July 30, 2004

No, no, no. Go Left!

David Edelstein's Slate article "They Distort, We Deride," is subtitled "A pair of pugnacious documentaries takes on the right-wing propaganda machine." But then someone decided to switch directions, and, on Slate's front page, the article is billed with the line "More Infuriating, Delightful Left-Wing Propaganda."

Daily Khouri Update

NPR has an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald's Malcom Knox, who first broke the story that the events described in the book never took place. Knox brings up an excellent point, which I don't think has received enough attention: Khouri had alleged that as many as 5,000 women were victims of honor killings in Jordan, making it sound as part of mainstream culture, when in fact the number is a few dozen cases, mostly on the fringes. There's a lot of other discrepancies discussed in the audio clip.

9-11 Report: Non-Fiction Thriller?

They say the best non-fiction reads like fiction, and so it is with the 9-11 Commission Report. David Ignatius recommends thinking of it as a thriller:

And deservedly so. For in its meticulous compilation of fact, the report makes the horrors of 9/11 even more shocking. Try to read the story as a narrative, a nonfiction thriller in which the characters move inexorably toward the cataclysm of that cloudless morning. The strength of the report is precisely in its narrative power; by telling all the little stories, it reveals the big story in a different way. We see the bland evil of the plotters, the Hamlet-like indecision of government officials, the bravery amid chaos of the firefighters.

The SF Chronicle's David Kipen also looks at the book from a literary point of view, and he says, "This is no thriller (...) The 9-11 report resembles a thriller about as much as life does."

Washington Post link via Stephany, guesting at Maud.

Go Out and Buy It

Amazon.co.uk is refusing to sell Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud, which seems rather odd, since its American parent company does in fact stock it. And, the Guardian explains,

In theory if someone in Britain buys the book from the American site the company still could be taken to court in Britain, because a litigant could argue that it had effectively sold the book in the UK.

But the British site persists in its decision, saying only that it made it due to "legal reasons."

Ink for Blog Hoaxes

The NY Times' Daniel Terdiman reports on a hilarious blog hoax, a blogspot journal supposedly written by Bill Clinton. In addition to Clinton's blog, Terdiman cites a whole slew of others:

A variety of hoaxes have spiced up the so-called blogosphere. Among them are Andy Kaufman Returns (andykaufmanreturns .blogspot.com), in which an unidentified writer purports to be the eccentric comedian, reappearing 20 years after his death; Rance (captainhoof.tripod.com/blog), the musings of an anonymous Hollywood star; and Jane's Blog (jane.blogs.com), the daily diary of a starry-eyed, oversexed young woman in Los Angeles who turns out to be a fictional character on the Oxygen TV sitcom "Good Girls Don't."

I actually got a few hits from Jane's Blog last week (?!)

Ink for Lit Blogs

MG friends Mark Sarvas and Carrie A.A. Frye are mentioned in this Post Bulletin article about blogging.

July 29, 2004

In Praise of Pedro Páramo

Over at Le Monde, Tahar Ben Jelloun writes about Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo, a book he likens to a faithful friend, someone you can be yourself with, in complete freedom.

They're Too Busy Double-Checking Economic Migrants

In yet another weird development from the Norma Khouri case, the Australian press is reporting that the author allegedly went to Australia to escape an FBI investigation for fraud. Khouri's publisher had supported her application to settle in Australia under the "Distinguished Talent" category, but the Immigration Department never discovered her previous entanglements with the law here in the States.

It's Called M'awna.

Interesting article in the Daily Star about the phenomenon of foreign workers' remittances in Morocco. A recent study by the IMF finds that money sent or brought to Morocco by its immigrants in Europe and elsewhere is now reaching about 9% of its GDP, with top reasons being "attachment to the homeland" and "altruistic motives." However, the report warns,

With workers' remittances largely flowing into construction activity and only a small portion going to the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises, it is clear, Bougha-Hagbe says, that Morocco is not yet taking full advantage of the skills of the younger generations, who are not only highly qualified but also more likely to be entrepreneurs.

