Posts Tagged ‘publishing’
May 10, 2013 | by Sadie Stein
“I waited until my first book was published to learn the genre, and when Oprah announced ‘It’s literary fiction!’ just seconds after my pub date, I was overcome with joy.” At McSweeney’s, Jessica Francis Kane tries to make the Genre Reveal Party happen.
Stewart Brand, the human proto-Internet.
Viggo Mortensen, Johnny Depp, and 50 Cent: just three of the celebrity publishers on the scene.
Short fiction, annotated.
“Around the time we had our first home computer, my dad started to keep track of all of the books that he read in an Excel Spreadsheet. He kept his spreadsheet up to date for almost twenty years, and he’d accumulated 10,496 books before his death. My dad rated his books on a 1-10 scale, but his average score floated around 7.5/10, so I think he generally enjoyed most of what he read.” A tribute to a devoted reader.
TAGS books, Johnny Depp, news, publishing, roundup, Stewart Brand, Viggo Mortensen
March 11, 2013 | by Michael McGrath
Smoky circles formed outside the Hynes Convention Center, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference and Bookfair’s central hub. The snow was light but constant. There was a consistently surprising disparity between what filled the sky and what accumulated on the ground. Cheap sunglasses doubled as ski goggles. A man in an orange wool hat aggressively bummed a cigarette while smoking a cigarette.
Across the street, in the shadow of John Mayer’s alma mater, a row of Back Bay sports bars pumped deep cuts off the American Pie 2 sound track. Inside one of them a man with pink cheeks argued with his friend over Ben Affleck’s filmography. He proclaimed Pearl Harbor to be Affleck’s best movie, then ordered another Ketel and Sprite.
Further down the bar, burlier regulars passed their snow-day or no-show shifts warily eyeing the influx of eyeglasses. One ate waffle fries with a fork. I remained neutral, drinking hard cider and picking at a dry turkey sandwich. Below us a panel talk on criticism was slowly convening in the basement. After filing the mustard from under my nails I descended the wet stairs and made a beeline for the couch, reserving a cushion with a makeshift hat-and-jacket scarecrow while I scrounged for more cider. Read More »
TAGS AWP, Ben Affleck, Boston, Dashboard Confessional, John Mayer, Kid Rock, Mariano Rivera, Ozzy Osbourne, publishing
January 11, 2013 | by Sadie Stein
How to query an agent: a guide.
If you’d rather be a Chinese bureaucrat, well, here’s a guide to that.
“However disgraceful or unprincipled you may think the scribblers of today, rest assured that their eighteenth-century equivalents were at least as bad and probably worse. Furthermore, the laments and recourses of struggling writers have changed very little in the past three centuries.”
Revise, revise, revise.
An enormous book donation helps Sandy-ravaged schools get back on their feet.
TAGS Agents, Hurricane Sandy, news, On the Shelf, publishing, revision, roundup
October 29, 2012 | by Sadie Stein
Geoffrey Chaucer “provides our earliest ex. of twitter, verb: of a bird: to utter a succession of light tremulous notes; to chirp continuously.” See this, and his other contributions to language, on this handy-dandy word cloud.
Garcia Marquez takes Mexico City! (He already lives there, but the city is celebrating fifty years of calling Gabo a son with some forty thousand posters.)
This flowchart outlines how to publish a book (and makes it look so easy and colorful!).
William Faulkner and Woody Allen are in a feud. Okay, it’s actually the Faulkner Estate and Sony Pictures, which used a Faulkner quote in Midnight in Paris.
Happy birthday, American Antiquarian Society.
TAGS American Antiquarian Society, books, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Geoffrey Chaucer, news, publishing, roundup, William Faulkner, Woody Allen
April 30, 2012 | by Sadie Stein
Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, at 150.
The Wall Street Journal examines the curious appeal of serial novels.
The New York Times examines the future of publishing.
The Millions examines the popularity of tiger lit.
With e-books, fiction reigns supreme.
James Franco as Hart Crane.
iPhone chargers disguised as books.
TAGS ebooks, fiction, Hart Crane, Hilary Mantel, iPhones, James Franco, publishing, Rabindranath Tagore, tigers
Smoky circles formed outside the Hynes Convention Center, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference and Bookfair’s central hub. The snow was light but constant. There was a consistently surprising disparity between what filled the sky and what accumulated on the ground. Cheap sunglasses doubled as ski goggles. A man in an orange wool hat aggressively bummed a cigarette while smoking a cigarette.
