DRM; a translation of the only known interview with Peruvian poet César Vallejo; and other news.
Think about a conflict you had with someone in the past that left you feeling especially wronged or misunderstood. Write a story from the other person's perspective, fictionalizing the details of that person's character. Create the story behind why this person did what they did or said what they said.
A collaboration between artist Vanessa Hodgkinson and poet Marianne Morris, this video poem combines clips from a shoot at Leighton House Museum in London, where the artist recreates Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's "The Turkish Bath," and footage from a British documentary on the storming of the Iranian embassy in the early 1980s as well as YouTube videos of more recent activities at the embassy in London.
An anonymous publishing executive explains why he enjoys breaking Digital Rights Management on e-books; Mike Shatzkin reveals the things he learned from the recent London Book Fair; Reuters looks at the long history of literary tourism; and other news.
Kicking off the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this past weekend, a collection of standout books published last year were honored at the thirty-second annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.
In poetry Carl Phillips won for his eleventh collection, Double Shadow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The book was a contender last year for the National Book Award, along with another Times Book Prize finalist, Bruce Smith for Devotions (University of Chicago Press). Also shortlisted for the Times honor were Jim Harrison for Songs of Unreason (Copper Canyon Press), Dawn Lundy Martin for Discipline (Nightboat Books), and Linda Norton for The Public Gardens (Pressed Wafer).
Alex Shakar won in fiction for Luminarium (Soho Press), his second novel after 2001's The Savage Girl (Harper). The finalists were Joseph O’Connor for Ghost Light (Frances Coady Books) and Michael Ondaatje for The Cat’s Table (Knopf), as well as National Book Award finalists Julie Otsuka for The Buddha in the Attic (Knopf) and Edith Pearlman for Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories (Lookout Books), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction went to Ismet Prcic for Shards (Black Cat). Prcic's novel won out over Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding (Little, Brown), Eleanor Henderson's Ten Thousand Saints (Ecco), Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station (Coffee House Press), and James Wallenstein's The Arriviste (Milkweed Editions).
The winner of the third annual prize in the graphic novel is Carla Speed McNeil for Finder: Voice (Dark Horse). Previous winners in the category include Adam Hines for Duncan the Wonder Dog (AdHouse, 2010) and David Mazzucchelli for Asterios Polyp (Pantheon, 2009).
The book prizes honor titles published in the previous year in twelve categories. For a list of all the winners, visit the award website.
Choose a well-known person from history or from the news. Write a persona poem from this person's voice and perspective. For an example, read the poet Ai's "The Good Shepherd: Atlanta, 1981," from her collection Sin (Norton, 1986), written from the perspective of convicted murderer Wayne Williams, or watch a video of Ai reading the poem.
Linda Källérus directed this video for the poem "Waltz of a Dream," from Nathalie Handal's latest collection Poet in Andalucia, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in January. The music is from "Take This Waltz" by Leonard Cohen.
WNYC's On the Media's takes a comprehensive look at the state of the publishing industry; the Wall Street Journal examines the criticism of the Department of Justice's antitrust suit; today marks the 448th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare; and other news.
