Literary Fathers
From Open Road Media comes this video of Kaylie Jones and Andre Dubus III sharing memories of their dads.
The Future of Books, Meghan O'Rourke Speaks to Her Father, and More
The Guardian questions the future of books; after writing of the loss of her mother, poet Meghan O'Rourke speaks to her father; Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon collaborate for HBO; and other news.
Steve Earle
Hallucinating Ginsberg, Cheap E-readers, and More
The NYPL acquires Timothy Leary's archive; Bill Murray hearts Poets House; PEN protests Bahraini poet's prison sentence; and other news.
Poetry Will Find You
In this silent film by Richard Grunn, a common man discovers "the mysterious power of poetry."
Colum McCann Takes IMPAC Prize
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the most lucrative honor of its kind at one hundred thousand euros (more than one hundred forty thousand dollars), was announced this afternoon. Irish-born author Colum McCann, who currently resides in New York City, won the 2011 award for his novel Let the Great World Spin (Random House, 2009).
The "genuinely twenty-first century novel that speaks to its time but is not enslaved by it" won the National Book Award in 2009. It was selected for the IMPAC Award from among more than one hundred sixty titles nominated by one hundred sixty-six libraries around the world.
Other finalists this year were Americans Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna, Yiyun Li for The Vagrants, Joyce Carol Oates for Little Bird of Heaven and Irish writers Colm Tóibín for Brooklyn and William Trevor for Love and Summer. Also shortlisted are Michael Crummey of Canada for Galore and Australian writers David Malouf for Ransom, Craig Silvey for Jasper Jones, and Evie Wyld for After the Fire, a Still, Small Voice.
In the video below, McCann discusses his winning novel on a recent episode of City University of New York's video program City Talk.
The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes
The end point of a story determines its meaning, and one of the main tasks a writer faces is to define the duration of a plot. In this book-length essay, Joan Silber uses wide-ranging examples from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chinua Achebe, and Arundhati Roy, among others, to illustrate five key ways in which time unfolds in fiction.
Apple and Amazon Face Off, Picking the Best Nonfiction, and More
Apple versus Amazon; Adam Mansbach's Go the F**k to Sleep hits number one on Amazon; planning for Bloomsday; and other news.
Kelle Groom
Poet Kelle Groom's memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, about her recovery from alcoholism following the death of her fourteen-month-old son, is published this month by Free Press. Check out this and other new and noteworthy books in the July/August issue's Page One section.
Claudia Rankine Wins Busboys and Poets Prize
Virginia's Fall for the Book Festival, sponsors of three annual awards for prose, and its partner the Washington, D.C., poetry haven Busboys and Poets have announced the festival's inaugural poetry award. Yesterday Claudia Rankine, author of Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2004) and three other collections, was announced winner of the honor, which is accompanied by a five-thousand-dollar prize.
Rankine joins novelists Amy Tan, who is this year's Fairfax Prize winner, and Stephen King, who received the Mason Prize, as a 2011 Fall for the Book honoree. A fourth prize for nonfiction will be announced in the coming weeks. The authors will appear at the festival, which takes place from September 18 to 23, to accept their prizes.
In the video below, Rankine discusses the lure of unknown, but recognizable, worlds in poems, and the hallmark of bad verse.
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