Cultural Cross Sections Elena Poniatowska In this column that originally appeared in La Jornada, Elena Poniatowska considers the role of editors and talks with Diego Rabasa, founder of publisher Sexto Piso. Already precarious, the pandemic lockdown has made the plight of independent publishers and bookstores in Mexico in light of Covid-19 even more acute. To be an editor is to answer the call of the gods. It’s a vocation, a ministry, an immense privilege, to enter the Olympus of literature. To be an editor is to pick those who have talent and launch them. To be a publisher is to foretell: this one will make it. It’s also to disappoint and reject. I recall the Dutch printer Alexander Stolz in Mexico holding out to me his exquisite edition of Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe, as if it were a diamond, at the Fondo de Cultura Económica, and the paternal care that Arnaldo Orfila Reynal took with the anguished palavering of Fernando del Paso. To be an editor is to be a psychologist and to be bewildered as to how to treat each creature-author. Vicente Rojo was my editor, and we have loved each other deeply since, but I never gave him trouble. What must that genius from Pachuca named Yuri Herrera be like? What’s his soft spot? I have to handle Carlos Montemayor with kid gloves because he’s unpredictable. Federico Alvarez, director of the FCE in Spain, told me that seeing Elena Garro and Helena Paz enter the FCE in Madrid was like falling into... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-03 21:05:48 UTC ]
Semicolon—a vibrant new bookstore, community space, and gallery for Chicago’s street art scene—opened its doors on Tuesday with a party and mural unveiling. The store is just one of a handful of woman-owned bookstores in Chicago and its only bookstore owned by a black woman. An author... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-12 15:33:15 UTC ]
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In a popular trope present most often in YA novels, a character finds a secret key to another world. The key is rarely literal. More often, it’s an action as banal and everyday as leaning against a train platform barrier, walking into a phone booth, or looking for a winter coat in the back of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-12 11:02:44 UTC ]
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The most prolific man in letters, James Patterson, has bestowed upon 20 UK booksellers the Young Bookseller Special Achievement Award in recognition of their “talent and extraordinary contribution to the bookselling industry.” Bestselling author/philanthropist Patterson (whose has sold somewhere... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-11 16:06:23 UTC ]
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James Patterson has awarded 20 booksellers the Young Bookseller Special Achievement Award, in recognition of their "outstanding" work. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-10 19:15:12 UTC ]
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The international bookstore chain adds seven stores run directly by Kinokuniya after the company merges with its US gift and stationery subsidiary chain. The post Japan’s Kinokuniya Merges Its US Stores With Its Stationery Subsidiary appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-07-10 02:09:35 UTC ]
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For years, I had been hearing about a secret bookstore on the Upper East Side, run by the owner out of his apartment. I thought that you could show up only in the company of a regular attendee. (I would later learn that this was not true, that Michael was, as he liked to say […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-09 20:01:37 UTC ]
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Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer. She’s an editorial assistant at a literary imprint, but the office seems far friendlier to WASP-y men than to Jewish women like her. When her boss’s star writer, the longtime New Yorker reporter Henry Gray, invites Eve to spend the summer of 1987 as his research... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-09 14:00:32 UTC ]
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Penguin Random House has acquired the UK and Commonwealth rights to the novelisation of ‘The Prom’, a musical and film that launches on Netflix next year, written by Saundra Mitchell. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-09 10:57:52 UTC ]
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Awesome daily roundup of the most interesting bookish links from around the web. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-07-09 10:30:07 UTC ]
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A new class of 40 'Rising Stars' in the UK publishing industry is named by The Bookseller, in association with sponsor Frankfurter Buchmesse. The post The Bookseller Names 2019 Rising Stars; Pan Mac’s Laura Ricchetti is the ‘Shooting Star’ appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-07-09 05:35:30 UTC ]
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Michael Seidenberg, the beloved owner of New York City's Brazenhead Books, has died. In his later years, Seidenberg ran the bookstore out of his apartment, attracting the city's literati and bookworms. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-07-09 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In its arrangement with PRH India, Canada’s Wattpad will introduce some of the publisher’s writers to Wattpad readers, rather than generating content from the platform. By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson Introducing Indian Writers to Wattpad Users eeping up its brisk rate of... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-07-08 15:35:12 UTC ]
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Since its launch 25 years ago, Amazon's reach has extended well beyond an online bookstore. And while it may seem obvious today, at the time Jeff Bezos was working to get his idea to the masses, many investors thought it would be no match for bookstore giants like Borders and Barnes &... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-07-08 11:14:14 UTC ]
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Since its launch 25 years ago, Amazon's reach has extended well beyond an online bookstore. And while it may seem obvious today, at the time Jeff Bezos was working to get his idea to the masses, many investors thought it would be no match for bookstore giants like Borders and Barnes and... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-07-08 10:53:45 UTC ]
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Since its launch 25 years ago, Amazon's reach has extended well beyond an online bookstore. And while it may seem obvious today, at the time Jeff Bezos was working to get his idea to the masses, many investors thought it would be no match for bookstore giants like Borders and Barnes and... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-07-08 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Expanding its partnership with Book Aid International during its 140th year, the Blackwell's bookstore chain is auctioning four signed editions. The post Book Aid International Benefits from Blackwell’s Auction appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-07-08 05:30:25 UTC ]
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EVERY YEAR, IT SEEMS, we receive a new diagnosis regarding the viability of books in the digital age: print is dead, print is back, the bookstore is dead, bookstores are back. The nostalgia for and anxiety about print is often reactive, hinting at other anxieties about feeling lonely and... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-06 19:00:22 UTC ]
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Since its launch 25 years ago, Amazon's reach has extended well beyond an online bookstore. And while it may seem obvious today, at the time Jeff Bezos was working to get his idea to the masses, many investors thought it would be no match for bookstore giants like Borders and Barnes and... Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal
[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2019-07-05 17:38:09 UTC ]
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For the most part, publishing industry stocks have fallen out of favor with investors, and that look likely to change anytime soon. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-07-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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PRH Children's m.d. Francesca Dow hailed Puffin’s “great new adventure in non-fiction” and the importance of literary adaption and evolution at Penguin Random House Children’s Summer Party at the Natural History Museum last night. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-03 20:23:37 UTC ]
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