Fun and games during NZ Book Month

September Treasure Hunt


A quirky competition has been launched to support NZ Book Month.

Louise Wrightson, and her company New Zealand Books Abroad, is promoting a book lovers’ treasure hunt as her contribution to the event.

“ On 1 September we are planting five fictitious titles among the genuine NZ published books on our webshop,” said Wrightson.

“All people have to do is spot the phoneys and email them to us with their name. All the correct entries will go in a draw to win all 25 finalists in this year’s Montana Book Awards. This fine library of the best in contemporary publishing is worth more than $1300.”

Wrightson said she is a passionate supporter of NZ publishing and that she is delighted with the quality and the range of NZ books on offer.

“Selling NZ books at home and abroad is a serious business. The competition we are running in support of NZ Book Month gives us a chance to have lots of fun on the side.”

And you can buy books (including Island of the Lost and the Wiki Coffin novels) from their site:
www.nzbooksabroad.com

And even compare the prices with those charged in the US!

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11:54 PM | 0 comments

Problems over Medina mount for Random House

The Langam Charitable Trust has issued a statement deploring Random House's cancellation of Sherry Jones's novel. They feel so strongly about it, they have decided that "until The Jewel of Medina is actually published, [we] will not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates."

So bang go the prospects of Random House authors for the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Historical Fiction and the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Legal History or Biography.

It seems more than a little unfair that innocent authors should be penalized for what was basically a tactical decision, rather than outright censorship. As Stanley Fish observed in The New York Times, Jones is free to have the book published elsewhere. Considering the amount of free publicity Medina has received, that seems an absolute certainty.

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3:53 PM | 0 comments

Peter Jackson involved in yet another film project

Brussels' Herge Studios confused the world yesterday by announcing that Peter Jackson would direct the first film in a planned Tintin trilogy for Dreamworks.

A representative for Steven Spielberg said that he still intends to direct the film, and a representative for Jackson agreed. Jackson will be a producer on the first film and intends to direct the second one.

Meantime, he somehow has to complete Lovely Bones (in post-production) and write scripts for the two Hobbit movies. (And mow the lawn in his spare time?)

The first Tintin is based on two books, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, with a screenplay by "Doctor Who" writer Stephen Moffat.

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1:36 PM | 0 comments

Biden book rushed into paperback

Random House will have a 100,000-copy first printing of a new paperback edition of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joseph Biden's book Promises To Keep: On Life and Politics arriving in stores by Thursday, August 28. (The hardcover appeared on the NYT bestseller list for one week at No. 15 last August.)

As the publishers describe it, the book "shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life--the obligation to work to make people's lives better, to honor family and faith, to get up and do the right thing no matter how hard you've been knocked down, to be honest and straightforward, and, above all, to keep your promises--are the foundations on which he has based his life's work."

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1:47 PM | 0 comments

Recent amazing sales

From auction and elsewhere.

Copy of the Magna Carta, made 1297, signed by King Edward: $21,000,000

Pom.com, domain name: $9,500,000

Letter written by Abraham Lincoln, dated April 5, 1864: $3,400,000

Civil War surrender document, signed by Robert E. Lee: $537,750

American pilot chart book, 1794: $408,250

Two-page meditation on God by Albert Einstein: $405,000

Photographic volume of Michelangelo sculptures: $155,000

The Arctic Regions, by William Bradford, illustrated with 141 albumen prints, 1873: $144,000

First edition of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein: $122,000

Original drawing for Peanuts comic: $113,525

The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, signed pre-publication copy, 1952: $96,000

Inquiry into Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith: $90,000

First Marvel comic, 1939: $89,625

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Lafayette: $84,000

Life of Napoleon (4 vv.), by William M. Sloane, 1896: $50,400

Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (first edition): $33,460

The Heart of the Antarctic, by Ernest Shackleton (first edition), 1909: $31,200

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (first edition), 1851: $17,925

Dracula, by Bram Stoker (first edition) 1897: $14,690

Voyage to the Pacific, by Capt. James Cook (first edition) 1784: $14,000

A cornflake shaped like the State of Illinois: $1,350

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6:29 PM | 0 comments

Medina to be published in Denmark

Danish publishers association Trykkeselskabet has approved the publication of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel Of Medina in Denmark.

A spokesperson told a Danish newspaper, "Fear or threats should not keep a book from being published. It would be principally and entirely a renewal of all that Denmark has already been through with the Mohammed cartoon affair."

