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It was a late afternoon in June, and yet another sudden thunderstorm had just ended. The schoolyard in back of P.S. 139 was usually filled with kids, but now I was the only person there. The square-shaped schoolyard is probably about one hundred feet on each side, and the two entrances, one on each street, almost form a diagonal, the hypotenuse, they call it in geometry, that line of a triangle opposite the right angle.
New digital readers debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show this week; Lulu.com plans an initial public offering of C$50M; Sam's Club announces a monthly book club; Indy publisher Wooden Books offers its titles free online; and other news.
Liu Xiaobo appeals his eleven-year prison sentence; literary agent Andrew Wylie signs Updike estate; Kirkus Reviews is back in business; Yeats and Freud are free online; and other news.
The 2009 winners of the United Kingdom's Costa Book Awards, formerly the Whitbread Literary Awards, were revealed last night. In poetry, three-time Costa nominee Christopher Reid won for his collection A Scattering (Arete Books), also shortlisted for the soon-to-be-announced Forward Prize. Colm Tóibín won for his novel Brooklyn (Viking) and Raphael Selbourne received the first novel award for Beauty (Tindal Street Press). Each received five thousand pounds (approximately eight thousand dollars).
From among the genre honorees, this year's judges, Tom Bradby, Josephine Hart, Marie Helvin, Gary Kemp, Dervla Kirwan, and Caroline Quentin, will select an overall winner, to be announced on January 26. Competing against the poetry and fiction winners are children's book prize recipient Patrick Ness, honored for The Ask and the Answer (Walker Books), and biographer Graham Farmelo, who won for The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius (Faber and Faber). The author of the "Book of the Year" will receive twenty-five thousand pounds (approximately forty thousand dollars).
In the video below, Tóibín reads from his winning novel at the 2009 PEN World Voices Festival.
Hearst previews its new Skiff e-reader; rumors of Apple's 'Kindle Killer' continue to gain momentum; Mediabistro launches GalleyCat Reviews; a Tolstoy museum reopens in Chechnya; and other news.
Make 2010 the year of submitting your debut book manuscript. While first book prizes aren't the only option for emerging writers—there are plenty of opportunities out there that welcome published and unpublished writers—we've compiled a list of prizes to check out in the new year that include publication specifically of first books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
Debut poetry book publication prizes are offered by:
ABZ Press
American Poetry Review
BOA Editions
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
Cave Canem Foundation
Carolina Wren Press (This press's contest also accepts second book manuscripts.)
Cleveland State University
Crab Orchard Series in Poetry
Elixir Press (This press's contest also accepts second book manuscripts.)
Fence Books (Open to women poets only; this press's contest also accepts second book manuscripts.)
Four Way Books
Kore Press (Open to women poets only.)
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Omnidawn Publishing (This press's contest also accepts second book manuscripts.)
Pavement Saw Press
Persea Books (Open to women poets only.)
Perugia Press (Open to women poets only; this press's contest also accepts second book manuscripts.)
Silverfish Review Press
Tupelo Press
University of Iowa Press
University of Pittsburgh Press
Wick Poetry Center
Yale University Press
Zone 3 Press
Debut fiction prizes are offered by:
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
James Jones Literary Society
Livingston Press
University of Iowa Press
A debut creative nonfiction book prize is offered by the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
If your manuscript is still in progress, check out the Milton Center, which offers a fellowship to Christian writers to finish a first book of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, and the University of Wisconsin's Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowships, which award three poets and three fiction writers a stipend and an academic year in residence to work on first collections or novels.
Poetry by Jorge Luis Borges is appearing in English for the first time; a new e-reading platform promises better aesthetics; Günter Grass’s Stasi files are the subject of an upcoming book; a Chinese author is suing Google for making her latest novel available online; and other news.
Fearless, inventive, persistent, beautiful, or just plain badass—here are some of the living authors who shake us awake, challenge our ideas of who we are, embolden our actions, and, above all, inspire us to live life more fully and creatively.
In the inaugural installment of Inside Indie Bookstores, a new series of interviews with the entrepreneurs who represent the last link in the chain that connects writers with their intended audience, Jeremiah Chamberlin talks with Richard Howorth about his initial vision for Square Books, how a bookstore can stay relevant in the twenty-first century, and the future of independent bookselling.
It may not have been The Year Print Died, but 2009 will undoubtedly go down as the year digital literature became impossible to ignore. From celebrity authors' crowdsourcing stories through Twitter, to the proliferation of online publishing platforms, to the bruiting discord over the Google Book Search settlement, something new is plainly afoot in the publishing world, even if the ramifications for writers are still more a matter of conjecture than measurement.
