Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:
Coffee House Press founding publisher Allan Kornblum died at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, yesterday at the age of sixty-five. One of the most well known leaders of the small press movement, Kornblum founded Toothpaste Press in Iowa City in 1973 before moving to Minneapolis in 1984 and founding the literary nonprofit Coffee House Press. Under his leadership, the press published numerous award-winning books, and became renowned for publishing writers of color. Kornblum had been battling leukemia since 2006. In partnership with his family, Coffee House Press plans to hold a public memorial later this year or in early 2015. (Publishers Weekly)
You could soon own the letter that launched Beat literature. Neal Cassady’s 1950 letter to Jack Kerouac, which inspired Kerouac to revise his novel On the Road into a similar style, will be auctioned in California on December 17. Kerouac lent the letter to Allen Ginsberg in 1968 and thought Ginsberg’s friend accidentally dropped it off of a houseboat. The letter actually remained at a small press in San Francisco, unopened, for sixty years. (Guardian)
The Strand Book Store in New York City has been in business since 1927. At New York Magazine, senior editor Christopher Bonanos speaks with Fred Bass, the son of Strand founder Ben Bass, about the store’s history, and how it manages to stay afloat in the digital age.
Speaking of bookselling in this digital age, independent e-book authors, take note: Over at indie e-book distributor Smashwords, Mark Coker gives advice on how to succeed in the ever-growing world of e-book publishing.
Meanwhile, on Friday, a federal judge approved a settlement reached this summer in which Apple agreed to pay $400 million to as many as 23 million consumers, related to charges that the company conspired with major publishes to raise e-book prices for its iBooks app, and “thwart efforts by Amazon.” (New York Times)
To apologize for racist remarks made at last Wednesday’s National Book Awards ceremony, author Daniel Handler pledged $10,000, and promised to match public donations up to $100,000, for the We Need Diverse Books charity. Handler is set to send the organization a check for $110,000 today. (Guardian)
Talk about writing under a constraint. Ernest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadbsy was written without the most common letter in the English language: “e.” Blogger David Taylor analyzed the full text and examined the ways in which removing the most common linguistic symbol impacted and changed the work. (Atlantic)
The longlist for the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award has been announced. The €100,000 prize is given annually for a novel written in or translated into English, and features titles nominated by thirty-nine libraries around the world. Kate Atkinson, Nathan Filer, and J. K. Rowling are among this year’s nominees. The shortlist will be announced on April 19, 2015, and the winner on June 20. (Bookseller)
The new spokesperson for Little Free Libraries may be an eight-year-old girl. In an enthusiastic monologue promoting the Little Free Library project (an organization that installs small, handmade book-lending structures in communities without public libraries), third-grade book-lover Madison pronounced, “The world needs books! It would break my heart if one book was lost.” Amen! (Vox)
