Hundreds Protest Plan To Eliminate Georgia Arts Council

“A $17.8 billion state budget passed by the Georgia House last week would wipe out the arts council, which supports the arts statewide, administers grants and maintains the State Art Collection. … Georgia could be the only state without an arts council recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, unless the Senate restores funding cut by the House.”

Thanks To Ash Cloud, A Strangely Quiet London Book Fair

Monday, the start of the London Book Fair, “was described as a ‘surreal’ first day, with LBF organisers now actively assessing a ‘missed appointments’ day on Thursday…. Andrew Franklin, managing director of Profile, said: ‘It’s looking really forlorn. It’s been very hard to conduct business because there is no [one] here to conduct it with.'”

The Best Book This Year. Really? I Mean, Really?

“Prize competitions for something as subjective as fiction often seem irrelevant or superfluous, but the winners do get a lot of attention, for what that’s worth in the complicated world of make-believe. Often, the honorees are familiar names, drawn from lists of familiar names, but when a nobody wears the laurels, we have mixed reactions from puzzlement to disdain.”