Anatomy of a Book
This helpful video from AbeBooks demystifies the terms used to describe the physical parts of a book, including boards, hinge and joint, leaf, endpapers, book block, and plates.
Write the Small Print
In honor of Robert Walser's Microscripts, write a story (in as small as print as possible) on previously used paper, allowing whatever use the paper previously served (letter from a family member, etc) be the inspiration for the new story.
Agents on the Move
Publishers Lunch reports today that literary agents Amy Hughes and Ethan Bassoff have moved to new agencies. Hughes moves from McCormick & Williams to Dunow, Carlson and Lerner where she will specialize in representing nonfiction writers, including memoirists; Bassoff moves to Lippincott Massie McQuilkin from InkWell Management and will continue to focus on literary and commercial fiction, as well as narrative nonfiction.
Twenty-five Things Writers Should Stop, James Franco's First Novel, and More
Famed Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written an appeal to help build a Poets Plaza in San Francisco; author Chuck Wendig lists twenty-five things writers should stop doing; actor James Franco has sold his first novel to Amazon Publishing; and other news.
Rings of Saturn
Contributor:
Melissa Faliveno, <i>Poets & Writers Magazine</i>’s Diana and Simon Raab Editorial Fellow,
Location
“There’s something about Rings of Saturn that speaks directly to me as a writer.
Chewing Tinfoil
Brock Davis animates "OK" by Matt Sumell in Electric Literature's latest Single Sentence Animation.
Monty Python Ampersand
Jo Shapcott Honored for Life's Work in Poetry
London-born poet Jo Shapcott has been awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, an occasional honor given since 1933 for either a single poem by a U.K. writer or a poet's entire oeuvre. Shapcott received the prize for her body of work, the most recent addition to which is Of Mutability (Faber & Faber, 2010), the poet's award-winning chronicle of her battle with cancer.
"The award of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is the true crowning of Jo's career," said U.K. poet laureate Carol Anne Duffy, who headed up the judging panel. "The calm but sparkling Englishness of her poetry manages to combine accessibility with a deeply cerebral engagement with all the facets of being human—alert to art and science, life and death."
Shapcott, who teaches at the University of London, is also the author of Her Book: Poems 1988–1998 (Faber & Faber, 2000); My Life Asleep (Oxford University Press, 1998), which won the Forward Poetry Prize; and Electroplating the Baby (Bloodaxe Books, 1988), which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.
In the video below, Shapcott reads from her most recent collection.
Apple Rumors, Most Anticipated Books of 2012, and More
New Year's Resolution
Make your New Year’s resolution the title of a poem. Write a poem exploring the dimensions of the resolution, perhaps considering what would happen if you kept to it strictly for an entire year or if you broke it right away. Read Mark Halliday’s “Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women” for inspiration.
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