Among the writers she worked with, first at Simon & Schuster and then at Random House, are Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ruth Reichl, Salman Rushdie, Lena Dunham, Gary Shteyngart, Allegra Goodman, Tom Rachman, and Elizabeth Strout. Says Random House editor-in-chief Andy Ward of her work, “It was like a magical transference of belief, and I’ve never seen anybody do it better. She made writers believe in themselves.” – The New York Times
Author: Matthew Westphal
Is This The Last Botticelli Left In Private Hands?
This portrait of a 15th-century Greek-Italian poet-soldier has, for the past dozen years, been on loan to the Prado from the Spanish collector Doña Helena Cambó de Guardans, who hopes to get $30 million for it (and hopes Spain will let it out of the country). – The Art Newspaper
$8.27 Million & Counting: Metropolitan Museum’s Disposable Irving Gift of Chinese Art
When I attended the celebratory press conference in 2015 that announced multiple major benefactions to the Met’s Asian Art Department, little did I know that a few years later the Met would auction off a good chunk of those lauded gifts. – Lee Rosenbaum
Community Engagement Resources
The beginning of a new academic year feels like a good time to work on making all of these resources more widely known. ArtsEngaged has the following available for people in the field who want to support community engagement. – Doug Borwick
Recent Listening In Brief (really brief)
Rondi Marsh, The Pink Room
Bill O’Connell And The Afro-Caribbean Ensemble,
Wind Off The Hudson (Savant)
– Doug Ramsey
The Long And Ugly Fight Over Copyright To Emily Dickinson’s Work
“The [story] involves theft, adulterous affairs, a land deal gone wrong, a feud between families, two elite colleges, and some of the most famous poems in American literature.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Saving Endangered Indigenous Languages By Digitizing Them Is A Tricky Business, And Not Just Technically
“New technology like smartphone keyboards, language-learning apps, and digital databases makes revitalization work easier than ever, but it also requires hard conversations about which parts of a language must be kept offline.” – Slate
Now Here’s A Marketing Challenge: Rebranding London’s Vagina Museum
It is, as it were, a sensitive area. “Positioning a brand and crafting a suitable tone of voice is a mind-bendingly tricky thing to perfect. The Vagina Museum has built a reputation and a following on social media due to its irreverent, tongue-in-cheek tweets and exchanges with other users. Whether the branding should mirror or counteract this was a defining choice throughout the process.” – Museums and Heritage Advisor
A Stage Combat Consultancy Run Entirely By Women
With four RSC plays, three other London shows, and a regional production all this year alone, the company called Rc-Annie is one of the most in-demand firms of its kind. Reporter Nick Smurthwaite talks to Rc-Annie’s two founders, Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown. – The Stage
Mezzo Dolora Zajick Will Retire From Opera Next Year
“[Her] final performance will take place at the Metropolitan Opera in the spring of 2020, when she will make her role debut as Kabanicha in performances of Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová scheduled for May 2, 6 and 9.” – Opera News