The National Book Foundation has expanded the eligibility for the National Book Awards. Previously, authors had to hold US citizenship to be considered, but now authors who maintain primary, long-term residency in the US, US territories, or Tribal lands will also be eligible for the prizes. Additionally, the foundation will sunset its petition process, which offered eligibility to authors actively pursuing, or unable to pursue, US citizenship, but which they say was a “procedural hurdle” for authors. The new criteria go into effect on March 13. Ruth Dickey, executive director of the NBF, said in a release, “The Foundation is […]
Archives for February 2024
Hugo Awards Were Influenced By Political Concerns, Report Finds
The 2023 Hugo Awards were influenced by Chinese “political concerns,” as decided by Western awards administrators, according to a report published on Genre Grapevine and File 770. In January, nominating statistics were released, noting that some works and authors were inexplicably “not eligible” for awards. The news spurred a firestorm of criticism, including from R.F. Kuang and Neil Gaiman, both of whom were marked as ineligible for their respective awards. The top Hugos administrator Dave McCarty, who took responsibility for the eligibility decisions but did not explain them, was subsequently censured by the awards governing body, and resigned. The Hugo […]
People 2/15
KKR’s “Base Case” Is to Own Simon & Schuster for Five to Seven Years
Bloomberg Television interviewed KKR co-head of global private equity Pete Stavros and Simon & Schuster ceo Jonathan Karp recently. Asked how long KKR plans to own S&S before exiting, Stavros noted, “We’ve owned business for 20 years before. It takes as long as it takes….” Primarily, however, “Our base case would be this is five, six, seven years. We’ve got a bunch of things we want to accomplish. Maybe it becomes a great public company some day; we’ll see. We’re not in a hurry.” Stavros suggested a leaner supply chain is part of their strategy: “Foreacasting demand for a new […]
Judge Dismisses Parts of Author Suits Against OpenAI
Ninth Circuit District Court Judge Aracelli Martinez-Olguin in California dismissed four of the more technical counts brought by authors against OpenAI in multiple lawsuits. The decision follows other rulings in being skeptical that the output of generative AI—even if it is significantly similar to an original work—is a violation of the creator’s copyright. Notably, however, the foundational claim—that training OpenAI on a massive corpus of copyrighted works without permission violates copyright—was not challenged at this stage, and will proceed. Also notable is that Judge Martinez-Olguin did allow another important claim of the plaintiffs to go forward, which is the allegation […]
Bloomsbury Invests in Fantasy as Maas Drives Results
Bloomsbury released a brief trading update for the year ending February 29, further expecting sales to be “significantly ahead” of market expectations that were revised upwards in December to £291.4 million and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £37.2 million. The success is thanks to Sarah J. Maas’s HOUSE OF FLAME AND SHADOW, which hit number 1 in the US, UK, Australia, and elsewhere when it was published on January 30, as well as her 15-title backlist. As such, “Bloomsbury is investing further in fantasy writing on the newly launched Bloomsbury General list.” “I am overjoyed to report an […]