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
- White House Proposed Closing the National Endowment for Humanities in Fall 2017. (Book Riot) And in what is no doubt a related move, the NEH Chair Resigns… (Publishers Weekly)
- Unseen Sylvia Plath poems deciphered in carbon paper (The Guardian) Also found: previously unseen photos of Plath, and poems abandoned by her husband Ted Hughes, reflecting his turmoil over her death.
- Amazon Starts Weekly Bestseller Lists (Publishers Weekly). And surprise, surprise: Amazon Publishing Books Faring Better On [Their] New Bestseller Lists.
- Folio Prize goes to Hisham Matar’s memoir The Return (The Guardian)
Literary Losses
Denis Johnson, fiction writer, poet, and playwright, died of liver cancer at the age of 67. Johnson’s novel Tree of Smoke won the National Book Award, and the author was twice shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize (once in 2012, the year in which no fiction prize was awarded.) But his most well-known work is the short-story collection Jesus’ Son. Often described as a “writer’s writer,” Johnson’s work influenced a generation of writers.
Obituaries and remembrances: Book Riot; The Guardian; Publishers Weekly
Interview with Denis Johnson: Los Angeles Times (from 2014)
Worth Reading
- Is Mass Market Dying, Or Just Evolving—Again? (Publishers Weekly)
- Literary Magazines vs. Instagram: A Poet’s Perspective (Book Riot)
- Reading Quirks is an awesome webcomic about odd things book lovers do (from Ebook Friendly, with links to the Reading Quirks blog and Instagram)
- A blistering feminist critique of Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR trilogy by Sophie of Sophie Reads, Sophie Writes. Even if you disagree, it will make you think about YA romance tropes.
- On Star Trek: Discovery and Michelle Yeoh’s Accent (SyFy Wire) If you want to understand on a gut level why representation matters, read this.
- How Audiobooks Reignited My Love of Poetry (Kate Scott, for Book Riot)
- What I Learned From Alphabetizing My Books (Megan Cavitt, for Book Riot) Basically the same thing I learned: it’s not always the best organizational system.
For Writers & Bloggers
- Keep Your @ To Yourself (Alex Acks, for Book Riot) A few weeks ago, I wrote about my mixed feelings about sharing negative reviews on social media. Now an author weighs in: it’s fine to write and share negative reviews, but don’t tag the author… which is pretty much the conclusion I came to after reading the comments on my post.
- Making the Choice to Write (Katherine D. Graham, for the NaNoWriMo blog)
Awesome Lists
- 27 essential Memorial Day Books (Los Angeles Times)
- 10 things you don’t know about authors on book tour (John Scalzi, LA Times)
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Rita @ Paging Through Books
Hmm, what other important and necessary agencies and programs will close in the coming years? Just heard that the research that goes into earthquake detection out here in CA is going to be shut down to save money. That is just one thing that came to mind as I sit here on a large earthquake faultline in SoCal. But those cuts affecting the youngest, sickest, and oldest among us frightens me the most. Okay, off the soapbox…
I read Ms. Graham’s NaNoWriMo essay with interest. I’m a 58 year old frustrated writer. I had decent praise in high school and college for my work, but chose to go in another direction– called Real Life from the School of Hard Knocks. Now I have the time as a disabled early-retiree, but no inspiration.
I wish I could participate in this fun program, but I don’t seem to have “my writing muse” anymore– there is no storyline or characters inhabiting my foggy brain, and that is the biggest regret of my life. If I can latch onto an idea that I can live with for a month of work and not keep giving up, well that would check a big item off my bucket list 🙂
Thanks for these Saturday newsy posts. I read them with my morning coffee on the weekend.
Rita @ Paging Through Books recently posted…Weekly Book News
Lark_Bookwyrm
I think a lot of programs and departments are going to be eliminated or sharply downsized, and the consequences—for the most vulnerable, the environment, and even the economy—are going to be devastating and longlasting.
Rita, I hope you get your writing inspiration back. Have you ever read any of Julia Cameron’s books? She talks about nurturing the artist within, and in some books, specifically about writing. They might be helpful. One suggestion I’ve seen in several places (possibly from her, and certainly from others) is simply to write a set number of words or pages every day. Even if you have nothing to say, write about having nothing to say, or write the same sentence over and over. Eventually, this is supposed to unstick whatever’s stuck… plus, you’re developing a habit of writing. Some of the best writers, like Maya Angelou, talk about the futility of waiting for inspiration: they find that they must write regularly, even if what comes out is terrible, in order for inspiration (good writing) to take place. I’ll try it if you will!
RO
That’s a cool meme, Lark! I love this post that gives info I wouldn’t normally se, and is trivia related. That’s an interesting topic about alphabetizing novels. For me, it’s too hard to do, however, I do have to keep an author’s books together. So you’ll never see a JR Ward book away from her home by hanging out with Nora Roberts. lol I must however, keep my DVD’s in alphabetical order or I would go bonkers! Hope your weekend is fab! Hugs…RO
RO recently posted…DO YOU STILL NEED A LICENSE TO GET MARRIED & SOME OTHER STUFF
Lark_Bookwyrm
I organize my books (and DVDs, more or less) by genre. Within the fiction genres, it’s alpha by author, but with series kept together. For nonfiction, I group subjects together, so the history books are together and within that, the British history; the language dictionaries are together; the biographies and memoirs are together (alpha by who they’re about); and so on. I’ve done it that way since before I worked in a bookstore or library, but of course, my years as a bookseller sort of cemented the habit!