Read the article here (and scroll down for the second portion.)

(Almost) Straight to Screen

Literary agency Curtis Brown is setting up its own film development division, in order to promote screen projects for its writers.

Variety reports that Curtis Brown, one of Europe's oldest and largest agencies, has set up Cuba Pictures in order to help its clients "maintain more control" over the early stages of screen development. The division will, for example, produce first drafts itself before taking them to other financiers for further development.

So maybe Aleksandar Hemon wasn't completely off his rocker when he spoke of books that want to be movies.

Birnbaum & Heller

Robert Birnbaum talks to Zoe Heller about nasty reviews, Mario Van Peebles, Mary Kay LeTourneau, readers, and other assorted topics. And the lovely Maud gets name-checked.

Mizna 6.1

The Summer issue of Mizna is now available. It's devoted to the late Edward Said, and contains articles, poems, and fiction by Najla Said, Mohja Kahf, Nathalie Handal, Susan Muaddi Darraj and others.

For Readers in Dublin

Check out the First Dead Drunk Dublin Festival.

July 28, 2004

Royalty-Free Windfall

The 9/11 Commission Report has sold an estimated 350,000 copies since its release last week. And W.W. Norton didn't have to organize publicity tours or pay authors. The NY Times' Edward Wyatt explains how the book was printed and shipped in just four days, and how other publishers are also trying to cash in on the windfall. Of course, you can also find the report online, for free.

Doesn't Explain the Villains' French Names, But OK

J.K. Rowling says that she recently made the "chilling" discovery that the distinctions she drew between "half-blood," "pure-blood," and "muggles" characters in the Harry Potter series were similar to those drawn by the Nazis. The Scotsman has all the details.

Hello Laziness

A good case of follow your own advice:

Those who dedicate their professional lives to idleness should do so with discretion if they hope to keep their jobs. This is one useful message in Hello Laziness - The Art and the Importance of Doing the Least Possible at the Workplace, an anarchic anti-business bible published in France. It is advice the author, Corinne Maier, a senior economist at Electricité de France, failed to follow. She faces a disciplinary hearing next month, accused of attempting to "rot the system from within".

Maier's supporters are saying that EDF is threatening her right to free speech.

Stories on the Web

For reasons I can't quite figure out, the CS Monitor devotes a full article to reviewing Short Stories at East of the Web, a British repository of short stories across many genres (humor, crime, sci-fi, classic and contemporary, mostly Anglo-centric.) The Monitor praises the site for its ease of navigation, and offers a complete guide to what you'll find there. Short story databases abound, and one I visit semi-regularly is Short Story Classics, which has an impressive database that even includes a few of the Russian, French, Spanish, and Japanese masters. The rest of the world needs its own story database.

Satire a la Syrian

The Lebanese Daily Star has a review of The Night Baghdad Fell, a satirical play by playwright (and engineer) Houmam Al-Hout, which is showing to sold-out crowds in Syria and will soon move to Beirut and Cairo.

The Al-Jazeera newsreader speaks frantically of occupiers entering Iraq. The seductively attired Lebanese anchorwoman warns soldiers not to forget to apply tanning oil under the scorching Iraqi sun. If they're killed, at least they'll look good at the funeral. The US newsreader dons a cowboy hat and hee-haws promises of liberation and democratic change.

The play is said to be popular particularly because of its criticism of corruption of problems in Arab societies: corruption, disengagement, and economic failures, though it steers clear of direct criticism of the Syrian president.

Lit Stammers

Stuttering is said to affect one in every 100 people, and although it's no longer "cured" with leeches on the lips, no one really knows why it happens or how to stop it.

