A libel suit brought by a former Oklahoma district attorney against author John Grisham and Doubleday for the book THE INNOCENT MAN (as well as Barry Scheck, an attorney, and two other authors who wrote books about the same murder case in which two men were wrongfully convicted) was dismissed by Judge Ronald White. The AP says “the judge wrote that it was important to be able to analyze and criticize the judicial system ‘so that past mistakes do not become future ones. The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor.”AP
Authors
Posthumous DFW? Not Likely
David Foster Wallace’s agent Bonnie Nadell tells the Observer: “People are asking us, ‘Is there anything unpublished? Is there anything sitting in a drawer?’ But David was very fortunate, in that everything he wrote got published and published well.” But there are two short pieces of fiction (which ran in The New Yorker and Harper’s) that Wallace once said were from “something longer that isn’t even close to halfway finished yet.” But Nadell says, “Have I read the larger thing? No. And I don’t think anyone’s gonna read it.”Observer
The Patterson Business
There’s no question that one segment of the publishing industry–the James Patterson business–remains thriving. The UK’s Independent has him “on target to sell more than 20m books in the US alone” this year, with 10 original Patterson titles launching in the UK during 2008. Patterson tells the paper: “There is a kind of Mickey Mouse way of looking at brands. In particular in the States, a lot of the publishing houses are lost in the Middle Ages, they really don’t have a clue. I remember initially it was like, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to hurt the brand by doing […]
On DFW
As covered this weekend, author David Foster Wallace, 46, was found dead in his Claremont, CA home on Friday night, having hanged himself. Pomona College, where he was the Roy E. Disney professor of creative writing at Pomona College, will hold a memorial service. Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch tells the NYT, “He had a mind that was constantly working on more cylinders than most people, but he was amazingly gentle and kind. He was a writer who other writers looked to with awe.”LATNYT The NYT followed today with a second obituary, this time with some insights from Wallace’s father […]
Agatha Christie Speaks
Chorion, the company that controls the Agatha Christie estate, is announcing the recent discovery of 13 hours of audiotapes made by the author in the early 60s, found “in a dusty cardboard box in one of hero former houses by her only grandson, Mathew Prichard.” The material was eventually used in her autobiography, published posthumously in 1977. Chorion is using the occasion (timed to coincide with the 118th anniversary of her birth) to suggest that they might update that book: “There are bits and pieces of the autobiography that could be reviewed, in light of listening to the tapes.” Christie’s […]
Rowling Wins over RDR, but Judge's Ruling Is Mixed
Judge Robert Patterson agreed that author JK Rowling would face irreparable harm from RDR Books’ proposed publication of the HARRY POTTER LEXICON and ruled in her favor in the copyright infringement suit brought by Rowling and Warner Bros. Patterson said the publisher “had failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use” and issued a permanent injunction against publication–but since the book had not been issued yet, he awarded minimum statutory damages of $6,750. In the full opinion, Patterson walks a fine line through the nuanced arguments made in the case. He acknowledges that “reference works that share the Lexicon’s […]