Amy Hempel has won the $30,000 Rea Award for the Short Story. The judges said: “Amy Hempel is one of our masters of the dire emotional state rendered with an offhandedness that, combined with tenderness, results in fiction that’s at once dispassionate and compassionate.”
Amazon's UK POD Play
In April Amazon UK said they had “no plans” to bring BookSurge’s print-on-demand services to the UK, but they also hedged their bets by noting “we do not comment on future plans.” Now they have very concrete plans for a POD program, and the company says publishers who will participate include Harper UK, Cambridge University Press, Wiley, and Faber & Faber. Their ambition, according to vp of media Chris North, is “to bring hundreds of thousands of books to Amazon.co.uk’s customers that might never have otherwise been available.” The company has not disclosed their vendor for the printing, which will […]
More Cracks in Reed Sale; Children's Book Purchase Cancelled
As the hoped-for sale of Reed Business Information’s magazines limps to its third round, Reuters reports that one bank participating in the staple financing package of $1.26 billion has “backed off tentatively,” leaving a potential reduction of $200 in the loans on offer. With “only a few bidders remaining,” they are “re-examining offers amid increasing uncertainty” in credit markets.Reuters In other credit market victims, last week Learning Curve parent company RC2 announced it was canceling their planned acquisition of the children’s publishing division of Publications International. CEO Curt Stoelting said “recent shifts in the capital markets have impacted the availability […]
A New Addition to the Frankfurt Schedule
Next Thursday night at the Frankfurter Hof hotel, publishing colleagues will honor the late Tracy Howell by gathering for drinks and a raffle to benefit the Tracy Walker Howell Memorial Fund. The nonprofit is endowing a scholarship at Middlebury College, which Howell attended, for a student with an interest in literature to spend a year at the C.V. Starr-Middlebury School in Italy. Grand prizes include one-week stays at four vacation homes in Italy (donated by Uli Genzler and family); the Berkshires (given by Maria Campbell and family); Cape Cod (provided by Hal and Hart Fessenden); and Provence (donated by Alison […]
People
Matthew Lore has resigned as vp, executive editor at Da Capo Press/Da Capo Lifelong Books, in order to explore and pursue new publishing opportunities. Da Capo publisher John Radziewicz noted in a staff memo that Lore “joined the Avalon Publishing Group in 1998 and built Marlowe & Company into a major player in the wellness category…. When the Avalon Publishing Group joined the Perseus Books Group last year, Matthew was instrumental in the transition that made Marlowe a vital part of Lifelong.” Steve Troha has joined Vigliano Associates as an agent, “selectively signing” new clients and working with existing clients. […]
DFW's Memorial
The LAT reports from the memorial service on the campus of Pomona College for David Foster Wallace. Author Jonathan Franzen recall a conversation from last summer: “Tell me a story about how things will get better,” David Foster Wallace asked. Franzen says, “He was in a terrible and dangerous place as a man and a writer.” The story adds, “Wallace had stopped picking up the phone, Franzen said, his voice cracking, and entered a ‘well of infinite sadness.'” They also note that “Wallace’s students remembered the smiley faces he drew in the margins of their papers. Many commented on how […]