However, for the stammerer who wishes to express himself without the risks inherent in speech, there is an obvious alternative: writing. On the page, even the most unruly words can be brought into line, so it may be no coincidence that many of the finest writers have suffered from a stammer: Lewis Carroll, Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham, Aldous Huxley, Elizabeth Bowen, Philip Larkin, Henry James, Charles Kingsley, Leigh Hunt, Margaret Drabble, and many more.

From this observation, it's only a short leap to the conclusion that James' "snaking sentences, full of measured subclauses and self-qualifications" may have had something to do with his stammering.

July 27, 2004

Movie About Reading

Publishers' Marketplace reports that film rights to Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran have been sold. The memoir is to be made into a movie, with Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo to star.

A Reminder: Be Afraid

Oh, and stock up on bottled water.

Scam Update

Norma Khouri has yet to speak up to defend the allegations made last week by Malcom Knox that she completely fabricated her best-selling memoir about her "friend" Dalia, a Muslim woman killed by her Jordanian father for her relationship with a Christian man. Knox, who first broke the story, reports that Khouri has "fled her Bribie Island home" and that her publisher, Random House, has withdrawn the book from sale. One of her neighbors, though, says that "she's sure [the book] is all true." Yeah, and I'm sure all Australians are boisterous crocodile hunters.

Hemon on Novels

Aleksandar Hemon's review of Daniel Wagner's A Movie...and a Book, which calls the novel "the worst book I have ever voluntarily read," is being compared to Dale Peck's (in)famous take-down of Rick Moody. Hemon isn't just upset with this novel; he makes a compelling case for why any novel written with the movie "adaptation" in mind doesn't make for very good literature. I must say I have sympathy for Hemon's more general argument, though I suspect this review (like Peck's) will be remembered for its first line. And, of course, now I actually want to read the book myself.

NYBTR Reviews

Although bloggers had many good wishes for the Tanenhaus-directed NYBTR, their patience is wearing thin. Both CR and TEV have posted rants about the NYBTR's fiction coverage. CR, in particular, touches on an issue dear to my heart: the paucity of reviews/attention given to foreign literature. Says CR:

And -- ah, we can't help ourselves -- foreign literature ? We had to go back four issues, to that of 4 July, to find any review of a book originally written in a foreign language (in the "Books in Brief" section) -- and back another two issues, to the 20 June issue, to find a full-length review of any book originally written in a foreign language (there were two; predictably, they were both works of non-fiction). All the protestations we heard when the search was on for the McGrath-successor that Sam and the whole NYT gang love fiction look more and more like junior Bush-administration-type spin. Week after week, the NYTBR proves otherwise. Sure, there's token coverage -- but right now it doesn't look much more than token.

Mark's comments take the form of an open letter to Tanenhaus, which concludes thus:

For the record, NYTBR isn't Foreign Affairs; nor is it The New Republic; nor is it any other political journal. It's a review of books - I know 'cause it says so in the title.

Depressing, to be sure. But the space being vacated can (and is) used by bloggers.

Early Tuesday Silliness

Mine was 640 (um, 97th percentile.) OK, now where's my book deal?

July 23, 2004

Off to Miami

That's it for me this week. I'm off to visit family in Miami. Regreso enseguida.

I Wish I Could Say I'm Surprised

Last summer, I walked into a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan Beach to find a copy of Norma Khouri's Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan prominently displayed on the main table. (In the UK and Australia the book was titled Forbidden Love.) I read the back flap and discovered that this was a memoir written by a Norma Khouri about her childhood friend and business partner Dalia, whose affair with a Christian man was discovered, leading to her being stabbed and murdered by her father. Norma, fearing for her life, managed to smuggle herself out of the country and escaped to freedom.
At the time, my instinct was to say, Goodness, is this what publishers want? More of these poor-oppressed-Arab-women-being-abused-by-their-men? Well, apparently, yes, that was what publishers wanted. The book was published in 15 countries and sold well, particularly in Australia where Khouri immigrated (her publisher helped out with her residency paperwork.) Australians even voted her memoir one of their 100 favorite books of all time.
Well, the cliché, it turns out, is false. And, according to The Age this Norma Khouri is a fraud. For starters, she has only lived in Jordan for about three years, as a toddler.

