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The trouble with digitizing line breaks; dissecting the O: The Oprah Magazine poet fashion spread; Amanda Hocking strikes again; the iPad 2 sells out around the world; and other news.
On April 15 Little, Brown will publish The Pale King, David Foster Wallace's final, unfinished novel. In this BBC documentary, Geoff Ward discusses the life and works of the author who committed suicide in 2008, at the age of forty-six. Ward also talks to Wallace's editor, Michael Pietsch, about the difficult task of assembling Wallace's final fragments into The Pale King.
Spend a few moments examining an old photograph—a found image, a photo from childhood, an iconic shot from history—and give it a title. Then put the photo aside and write a poem using this title.
The Japanese publishing industry is weathering the recent disasters and pitching in with relief efforts; Powell's Books releases a mobile app; Lawrence Ferlinghetti turned ninety-two yesterday; Amanda Hocking signs a four-book deal with St. Martin's; and other news.
In this clip Daniel Pogue adds stop-motion sewing animation to section 22 of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "A Coney Island of the Mind." Ferlinghetti turned ninety-two on Thursday.
The Vilcek Foundation has selected poet Charles Simic and fiction writer Dinaw Mengestu as recipients of the sixth annual Vilcek Prizes honoring foreign-born writers, artists, and scientists now living in the United States. Former U.S. poet laureate and recent Robert Frost Medal–winner Simic, born in the former Yugoslavia, received the one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize for lifetime achievement, and Mengestu, born in Ethiopia, won the twenty-five-thousand-dollar prize for creative promise.
Author of twenty poetry collections, Simic's most recent work is Master of Disguises (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010). Mengestu is the author of the novels How to Read the Air (Riverhead Books, 2010) and the widely praised The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead Books, 2007), which won the Guardian First Book Award.
The finalists for the prize for emerging writers, each receiving five thousand dollars, are poet Ilya Kaminsky (born in the former Soviet Union) and fiction writers Simon Van Booy (born in England), Téa Obreht (born in Croatia), and Vu Tran (born in Vietnam).
The literature honorees will participate in a panel, The New Vernacular: Immigrant Authors in American Literature, at New York City's Housing Works Bookstore Café on April 5. The event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are appreciated.
In the video below, Mengestu discusses his latest novel.
More in-depth coverage of the rejected Google Books Settlement; the Best Translated Book Award finalists; Barnes & Noble can't find a buyer; the It Gets Better Project publishes a book; and other news.
In celebration of Women's History Month, the folks at Open Road Media put together this clip of some of their authors talking about "the suffragettes, poets, novelists, daughters, and grandmothers whose courage, talent, and dedication serve as daily inspiration in their work."
In the third person, write a scene using three different modes of narrative distance. First, using an objective point of view, describe a woman boarding a bus. Use only actions, expressions, and dialogue; make no judgments about the scene or about her interior life. Then, using the omniscient point of view, describe the woman striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to her. You can still describe what you see on the "outside," but now, reveal something "inside" that only a privileged narrator would know. (Is she late for work? Is she worried about something? Is she bored by the conversation?) Finally, shift into stream of consciousness as the woman gets off the bus. Continue to access the woman's thoughts, feelings, and memories, but use the language of the character herself, revealing "the process as well as the content of the mind," as Janet Burroway says. This wide range of voices may be extreme, but it allows for a full portrait of a character's inner and outer life—and reminds us that no point of view is static.
This week's fiction prompt comes from fiction writer Eleanor Henderson, whose first novel, Ten Thousand Saints, will be published by Ecco in June.
Judge Chin rejects the $125 million Google Books Settlement; Lendl is back in business after a media kerfuffle; arts education alternatives to the MFA; the Blackberry Playbook steps up to challenge the iPad 2; and other news.
