Category: words

Simon Armitage has been appointed official “Poet of the Millennium Dome.” He’ll compose a 1000-word poem for England’s millennial project. – London Times

An assessment of double-Booker novelist J.M. Coetzee’s work. – Boston Globe

More highly-placed editors and publishers are switching teams and becoming literary agents. Does the world really need more literary agents? – New York Times

Author buys tiny front-page ads in the New York Times to try and goad reviewer Michiko Kakutani into paying attention to his book. – Salon

Bring out the life support. The biography as a genre is having a rough time. Is it just a string of bad luck or are serious literary changes in the works? – Philadelphia Inquirer

Here’s a parody of the New York Times’ often overly-serious column of writers writing what it means to write right. – Salon

Microsoft and Donnelley (the largest printer of US books) team up to make e-publishing easy for publishers. – Publishers Weekly

The drive to write, says Richard Ford, is powerful for writers. Sometimes, though, it works better if you don’t. – New York Times

A review of J.M Coetzee’s “Disgrace,” which won the Booker Prize last week. – Salon

Nonetheless, Simon Schama’s new Rembrandt biography is “fascinating and admirable.” – London Telegraph