Monthly Archives: February 2007

Deadlines: Week of 18/2 – 24/2

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Keren

Artist Trust
Grants for Artist Projects
Grants of up to $1,500 each are given annually to Washington State poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers to support the development of new work. Submit up to eight pages of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction by February 23. There is no entry fee.

Link to the website for complete guidelines.

Stadler Center for Poetry
Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing
A four-month residency, including a $4,000 stipend, at the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University is given annually to a poet, fiction writer, or creative nonfiction writer. The 2007 Philip Roth Residence is open to U.S. prose writers over the age of 21 and not enrolled in a college or university. Submit up to 20 pages of prose, a curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation by February 24.

Link to the website for complete guidelines.

Blurbs from the Poets & Writers, Inc. contest calendar.

Posted in Awards, Contests |

Oort-Cloud: new sf "social publishing" site

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Keren

Oort-Cloud is a new writing site that lets readers and writers be part of a “social publishing” experiment. It uses web 2.0-style features, such as tag clouds, rss feeds and post rating that makes it easy to keep track of a favorite author and find other good writers.

…authors create and distribute their work, and readers, individually and collectively, including fans as well as editors and peers, review, comment, rank, and tag, everything.

For writers, Oort-Cloud offers….

A place to share experiences in writing, publishing and help one another in dealing with the challenging decisions associated with copyright.

A place to reach out to readers, develop stronger ties to them, find new ones, and keep them up-to-date about new and coming works.

A place to learn what ideas and issues readers are interested in.

A place to help readers understand the issues concerning writers, especially in light of intellectual property issues.

A place to share opinions about trends in science-fiction and encounter new ideas that might inspire new creativity.

Oort-Cloud is geared mainly toward science fiction and fantasy writers, but genre definitions are flexible: “there’s nothing to say your science-fiction or fantasy contribution could not also be, in part, a romance, mystery, horror story, or even a western.”

Link (via BoingBoing)

Posted in Resources, Science fiction/fantasy, Websites |

Censorship for the sake of the children is still censorship

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Heidi Kathleen

Another book has found its place on ban lists around the country on the basis of protecting the delicate constitutions of American children.

The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter.

Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”

The rest of the article can be read here, and the definition of ridiculous can be found here.

Posted in Banned Books, Children's books, Education, Libraries, Library |

"Britain's greatest living author" Martin Amis set to turn professor

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Heidi Kathleen

In the article, Amis asserts that there is little glam in the world of writing.

“Well, it is a sort of sedentary, carpet slippers, self-inspecting, nose-picking, arse-scratching kind of job, just you in your study and there is absolutely no way round that. So, anyone who is in it for worldly gains and razzmatazz I don’t think will get very far at all.”

He also addresses Manchester University’s decision to put him in the role of professor of creative writing.

“I may be acerbic in how I write but I’m not how I live. And I would find it very difficult to say cruel things to people in such a vulnerable position. I imagine I’ll be surprisingly sweet and gentle with them. One of the things I’ve learned about fiction – you really do lay yourself open in a way that no other so-called creative artist does. Most other art you’re just exhibiting a particular talent, even poetry up to a point, but by writing fiction you expose not only your talent but your whole being, your social, sexual and psychological being and you’re never more vulnerable than when you do that, and I’m well aware of that fact and will take it into account.”

The full article can be found at The Guardian.

Posted in Articles, Authors, Education |

Chinese piracy worries US publishing, movie, medicine industries

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Keren

Patricia Schroeder, the president of the Association of American Publishers, said US publishers in China last year suffered an estimated 52 million dollars in losses due to piracy on the Internet.

“Visits to China and discussions with our member publishers reveal a staggering amount of book piracy plaguing this most promising of markets,” she said.

Book piracy also includes illegal commercial scale photocopying of academic materials, print piracy and unauthorized translations as well as trademark counterfeiting, Schroeder said.

Bestsellers such as the Harry Potter series, Dan Brown’s novels and political autobiographies are pirated in English and Chinese within days of their home country releases, Schroeder said.

Link to the Yahoo! News article

Posted in Articles, Booksellers, Film, Publishers |

Guardian poetry workshop with Aidan Andrew Dun: everyday objects

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Keren

There’s a twist in the exercise. (which I’ve used in Ode to a Postbox). And it’s this.

