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Back in January we posted William Joyce and Branden Oldenburg's animated short film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessermore. Now there's an interactive app that appears to capture all the magic and fascination of that beautiful story "of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor."
Melville House has a breakdown of the latest news in the Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit; Jackson prize-winning poet Henri Cole visits the family burial plot of Hart Crane; novelist Jami Attenberg explains what to expect after your first book is published; and other news.
A twenty-seven year old Australian, Hannah Kent, has sold the North American rights to her first novel, Burial Rites, to Little, Brown, in a seven-figure two-book deal; HarperCollins announced yesterday author Neil Gaiman has contracted to write five books for kids; the women's online writing network She Writes has launched a publishing company, She Writes Press; and other news.
The 2012 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose sponsored by Gulf Coast magazine, is currently accepting submissions. Ander Monson, editor of the literary journal DIAGRAM and New Michigan Press, whose most recent books include Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir (Graywolf, 2010) and The Available World (Sarabande Books, 2010) will judge.
Writers may submit up to three pieces of prose poetry, flash fiction, or micro-nonfiction of 500 words or fewer, along with a $17 entry fee, via the online submission system or by mail. The deadline for submissions is September 1.
Established in 2008, the annual prize offers $1,000 and publication in Gulf Coast. Two honorable mentions will also receive publication. All entries are considered for paid publication on the website, and entrants receive a one-year subscription to Gulf Coast.
Last year's winner, selected by Sarah Manguso, was Erica Olsen for "Grand Canyon II," which can be read on the Gulf Coast website.
Gulf Coast, a journal of literary and fine arts, is housed within the University of Houston’s English department. Founded by Donald Barthelme and Phillip Lopate 1983, the student-run journal publishes original work in both its print publication—which comes out in April and October each year—and on the website.
Jamie McGuire's Beautiful Disaster, the lead title from GalleyCat's self-published best-sellers list, will be published by Simon & Schuster’s Atria imprint; a twelfth-century manuscript stolen last year has been found; the late Christopher Hitchens on the life and work of George Orwell; and other news.
Granta asks some of the best young novelists in Brazil for an essential Brazilian reading list; the Millions looks for the greatest New Jersey novel; the Rumpus unravels a tragic historic event that took place in 1898 in the bucolic coastal town of Wilmington, North Carolina; and other news.
This past April the Pulitzer Prize board rocked the literary world when it failed to select a winner for the annual fiction prize. Yesterday, novelist Michael Cunningham—a member of the 2012 fiction jury, which was responsible for selecting this year's finalists—wrote a letter on behalf of the jury for the New Yorker website, detailing his experiences as part of the jury and the repercussions of the board’s decision.
A two-part series, with the second installment appearing today, Cunningham’s letter was not so much an attempt to explain what happened (he couldn’t, really: The final decision was not up to the jury, nor did the board explain their decision) but rather an ode to the finalists, and the many other books that he and his fellow jurors spent a year reading, reviewing, and—at times painfully—eliminating.
Along with Cunningham, the two other jurors this year were Maureen Corrigan, a book critic on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and professor of English at Georgetown University, and Susan Larson, the host of “The Reading Life” on NPR. The jury, Cunningham writes, which changes every year, is charged with selecting the three finalists out of three hundred books. The finalists are then sent for vote to the Pulitzer board—which is comprised of eighteen members, primarily journalists and academics, who each serve a three-year term.
“The jury does not designate a winner, or even indicate a favorite,” Cunningham writes. “The jury provides the board with three equally ranked options. The members of the board can, if they’re unsatisfied with the three nominees, ask the jury for a fourth possibility. No such call was made.”
In part one of the series, Cunningham focuses on the often difficult and sometimes heartbreaking process that he and his fellow jurors undertook to select the finalists. In part two, subtitled “How to Define Greatness?” he delves a little deeper, pondering what it means to search for, discover, and dismiss great new fiction.
In the end, the finalists included three novels: Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Karen Russell’s debut, Swamplandia! (Knopf), and the late David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King (Little, Brown). Tracy K. Smith took the prize in poetry for her collection, Life on Mars (Graywolf), and Stephen Greenblatt won the nonfiction prize for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (Norton).
The Pulitzer board has denied a prize in fiction nine times, most recently in 1977, and in 1974, when Gravity’s Rainbow was a finalist.
According to his brother, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is suffering from dementia; the Guardian details how Brooklyn became a welcome habitat for writers; Anna Holmes explores the criticism of Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls, and Sheila Heti’s new novel How Should a Person Be?; and other news.
Novelist Patrick Somerville writes of the experience of having his novel This Bright River panned, then part of the review retracted; Teju Cole examines the underpinnings of the recent destruction of ancient Sufi shrines in Mali's Timbuktu by al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters; the Boston Phoenix focuses on gender inequality in National Public Radio's book coverage; and other news.
From the simple ("Carry a notebook everywhere") to the questionable ("Sing in the shower") to the essential ("Get away from the computer"), this motion graphics clip by Tofu Design is a pretty nifty reminder of ways we can stay creative during these long, hot summer days.