Jones's agent Natasha Kern wrote to the society, "When you consider what's happened in your country, I admire your readiness to ensure that freedom of expression is not obstructed."

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6:27 PM | 0 comments

Leaders seeking readers

Mark Lawson meditates in The Guardian that with candidates posting videos on YouTube and Barack Obama pledging to tell supporters his vice-presidential choice by text, Campaign 2008 has been a new-tech election. But one piece of old technology has proved an unexpectedly powerful player: the book.


Obama is the first candidate to have had two bestselling books - not manifestos, but memoirs, which he seems to have written himself - before even gaining the nomination. Unfortunately, the phenomenon has proved to have a nasty aftermath. Currently the top non-fiction slot he held is filled by Obama Nation, a title that is meant to be spat out fast, sounding like"Abomination".


In Britain, the busy schedule of a prime minister has not prevented Gordon Brown from a rate of publication that would have impressed Agatha Christie - Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Bravery in World War II, due in the autumn, is his third book in little over a year, a successor to Courage: Eight Portraits, and Britain's Everyday Heroes.


As Lawson pithily comments, the fact that Brown has chosen to publish an entire trilogy about guts and courage is typical of this new brand of political literature. John F Kennedy's Portraits in Courage - calculated to establish cold warrior credentials before the 1960 race - remains the model for leaders in search of readers, even though it is now established that JFK did not actually set pen to paper.


McCain has just put out his own effort to entice Soldier of Fortune-reading voters -- Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People: Heroes Who Made Tough Decisions.


Grubby as the ploy might be, it is curiously touching that aspirants to power should wish to garnish their campaigns with nothing less than a good oldfashioned book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/politics.gordonbrown

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6:57 PM | 0 comments

It was a dark and stormy night

Writing in The Guardian, Alison Flood reports that the great-great-great grandson of the much-maligned author Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton is to take part in a debate to defend his ancestor's writing.

The Honourable Henry Lytton Cobbold, of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, is travelling to Bulwer-Lytton's namesake, the town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada, to take on the founder of the International Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, Professor Scott Rice, in a public debate on August 30.

Bulwer-Lytton has been ridiculed by the contest since 1982, when Rice came up with the idea for a competition to compose the opening sentence to the worst possible novel, inspired by Bulwer-Lytton's notorious "It was a dark and stormy night".

"I come to bury Lytton, not to praise him," said Rice. "The evil that men do lives after them, in Lytton's case in 27 novels whose perfervid turgidity I intend to expose, denude, and generally make visible."

"I'm off to defend his honour," Lytton Cobbold said. "Bulwer-Lytton was a remarkable man and it's rather unfair that Professor Rice decided to name the competition after him for entirely the wrong reasons. He was a great champion of the arts."

It won't be a "dark and stormy night." The debate is at 3 PM.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/19/2

(I had to look up "perfervid." It is a real word. Apparently it means "very fervid.")

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8:50 PM | 0 comments

Are you moral enough to write books for young adults?

Apparently, Random House UK includes a morality clause in contracts with children's book authors. Guardian blogger Sian Pettenden drew attention to the insertion, which caused an alert to be distributed by a UK-based support group for writers and illustrators.

The clause reads:

"If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished ... we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement."

There is no evidence that any other branch of Random House is demanding that their children's authors should have a pure and unsullied reputation. As an unnamed New York agent observed, "there's a lot of strange language that goes into UK contracts that has little bearing on the American market."

http://www.mediabistro.com:80/galleycat/publishing/are_you_pure_enough_to_write_ya_92241.asp

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8:35 PM | 0 comments

Book sales fall in the US

Barnes & Noble report falling sales, with actual bookstores the hardest hit.

Even with the success of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, David Wroblewski's Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, the lack of a mega-seller on the scale of Harry Potter took a toll on Barnes & Noble's second quarter earnings.

Total sales for Barnes & Noble declined 2% to $1.22 billion, with bookstores suffering the most, their sales falling by 4.7%. Predictions for the full year were correspondingly pessimistic. The company will open 30 to 35 stores this year, but said that this is unlikely to keep on happening. Not only are sales falling, but developers are cancelling the construction of new malls.

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3:42 PM | 0 comments

Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA

Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists, compiled by Veronika Meduna & Rebecca Priestley. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2008. ISBN 978-1-86941-954-7





A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of sighting an advance copy of this book at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, as Rebecca was carrying it under her arm. Now I have the even greater privilege of owning a copy.

