Bluestalking

Thank you, Knopf!

 

Thank you, thank you to Knopf for the opportunity to read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories by Tolstoy. All else will be taking a back seat - save Water for Elephants, which I'm officially listening to in the car - until I read the almost 500 pp. in this brand new translation.I'm absolutely thrilled!

An official SWOON.

I don't want to rush, but I do want to get through it while it's still so young and fresh. The feel of it! Such heft in the hand; creamy, pristine pages. It's a beauty. And soon it'll have my notes and underlinings all over the interior.

Yes, I'm a librarian who writes in her books... But in this one, only pencil. I promise.

Pinky swear.

My pen's warmed up, all ready to sign on the dotted line... Whatchoo waiting for, publishers?

From the International Herald Tribune:

New reason to surf the blogosphere: Book deals

By Allen Salkin

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

This is how it happens. A guy starts a clever blog in January and calls it Stuff White People Like. The site contains a list of cultural totems, including gifted children, marathons and writers' workshops, that a certain type of moneyed and liberal American might be expected to like.

"The No. 1 reason why white people like not having a TV," reads the explanation under entry No. 28, Not Having a TV, "is so that they can tell you that they don't have a TV."

Readers discover stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, like it and forward links to their friends, who forward them to lots more friends.

Newspaper columnists mention it, stealing - er, quoting - some of the better jokes. By the end of February, the National Public Radio program "Talk of the Nation" runs a report on it, debating whether the site is racist or satire.

And then March 20 Random House announces that it has purchased the rights to a book by the blog's founder, Christian Lander, an Internet copy writer. The price, according to a source familiar with the deal but not authorized to discuss the total, was about $300,000, a sum that many in the publishing and blogging communities believe is an astronomical amount for a book spawned from a blog, written by a previously unpublished author... Read the rest here...

An Independent Publisher, and a Writing Prize, You Should Hear About

Dzanc Books announces inaugural Dzanc Prize

Westland, MI—In order to further its mission of fostering literary excellence, community involvement, and education, Dzanc Books has created the Dzanc Prize. The prize will award $5,000 annually to a writer working toward completion of a novel or short story collection who is also interested in creating a community writing program.

Interested writers are asked to submit a current CV, a description of the work-in-progress, a 10-page sample of the work, and a plan for their community service. The proposed community service should involve some form of writing workshops to be conducted over the course of a year, with a time commitment of 50-75 hours of actual workshop time, and can serve any part of the community regardless of age, ability, etc. The specifics of the programs will be left to the applicant to submit to Dzanc and is limited only by the applicant's imagination.

Submissions may only be made via email and should be sent as Word documents to info@dzancbooks.org with the subject line: Dzanc Prize Submission. The final date for submission is November 1, 2007 and the winner will be announced in December 2007. The prize will be awarded in two installments with the first half administered in January 2008 and the second after the proposed service is completed.

Entries will be judged on the merit of the work-in-progress and the proposed service by a panel of Dzanc Books staff: Founder and Publisher Steve Gillis, Executive Director and Publisher Dan Wickett, and Editor Keith Taylor. However, this is not a publication prize. Dzanc Books will make no claims to the winner or their work. If, when the author completes the work, they wish to submit it to Dzanc Books, the manuscript will go through the same reading process as every other submission.

About Dzanc Books

Dzanc Books was created in 2006 to advance great writing and champion those writers who don't fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses. As a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, Dzanc Books not only publishes literary fiction, but works in partnership with literary journals to advance their readership at every level. Dzanc is also fully committed to developing educational programs in schools and organizes workshops and Writer-In-Residence programs to meet that goal.

Dzanc Books will be publishing its first book, All Over, a short story collection by Roy Kesey, in October 2007. The list of extraordinary, award-winning talents will continue in 2008 with Yannick Murphy's In A Bear's Eye and Peter Markus's Bob, or Man on Boat. For more information on Dzanc Books and its mission, books, authors, awards, and programs, please visit www.dzancbooks.org.

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Dzanc Books   1334 Woodbourne Street   Westland, MI 48186
(734) 722-3761   www.dzancbooks.org