Category: publishing

Why So Few Black Writers In America’s Fiction Ranks?

“The business is full of fiction writers like me. With one difference: I’m black, born and raised in the United States,” Martha Southgate writes. “At the parties and conferences I attend, and in the book reviews I read, I rarely encounter other African-American ‘literary’ writers, particularly in my age bracket. There just don’t seem to be that many of us out there, and that’s something I’ve come to wonder about a great deal.”

Happy Fourth. Now Choose The Great American Novel.

“With the glorious Fourth looming dead ahead, it’s an excellent time to play the home version of this game: What’s your pick for Great American Novel? Not the best novel written by an American. Rather, the best novel written by an American that most clearly reflects the spirit, character and destiny of America, both its good and bad sides, its mistakes and its triumphs. It’s more than a game, of course.”

Another Newspaper Cuts Books Section

“Another newspaper has decided to cut back its book review coverage. The Sunday book review section of the San Diego Union-Tribune has folded–the June 24 stand-alone section was the newspaper’s last. Beginning July 1, the Union-Tribune’s coverage of books will be folded into two pages within the Sunday entertainment section; the number of book reviews will be halved.”

Did Cervantes And Shakespeare Meet?

“Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries and are believed to have died on the same date, 23 April, 1616, although the Spaniard was 16 years Shakespeare’s senior. The film, which has been written and directed by a rising star of Spanish cinema, Ines Paris, suggests that these two extraordinary writers met and influenced each other before Shakespeare finally returned to England and began the most successful phase of his career in London.”

Timbuktu Is Giving Up Ancient Treasures

“After centuries of storage in wooden trunks, caves or boxes hidden beneath the sand, tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, covering topics as diverse as astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and women’s rights, are surfacing across the legendary Malian city. Their emergence has caused a stir among academics and researchers, who say they represent some of the earliest examples of written history in sub-Saharan Africa and are a window into a golden age of scholarship in west Africa.”

The Wikipedia Phenomenon

“Wikipedia, as nearly everyone knows by now, is a six-year-old global online encyclopedia in 250 languages that can be added to or edited by anyone. Wikipedia’s goal is to make the sum of human knowledge available to everyone on the planet at no cost. Depending on your lights, it is either one of the noblest experiments of the Internet age or a nightmare embodiment of relativism and the withering of intellectual standards. Love it or hate it, though, its success is past denying — 6.8 million registered users worldwide, at last count, and 1.8 million separate articles in the English-language Wikipedia alone — and that success has borne an interesting side effect.”

Pittsburgh Libraries In Funding Bind

“Pennsylvania libraries are nearly at the bottom of the pile — 43rd nationwide — in the size of financial support from their communities. In a strange way, Andrew Carnegie is among the reasons why. While he was a generous benefactor, giving the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny the cash to build handsome library buildings in the 1890s, the buck stopped there.”

Inside The Harry Potter Phenomenon

“Harry Potter’s popularity has changed the way children’s books are published. Once it became clear adults were reading them, Bloomsbury invented parallel ‘grown-up’ editions. That was, of course, childish: the text is the same, but the cover’s different… all to prevent little Timmy from being embarrassed by reading a children’s book on his way to work at Downing Street. Crossover books are now big business.”