May/June 2005

British author Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, Small Island, has made quite a stir across the pond. This spring, Picador brings Levy and her book to American readers.

Features

Already Famous: A Profile of Andrea Levy

by Renée H. Shea
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After winning two of England's most prestigious literary awards for her novel Small Island, Andrea Levy arrives in the states.

Never Let Me Go: A Profile of Kazuo Ishiguro

by John Freeman

What if genetic cloning had become the defining science of the 20th century? The main characters of Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel contend with such a world—and its moral consequences.

 

Inside Publishing

When Editors Are Edited

by Kevin Larimer
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Elizabeth Gaffney, Adrienne Miller, and Adrienne Brodeur—three high-profile magazine editors who recently added "debut novelist" to their resumés.  

The Business of Relationships

by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
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Thirteen agents and editors on the perks and pitfalls of working together in an ever-changing profession.

Securing an Ally

by Cathie Beck
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Five agents give advice on what they look for in a client.

News and Trends

Searching for Signs of Shakespeare

by Kevin Canfield

Most writers have heard the old saying about the Bard and the chimps: Gather 100 monkeys (or similarly hirsute primates) in a room, give them typewriters, and sooner or (more likely) later, they’ll deliver the complete works of Shakespeare. Nick Hoggard, a British computer programmer living in Sweden, has decided to put the theory—often attributed to Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century disciple of Charles Darwin—to the test. 

Q&A: Inside Christopher McCabe's BEA

by Kevin Larimer

Christopher McCabe, the new manager of BEA, speaks directly about its purpose and sets the stage for the United States publishing industry’s biggest event.

Literary MagNet

by Kevin Larimer

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 Grove Review, the Sonora Review, Volt, Quick Fiction, and Barrelhouse. 

Filling the Best Seats in the House

by Anna Mantzaris

Thanks to a growing trend in grassroots marketing and publicity, writers in the San Francisco Bay area are reading to packed houses—literally. 

Poets House and PSA Branch Out

by Daniel Nester

Aided by a $260,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Poets House and the Poetry Society of America, two nonprofit literary organizations based in New York City, recently partnered to establish Branching Out: Poetry in the Twentieth Century.

Small Press Points

by Kevin Larimer

Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features City Lights Books, Verse Press, Wave Books, the Feminist Press, Ig Publishing, and Sarabande Books.

The End of the Story

by Joe Woodward

To those who knew him through his work—and, if we are to believe the many tributes published in the past two months, to those who knew him intimately as well—Thompson was a strange and lovely amalgamation.

The Written Image: Voices in Wartime

by Staff

Voices in Wartime, a documentary about the experience of war as seen by soldiers, journalists, historians, and poets, featuring contemporary poets Chris Abani, Sam Hamill, Marie Howe, and Todd Swift, opened in select theaters nationwide last month.

Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

by Staff

Page One features a sample of titles we think you'll want to explore. With this installment, we offer excerpts from Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, Bitter Milk by John McManus, and The Lake, The River & the Other Lake by Steve Amick.

The Practical Writer

First: Shalom Auslander's Beware of God

by Amy Rosenberg
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Shalom Auslander talks about Beware of God, and the unorthodox path he took to write it.

Fear of Flight: Rewriting Short Fiction as a Novel

by Ginger Strand

In April 2003, an agent sat down with me, pointed to my manuscript, and said the words I had been dreading: I think this should be a novel. I shuddered. I was no novelist. I was a minimalist, a votress of the goddess of gesture, a worshipper at the altar of the succinct. I was a short story writer.

The Literary Life

Then, Again: Memoir and the Work of Time

by Sven Birkerts
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Entering middle age, Sven Birkerts discusses memory and the process of writing a memoir.

From the Garden to the Forest: The Story of a Successful Writers Group

by Buddy Levy
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How a group of writers came to meet together, and kept meeting for seventeen years.

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