Patti LuPone, the Juilliard-trained actress and singer who is known for creating lead roles in Les Miserables and Sunset Boulevard, is holding a contest to determine the title of her forthcoming memoir. LuPone, who has also made her mark in performances of Evita, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd, among many other productions in the United States and abroad, writes on her Web site, "Dolls, I've been busy writing the story of my theatrical life and need your help to find a suitable and fabulous title."

Not a Broadway baby? Perhaps you could cull title inspiration from one of LuPone's film roles, in movies such as Spike Lee's Summer of Sam or David Mamet's State and Main, or one of her many television appearances, which include a handful of spots on PBS's Great Performances series.

The winner will receive a copy of the book autographed by the actress, two tickets to her next show on Broadway or in a performance closer to the winner's home, and a personal congratulations from LuPone backstage. The deadline for submissions, which can be made on the Web site, is March 30.

In the video below, LuPone sings "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from her eponymous role in Evita.

Debut author Daniyal Mueenuddin received the twenty-thousand-dollar Story Prize last night at a ceremony in New York City. Mueenuddin, honored for his collection of linked stories, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, was revealed as winner after a lively evening of readings and onstage conversations featuring fellow finalists Victoria Patterson and Wells Tower.

"I've been accused of being too dark," Mueenuddin told prize presenter Larry Dark, who engaged each writer in an interview after their respective readings and asked Mueenuddin about the often tragic demise of some of his characters. "But that's sort of the way I see it," the author added. Mueenuddin's book investigates life in his native Pakistan (he was also raised in Massachusetts) through the lenses of individuals in different stations, from an electrician to a woman servant to a farm manager, a position the author himself occupies today. He described himself as being in the profession of identifying characters, both in his writing and in his business at home. 

Tower and Patterson also offered insight into their writing lives and process of generating narratives. Patterson, a finalist for her collection of linked stories, Drift, described her motives as being perhaps "angry, and maybe not so pure" when creating characters based on real and imagined residents of her hometown of Newport Beach, located in often-stereotyped Orange County, California.

Tower, a dedicated reviser who was nominated for Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, said he likes the story form because "you get to make more mistakes more rapidly," so the story is "a great laboratory." He also described his futile attempts during graduate school—he attended Columbia University's MFA program in the early 2000s—to "crack the code" of the short story, citing some revealing advice he received from the late Barry Hannah concerning  "the secret" to writing a great story: "Get in and get out."

When the prize was announced, Mueenuddin took the stage to dedicate the award to his mother, writer Barbara Thompson Davis, who passed away last November, and whom he honored for teaching him "that becoming a writer was a legitimate thing to do."

In the Poets & Writers video below, Mueenuddin takes a crack at the question of "the secret" to the great story:

Pen Parentis, a young, New York City–based organization whose mission is to provide resources to writers who have children, is offering its first contest for a writing fellowship. The organization will award an emerging fiction writer one thousand dollars and promote his or her work on the Pen Parentis Web site.

The winner will give a reading in New York City at the September 14 gathering of the organization's free monthly reading series featuring writer parents. Novelist—and mother—Jennifer Egan is scheduled to read alongside the inaugural fellow. Egan is the author of the story collection Emerald City (Nan A. Talese, 1996) and four novels including The Keep (Knopf, 2006) and A Visit from the Goon Squad, forthcoming from Knopf in June.

Fiction writers with at least one child under the age of ten are invited to submit unpublished works of short fiction from today until April 17. Each submission must total no more than twelve hundred words and should be accompanied by a fifteen-dollar entry fee.

There is no residency requirement for entrants, but the winner must be able to provide his or her own travel to and accommodations in New York City to be present for the reading in September. More information about the award is available on the Pen Parentis Web site.