The word on the street is that J.K. Rowling is writing a detective novel. According to a Yahoo! news story, a fellow writer spotted her in a cafe working on the new book:

The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling’s, as saying the creator of the "Harry Potter" books is turning to crime fiction.

For me, the interesting part of this story is the idea she’s still writing her novels in local cafes. I’m always very intrigued where writers chose to practice their craft. Of course, early on in Rowling’s career she wrote in the cafes more out of necessity than anything else:

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For most of us, fifty years is a long time. In the literary world, if a book is still being read and discussed fifty years later, then it’s probably sliding into the realm of a classic. One of those books is Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. A new version of the infamous novel will be released, and according to reports, this version will be uncut. According to a Yahoo! news article, the new release will be much more revealing:

Now, 50 years on, the tale of disaffected youth struggling to find a place in post-war America is to be re-released in its original form, unedited, cruder and more erotic, and with the real names of Kerouac’s traveling companions restored.

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According to a news report from Yahoo! famed author Stephen King was mistaken for a book vandal in Alice Springs Australia when he went into a local bookstore and started signing a few of his own books:

A customer at the store in remote Alice Springs raised the alarm after noticing a man walk in off the street and begin writing in several books, manager Bev Ellis told national radio.

The article continues:

"As the owner of a bookshop, when you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey (touchy)," Ellis said.

"So we immediately ran to the books and lo-and-behold here was the signature in several books. We sort of spun around on our heels, (saying) ‘where did he go, where did he go’?"

Luckily for the bookstore manager, she managed to track King down at the local  supermarket in the fruit and vegetable section.

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Reports are starting to circulate that famed author JK Rowling is already working on two of her first post-Harry Potter projects. But with her name being forever associated with the boy wizard, will Rowling ever be able to find success writing "other" books, perhaps in an entirely new genre?

Only time will give us that answer. The road won’t be easy, however. Readers and critics alike will scrutinize any future books she writes, and comparing them to the Harry Potter books will be unavoidable.

On the other hand, Rowling’s name commands enormous star power within the publishing community, so unless she really screws up, she could probably experiment with any genre she wants and chances are her book/s would be published. Not only that, but the first post-Harry Potter book she writes will probably sell pretty well, at least in the beginning. Readers will be so curious as to what the famous scribe has to say next, they will surely eat up her next book.

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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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