She has an American passport and lived from 1973 until 2000 in Chicago. She is married with two children, 13 and 11. She has four American siblings and a mother who are desperate to hear from her.
But she has managed to conceal this double life from her publishers, her agent, lawyers in several continents, the Australian Department of Immigration, and, until now, the public.

The 18-month investigation by Malcom Knox coincided with another report, this one coming from Jordan, and which found "73 serious errors and exaggerations." Still, Khouri is undeterred. Her next book, A Matter of Honor, comes out in November.
Update: Here's another fact-check, from the Sydney Morning Herald. And another one.

Showing the Man How It's Done

There's an interesting (and civil) discussion going on in the comments section over at Beatrice about the recent Stanley Crouch-Dale Peck smackdown. Check it out.

Publishing Boo Hoo Hoo #67

Getting your book published is an enormous accomplishment, but here's yet another story that confirms that it's only half the battle. In a guest column, author Stephen Policoff (Beautiful Somewhere Else) talks about his attempts to get his book publicized.

Tina [Pohlman]'s assistant, who took over her projects, swore to me that he would be in touch frequently—he never called me again. The first publicity person assigned to the book quit; the second one, who vowed she would be with me to the end, seemed unable to get anything done: Many people to whom I requested the book be sent never received it; she did get me one reading on Cape Cod (the novel takes place there) and seemed quite pleased with herself. But when I asked her to get me other readings - in northern California, for instance, where we were going on a visit - she claimed she couldn’t. My mother got me one instead.
And no one - no one - reviewed the book.

Go on over to Mark's blog for the full story.

July 22, 2004

Trick Question

For Powells.com's tenth anniversary, the Portland-based independent bookstore is having an essay contest. The topic: What was your most memorable reading experience of the last ten years? The 'reading experience' can be 'any book or group of books, or individual essays or stories published within a larger volume, regardless of publication date, form, or subject matter.' Submit here.
Link via Chicha.

I Feel His Pain

Michael Cunningham is interviewed by Bloomberg (?!) and inevitably, he gets asked the 'how has your life changed' question.

My life has changed more than I thought it would. I like to think that I'm still the same lovely, unspoiled person I've always been -- though some days I'm not so sure about that. Before "The Hours'' came out, I was pretty much left alone to just do my work. After "The Hours,'' it's a real battle to get the writing done. There's so much else going on, the phone rings every five minutes. I've had to learn to shut a lot of things out. More importantly, I've had to find a new "driving force.'' I used to always write from a certain fury about being under- recognized, under-appreciated, and underpaid. And now suddenly I find myself over-recognized, over-appreciated, and overpaid! What kind of fuel runs the engine now?

Man, I feel his pain. He's had to shut himself off in a retreat in Tuscany to finish his new book!
I kid. I like the guy. Link via Mark.

Reading List Additions

The latest issue of Maisonneuve is up, though you'll have to subscribe to the print edition if you want to read the story by Stephen Elliot. Elsewhere, Blithe House Quarterly devotes their Summer 2004 issue to Chicago.

I Love The Internet

Because where else can you get a conspiracy theory like this? Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is being discussed over at one of ABCtales' forums, where one participant claims to have 'inside knowledge' that the book is actually a revenge novel written by Haddon at the behest of someone else.

July 21, 2004

Heelless Shoes, Plus a Brief Rant on 'Ethnic' Fiction

Over at Ha'aretz, Shoham Smith reviews Heelless Shoes, an anthology of Arab women writers, edited by Ami Elad-Bouskila, with stories by Hanan Al-Shaikh, Liana Badr, and Latifa Baka (who contributed the title story) and others.

