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Banned Books Week begins today, and Huffington Post created an interactive chart highlighting the ten most challenged books of 2012; Gary Shteyngart details a harrowing thirty-hour journey from Paris to New York; Antoine Wilson lists his ten favorite literary narrators; and other news.
Literary agent Wendy Weil, who founded of The Wendy Weil Agency in 1986, died suddenly at her home in Connecticut on September 22, 2012. Atlantic national correspondent and author James Fallows posted a brief remembrance of her online at the Atlantic: "Wendy Weil, who has been my literary agent on all the books I have written, died suddenly while doing what she did most often, and best—reading manuscripts."
The Wendy Weil Agency represents books by authors such as Andrea Barrett, Rita Mae Brown, Alice Fulton, Mark Helprin, and Philip Lopate.
Keeping it short and sweet on this first Monday of October, this clip features a haiku by Alan Pizzarelli, from his book The Canary Funeral.
A federal judge dismissed attempts by Mario Puzo's estate to quash future Godfather films; David Mitchell describes the process of adapting Cloud Atlas for the screen; PWxyz has created pie charts for James Joyce's Ulysses; and other news.
"Hell is other people," Jean Paul Sartre famously said. Or is it one's own self? For your weekend viewing pleasure, here is a 1964 BBC adaptation of Sartre's play No Exit, starring Harold Pinter.
Jeffrey Eugenides spoke with Salon about perceived gender disparity in literary fiction; independent publisher MacAdam/Cage is for sale; Emily M. Keeler details a recent Zadie Smith event in Toronto; and other news.
"Cowboy poet" Jane Morton reads her poem "Prairie Fire" at the Out of the Ashes: Words of Rebirth, Healing, and Hope poetry gathering in Colorado Springs on July 11, 2012.
The annual Troubadour International Poetry Prize, sponsored by the London-based Coffee-House Poetry and Cegin Productions, is currently open for submissions. The grand-prize winner will receive £2,500, or approximately $4,050.
The contest is open to poets from any country over the age of eighteen. Poets may submit two copies of previously unpublished poems of up to forty-five lines each, written in English, with a £5 ($8) entry fee. Submissions are accepted via postal mail only, and payments can be made by mail or through PayPal. The deadline for submissions is October 15.
A second-place prize of £500 (approximately $810) and a third-place prize of £250 (approximately $405) will also be given. Winning poems may also be published on the Troubadour International Poetry Prize website. Jane Draycott, whose latest work is a translation of the fourteenth century poem Pearl (Carcanet, 2011), and Bernard O’Donoghue, whose most recent poetry collection is Farmers Cross (Faber & Faber, 2011), which was shortlisted for the 2011 T. S. Elliot Prize, will judge the contest.
Founded in 1997 by poet Anne-Marie Fyfe, Coffee-House Poetry is a weekly reading series held at the Troubadour, a writers’ and artists’ café in London. The series hosts readings by both emerging and established poets throughout the year, and has featured poets such as Billy Collins, David Constantine, Stephen Dobyns, Mark Doty, Helen Dunmore, Jorie Graham, Jane Hirshfield, Michael Rosen, C.K. Williams, and C.D. Wright, among many others. The series also hosts book discussions, literary magazine launches, craft classes, and workshops taught by poets such as Sharon Olds, Tom Sleigh, and Matthew Sweeney. Contest submission fees are used to help support the series.
Winners of the 2012 Troubadour Prize will be notified by November 19, and will be honored at Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour on December 3.
For more information on Coffee-House Poetry and complete submission guidelines, visit the Troubadour Poetry Prize website.
Sometimes our dreams tell a story about our lives. Think about a dream you’ve had—it could be a recent one, one that you recall from your past, or one that recurs. Write down the details of the dream as descriptively as your memory allows, focusing on imagery, narrative, characters, and any odd or distinct details you can recall. Once you’ve written a description, freewrite about what the images, characters, and details remind you of from your waking life. Then, using the material you've generated, write a short essay about the dream. What do you think it meant? What experiences or emotions did it represent? Did it seem real or otherworldly? How did it made you feel upon waking? For future dream analysis exercises, keep a dream diary by your bed and record your dreams first thing each morning.
Folio magazine has published its 2012 Editorial Salary Survey; Penguin has filed breach of contract claims against Elizabeth Wurtzel, Ana Marie Cox, Rebecca Mead, among others; the JFK Library and Museum in Boston is attempting to save thousands of letters written to Ernest Hemingway from decay; and other news.
