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Outspoken publisher Dennis Johnson weighs in on the Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit; J. K. Rowling will release her first novel for adults in September; writers may now toughen their skin with an online rejection generator; and other news.
The shortlist for the 2012 IMPAC Dublin literary prize was revealed today, highlighting ten authors with notable novels released in English in 2010. Among the finalists for the international honor, which annually awards one hundred thousand euros, are three Americans, Jennifer Egan, Karl Marlantes, and Willy Vlautin.
Egan is named a finalist for A Visit From the Goon Squad, which took both the National Book Critics Circle and the Pulitzer Prize last year. Marlantes makes the shortlist with his much-lauded debut, Matterhorn (Atlantic Monthly Press/El León Literary Arts) which won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize in 2010. Vlautin joins the ranks with his third novel, Lean on Pete (Harper Perennial).
Among the international novels up for the award are Rocks in the Belly, the debut of British author Jon Bauer; The Matter With Morris by Canadian David Bergen; The Memory of Love by British and Sierra Leonean author Aminatta Forna; Even the Dogs by British author Jon McGregor; and Landed by British author Tim Pears. Two translations also made the list, Limassol by Yishai Sarid, translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Harshav, and The Eternal Son by Cristovão Tezza, translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin.
The finalists were culled from a longlist of 147 titles nominated by libraries in twelve countries. The winner of this year's prize will be announced on June 13.
In the video below, Vlautin discusses the obsession behind his shortlisted novel—and sings a song about it.
Ten years after her first published story made her an easy target for envious writers, Nell Freudenberger has come into her own with a second novel, The Newlyweds, out this month from Knopf.
What Ben Fountain’s literary output lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality, as the fifty-three-year-old author’s masterly debut novel, published in May 2012 by Ecco, makes abundantly clear.
In this video the Associated Press offers a summary of yesterday's announcement that the Justice Department is suing five major publishers and Apple on price-fixing charges. HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster settled the charges Wednesday, leaving Penguin, Macmillan, and Apple in what could be a protracted legal fight.
This morning the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five of the nation's largest publishers; writers and publicists dish on the vagaries of book tours and readings; Flavorwire rounds up ten working Southern authors everyone should read; and other news.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land speaks about his new novel, Canada, to be published by Ecco next month.
Simon & Schuster will publish a new novel from Herman Wouk, who turns ninety-seven in May; Salman Rushdie responds to Israel’s ban of Günter Grass; T. Coraghessan Boyle describes the feeling of boxing up his collected papers, which were acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin; and other news.
This video installation by Maria Korporal, featuring a poem by Daìta Martinez, is part of the collective show ANIMA-L-ARTE at Rome's Monte Soratte nature museum.
In partnership with the family of a Vietnam veteran known for his antiwar writing and activism, Iowa Review has launched a multigenre writing contest open to U.S. military veterans and active duty personnel. The Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award competition, which offers one thousand dollars and publication in Iowa Review, is accepting entries of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction on any subject.
Pulitzer Prize winner and Vietnam veteran Robert Olen Butler will select the winning work from a pool chosen by the journal's editors (all finalists will be considered for publication). Butler, much of whose work is informed by his experiences in the U.S. military, served in Vietnam as an intelligence agent and a translator. He is the author of twelve novels, most recently A Small Hotel (Grove Press, 2011), six short story collections, and a nonfiction book on craft, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction (Grove Press, 2005).
Writers may submit their work with a fifteen-dollar entry fee via Submittable or postal mail (an extra ten dollars gets entrants a yearlong subscription to the magazine). The deadline is June 15. Visit the Iowa Review website for complete guidelines.
In the video below, Butler discusses how his time in the military led the former playwright to fiction, and how his experiences in Vietnam have shaped his work.
