News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff
Book News
- In Face of NEA Cuts, Small Presses Worry About Their Futures (Publishers Weekly)
- Librarians Vow to Fight Trump on Funding Cuts to libraries. (Publishers Weekly)
- An Oxford comma (or the lack thereof) decided a recent court case in Maine. (CNN)
Literary Losses
Author, Modern Love columnist, and essayist Amy Krouse Rosenthal died March 13, 2017, of ovarian cancer. She was 51. Ten days before she died, she published a warm and moving column about her husband Jason and their life together, in hopes, she wrote, that “the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins.” I didn’t know Ms. Rosenthal’s work, but her final column moved me to tears.
Column: “You May Want to Marry My Husband”
Obituaries: Chicago Tribune; NPR; Publishers Weekly. Jezebel also wrote about Jason’s response to “You May Want to Marry My Husband.”
Derek Walcott, the Nobel laureate poet and playwright, died March 17, 2017, in Santa Lucia, at the age of 87. Walcott may be best known for his epic poem Omeros, “a Caribbean reimagining of The Odyssey.” But he was also the author of more than 80 plays, and won an Obie award for Dream on Monkey Mountain. In addition to the Nobel Prize for Literature, Walcott was the recipient of a Rockefeller fellowship and a MacArthur “genius” grant.
Obituaries: The Guardian; NPR’s the two-way; St. Lucia Times
Worth Reading/Listening To
- Books for girls, about girls: the publishers trying to balance the bookshelves. (Emine Saner, for The Guardian)
- Out of Wonder Aims to Inspire a New Generation of Poets. NPR’s Rachel Martin interviews Kwame Alexander on his new book, a collection of poems in the style of other poets. Kwame worked with two collaborators to choose and write the poems. The project’s goal is to get children excited about reading—and writing—poetry. The interview is about 7 minutes long, and worth listening to.
- Remembering Bill Walsh’s Way with Words. Linda Holmes talks about author and copyeditor Bill Walsh’s love for words and grammar. (NPR Books)
- In Defense of “Other Girls” in YA. Or in life, for that matter. (Sharanya Sharma, for BookRiot)
- Sci-fi Author Nnedi Okorafor Says Publishers Whitewashed Her Book Cover. After she threw a fit (justifiably!) the cover was changed to reflect the book’s black protagonist. (Huffington Post)
- I Buy Books Without Reading Them. (Jesse Lewis, for BookRiot.) Me too.
Book & Movie Announcements
- Harper Voyager Acquires English Translation of Russian Fantasy Vita Nostra (Tor.com) According to HV’s Executive Editor, the premis is “…basically The Magicians, but set in a rural Russian technical college.” The writing shares “… aspects of Grossman’s novels, but also a bit of Gaiman… and a bit of Gogol. The effect was lyrical and immediate…” Sounds amazing!
Awesome Lists
- Our Favorite British Books (BookRiot)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
Sir John Hurt recites “Jabberwocky”
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
anna @ herding cats & burning soup
I totally run on books and tea. And when not during Lent..chocolate! lol
anna @ herding cats & burning soup recently posted…Hand Lettering– What I Use Plus Examples!
Lark_Bookwyrm
Same here. Though given my weight, I’m trying to cut back on the chocolate. 🙂