The work was first devised as an accompaniment to an exhibition, Butterflies, Boffins, & Black Smokers: two centuries of science in New Zealand, which was staged at the National Library in September 2006. This original framework has been greatly augmented, with 30 more biographical profiles. There is also a timely emphasis on nuclear and earth sciences, Antarctic science, genetics and medicine, impelled by the personal enthusiasms of the two women who co-curated the exhibit, and who worked together to compile the book.

Ranging from the first European explorers to today's top young scientists, Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA conveys solid basic information as well as intriguing details of academic quibbles and personal foibles -- a favorite of mine is the fellow who wore pink woolen longjohns on field trips. Predictably, there are many more men than women, but it is laudable that all the women are interesting and worthy, and not just added to the collection in an attempt at gender balance.

Beautifully illustrated and handsomely produced, the book is a credit to the compilers, the editors, the designers, the publishers, and the contributors. Rebecca tells me that it is aimed at a young adult audience. It certainly should find a place in all school libraries, but it deserves a prominent place on home bookshelves, too.

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8:56 PM | 0 comments

Yesterday is another country

Yesterday is another country, by Somasiri Devendra. Sri Lanka: Sridevi Publications, 27 Pepiliyana Road, Nedimala, Dehiwala. First published 2008. ISBN 978-955-9419-28-0

This charming collection of 16 short stories, part reminiscence, part intriguing mixture of history and myth, is written by a man better known for his works of maritime archaeology. Gentle and reflective in tone, the anthology reveals the heart and mind of a citizen of an island--Sri Lanka, once known as Ceylon--which most of us think of as beautiful, exotic, and almost unreachably remote.

There are tales of youthful misadventures at a local university; stories, part comic, part tragic, of being made the guardian of a schizophrenic patient (one of which, most appropriately, is called "The cross on my shoulder"); and a truly wonderful account of a scholarly conference at the edge of a remote desert in the northwest of India, which turned into a voyage of discovery into the intricacies of the Krishna legend.

Of the collection, the last two stories are probably the most revealing. In "The myth maker" the scenery of Sri Lanka, only briefly referred to before, bursts onto the reader in a torrent of jungle growth, tropical warmth, shafts of light and riotous scents. The last story, "Inhuman rites," gives a horrifying glimpse of the current terrorism that mars this Indian Ocean paradise.

A short, but ultimately satisfying read. Thoroughly recommended -- if you can find it. Try writing to the publisher.

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7:52 PM | 0 comments

Bob Dylan poems discovered.

Julie Bosman, in the International Herald Tribune, writes that Barry Feinstein, the rock 'n' roll photographer, when digging idly through his archives, came across a long-forgotten bundle of pictures, comprising dozens of dark, moody snapshots of Hollywood in the early 1960s.

With the photograph collection was a set of prose poems, written around the same time by an old friend: Bob Dylan.

In November, after more than 40 years, the text and photographs will be published in Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript.

It is the latest installment in Dylan's seemingly never-ending body of work, which includes more than 50 albums, a critically acclaimed autobiography and a recently published collection of arty sketches called Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series.

The new book, to be published by Simon & Schuster, includes more than 75 of Feinstein's photographs and 23 of Dylan's prose poems, which are each marked alphabetically to correspond to a photo.

The book was created during a period in the 1960s when Feinstein was a 20-something "flunky" at a movie studio. He roamed around movie sets, snapping pictures backstage and in dressing rooms, and during off hours he drove around Hollywood with his camera in tow.

The result is a collection of pictures that are sometimes dreary and sometimes tongue-in-cheek, shots of movie props and roadside stands, topless starlets and headless mannequins. In one photo a young woman, visible only from the ankles down, crouches on Sophia Loren's star at Grauman's Chinese Theater, a hand pressed onto the cement. In another photo a parking lot at 20th Century Fox, marked by a large sign for "Talent," is completely empty.

After assembling the photographs, Feinstein thought of Dylan, whom he had met before on the East Coast. "I asked him as a joke, 'Wanna come out and maybe write something about these photographs?"' Feinstein said. "So he came out and wrote some text."

Dylan, then in his 20s, arrived in Hollywood, examined the photographs and wrote his own prose poems to accompany them.

No one involved in the book can recall exactly when Dylan wrote the poems, which are by turns sparse, playful, witty and sarcastic. In the text accompanying a photo of Marlene Dietrich appearing stricken at Gary Cooper's funeral in 1961, Dylan wrote: "I dare not ask your sculpturer's name/with glance back hooked, time's hinges halt."

