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The Miami Book Fair International kicked off yesterday with a slightly leaner schedule; some of Britain’s university presses are ailing, some are banding together; B&N customers looking to preorder the Nook will have to wait a little longer than expected; amendments to the USA Patriot Act will face a Congressional vote; and other news.
For thousands of would-be novelists, November is NaNoWriMo; the New York Observer is getting a new editor; McSweeney’s is giving readers a taste of its long-awaited newspaper project; the Espresso Book Machine is gaining ground; a new study looks at how U.S. publishers are treating their employees; and other news.
LA’s inkSlam Poetry Festival is underway; the glut of Penguin merchandise has some concerned that the publisher is forgetting its radical roots; U.K. publishers are urging government action against digital piracy; zombie literature refuses to die; and other news.
The Internet Archive is offering libraries a legal scanning solution for copyright “orphans”; Hyperion has a new editor in chief; San Diego is pressing ahead with its long-delayed central library plans; a new Web site is testing the profitability of poetry; this spring’s Beirut39 festival will spotlight up-and-coming Arab authors; and other news.
Canadian publishers are receiving notice this week about federal grant allotments; Shipping News author E. Annie Proulx has donated her papers to the NYPL; writers, musicians, and booksellers in NYC are gathering to mark Indie Bookstore Week; Madrid will host Spain’s first e-book fair this month; and other news.
Nearly two thousand publishers are heading to Mexico this month for what organizers say is the world’s largest Spanish-language book fair; a prequel is in the works for the late Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot novels; Scholastic has pulled a title from its elementary school book fairs after the author refused to rewrite a same-sex couple as heterosexual; and other news.
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features the Melancholy Dane, Isotope, Our Stories, Puerto del Sol, the Collagist, Alimentum, Crab Creek Review, and Forklift, Ohio.
A look at engravings by Barry Moser that appear in the collection Mark Twain's Book of Animals, published last month by the University of California Press and featuring stories by Twain that have never before appeared in print.
Matthew Shenoda speaks about his new role as the Assistant Provost for Equity and Diversity at California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, part of an institute-wide initiative to promote intercultural awareness and develop support mechanisms for students from varying ethnic backgrounds.
In this excerpted version of his article from the November/December 2009 issue, contributor Seth Abramson reveals the methodology behind his ranking of the top fifty MFA programs in the United States, plus a ranking of the additional eighty-eight full-residency programs. For the full article and additional data for each program, including size, duration, cost of living, teaching load, and curriculum focus, see the November/December 2009 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
