Jump to navigation Skip to content
LA’s inkSlam Poetry Festival is underway; the glut of Penguin merchandise has some concerned that the publisher is forgetting its radical roots; U.K. publishers are urging government action against digital piracy; zombie literature refuses to die; and other news.
The Internet Archive is offering libraries a legal scanning solution for copyright “orphans”; Hyperion has a new editor in chief; San Diego is pressing ahead with its long-delayed central library plans; a new Web site is testing the profitability of poetry; this spring’s Beirut39 festival will spotlight up-and-coming Arab authors; and other news.
Canadian publishers are receiving notice this week about federal grant allotments; Shipping News author E. Annie Proulx has donated her papers to the NYPL; writers, musicians, and booksellers in NYC are gathering to mark Indie Bookstore Week; Madrid will host Spain’s first e-book fair this month; and other news.
Nearly two thousand publishers are heading to Mexico this month for what organizers say is the world’s largest Spanish-language book fair; a prequel is in the works for the late Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot novels; Scholastic has pulled a title from its elementary school book fairs after the author refused to rewrite a same-sex couple as heterosexual; and other news.
In this excerpted version of his article from the November/December 2009 issue, contributor Seth Abramson reveals the methodology behind his ranking of the top fifty MFA programs in the United States, plus a ranking of the additional eighty-eight full-residency programs. For the full article and additional data for each program, including size, duration, cost of living, teaching load, and curriculum focus, see the November/December 2009 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
For seventy-five years Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, has been home to two of the country's most storied literary institutions, LSU Press and the Southern Review. But prestige was not enough to save either one from a 20 percent cut in university subsidy in July.
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 Jarvis Jay Masters's That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row and Laura van den Berg's What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, as the starting point for a closer look at these new and noteworthy titles.
Author Carleen Brice recommends titles in honor of National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month, the book-buying campaign she launched last year to heighten awareness of black authors who aren't as famous as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Colson Whitehead.
She Writes, a Web site established for women writers, has joined the ranks of literary social networking utilities. Launched in June it aims to provide a place "where women writers working in every genre, in every part of the world, and of all ages and backgrounds, can come together in a space of mutual support."
Matthew Shenoda speaks about his new role as the Assistant Provost for Equity and Diversity at California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, part of an institute-wide initiative to promote intercultural awareness and develop support mechanisms for students from varying ethnic backgrounds.