After the photos and text were pulled together into a rough manuscript, Dylan and Feinstein took it to a publisher, Macmillan, where executives expressed interest but were afraid that the pictures would bring a lawsuit from the studio.

So the manuscript was put aside, and Feinstein kept it for more than four decades in his vast collection of photographs, books and other papers.

"I knew it was an important document," he said. "So I kept it in the back of my head all that time."

Through his manager, Jeff Rosen, Dylan declined to comment on the book, and he is not expected to promote it.

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11:30 PM | 0 comments

New Woodward tell-all announced

Simon & Schuster has announced the title of Bob Woodward's new book: The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008--along with the release date of September 8, in what they say will be a 900,000-copy first printing.

Editor Alice Mayhew says: "There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers. This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes."

But, will there be anything new?

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1:43 PM | 0 comments

Amazon Obama Book Exclusive Backfires

Publisher Chelsea Green's plan to offer Robert Kuttner's Obama's Challenge exclusively through Amazon for the first two weeks of publication, further driven by coupons for a 25-percent discount to be distributed at the Democratic convention, has backfired in a big way.

Following expressions of concern and anger from independent booksellers--a group Chelsea Green has cultivated carefully in the past through such programs as their green partner stores--Barnes & Noble has substantially cut their order for the book.

BN noted in a statement that "Chelsea Green Publishing has taken an unprecedented action to restrict the availability of Robert Kuttner's 'Obama's Challenge' by giving one company a two-week exclusivity period." The chain will offer the book through their web site but will not stock it in stores. They originally ordered 10,000 copies (out of an announced first printing of 75,000 copies.) "Our initial order was based on the book being available to all booksellers simultaneously -- an even playing field," spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating said.

When contacted by the Wall Street Journal , Chelsea Green president Margo Baldwin insisted "that she struck an exclusive agreement with Amazon 'because it was the only way we could get advanced reading copies to the Democratic National Convention on time and make the book available on the first day of the convention, Aug. 25'"--which may pass unnoticed by consumers, but will not satisfy anyone in the trade.

More to the point, Baldwin says, "This is part of a strategy to get the buzz going so that demand will escalate and the copies will sell through at all outlets when the main printing arrives."

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1:38 PM | 0 comments

Terry Pratchett has Altzheimer's but still his imagination is vivid

Last year the bestselling author of the Discworld fantasies was finally diagnosed with Altzheimer's: Terry Pratchett, 59, was convinced something was wrong, but it was not until December 2007 that it was confirmed that he has a form of the disease, Posterior Cortical Atrophy, or PCA.

Assured by medics that he did not have any form of mental degeneration, Pratchett remained convinced that all was not well.

"We had what I called a Clapham Junction day, when you know the phones were ringing. There were lots of things to do and I was just kind of flat-lining almost. I just couldn't deal with it and I thought there's more, there's more."

Because of his panic, he was referred to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, where the diagnosis was finally made.


While the most common form of Altzheimer's is loss of memory, PCA affects vision and motor skills. Though his imagination is as fertile as ever, it has had a disastrous effect on his typing. Formerly a touch-typist, Pratchett now has to hunt and peck, "and there will be a moment sometimes when the letter A just totally vanishes and I don't quite know what happens.

"It's as if the keyboard closes up and the letter A is not there any more." He blinks a few times, and the letter magically reappears.

The prospect of the day when the letters vanish for ever must be bleakly depressing. Pratchett's many thousands of fans are hoping and praying that that day never happens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7560713.stm

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1:28 PM | 0 comments

Enid Blyton best-loved author

Website of the Telegraph Media Group

Anita Singh reports that Enid Blyton has been voted Britain's best-loved author in a survey which proves that the stories we read as children retain a special place in our affections.

Blyton was first and Roald Dahl came second in a nationwide poll of adult readers. JK Rowling, writer of the Harry Potter books, was third. The children's authors were chosen ahead of Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, while Beatrix Potter, another children's favourite, also appeared in the top 10.

Blyton's creations - including the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, Noddy and the girls of Malory Towers - hark back to a gentler era. After her death in 1968, it became fashionable to denounce her stories as racist, sexist and out of touch.Yet today's adults remember them with enormous fondness, according to the survey commissioned to mark the 2008 Costa Book Awards.