The anthology appears in the context of the Bridges series, is part of an important project spearheaded by editor and literary critic Prof. Ami Elad-Bouskila, who continues to present Hebrew readers with Arab literary works. It does offer its readers vignettes about the "situation of women" in the Arab states. However, one must immediately add that the picture that emerges from a significant number of the stories will undoubtedly surprise all those who are accustomed to the traditional image of the Arab woman (a backward slave deprived of all human rights) or who anticipate fiction with "female" characteristics (melodrama, an inflation of characters, descriptions from kitchens and bedrooms, etc.).

Smith brings up a really good point--I think fiction by Arab women (and people of color in general) is all too often subject to the agenda that readers bring to the stories. In the past, I've received all sorts of innocent (and ignorant) comments during writing workshops, comments that reveal more about the reader than they do about the writing. Recently, in the margin of one of my stories, someone scribbled the words "So human!" I felt like saying, "Fancy that! Yes, we're human!" Or, another thing I get asked a lot is to describe scenery or furniture. "It's such an exotic setting," they'll say. "Make the most of it!" Once, a reader was disappointed that I simply referred to a carpet as "a rug." He wanted more description, because, he said, "Morocco has such beautiful rugs." I'm actually a stickler for precision and detail, but I don't mind going on the record as saying that I don't care about the fucking rug. If you want rugs, go read National Geographic. But if you want to hear about the kid who weaved the rug, then maybe I've got a story for you.

Tingis

The Summer 2004 issue of Tingis, a quarterly magazine devoted to Morocco, is now available, with non-fiction by Anouar Majid, David Kuchta, Oumelbanine Zhiri, and others.

Leroy Defends Movie Based on His Book

J.T. Leroy defends the film adaptation of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. The movie premiered at Cannes and stars Asia Argento, and reviews have been decidedly mixed.

"It's funny, the press have been very, very supportive of me. I haven't gotten that many bad reviews or anything, so I feel that they're coming out for Asia," the reclusive author told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"I think it's harder to let a woman break out of a role, especially as she was seen as this dumb sex symbol," he said. "I think it's very sexist, I think it's very pig-headed and it just makes me mad."

By the way, Leroy has a short story in the current issue of Zoetrope All-Story.

Or Even a Bad One

I’m not a very good novelist.

From Negative Capability, a collection of public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokespeople since 1997. Link from The Morning News.

Caine Prize

The Guardian has an article on the Caine Prize winner, Brian Chikwava, but offers little more than that Reuters dispatch I linked to two days ago.

July 20, 2004

En Vogue

Maud-bashing appears to be en vogue. I say bashing because Maud has repeatedly made her blog's goals clear and shouldn't have to answer to anyone about what she chooses to post. Mark says he'll have a response and, knowing him, I'm sure we're in for a treat.

Curl Up and Read

This has been linked to ad nauseam everywhere, but I haven't had a minute yet to read them: new short stories from Jonathan Safran Foer, Margaret Atwood, Helen Simpson, Hanif Kureishi and others, over at the Guardian.

A Thousand Night and a Night

The tri-centennial of the French translation of One Thousand and One Nights is being feted over at Le Monde with an article celebrating what it calls the "counter-culture" of the literary classic, one which celebrates the irreverence of the times.

Slang

The CSM has a list of some new(er) expressions currently being used in Washington, provided by Grant Barrett, editor of Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Slang. Sample:

Throw red meat, v. to appease, satisfy, rally, or excite one's (political) supporters. Usually trans.: throw red meat to the lions, the wolves, the sharks, etc.

July 19, 2004

Caine Prize announced

Zimbabwean writer Brian Chikwava has won the 2004 Caine Prize for African Writing for his story , "Seventh Street Alchemy," which was published in Writing Still: New Stories from Zimbabwe. The finalists included Doreen Baingana (Uganda); Parselelelo Kantai (Kenya); Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda); and Chika Unigwe (Nigeria). On a related note, the BBC's Africa Live is hosting a live chat on Wednesday about story-telling, and you can leave a comment there.

