Charles Simic has been named the 15th Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress. Along with the title, he will receive an $35,000 award, plus $5000 for travel expenses. The post, which is largely ceremonial, is meant to give the poet a chance to work on his/her craft during the year-long tenure.

You can read all about Simic and his new job at this Guardian Unlimited article:
Charles Simic named US poet laureate

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Have you ever wondered if well-known, classic authors would be able to get published today? One man attempted to find out for himself. David Lassman tried an experiment where he would send out manuscripts of some of Jane Austen’s most timeless work, with a few minor changes. The experiment’s premise is that in todays publishing world, where blockbusters and marketability are everything, someone like Austen wouldn’t stand a chance of landing a publishing contract. Here’s what happened:

After making only minor changes, he sent off opening chapters and plot synopses to 18 of the UK’s biggest publishers and agents. He was amazed when they all sent the manuscripts back with polite but firm "no-thank-you’s" and almost all failed to spot that he was ripping off one of the world’s most famous literary figures.

Now remember that Jane Austen isn’t only known to the literary elite. And as the article from the Guardian Unlimited points out, her books have withstood the test of time and have sold millions of copies. Not to mention all the movie adaptations made from her writing. Jane Austen is definitely a literary powerhouse.

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JK Rowling, Stephen King – these names usually bring up images of bestselling authors who seem to have the publishing world wrapped around their fingers. Yet many, also consider the two the "crack" of the literary world, or at the very least, comparable to a gateway drug.

While many criticize Potter and King because they appear to be able to sell an unnatural amount of books, there is no doubt that because of the two, countless people have taken up reading and never looked back.

Melissa Fryer, who is the art editor for the Nanaimo News Bulletin, became hooked on reading after picking up a Stephen King book:

I became a serious reader of more adult-oriented books at about Grade 6, giving up Jessica, Elizabeth and their world at Sweet Valley High. I love the feel of new books; the smooth cover and tightly packed pages, so when I saw Four Past Midnight in the supermarket, I bought it.

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I really need to keep up with the news better. Richard Rorty, philosopher and literary theorist, died on Friday and I just read about it today on the New York Times website. This little snippet from the article does a good job summing Rorty up:

Mr. Rorty’s enormous body of work, which ranged from academic tomes to magazine and newspaper articles, provoked fervent praise, hostility and confusion. But no matter what even his severest critics thought of it, they could not ignore it. When his 1979 book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" came out, it upended conventional views about the very purpose and goals of philosophy. The widespread notion that the philosopher’s primary duty was to figure out what we can and cannot know was poppycock, Mr. Rorty argued. Human beings should focus on what they do to cope with daily life and not on what they discover by theorizing.

Of course there’s much more to Rorty than this article can contain. Many of the philosophy and literature classes I took in high school touched on his theories, but I never did and "in-depth" study of his works, so I’m afraid I can’t go into much detail there.

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He beat out the likes of Philip Roth and Margaret Atwood to win the Man Booker International Prize. Nigeria author Chinua Achebe took that honor. On June 28, he will be presented with 60,000pounds in Oxford. Not bad for a man who is paralyzed from the waist down. Achebe’s most well known work is his debut novel Things Fall Apart (aff link).

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Even during the Renaissance, writers knew that sex and violence were the way to make money. So much so that when I get around to writing it, I’m going to put together a multi-series piece about sex in Renaissance literature and how things written back then would make a lot of people blush today.

But I’m diverging from my topic. I came across an interesting article on cnn.com about a woman, who out of boredom, started writing erotica in her spare time. Given the subject matter, and given the public’s insatiable appetite for sex, she soon developed a healthy following on the internet. That initial success lead to a book deal and the rest is, as they say, history.

According to the article she has some 2.7 million books in print, and she is also a publisher, running Strebor Books (an imprint of Simon and Schuster). All this from a woman who calls herself Zane (her pen name) and one who never planned on being an author.

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The results are in and the winners of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize have been announced today. The big winner in the fiction category is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. For poetry, it’s Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey. I send my personal congratulations to all the winners in all the categories!

For a complete list of winners, check out the Pulitzer Prize website here:
2007 Pulitzer Prize Winners

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In a previous post I wrote called 10 Ways to Jumpstart Your Writing  I talked about ways to get ideas for your writing. Inspiration is all around us and how you get your "creative juices" flowing is as much a matter of personal choice as the clothes you wear.

One of my favorite topics to read about other, more well-known authors is just that, how they get their juices going. Do they sit at their desk waiting for inspiration to strike? Probably not. But I came across this article from the Guardian Unlimited that chronicles a few well-known authors and their methods for inspiration – which includes everything from a squeaky chair to holding an axe in a hand!

Like I said, methods vary wildly. Something that would drive me crazy while trying to write (ie. a noisy bar full of drunks) might be just the perfect atmosphere for another writer to pound out a novel in record time. Finding your method of inspiration is all about discovery – you need to find what works well for you. A lot of it seems to boil down to being comfortable.

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Tragically, Kurt Vonnegut has died. But the good news is that his writing will live on for generations to come, perhaps inspiring younger would-be writers to keep plugging away and putting pen to paper. He certainly inpsired people before, an entire generation of young ones grew up under his influence and many writers credit Vonnegut with inspiring them to keep writing.

I feel sad for saying this, but I am unfamiliar with Vonnegut’s work. I haven’t read Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat’s Cradle or any of his other works. Apparently, I have missed something good:

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I woke up this morning to the news that literary legend Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. Vonnegut is the author of such works as "Cat’s Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse-Five". He was a very prolific writer, with well over a dozen novels to his name and countless short stories and essays.

You can read news coverage of his death here:
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at age 84