And, herewith, the list of the top 50 best-loved authors

1. Enid Blyton
2. Roald Dahl
3. J.K. Rowling
4. Jane Austen
5. William Shakespeare
6. Charles Dickens
7. JRR Tolkien
8. Agatha Christie
9. Stephen King
10. Beatrix Potter
11. CS Lewis
12. Catherine Cookson
13. Martina Cole
14. Bill Bryson
15. Charlotte Bronte
16. Jacqueline Wilson
17. Oscar Wilde
18. Maeve Binchy
19. Dan Brown
20. Emily Bronte
21. Jackie Collins
22. Martin Amis
23. Isaac Asimov
24. Margaret Atwood
25. John Grisham
26. Marian Keyes
27. HG Wells
28. Alan Bennett
29. Arthur C Clarke
30. George Orwell
31. Danielle Steel
32. Iain Banks
33. Judy Blume
34. Jodi Picoult
35. Arthur Conan Doyle
36. Peter Ackroyd
37. Kingsley Amis
38. P.G Wodehouse
39. Dr. Seuss
40. Mark Twain
41. JG Ballard
42. Thomas Hardy
43. James Patterson
44. Ian Rankin
45. Leo Tolstoy
46. Irvine Welsh
47. Jilly Cooper
48. Beryl Bainbridge
49. Ray Bradbury
50. Geoffrey Chaucer

I wonder how many will still be there in 50 -- or even 20 -- years' time.

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2:04 AM | 0 comments

They have book festivals in Ireland, too

The Irish Independent on Sunday features "A fizzy festival to put Dublin on the literary map."

Well, not quite. The fare at Sunday Independent's Books 2008, which will take place September 5 to 7, caters for a much wider taste in books than the usual highminded literary festival. Designed to attract a "mass audience," with guests such as Marilyn Keyes (pictured), it is bound to do just that.

As Alison Walsh reports, Bert Wright, organiser of the Hughes and Hughes Irish Book Awards, and Books 2008 director, has pulled out all the stops to deliver a popular, glamorous programme designed to appeal to wide-ranging tastes. He says, "All the literary festivals just play to the literary set ... rarely to they include really popular writers," and so he decided to make the event "more popular and accessible."

Accordingly, it's a programme that will appeal to every reader imaginable, opening with Marilyn Keyes, and moving on through Hugo Hamilton and Joseph O'Connor to Martin Amis. And, in accordance with the current surge in popularity of mystery fiction, there will be a plethora of crime writers, including Booker winner John Banville, who now lurks as crime writer Benjamin Black.

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12:00 AM | 0 comments

2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Random House New Zealand has proudly announced that five of their books are included in the nominations for the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

These are:
Drybread by Owen Marshall
Rocking Horse Road, by Carl Nixon
Lucky Bastard, by Peter Wells
Towards Another Summer, by Janet Frame
Mr. Allbone's Ferrets, by Fiona Farrell

This annual award is presented to a novel which, in the opinion of the judges, makes a lasting contribution to excellence in world literature, so it is a real scoop to be shortlisted. The nominations were submitted by libraries in major cities world wide.

I have yet to learn if other New Zealand publishers have books on the shortlist, as I can't find the shortlist on the internet! And I am ashamed to say that the only one of the five I have read is Mr Allbone's Ferrets by Fiona Farrell, which I loved for its superb research and "feel" of the English countryside. In fact, I wrote to Fiona, asking her to write a sequel, but she prevaricated.

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3:25 PM | 0 comments

Are the feminists losing their teenaged audience?

In an op-ed in the Washington Post today, Leonard Sax claims convincingly that the ultra-bestselling Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer "sinks its teeth into feminism."

The series is based on a love triangle between Bella, a pretty teenager, Edward, the gallant young vampire who adores her, and Jacob, the werewolf who is her best friend. While it has apparently taken off like Harry Potter, appearances are deceiving, because the series reaches a much narrower audience -- of teenaged girls and young women. And the message is a very old one, claimed long ago by Harlequin and Mills & Boon.

Unlike "Dora the Explorer," who can do anything a boy can do, Bella constantly needs to be rescued by her brave and muscular male friends. With her girlfriends, she bakes cookies, cooks dinners for the men, and holds all-girl slumber parties.

