IndyWeek.com looks at Paul Maliszewski’s hilarious Fakers (also check out the interview here).
Need advice on what to read? Gweneth Paltrow’s got you covered.
A drinker’s guide to celebrating Robert Burns’ 250th birthday.
Albany-area poets heap praise on Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem, presumably to get their name in the paper.
Those damn kids: Larry McMurtry sees the end of book culture.
Library Journal’s spotlight feature falls on John Broven and his new book, RECORD MAKERS AND BREAKERS: VOICES OF THE INDEPENDENT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL PIONEERS.
Virginia Woolf speaks again, this time via historian and biographer Alison Light in, MRS. WOOLF AND THE SERVANTS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF LIFE IN BLOOMSBURY.
I’m finding more and more collections of short stories. And this intrigues me. The Denver Post marks Jon Raymond’s LIVABILITY for its readability and how it sticks with you.
LIMA NIGHTS, Marie Arana’s sophomore effort, makes a timeline of love and consequence.
Nell Irvin Painter, P.J O’Rourke, and John McWhorter discuss how they write:
Lev Grossman, writing for Time Magazine, offers up an excellent article on the state of the publishing industry.
“Book packaging” and writing by committee is a winning combination for Alloy Entertainment Cooperative.
Oxford seeking a new professor of poetry.
The Australian government is petitioning Thailand’s royal family to pardon imprisoned writer Harry Nicolaides.
Britney Spears is reportedly being paid $14 million for a three-to-five volume set of memoirs.
Marc Aronson tries to explain things in UNSETTLED: THE PROBLEM OF LOVING ISRAEL.
The International Herald Tribune has mostly nice things to say about Temple Grandin’s new book, ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN: CREATING THE BEST LIFE FOR ANIMALS.
Robin Romm recounts her mother’s final days in THE MERCY PAPERS: A MEMOIR OF THREE WEEKS.
And here are Publishers Weekly’s web exclusives for this week.
From the YouTube description:
From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story
Ever wonder how a book travels from the author to the reader? Or how much work is involved in the publishing process? And is this whole internet thing just a fad, like pagers and Tamagotchis?
The Digital Marketing Team at Macmillan is here to explain and enlighten. In the words of James Joyce, “Books are hard to make. People should buy more of them.”
Celina Summers is an author of speculative fiction and a blogger.
We’d like to thank her for taking the time to be part of our new “5 Minutes Alone” interview series.
AuthorScoop: What was your very first publication credit?
Celina: Aside from journalistic credits in high school and college, my first publication credit was the first book of my epic fantasy series The Asphodel Cycle. The Asphodel Cycle is a reworking of the Trojan War mythology, using fantasy archetypes in place of and in addition to the Greco-Roman lore. The novel is called The Reckoning of Asphodel and much to my surprise it went to # 1 on the Fictionwise bestseller list for Fantasy in the summer of 2007.
AuthorScoop: Tell us about your latest release.
Celina: My latest release is the third book in the series, entitled Temptation of Asphodel. In this book, my heroine Tamsen de Asphodel must overcome the temptations thrown in her path by the gods who are working against her. If she fails, an entire race of mortals will cease to exist. If she succeeds, then she will lead an alliance of nations back to the plains of Ilia where they will fight the greatest war of ancient history again. The Asphodel stories center around a strong female protagonist who is equally at home in the complex world of politics, the luxuries of a royal Court or on a battlefield. Although she is a pawn in a wager of the gods, she discovers that even a pawn can change the course of the game.
AuthorScoop: Aside from your own hard work, who else do you feel has contributed to your success?
Celina: I was blessed with extraordinary teachers throughout my life. My Latin teachers in high school were a husband and wife team, Grady and Dr. Kaye Warren. They gave me a background in classics that persists to this day and inspired the Asphodel series from the beginning. My high school English teacher, the late Kitty Savage, was the first person who convinced me that I could—and would—be a writer. I never had a teacher push me as hard as she did. She taught me that just writing well wasn’t enough. Rewriting well was the skill that she forced me to learn. And, finally, Dr. Howard Stein, a former Associate Dean of the Yale School of Drama and Chairman of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University, taught me in a college master class in playwriting. He gave me the best piece of advice I’ve ever received as a writer. “Celina, a lot of people will say to write what you know. For you, it’s going to be different. Know what you write.” He gave me permission, in a way, to explore the outer reaches of my imagination for inspiration. I think he knew, before anyone else did, that speculative fiction was going to be the realm I flourished in. I took his advice to heart, and as a result I know my characters and the worlds that they live in.
