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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.
Poet Wayne Miller once compared reading a poem in translation to “watching a film with the sound turned down.” Find two or more English translations of a poem originally written in a foreign language with which you’re not familiar. Compare the translations, and try to “re-translate” the original poem based on the various English translations you’ve read.
While essentially a promo for the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world, this clip does offer a valuable look at the jobs of a few of the many people who work at Random House, from editorial and design through production, marketing, sales, and distribution.
The Israeli government may pass legislation that will make it illegal to lower the price of a book until eighteen months after its release; poet and graphic designer Sean Bishop lists the best poetry presses by their production value; Renate Stendhal separates myth from fact regarding the legacy of Gertrude Stein; and other news.
The new poet laureate is seen here reading "Theories of Time and Space" at last year's Oxford Conference for the Book in Oxford, Mississippi.