The most common object in the modern world is potentially the most sacred because its restoration to sanctity is totally unexpected. The poet has traditionally helped to keep the sacred alive by associating the world’s great symbols – a tree, the ocean, the sky – with simple feelings of compassion, humanity, love, non-violence, noble resonance. Big ideas have most often been expressed in straightforward language (naturally I mean the direct intensity of Shakespeare, not the gibberish of a lawyer or a government). But as oceans, trees and skies die in front of us, and the world and all its strange wonders are desanctified, our exercise is to seek out the overfamiliar and disregarded, the rejected, marginalized and faceless even, and to load these obscure players in life with larger significance. Here is a work of unification and of ‘invisible legislation’, to paraphrase Shelley.

Email your entries, with ‘Poetry workshop’ in the title field, to books.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk by midnight on Sunday February 25. The shortlisted poems, and Aidan’s responses, will appear on the site soon afterwards.

Link to the Guardian article

Posted in Articles, Authors, Contests, Poetry |

Pamuk believed to be in exile in US

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Keren

The Turkish author Orhan Pamuk has reportedly left his home country to live in America amid fears for his life. The Nobel laureate is believed to be at risk of assassination in Turkey following the murder of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink last month. Threats appeared to have been made against Pamuk by the man who confessed to orchestrating the murder.

The International Herald Tribune reported on Thursday February 1 that Pamuk had boarded a plane for New York to begin a lecture tour of American universities and, according to Fatih Altayli, a prominent columnist writing for the Turkish daily newspaper Sabah, he has no plans to return to Turkey.

“What I was told was more than mere rumour: Pamuk recently withdrew $400,000 from his bank account and said he would leave Turkey and would not be returning to his country anytime soon,” wrote Altayli. According to the Daily Telegraph, those close to Pamuk have declined to comment publicly on the report because of the “sensitivity of Mr Pamuk’s position”.

In 2005 he was tried in an Istanbul court for the crime of “insulting Turkishness” under the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, but was acquitted on a technicality a month later. This week, Turkey’s foreign minister backed calls to amend the article, but not to repeal it.

Link to the Guardian article

Previously:
Orhan Pamuk wins Nobel literature prize
Nobel winner recounts tumultuous writing career
Nobel laureate Pamuk runs Turkish paper for a day

Posted in Articles, Authors |

Literary readings in NYC laundromats

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Keren

Instead of burying their head in a book or heading to the nearest coffee shop to beat the boredom of laundry, New York writer Emily Rubin has organised a series of readings called “Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose,” at laundromats in New York.

“Just mixing laundry and writing seemed completely natural to me because truly in life and metaphorically as a writer, everyone has dirty laundry,” said the Brooklyn native who started the series last year.

She contemplated holding the readings in various neighborhood venues including shops but said a laundromat seemed “a natural fit.”

People can wash their dirty laundry while listening to a poem or short story or just attend the readings. During the first of the 2007 series writer Carolyn Turgeon read some of her work while people loaded the dryers and washing machines.

Link to the Yahoo! News article

Posted in Articles, Events, Reading |

Romantic Novel of the Year shortlist (UK)

Posted on February 13, 2007 by Mark

From Guardian Unlimited:

For the second year running a man has made it on to the shortlist of the Romantic Novel of the Year award, only the sixth to be in with a chance of the prize in the award’s 46-year history. Matt Dunn is up for the £5,000 prize for The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook, his humorous tale of a man who attempts to make himself over in a bid to win back his girlfriend.

Continue reading on Guardian.co.uk.

Posted in Awards, Romance |

'Not Published Yet' prize: for booksellers who write

Posted on February 12, 2007 by Keren

Inspired by the example of Sarah Waters and David Mitchell, who both worked as booksellers before becoming bestsellers, the Not Published Yet competition invites submissions from unpublished authors working in the book trade to win a publishing contract with Faber and Faber, and an advance of at least £2,000.

The competition is open to writers of both fiction and non-fiction, whether they work for a chain or an independent bookshop. First-time authors working full- or part-time for organisations that are members of the Booksellers Association can send in 10,000-word extracts, proposals, outlines or synopses of their work by June 29 2007.

Link to the rest of the Guardian article

Posted in Articles, Awards, Booksellers, Contests |