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The website Small Demons and the X-Ray feature of Amazon’s e-readers are the first in a new crop of digital literary tools that promise to change how readers interact with texts. By equipping users with digital reference frameworks, these new meta-analytical approaches give readers immediate access to the contextual worlds of literary works.
Barnes and Noble has combined its Nook, digital, and college business into a new subsidiary, with a three hundred million dollar investment from Microsoft; David Carr details how a scuffle between Apple and Amazon caused author Buzz Bissinger's e-book removal from Amazon; a Kickstarter campaign has launched to fund a documentary featuring Pulitzer prize-winning poet W. S. Merwin; and other news
What happens when you mix equal parts Don DeLillo and David Cronenberg, add an estimated budget of more than twenty million dollars, and stir vigorously? Cosmopolis, based on the 2003 novel and starring Robert Pattinson, Jay Baruchel, and Paul Giamatti, is an official selection at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.
Amazon's quarterly revenues were up 34 percent, but net income is down; with the sequel to Hilary Mantel's best-selling Wolf Hall coming out early next month, the Wall Street Journal examines the popularity of book series; Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay will appear alongside Colin Farrell in an adaptation of Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale; and other news.
In this endearing short film by student Juliet San Nicolas, five lines of poetry by Frank O'Hara are intermingled with the sweeet sound of a typewriter and the song "Annie Green Quit Speaking to Me" by Jeff Pianki.
To accompany our May/June 2012 issue's feature "Winners on Winning," part of our special section on writing contests, we're posting a selection of mini-interviews with prize recipients on the benefits of their awards and what they learned from winning. The second author in our series is New York City poet and fiction writer Francine Witte.
Witte most recently won the Thomas A. Wilhelmus Chapbook Award (now dubbed the Editor's Fiction Chapbook Prize) from RopeWalk Press in 2010 for a collection of short short stories titled Cold June. Also the author of three other chapbooks of poetry and short fiction—Only, Not Only (Finishing Line Press, 2012), The Wind Twirls Everything (MuscleHead Press, 2009), and First Rain, which won Pecan Grove Press's 2008 National Chapbook Competition—she speaks with us about the hands-down best aspect of winning the Wilhelmus Award and what she'd suggest to writers looking to contests as a means to publication.
How did winning RopeWalk Press's Wilhelmus Chapbook Award change your career, if at all? Were you able to do anything special with the prize money, or did you make any important connections as a result of winning?
When I saw this contest listed in Poets & Writers, and I saw that Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler was the judge, my only thought was that this would be a chance to have his eyes on my work. That was all I was really hoping for at that point. I had always thought of him as a master of the short short form. When I was subsequently informed that I was one of the ten finalists, I had to take a deep breath. What if? Of course, I didn't want to become too hopeful. At that point, I did what I suppose many people do: I made a deal with God. I promised that if I were to win, I would give the prize money to my sister, who desperately needed it as her husband had recently suffered a stroke. The news of my winning came in an e-mail with the lead paragraph [containing] the magical words of Robert Olen Butler, who called my take on the short short "brilliant" and said I was a talented writer indeed. I couldn't even breathe. I immediately called my sister and told her the good news, that the money was on its way to her. But to me, the real prize was that beautiful paragraph that I later used as a blurb on the book cover. The exposure that came from the book was amazing. I now had people blogging about me. That was really a thrill. The reviews and comments I received were positive and when you are starting out—in publishing terms—it is very important that you know people are "getting" what you are trying to do. I also had an agent contact me—a first—though he wasn't really able to do much with a collection of short short stories.
Did the award have an effect on the path you've chosen to take in your work?
Just the validation and praise I received from having Cold June win the contest and get published has helped me on those dark days when I wonder what the hell I am even doing. All writers need that. I am a high school teacher, nearing retirement, so I am thinking that when I do have enough time to write that novel, I would probably structure it in short shorts. Winning the prize and hearing the comments from people I would not have normally have heard from has told me to keep true to the style in which I write.
What advice do you have for writers looking to contests as a way to get their work into the world?
Contests are an amazing way to get your work into the world. Winning a contest definitely raises your profile as a writer and certainly adds much to your cover letter. It's a concrete credit that people do respond to. When choosing which contests to enter, you'll want to choose carefully, though. Entering contests is expensive and time-consuming. You also want to make sure that what you're submitting really is your very best work. Choose a few good ones, contests you generally think you might have a good chance of winning, and avoid a scattershot method. Like any other submission, know the journal you are sending your work to. That will save you lots of time and money.
Guests arriving at the two Standard hotels in New York City for the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature next week will receive a gift bag filled with books selected by Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Jennifer Egan; the Atlantic looks at the tortured history of book reviews; How to Cook Everything author Mark Bittman writes of a pilgrimage to visit his friend, Kentucky author Wendell Berry; and other news.
Deadline Hollywood reports that former ICM agent Nick Harris has partnered with financing specialist Jason Traub (also his brother-in-law) to form The Story Foundation, a company that aims to "create intellectual properties that start as books with ancillary life in film, TV and other multi-platform opportunities." Harris says he plans to offer authors a higher cut of any TV and movie deals based on their books, depending on how involved they were in generating the original idea. The company will focus on young adult and "high concept commercial ideas," as Harris put it. So...what exactly are "high concept commercial ideas"? We asked literary agent Julie Barer for a quick translation. Here's what she says: "I think a 'high concept' idea is one that is easily described in one or two sentences, appeals to a broad audience (meaning both male and female readers, young and old) and is both immediately recognizable and yet sounds original and fresh. It means the story has a 'hook' that will instantly draw people in, and will be easy to pitch to media, booksellers, and the general public. It usually means the focus is more about the plot and the narrative drive/tension than about the beauty of the line-by-line writing, but it doesn't have to be."
On a related note, Barer's Twitter feed offers news about publishing and upcoming events, and is worth a follow. In fact, we've added the Twitter feeds of all those agents included in our Literary Agents database. Take a look! But remember: It's definitely not a good idea to query an agent via social media.
If this simple, evocative video shot at Shakespeare and Company in Paris and set to Melody Gardot's "Over the Rainbow" doesn't give you an almost irresistable urge to visit an independent bookstore today, you've probably been buying all your books online.