Ames in Portland

Jonathan Ames will be at Powell's on Wednesday night and given Maud's consistent praise for him, I'm planning to go to the reading. Details here.

Outfoxed

I haven't yet seen Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, but I thought I'd point to this funny ad that MoveOn put together of the always entertaining Bill O'Reilly.

The Reader

I just discovered Brit mag The Reader, and enjoyed reading the last couple of issues. The editors publish fiction, reviews, and commentary. I particularly enjoyed their 'Reader Recommends' feature because the selections vary from fiction to non-fiction, and from classics to contemporary work.

War Without End

Here's CNN's lead paragraph on the Shrub's latest folly:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran is harboring members of al Qaeda, and the United States is investigating whether the Iranian government had a role in the September 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush said Monday.

You'll have to wait until the next, un-bolded section to find out that:

Bush said the CIA has found no sign of a direct connection between Iran and the suicide hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people.

I don't know what to say. I guess the man has learned nothing from what he did in Iraq. Or maybe he's learned everything.

July 18, 2004

de Kretser profile

Michelle de Kretser, whose novel The Hamilton Case was reviewed here last week, is profiled in this Newsday article. Yes, her outfit and "small frame" get a mention. Shouldn't there be a moratorium on this stuff?
Link via Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

I, Failed

Chris Suellentrop does a good job of explaining why you should probably stay away from the latest film adaptation of an Isaac Asimov novel.

I, Robot—which "suggested" the new movie of the same name—is basically an evangelical work, an argument against man's superstitious fear of machines. By the end of the book, machines run the economy and most of the government. Their superior intelligence and cool rationality eliminate imperfections such as famine and unemployment. Asimov mocks unions for having shortsightedly "opposed robot competition for human jobs," and he derides religious objections to new technology as the work of "Fundamentalist radicals." Almost without exception, anytime robots in the book appear to be doing wrong or seeking to harm their human masters, it turns out that the suspicious humans are misguided; the robots, as programmed, are acting in man's best interest.

The movie, however, takes the opposite approach and elevates emotion over reason. Suellentrop makes a broader argument about how other filmmakers have also misinterpreted Asimov's work. He even mentions the amusing rumors about the connection between the Foundation trilogy and Al-Qaida.

Darfur Diary

UNICEF has put up a photo diary of Darfur, Sudan where about one million people have been displaced since fighting began. Their donation page is here. The press coverage here continues to be fairly minimal, although the Washington Post has a good interview with Musa Hilal, who is accused of leading the militia responsible for the genocide and for the displacement. "I'm a big sheik," he told the reporter. "Not a little sheik."

New and Noteworthy

Melville House is coming out with three very topical books that I thought I'd mention. Renata Adler's Irreparable Harm is an analysis of the 2000 Supreme Court decision, which allowed Dubya to become president. Adler reportedly uncovers "numerous problems, including instances where the judges mis-cited their own previous decisions, or reversed them." Mark Danner's The Road to Illegitimacy examines the Florida recount. And Dennis Loy Johnson's The Big Chill is a first-person account of the undereported protests on Dubya's inauguration. (Michael Moore's latest documentary shows some of the footage from that day.)

Summer storySouth

The summer issue of storySouth is up, and features fiction by R.T. Smith, Chris Wilson, Josh Shepherd, Arthur Haupt, and Julia Thomas.

More on the NEA Survey

Ian Brown reacts to that infamous NEA survey about the drop in the number of readers, which was picked up in several news outlets. Brown argues that although the numbers aren't what book lovers would like, they're still pretty good.

But reading literature still comes in fifth -- 46.7 per cent of the country does it, more than go to sporting events. And we can finally stop worrying that TV makes people read less. The NEA discovered avid book readers (more than 50 books a year) watch an average of 2.6 hours of TV a day -- only slightly less than the 2.8 hours watched by "light" readers who absorb only one to five books a year. The people who read literature are some of the same people who watch TV. Programmers might take note.

