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A library managed by robotic systems; a musical stage comedy set in an indie bookstore; mermaids succeed vampires as the zeitgeist; the New York Public Library gives away twenty-five-thousand paperback books; and other news.
Adapted from the 1891 novella by Anton Checkhov, The Duel, starring Andrew Scott as Laevsky and Fiona Glascott as Nadya, was released last April to rave reviews. Widely considered a successful literary adaptation (no small feat), the movie will be available on DVD later this month.
Blackbird, the online literary magazine of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, has announced a new award for short fiction.
Given in honor of late Richmond-born fiction writer Rebecca Mitchell Tarumoto, a two-thousand-dollar prize will be given annually for a story submitted to the journal over the course of each year, specifically by an emerging writer.
The inaugural winner, selected from among writers published in Blackbird this year, will be announced in the Fall 2011 issue. In addition to the monetary prize, the winner will be invited to give a reading on the VCU campus next spring, and may also be asked to put in appearances at Richmond-area elementary and high schools.
Blackbird does not charge a fee for submissions, and prefers writers to send work using the magazine's electronic form. For details on how to submit, visit the Blackbird website.
A possible Borders bidder; Newt Gingrich's 156 Amazon book reviews; unpublished Anthony Burgess stories discovered; a fourth author joins the Kindle million club; and other news.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.
