Poet Anselm Berrigan on balancing the work that pays the bills with the work that fills the page; Lorrie Moore on her long-awaited follow-up to Birds of America; plus our annual look at independent presses, which showcases nine notable indies accepting submissions.
September/October 2009
Features
Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Agent Georges Borchardt
Georges Borchardt has been an agent for more than fifty years. He’s seen authors, editors, and other agents come and go, but two things have never changed: his belief that good writing is a gift and his ability to get it published.
Return Trip: A Profile of Lorrie Moore
The long-awaited follow-up to her best-selling book, Birds of America, Lorrie Moore's new novel is an ambitious record of American life in the new century.
Have a Good One: A Profile of Anselm Berrigan
For Anselm Berrigan, whose fourth book of poems, Free Cell, is just out from City Lights, the work that pays the bills is in frequent opposition to the work that fills the page.
Independent Presses
Taking It to the Streets: My Year in Guerrilla Publishing
The author of two novels released by Knopf embarks on an experimental publishing project.
Chapbook Renaissance: The Little Book in the Age of Digital and DIY
Writers can build community, promote fellow writers, and broaden literary audience through chapbook publishing.
Chapbook Publishers Looking for Work
A listing of presses that accept submissions of chapbook manuscripts.
DIY: How to Stab-Stitch Bind a Chapbook
Instructions for sewing a book binding.
DIY: How to Tape-Bind a Chapbook
Instructions on assembling a perfect-bound chapbook.
Nine Notable Indies Accepting Submissions
How to submit to independent presses including Manic D Press, Graywolf Press, and Dzanc Books.
News and Trends
The Invisible Library
The Invisible Library, the blog that invites readers to submit the titles of unwritten books they’ve discovered in their own reading, served as the primary inspiration behind the Invisible Library exhibition, which ran from June 12 to July 12 at the Tenderpixel Gallery in London.
The Book as Renewable Resource
BookCrossing, the online community whose members tag, release, and then track books in 160 countries, recently joined Better World Books, a socially conscious Indiana-based retailer, in a partnership that highlights the literary, social, and environmental missions of both sites.
Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Victor LaValle's Big Machine and Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply, as the starting point for a closer look at these new and noteworthy titles.
World’s Largest Thesaurus Published
This month Oxford University Press is publishing the world's most comprehensive thesaurus. The two-volume, 4,448-page Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is not only twice the size of Roget's version, the current standard, but it also lays claim to being the first historical thesaurus compiled for any language.
A New Genre in Chinese Fiction
A new genre of fiction known as the Officialdom novel has become increasingly popular in China. Fans claim that the novels offer rich entertainment while providing valuable insights into the byzantine system of manners and etiquette that is the key to success at white-collar jobs in China, but the trend might signal a much more significant shift in the culture—one that goes beyond matters of literary taste.
Small Press Points
Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Wolverine Farm Publishing in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Literary MagNet
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Annalemma Magazine, Oxford American, Ninth Letter, Opium Magazine, the Iowa Review, Slice Magazine, Poet Lore, Fence, and Electric Literature.
The Written Image: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
A look at Tim Hamilton's new graphic adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, published by Hill and Wang, featuring an introduction written by Bradbury.
Q&A: Riker Rides Dalkey Into the Future
Associate director Martin Riker speaks about developments at Dalkey Archive, the independent press that recently announced a new distribution deal with Norton and the launch of a new European fiction anthology this fall.
The Practical Writer
Bullseye: How to Submit to Tin House Magazine
A guide to sending your work to the ten-year-old Tin House Magazine.
First: Victor Lodato's Mathilda Savitch
Playwright Victor Lodato found that the story of his precocious young character Mathilda Savitch would be better told in the pages of a novel than in a work for the stage.
The Audio Revolution: How to Amplify Your Poems
If we agree that poetry is partly music, then we must also concede that to read a poem is partly to sing it. And when you consider that most Americans know by heart the words of at least one popular song—the one that has been played over and over...
The Literary Life
Demilitarized Zone: Report From Literary Vietnam
The work of Vietnam's writers grapples with the legacy of the past even as it accepts the realities of the present.
Tracking Down Typewriters: Those Trusty Tools of Days Gone By
A writer connects with a bygone literary era by collecting replicas of the typewriters used by famous authors.