Drawing on her panoramic reading and her experiences of the authorly life cycle, Atwood surveys her trade with a mix of seriousness and gentle fun“You may find the subject a little peculiar,” warns Margaret Atwood, before she discusses the writer’s relationship with mortality. “It is a little peculiar. Writing itself is a little peculiar.” Atwood’s survey of her profession makes this seem like an understatement: after all, she argues, writers have been placed in close company with the devil and the dead; they have secret identities and hidden doubles; they are death-defying magicians, self-erasing nobodies, even – if you want to get “murky and pretentious” – shamanistic travellers. This book prefers to stay on the side of clarity and self-deprecation, combining evidence drawn from her panoramic reading – one chapter deals with The Tempest, The Wizard of Oz and Klaus Mann’s Mephisto – with her own experiences of the life cycle of an author. She tempers the seriousness of her questions – What is a writer? For whom do writers write? – by poking gentle fun at her trade, describing the machine-like publishing industry as “cog eat cog”, and quietly mocking endless discussion panels. Yet Atwood sees her kind reflected everywhere – from Gilgamesh to The Beast With Five Fingers – and works hard on their behalf: advocate, analyst and always, writer.•To order On Writers and Writing for £7.99 (RRP £9.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
I May Destroy You skewers the weirdness of fandom and captures just how terrifying the publishing industry can beMichaela Coel’s critically acclaimed new TV series I May Destroy You (BBC One), the journey of a young woman uncovering and trying to deal with sexual trauma, is a show that I fall... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-11 07:00:06 UTC ]
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The past few months have restricted physical access to bookshops, interrupted supply chains and created a raft of logistical complexities for the publishing industry. Even with restrictions easing, traditional consumer marketing and PR are trickier to execute safely. However, our data at The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-07 15:24:03 UTC ]
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The board of directors at Ebony has removed CEO Willard Jackson, the magazine said Sunday, citing an ongoing independent investigation into "a number of transactions that Jackson led." A co-founder and vice chairman of Clear View Group (CVG), the private equity firm that acquired Ebony from... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2020-07-06 17:59:58 UTC ]
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The Spanish publishing industry has gained new clarity on where it stands with the government and is ratcheting up its demands for pendemic assistance. The post Coronavirus Impact: Spain’s Publishers Open a Two-Front Strategy appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-07-06 13:44:10 UTC ]
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There’s no doubt COVID-19 has forever changed the world as we know it. A small slice of life that had to shift trajectory is the publishing industry. Debut authors are especially struggling as the books they have worked on for countless years are released into a world without in-person book... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-06-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A group of B2B publishers and ad tech firms are banding together to curtail the harvesting of publisher-specific data from online ad auctions by third-parties, a practice they argue is an unauthorized breach which places their relationships with their audiences at risk. Referred to as data... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2020-06-17 21:29:40 UTC ]
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The social media campaign could force publishers to focus on black writers by encouraging readers to buy their booksCould the New York Times’ Best Seller book list ever be filled entirely by black authors?As industries undergo reckonings around race, in the wake of international demonstrations... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-17 10:00:17 UTC ]
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I want to acknowledge that my experience as a South Asian is not the same as those of Black people in this country. Although it’s important to note that we may have some shared experiences, the current BLM protests are about Black Lives, and it’s crucial to know the difference. However, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-15 19:31:29 UTC ]
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As Black Lives Matter protests take place across the world, the publishing world is rushing to support those ‘ignored by the mainstream’. Who is the mainstream, then?The publishing industry is stilted and archaic. I worked in it for seven years, and left due to reasons I can’t legally talk... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-11 09:44:22 UTC ]
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I am a Black author and publisher in an industry that is dominated by white people. Black Lives Matter is not a hashtag. It is a movement that will carry on until we have seen real change. It is being said time and time again but there is still not enough representation in the publishing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-11 01:22:51 UTC ]
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Author Dorothy Koomson has written an open letter to the publishing industry, in which she describes it as a “hostile environment for Black authors”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-10 06:37:48 UTC ]
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Frontline booksellers are the first people customers see when they set foot in bookstores across America, and are among the most vulnerable workers in the publishing industry. This is what their world looks like now. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Cultural Cross Sections Taylor Hickney In this profile, one of Marie-Helene Bertino’s students at the New School provides a personal glimpse of the author, whose new novel, Parakeet, was published June 2. On the evening of the National Book Awards,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-04 19:40:55 UTC ]
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Asking consumers to remember what booksellers mean to them, Spain's publishing industry associations roll out a campaign to reopen book retailers. The post Coronavirus Response: Spain’s Publishing Industry Mobilizes Bookstore Support appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-06-04 13:07:04 UTC ]
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Pandemic Dispatches 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... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-03 21:05:48 UTC ]
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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... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-03 21:05:48 UTC ]
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Today sees the launch of South Asian LitFest, a free, live online festival I've created to show celebrate and showcase authors both from the subcontinent and the diasporic South Asian writing community around the world. Why do we need it? Well, even as the publishing industry talks about... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-27 22:25:54 UTC ]
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Having dropped up to 2.5 million units in its worst 'acute COVID period' week, Kristin McLean says the US publishing industry needs to assess, predict, and harden weak spots for challenges ahead. The post NPD’s Kristen McLean on the US Industry: Weathering the Pandemic appeared first on... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-05-27 12:33:49 UTC ]
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Recently, a colleague experienced an irksome response from a coworker when she could not meet with him at short notice. She felt frustrated that he seemed to show little compassion or understanding when she’s currently balancing a full-time job and homeschooling two young children. She’s not... Continue reading at Publishing Executive
[ Publishing Executive | 2020-05-27 12:00:06 UTC ]
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The Amazon Literary Partnership has announced $1 million in grant funding to 66 organizations across the publishing industry. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-05-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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