AuthorScoop: At what time of day or night do you do your best writing?
Celina: I write best at night. Although I do a lot of work during the day, my best writing happens when the house is quiet and dark and everyone else is asleep. Then I turn on my writing music and lose myself in the story. If I’m writing a climactic scene, I always write it at night, by myself in my study.
AuthorScoop: Finally, what advice would you give to new or unpublished writers?
Celina: 
The most important part of writing is rewriting. There’s no such thing as a perfect first draft…or a second draft. When you’re churning out that first draft, you’re throwing the bare bones of a story onto paper, like Dr. Frankenstein attaching parts to his experimental body. It’s when you’re rewriting that those bones flesh out into an entity that will take its first, shuddering breath. It’s only after rewriting that electricity will course through your words and your story will live.
For the very young writers, the ones still in school, listen carefully. Cherish your teachers. Absorb what they have to share with you. Finally, at the end of your time with them, thank them for setting your feet upon the paths of literature.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem a “giant misstep for poetry“…
…while The New York Times’ Tobin Harshaw is a bit more kind.
Health food author John Robbins gets taken to the cleaners by Madoff and apparently the vegetarian community should help pay his mortgage.
The translation of Timothée de Fombelle’s Toby Alone wins the Marsh award for children’s literature in translation.
Ray Bradbury among the authors coming out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Williams’ Bookstore in Los Angeles.
The prolific Joyce Carol Oates is back again with a new collection, DEAR HUSBAND, heralded as one of her best in a long time.
New President? Nevermind that just now. William E. Leuchtenburg wants to talk about HERBERT HOOVER and Slate Magazine says let him.
Author Paul Malmont does fiction as biography (on purpose) with JACK LONDON IN PARADISE.
Silicon Valley’s Mercury News gives a tour of the current mystery and thriller shelf.
A compilation from various Author Magazine interviews:
The backlash begins for the teacher who wants The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (along with To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men) pulled from English classes.
Washington Post denies that its Book World section is on the chopping block.
Bookseller.com crunches the numbers on 2008’s ‘hot 100 paperback writers’.
The Tribune remembers W.D. Snodgrass.
India’s biggest book festival underway in the historic “Pink City”.
As we reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, work, and death today, a relevant books get a closer look: A NATION ON FIRE: AMERICA IN THE WAKE OF THE KING ASSASSINATION.
BAMBOO AND BLOOD, by James Church, takes the police procedural to North Korea for something completely different.
The third installment to the Dreamhouse King series, GATEKEEPERS, gets an enthusiastic endorsement, but also delivers the caution that you’ll have to start this tale at Book 1.
THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT keeps its protagonists on the trail of historical mysteries and its author, Steve Berry, on the bestseller lists.
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr Day, his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech:
Edgar Allan Poe at 200 Slideshow (New York Times)
At age 200, Poe lives on in schools (Frederick News Post)
5 cities celebrate Poe’s 200th birthday (MSNBC)
Poe’s Home Reopens For Writer’s 200th (The Bulletin)
Séance being held to reach Edgar Allan Poe’s spirit (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Other News:
Teacher wants Huck Finn booted from curriculum.
The 250th anniversary of Robert Burns birth to be marked with a new stamp, putting him only behind the Royal Family in the number of times he’s been so honored.
The publisher of the book formerly known as The Harry Potter Lexicon (now called The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials as a result of the lawsuit) has shipped 35,000 copies out to stores.
An interesting bit about the strange world of African literature teachers.
R.I.P. Grigore Vieru
Love Poems. 20. Assorted Sizes.
(Seb)
1. When I am called to prophecy, it is your name I will sing/ I will curl my body around yours, as cold and tight and final as any wedding ring.
2. Love? I was stars torn down and the crashing swound, I was the breeze in your heart and I longed for tender slaughter.