Another point of contention, brought up in this and another editorial, from the News Journal is the definition the NEA uses for literature. It doesn't include non-fiction nor anything read on the Internet. My take on it is that people will always want stories, but now that they can get them in multiple forms (book, movie, TV, internet) there's a bit of division in the reading space.

Tin House Writers' Workshop

So I'm back after a dizzying week of workshops, panels, discussions, meetings and readings. I was able to work on a couple of stories, made new friends and spent some time catching up with old ones. I also got to meet a whole bunch of cool people like Whitney Otto, Elissa Schappell, Aimee Bender, Chuck d'Ambrosio, etc. I was so busy that I didn't get a chance to write a single word during the week, and by Friday I was starting to hear voices, characters yapping in my ear. So I'm happy to be back and eager to get back to writing.

July 09, 2004

Another Brief Hiatus

Moorishgirl will be on hiatus next week, as I'll be attending the Tin House Workshop, but I have a sense that my presence will hardly be needed, what with people like Maud and Mark, or any of the other fine blogs listed on the right. More news when I'm back.

So that's what the fingerprinting was about!

Congrats to Terry Teachout, who will soon be nominated to serve on the National Council on the Arts. I remember when Terry mentioned having to turn in a mysterious stack of papers, and getting fingerprinted, and I guess now I know why. On a related note, and unlike all the other cool kids, I have yet to compute my TCCI.

Abu-Jaber wins PEN Lit award

I missed this when it was posted on PEN's site, but Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent won the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award for fiction. Check out the PEN press release for a full list of winners in all categories.
Link via the California Authors site.

Philatelists R Us

James Baldwin gets his own stamp, as part of the USPS's literary arts series. Here's a close-up. The stamp will be available starting on the 23rd.

Is that a Fact?

Suzanne Goldenberg offered a few Texas Republicans free tickets to go see Fahrenheit 9/11. "I think [Moore] is a big jerk."

July 08, 2004

Dept of Huh?

Apparently, books can kill you.

In case you were looking for an excuse to put down that copy of Tolstoy's War and Peace, here it is: in the United Kingdom more people are hurt by books (2,707 a year) than by training weights (1,884), trampolines (1,902) or cricket balls and bats (1,174). Lest you think only British books are hazardous, you should know that 10,683 U.S. citizens lose their battles with what the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System categorizes as "books, magazines, albums or scrapbooks" in an average year, and another 1,490 are clobbered by magazine racks or bookends.

Huh? There is a National Electronic Injury Surveillance System? Apparently, yes. (It's a sad state of affairs when the existence of this body surprises me more than the suggestion that people should put down a book for fear of physical injury.)
Link via Waterboro Lib blog.

Someday Ashcroft Will Be Reincarnated As A Brown Man or As A Writer

Jim Hanas (via Boing Boing) links to this new blog, Brown Equals Terrorist, which is maintained by Seattle photography student Ian Spiers. Spiers was taking pictures of the Ballard Locks for a class when he was questioned by a security officer, Seattle policer officers, and Homeland Security agents.

In related news, Mark reports that a writer who scribbled a line for his novel on a piece of paper while waiting for his plane to take off (the line contained the word 'bomb') was interviewed at length by the TSA after landing at Dallas and had his name added to that dreaded watchlist.

July 07, 2004

Komunyakaa Profile

Chris Hedges profiles Yusef Komunyakaa for the NY Times. A portion of Komunyakaa's poem "Tu Do Street" is quoted in the article.

There's more than a nation
inside us, as black & white
soldiers touch the same lovers
minutes apart, tasting
each other's breath,
without knowing these rooms
run into each other like tunnels
leading to the underworld.

You can read the entire poem at this site.