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Banned Books Week begins today, and Huffington Post created an interactive chart highlighting the ten most challenged books of 2012; Gary Shteyngart details a harrowing thirty-hour journey from Paris to New York; Antoine Wilson lists his ten favorite literary narrators; and other news.
Literary agent Wendy Weil, who founded of The Wendy Weil Agency in 1986, died suddenly at her home in Connecticut on September 22, 2012. Atlantic national correspondent and author James Fallows posted a brief remembrance of her online at the Atlantic: "Wendy Weil, who has been my literary agent on all the books I have written, died suddenly while doing what she did most often, and best—reading manuscripts."
The Wendy Weil Agency represents books by authors such as Andrea Barrett, Rita Mae Brown, Alice Fulton, Mark Helprin, and Philip Lopate.
A federal judge dismissed attempts by Mario Puzo's estate to quash future Godfather films; David Mitchell describes the process of adapting Cloud Atlas for the screen; PWxyz has created pie charts for James Joyce's Ulysses; and other news.
In early September, P&W-supported writers Alma García, Felicia González, and Emily Pérez read at Columbia City Gallery in Seattle as part of a collaboration between visual and literary artists. Project codirector Lauren Davis describes the event.
On a hot summer evening in Seattle, four writers presented new works responding to Rooted: Latino/a Artists’ Connection to Native and Adopted Lands, an art exhibit at Seattle’s Columbia City Gallery. The exhibit, a partnership between Columbia City Gallery and La Sala, a nonprofit Latino/a artists’ network, brought together regional visual artists and writers exploring themes of roots, family, identity, and home.
“For those of us who migrate to a new home, we not only carry our culture and customs but also the sense that we are being, or have been by generations past, uprooted; replanted,” said Juan Alonso-Rodriguez, curator of Rooted. Inspired by the theme of the exhibit, writer Wendy Call invited José Carrillo, Alma García, Felicia González, and Emily Pérez to create new works responding to select artworks from the gallery exhibit.
The gathering crowd fanned themselves with gallery postcards while listening to flute music played by José Carrillo. Laughter filled the room as the crowd of artists, writers, observers, and people from the neighborhood welcomed each other. The Columbia City Gallery, a community-based arts cooperative, provides a vibrant arts center in the heart of South Seattle and supports a wide range of cultural programming for the diverse neighborhood.
As the final strains of music faded from the air, the writers gathered in front of the crowd with the Rooted art exhibit as their backdrop. First to read was Emily Pérez. Her poems “When Needed” and “Dear Dove” responded to paintings by artist Blanca Santander, images of dreamy earth goddesses rendered in bright colors. She finished her delicate set with the poem “Ambition,” inspired by images of clouds by photographer Eduardo Nuñez.
“Hello, my name is Alma García, and I’ll be your fiction writer tonight,” the next writer announced upon taking the floor. García, exploring a series of screen prints by Boris Gaviria, read the short story “Harvest,” which depicted a day in the life of Octavio and Licho, two apple-farm workers in eastern Washington. Gaviria’s crisp images of stacked apple crates and farm trucks gave illustration to the sights, sounds, and smells of the world García’s characters inhabited.
The next writer, Felicia González, stirred the muggy room by requesting the audience stand up and come closer to view a series of small drawings by Arturo Artorez. The group formed a semicircle around the artwork, while Gonzalez stood in the middle of the room and read her poem “Stranger in a Familiar Land.”
The evening concluded with the magnetic José Carrillo reading a suite of four short poems “Rooted: in Four Movements,” inspired by the works of painter Consuelo Murphy and printmaker Gloria Garcia.
At the Rooted reading, four writers brought visual artwork to life in new ways. Reciprocally, the artwork provided a focal point for listeners’ eyes while the spoken words transported their minds. The blend of words, art, music, and community was a perfect union on one of the last warm days of the Seattle summer.
Photos: (Top, from left to right) Writers Felicia González, Alma García, José Carrillo, and Emily Pérez. Bottom: Alma García (right) with artist Boris Gaviria, whose work is behind them. Credit: Donna Miscolta
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Seattle is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Jeffrey Eugenides spoke with Salon about perceived gender disparity in literary fiction; independent publisher MacAdam/Cage is for sale; Emily M. Keeler details a recent Zadie Smith event in Toronto; and other news.
Folio magazine has published its 2012 Editorial Salary Survey; Penguin has filed breach of contract claims against Elizabeth Wurtzel, Ana Marie Cox, Rebecca Mead, among others; the JFK Library and Museum in Boston is attempting to save thousands of letters written to Ernest Hemingway from decay; and other news.
Poet Mary Jo Bang plumbs the mythic love poem; ALA President Maureen Sullivan pens an open letter to America’s publishers; Adam Wilson examines the life and work of comedian Louis C.K.; and other news.
Eliza Griswold details how Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring ushered in the environmental movement; Carolyn Kellogg looks at the newfound popularity of trusted book recommendations; Smithsonian tracks down the real-life Tom Sawyer, a daring Brooklyn-born San Francisco firefighter, and Mark Twain's drinking buddy; and other news.
The Before Columbus Foundation has announced the winners of its thirty-third annual American Book Awards. The prizes are given for outstanding books of any genre that encompass themes of American diversity.
The winners are: Annia Ciezadlo for Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War (Free Press); Arlene Kim for What Have You Done to Our Ears to Make Us Hear Echoes? (Milkweed Editions); Ed Bok Lee for Whorled (Coffee House Press); Adilifu Nama for Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes (University of Texas Press); Rob Nixon for Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard University Press); Shann Ray for American Masculine (Graywolf Press); Alice Rearden for her translation Our Nelson Island Stories (University of Washington Press); Touré for Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now (Free Press); Amy Waldman for The Submission (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); Mary Winegarden for The Translator’s Sister (Mayapple Press); and Kevin Young for Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (Knopf).
Eugene B. Redmond, the poet laureate of East St. Louis, Illinois, received the Lifetime Achievement Award. The award follows his first American Book Award, which he received in 1993 for his poetry collection The Eye in the Ceiling (Harlem River Press). An emeritus professor of English and founding editor of Drumvoices Revue at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Redmond has written seven books of poetry and one book of nonfiction, and his work has appeared in over a dozen magazines and anthologies.
The American Book Awards, established to “recognize outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community,” have been given annually since 1978 to emerging and established writers, for books published in the previous year. Winners are nominated and selected by a panel of writers, editors, and publishers.
Founded in 1976, the Oakland, California-based Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of contemporary American multicultural literature. “Recognizing literary excellence demands a panoramic perspective,” states the organization’s mission. “American literature is not one tradition but all traditions. From those who have been here for thousands of years to the most recent immigrants, we are all contributing to American culture. We are all being translated into a new language.”
The winners will be recognized on Sunday, October 7 at the University of California in Berkeley. The submission deadline for the 2013 American Book Awards is December 31. For complete guidelines and more information on the awards, visit the Before Columbus Foundation website.
In response to Mitt Romney's controversial remarks at a private fundraiser, author Laurel Snyder writes an open letter to the presidential candidate; Brooklyn magazine reveals the secrets of indy lit success; Joshua Weiner examines Charles Bernstein’s new essay collection, Attack of the Difficult Poems; and other news.