Naturally, feminist academics are concerned that girls should be such fans of books that communicate such oldfashioned gender stereotypes. As Sax argues, however, the premise of the series appeals to something deeper. "In my research on youth and gender issues," he says, "I have found that despite all the indoctrination they've received to the contrary, most of the hundreds of teenage girls I have interviewed in the United States, Australia and New Zealand nevertheless believe that human nature is gendered to the core. They are hungry for books that reflect that sensibility."

Boys, likewise, haven't resorted to baking cookies and holding all-male slumber parties. Instead, they are playing increasingly violent video games. A generation of grown-ups pretending that gender doesn't matter has simply created a growing gender divide.

I predict that now Stephanie Meyer has done so well by catering for the renewed passion for easily distinguished boys and girls, undoubtedly we can expect a rush of look-alikes, replete with knights in shining armor and gentle maidens.

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2:19 PM | 0 comments

Want to write a children's book?

Recent changes in the educational and children's book publishing industry is seeing Wellington emerge as the centre for this kind of publishing in New Zealand. A number of Auckland-based publishers of work for children have either merged or relocated to Australia.

Meanwhile, Learning Media and Mallinson Rendel in Wellington have recently been joined by Gecko, Gult Edge, South Pacific Press, and others. Of the 2,394 book titles published last year in New Zealand, 913 were educational and/or for children. Why not join the move?

For Wellington writers interested in developing careers as professional writers of children's books, taking the time to turn up to a lecture by Joy Cowley, New Zealand's most successful educational/children's book crossover writer, is highly recommended. On Monday, August 25, Joy is going to explain how to get into this field if you are not in it, already - and how to further develop your writing career, if you are. See her at the Upper Chamber, Toi Poneke, Wellington Arts Centre, 67-69 Abel Smith Street, at 7:30 pm. Entry $5 ($3 for NZSA/PEN members.)

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2:12 PM | 0 comments

Wellington needs a sonnet

The Wellington branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors has decided that Wellington needs a sonnet. So -- have you got what it takes to write fourteen lines lauding our beautiful city? You don't need to be a Wellingtonian or even a New Zealander. Send in an unpublished sonnet (or as many as you like) and you could be in to win one thousand kiwi dollars.

https://www.nzpost.co.nz/NR/rdonlyres/732ECF84-64B4-4CB1-8D25-0AFE7B47B7BC/0/WellingtonSonnetComp2008EntryForm.pdf

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8:41 PM | 0 comments

Can a book be a weapon of political assassination?

Four years after Unfit for Command helped derail John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, Jerome Corsi makes another sally with Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, and the New York Times gives it page one coverage.

Jim Rutenberg and Julie Bosman call the book the latest example of "an effective and favored delivery system for political attacks." They also home in on the lack of time that was given for proper fact checking prior to publication.

Various websites -- and over 200 reader reviews on amazon.com, ranging from rapturous to derisive -- are discussing the book. A common observation is that several of the author's accusations, for instance that Obama has still to say whether he stopped using drugs after college, "are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate."

Threshold publisher Mary Matalin insists that Obama Nation "was not designed to be, and does not set out to be, a political book," calling it, rather, "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that." (As we say in New Zealand, "Yeah, right.") Author Corsi describes his agenda in the simplest terms possible: "The goal is to defeat Obama. I don't want Obama to be in office."

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8:50 PM | 0 comments

Fantasies and miracles

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a writer for young adults, Clare Bell, produced a four-book fantasty series about sentient big cats in the prehistoric Miocene Age (20 million years ago) who try to build a civilization. Called The Named, it was quite popular, but was dropped after the fourth in the series, Ratha’s Creature.

But with the popularity of Erin Hunter’s The Warriors (a series about feral felines and their world), The Named started doing well in the used book market. Penguin noticed and decided to re-issue the series. They invited Clare to write a new book, and she cooperatively produced Ratha’s Courage.

But publishers are fickle things. By the time Clare had finished the book and the first galleys were produced, Penguin was less than enthused with the sales prospects. Before the book hit the press, they dropped it.

Enter Sheila Ruth of Imaginator Press, blogger for "Wands and Worlds", a very, very popular YA site, and also the creator of the Cybils, the independent award for YA fantasy. She didn’t want to see this wonderful series die, and so bought the North American rights to Ratha’s Courage. With the strength of the author’s marketing and community ties to the YA fantasy market, this could do very well for Imaginator and Clare.

Beagle Bay will distribute. http://www.beaglebay.com/rcncatpg.htm
http://www.imaginatorpress.com/
http://www.wandsandworlds.com/blog1/

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7:48 PM | 0 comments