Poets & Writers has named Steve Berry, Rigoberto González, and Judith Kelman as the recipients of their annual Writers for Writers Awards. Berry is honored for his dedication to historic preservation of sites of literary importance; Kelman for founding Visible Ink, a writing program at Memorial Sloan Kettering; and González for championing Latina/o writers. Chuck Adams at Algonquin Books will receive their editor's award and Leonard Riggio will be honored with the organization's first leadership award "for his transformational impact on the field." The awards will presented at their annual gala on March 18.
Neil Gaiman will give a keynote speech at the London Book Fair's Digital Minds Conference.
Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Lethem and Esi Edugyan will judge the 2013 Giller Prize. Edugyan won the 2011 Giller for her most recent novel HALF-BLOOD BLUES; Atwood's next novel MADDADDAM will be published this fall, and would have otherwise been Giller-eligible, but will not be, the author confirmed on Twitter.
Potential bidders for Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC have been narrowed down to three "local" bidders, according to Paz & Associates' Mark Kaufman, who is assisting bookstore owner Nancy Olson with the sale. He told WRAL that the final bidders "could make offers within the next week, and a decision could be made by early April."
Scholastic unveiled the first of the new covers for all seven Harry Potter novels that will be re-released in September to mark the 15th anniversary of the publication of JK Rowling's series. Scholastic trade publisher Ellie Berger told USA Today that the new covers, designed by Kazu Kibuishi, aren't meant to replace the ones designed by Mary GrandPré (which will continue to be used on hardcover and mass market paperback editions) but that "we thought it was time for a fresh approach" for the trade paperbacks "as of a way of attracting the interest of a new generation of 8- and 9-year-olds who may know Harry mostly through the movies."
