Happiness to mindfulness, via wellbeing: how publishing trends grow

From cod to colouring, fashions come and go in books. What do they tell us about our culture, and can we predict what’s next? After the long, wet winter, the season is finally on the turn. I know this partly because the instinct to hunker down in a nest of books is giving way to an urge to purge. As the weak spring sunshine straggles through the dust motes, it inevitably lands on heaps of unsorted books – among them eight volumes of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook.I’ve written before about my problems with literary decluttering. But who in their right mind would want to keep eight copies of a directory that barely changes from year to year except for the entries that are out of date? Well – sigh! – me. And here’s why. Many volumes ago, I was asked to write an essay on a literary editor’s life for this sturdy compendium of information for people aspiring to a writing career. While extolling the value of making lists, I wrote that it helped to spot the signs of new publishing trends. Related: Book festivals are worth far more than fees | Claire Armitstead Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-03-14 00:00:00 UTC ]

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I didn’t get the credit for my bestselling book: the secret life of the celebrity ghost writer

There’s nothing quite like finding six new releases on display in a bookstore – all of which you’ve written, and none of which has your name on itA few years back, a long-held dream of mine came true: a book I wrote became a runaway hit.You’ve probably read the book. You’ve definitely seen the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-03-11 14:00:31 UTC ]
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Music, history and courageous journalism: Baillie Gifford prize shortlist announced

Judges praise the final six ‘exquisite and ambitious’ works in contention for the £50,000 award for nonfictionBooks tackling climate change, China, the NHS, European revolutions, ballet and music feature on the shortlist for this year’s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction.The six-long list... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-10-08 19:00:48 UTC ]
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Robert Gottlieb obituary

American editor who worked with many celebrated authors including Anthony Burgess, Doris Lessing and Joseph HellerRobert Gottlieb, who has died age 92, was the outstanding literary editor of the second half of the 20th century. Among the renowned novelists he worked with were Doris Lessing, Toni... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-06-26 16:14:17 UTC ]
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On the Outsize Power of the Short Story (AKA the Genre of “High Genius”)

Story collections are the country cousins of the American publishing landscape, tolerated with benevolent condescension while their authors are urged to produce that more glamorous product: novels. A novel might find a broad audience, even become a bestseller! Whereas—as a writer friend once put... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-04-13 08:53:59 UTC ]
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In Wales, Swansea University’s Dylan Thomas Prize: The 2023 Shortlist

Work from Australia, Nigeria, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Somalia is on the Dylan Thomas Prize 2023 shortlist. By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson ‘Hugely Different in Style, Subject, and Genre’ arlier this month, the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

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Announcing The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist

The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award is given annually to the best work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish author of 35 or under. Here at the British Council, we're proud to work with the Prize to support the selected writers early in their... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2023-02-13 14:40:41 UTC ]
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“I Did Not Get Anywhere Until I Became a True Literary Citizen.” Courtney Maum on Making a Writing Career

I remember the first time I met Courtney Maum. It was nearly ten years ago, a spring or maybe summer day in Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens. We were both in our twenties, no books published yet, just a few free essays here and there, just starting our writing careers with the fierce intensity of Jack... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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Among the Literary Lions, at Full Roar, in the 1980s

In “Circus of Dreams,” the literary editor John Walsh writes about the bookish life in London when Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson and their generation were in the increasingly bright limelight. Continue reading at The New York Times

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Robert Peston: ‘I wore my favourite Gaultier coat to a party conference and somebody nicked it’

ITV’s political editor on coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, belatedly publishing his first novel, and why he longs for a lost EnglandITV’s political editor Robert Peston, 62, began his career as a print journalist and has broken a string of stories, including the Northern Rock bailout... Continue reading at The Guardian

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Announcing The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist

Photo credit: Nigel DaviesSunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award marks the 30th anniversary with one of it's most decorated shortlists to date:• Irish novelist Megan Nolan for her darkly funny debut novel Acts of Desperation;• US-based writer Anna Beecher for her novel... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2022-02-16 14:40:41 UTC ]
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Just so you know, there’s an 80s movie about Nicolas Cage as a vampiric publishing executive.

I’ve been on a real horror-comedy kick lately, so when I stumbled across Vampire’s Kiss on Amazon Prime (it’s my boyfriend’s account—don’t at me), I was immediately sold by the description: “After a night of passionate lovemaking in which he is bitten on the neck, a troubled literary editor... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

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Mentoring matters

I set up The Middle Way Mentoring Project, a two year professional development scheme, to support early-career writers take the next step in their writing career. Through my work managing a small press I met plenty of ‘nearly there’ writers who weren’t able to take the next step. These writers... Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Virtually Together: The Rise of Digital Book Festivals

In the face of COVID-19, many book festivals have moved online. Here's what's worked, what hasn't, and what the future might hold for them. Continue reading at Book Riot

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Body conscious

It’s no secret that I have Type 1 Diabetes. I’ve written about dating while diabetic, and made lists of things not to say to someone chronically ill. My latest novel, Lesser Journeys, explores the life of an architect with an autoimmune disorder, as she aims to determine the best way to leave... Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Love and Courage, or On Being a Literary Editor in Today’s Istanbul: A Conversation with Mustafa Çevikdoğan and Mehmet Erte

ISTANBUL HAS BEEN a hub for literary publishing since the late-19th-century Tanzimat era. But what does it mean to be a literary editor in Istanbul today? I sat down with Mustafa Çevikdoğan and Mehmet Erte to address this question, among others. Erte is the editor-in-chief of the oldest and... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

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Author Christie Watson appointed UEA professor

Costa Award-winning author Christie Watson, who worked a registered nurse for 20 years before her writing career, has been appointed professor of medical and health humanities at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-27 23:05:45 UTC ]
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The Trump administration’s terrible record on coronavirus data

Recently, the Trump administration told hospitals to stop sharing data on COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, hospitals were to share information with a private company contracted by the Department of Human and Health... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

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Horror Has Become Normal: An Interview with Gish Jen

BORN IN 1955, raised by Chinese immigrant parents in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Scarsdale, New York, Gish Jen started writing poetry in seventh grade. By high school, she’d become literary editor of her school magazine — and after fellow members of the creative writing club nicknamed her... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

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Lockdown diary: the literary editor

I was in Paris when Covid-19 became a reality. It was the weekend of 21st February and I was there for a quick family reunion: my older brother was in the French capital on a work trip, my parents had taken a train from our hometown of Turin, Italy, and I had joined them from London on the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

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