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A possible Borders bidder; Newt Gingrich's 156 Amazon book reviews; unpublished Anthony Burgess stories discovered; a fourth author joins the Kindle million club; and other news.
For fans of mash-ups such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer comes The Meowmorphosis by Frank Kafka and Coleridge Cook, published this week by Quirk Books.
Choose a bureaucracy: the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Post Office, the Army,etc. Imagine two people who work there, one a supervisor, the other an underling, and write their letters of resignation. Then write a scene where the two former co-workers meet for coffee three years later.
The Half-Known World is a collection of essays by writing instructor and author Robert Boswell on craft issues facing literary writers. Boswell details how important it is for writers to give themselves over to what he calls the “half-known world” of fiction, where surprise and meaning converge.
Joyce Carol Oates responds to her critics; Chinese poet Liao Yiwu is banned from travel again; Amazon may make billions off the Kindle this year; Star Wars e-books; and other news.
In April and early May the multimedia production Muse's Market toured the Western United States, bringing together a combination of live music, art, performance poetry, and philosophy to address the topic of sustainability.
The New York Public Library held its eleventh annual Young Lions Fiction Award celebration last night, honoring five emerging fiction writers with books published in 2010. After readings of the finalists' works by actors Billy Crudup and Martha Plimpton, Chicago author Adam Levin was named winner of the ten-thousand-dollar prize for his novel The Instructions (McSweeney's Books).
Levin's fellow honorees, receiving one thousand dollars each, are John Brandon for Citrus County (McSweeney's Books), Patricia Engel for Vida (Grove Press), Suzanne Rivecca for Death Is Not an Option (Norton), and Teddy Wayne for Katptoil (Harper Perennial).
The award, cofounded by Ethan Hawke, Rick Moody, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, and Hannah McFarland, is given annually for a work of fiction by a writer age thirty-five or younger.
In the video below, McSweeney's Books presents a teaser trailer for Levin's winning novel.
Congressperson Matt Dean apologizes to Neil Gaiman; the state of digital publishing in sub-Saharan Africa; Target mails "Haiku-pons"; poet Javier Sicilia fights drug-related violence in Mexico after the death of his son; and other news.
Seth Fried has a little fun with the book trailer format in this teaser for his debut story collection, The Great Frustration, published this month by Soft Skull Press.
Poet Collin Kelley, curator of the Poetry Atlanta reading series, gives a shout-out to Atlanta/Decatur R/W-sponsored presenters of literary events.
At this writing, nearly fifty organizations have applied for funding in the Atlanta/Decatur area. To close out my time as the inaugural R/W blogger, I want to name those organizations. Whether you’re reading in Atlanta or one of the other cities eligible for P&W funding, you’ll see just how diverse this list of grantees is, and if you are a presenter/curator of literary events, the time to apply for funding is now.
Atlanta/Decatur grantees: Academy Theatre, AJC-Decatur Book Festival, Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, Atlanta Vet Center, Below the Radar, Black on Black Rhyme, BreakinIce, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, The Chattahoochee Review, Charis Books and More, Chris Kids, Inc., Clark Atlanta University, Composition Gallery, Duck & Herring Co., E- Period, Epiphany Services, FFX Free Forum Xchange, Finding Eve Café, Five Points, galerieMC, Georgia Poetry Society, Georgia Writers Association, Georgia State University Creative Writing Program, Hammonds House Art Galleries, Holiday Theatre Festival, Indie, Java Monkey Coffee House, Just Queen Productions, LaGender, Inc., Lasnyte Entertainment, Louise Runyon Performance Company, Mercer University, MJ of Poetry Entertainment, Natural Reignz, Inc., Oglethorpe University, One Mic Entertainment, Organized Rhyme, Poetry at Tech, Poetry Atlanta, Inc., Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta, Spelman College, The Ace of Spades, Inc., Three on Third, Verbal Slick, Working Title Playwrights, Inc., and Yesterday's Girl.
P&W’s fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30. In some cases, the available funds for your city might have already been tapped out, but July will be here before you know it. Apply now if you have an event coming up in 2011/2012. The application takes ten minutes to complete and can be faxed or e-mailed to P&W – it doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Atlanta is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