3. We were dancing, to “Love Train” by the O’Jays and your small breasts, like fluttering birds were pressing against the sheer silk of your blood red dress/ It was not their shape it was not their promise, it was not their proximity, it was the freedom of the heart which drove them/which set fire to the want in me. I loved you there and then for that freedom/ I loved you beyond the tiny lights and the bass and the sweat and the whispers and the sway/ for the freedom in your yes, as you came to me and in your no as you drove away
4. The moon has called and the tide has marked my card/ My ever broken heart belongs to you – each dust grain smudged upon your finger, each sharp and fragile shard/ I will come any distance you call – each ecstatic mile, every gruelling, intolerable yard
5. A sunless smile, a sudden sight – you came to me, you banished night you lay nuclear clouds around my cock and stars around my head, fed me chicken soup to cure my cold and drove the addicts from my bed
6. I will navigate any length of night, from brilliant, burning corners to it’s cold, dark starless heart.
7. Her husband was an astronaut, lost to and lost in space. We would meet on Thursdays and lay in bed reading books all day, aloud to one another. She read me “everything that rises must converge” and I read her “beautiful losers” We would fuck three times before lunch then haze the day with red wine , Italian sausage and cocaine. It ended when she cut my name into her wrist and I did not have the courage to drive to the hospital in a rainstorm.
8. I have been lured and snared. I hungered for the voice I heard, yours was there.
9. We drank beer by the sparkling waters of the bay/ on a afternoon in perfect Marin County Spring/ I played Carole king songs for you, on my guitar/ you were barefoot, wearing Daisy Dukes, you’d laugh, you’d blush, you’d sing.
10. You say you cannot love me/until all my old lovers are dead/I say give me the weapon to kill them/ it’ s there, between your legs.
11. A passive neck, a peaceful blade, I was salt stripped from the water/pure to your blood, you pure to mine.
12. If I loved you for your body/ that would be alright. But, knowing no man ever loved a woman for her mind and lived/ I may not make it through tonight.
13. If you want me gone, I will burn to smoke and let the breeze leave no thing
14. As ash is to alum as love to desire – it is pure to the tongue but is it pure to the fire?
15. I remember your fedora hat, you overlarge teeth, your nasal laugh, your hunger for a Tim Horton’s double-double in the middle of the freezing Cleveland night, the stroke of your hand, the tiny gasp of air escaping you, your interior, your tiny ears and the way you would scream at spiders. You were magnificent.
16. “Kiss me now, you kissing fool” said the Mango to the Cherry/Not until I see your naked seed – this alone is necessary.
17. I rested my fingers on her wrist, and in whisper I did say “Lunch in Cincinnati, Breakfast in San Jose?”
18. I saw her at the Chevron station between Statesboro and Savannah/gassing up a green BMW 330i/in a royal blue polka dot dress and pearls, all bare arms in the fierce Georgia sun and a neck that stretched to the clouds
19. Who comes here through the ashes, who comes through the downpour. Who walks this dark, old hallway, love’s light lit, in spite of the monster that cowers behind my door?
20. And the moon leaves no trace, age marks no passage/on your flawless, child-like face/you for me will be always the moment/that I knew that I loved you.
(Read more of Seb’s poetry here)
Editor’s note: ‘Midnight Poetry’ is a showcase for work by poets across the spectrum—from the pantheon of literary giants to contemporary, underground and new voices.
If you would like to submit your work for consideration, please see our Submission Guidelines.
“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”
- Edgar Allen Poe
.
.
.
Political conservatism dissected and defended in INVISIBLE HANDS, by Kim Phillips-Fein.
A dig into The Christian Science Monitor’s archives is usually worth the while. Especially when they do it themselves. Today, they bring back, AT CANAAN’S EDGE, the third installment of a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Taylor Branch.
THE ESSAYS OF WARREN BUFFET could likely do some good for those people who have anything . CityWire gives a rundown of what you can expect within.
And take a page of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror from Monsters&Critics to round out whatever you did this weekend.
On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe’s birth, here’s Vincent Price’s deliciously melodramatic performance of the classic Poe short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”:
Part One:
Edgar Allan Poe & Vincent Price: The Tell-Tale Heart (I) - Watch more amazing videos here
Part Two:
Edgar Allan Poe & Vincent Price: The Tell-Tale Heart (II) - Click here for more free videos
Playwright and novelist John Mortimer dies (The Australian)
Tributes pour in as writer, wit and barrister John Mortimer dies at 85 (The Guardian)
Own Legal Career Imbued Author’s ‘Rumpole’ Series (Washington Post)
Other News:
The Times presents ‘100 novels everyone should read’.
Not to be outdone, The Guardian presents ‘1000 novels everyone must read’.
AuthorScoop | Promote Your Page Too
