Category: publishing

“The printed page is giving way to the networked screen, and as a consequence, writers’ images of themselves as solitary beings who, having created their literary artefact, send it out into the world with no obligation to undertake further debate is fast becoming outmoded.”

“Prize-winning poet Ruth Padel is emerging as the frontrunner for the prestigious post of Oxford University professor of poetry, after poet laureate Andrew Motion ruled himself out of competition for a post he said was ‘in desperate need of an overhaul’. The position, established in 1708, is the most important in poetry after the laureateship, and sees the incumbent – who is elected by Oxford graduates – giving three lectures a year.”

“Most journalists probably find something vaguely creepy about this idea; it’s a little too high-minded, abstract and self-congratulatory to fit with their self-image as regular Joes and Jills. There are also legitimate concerns whether foundations or other public supporters would influence editorial content or direction. But the alternative is disturbing.”

“Philip K Dick’s last wife has reworked the novel the legendary science fiction author was working on when he died in 1982. Tessa Dick, who described her self-publication of The Owl in Daylight as a tribute to her former husband, was Dick’s fifth and final wife, marrying him in 1973. She told online magazine the Self-Publishing Review that her version of the novel was an attempt to express ‘the spirit’ of Dick’s proposed book.”

“A prominent Chinese writer known for provocative, antiestablishment Web postings was stabbed and wounded during a book reading on Saturday. The writer, Xu Lai, a newspaper reporter, novelist and blogger whose satirical Internet postings are widely followed by students, journalists and the Chinese literati, may have been singled out for his writings, his friends and associates said.”

“Twenty years almost to the day after [Salman] Rushdie had a death sentence declared against him by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, it has been revealed that he was offered shelter by [Ian] McEwan in a cottage in the Cotswolds. There the two writers hid away shortly after the fatwa was issued on 14 February, 1989. This intimate detail is contained in a long profile of McEwan published in next week’s issue of the New Yorker.”

The director of the festival, Isobel Abulhoul, wrote to Geraldine Bedell and told her: “I do not want our festival remembered for the launch of a controversial book. If we launched the book and a journalist happened to read it, then you could imagine the political fallout that would follow. This could be a minefield.”

“Some of these new librarians teach children how to develop PowerPoint presentations or create online videos. Others get students to use social networking sites to debate topics from history or comment on classmates’ creative writing. Yet as school librarians increasingly teach students crucial skills needed not only in school, but also on the job and in daily life, they are often the first casualties of school budget crunches.”

Like all investors in Wall Street, the forum’s stock portfolio lost 25 percent of value, as did the holdings of Pittsburgh foundations that had contributed to the forum in the past.

Last year a single letter written by Albert Einstein changed hands for over $400,000. But could a printout of an email or an electronic file ever reach similar heights?