NEWS

by Debi Staples

San Francisco Writers Conference Adds Several
Major Authors to its 2005 List of Presenters

The 2005 San Francisco Writers Conference is offering an extraordinary 3-day program taught by a faculty of best selling authors, agents, and editors from the West Coast and New York. The event will be held at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel over President's Day Weekend--February 18-20 th , 2005.

The list of 2005 San Francisco Writers Conference presenters includes: John Lescroart ( The First Law) , Karen Joy Fowler ( The Jane Austen Book Club ), Lemony Snicket ( A Series of Unfortunate Events ), Joyce Maynard ( To Die For ), Mary Roach ( STIFF, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers ), Adair Lara ( Slowing Down In A Speeded-Up World) , April Sinclair (Coffee Will Make You Black) , Katharine Kerr ( Daggerspell) , Leonard Schlain ( The Alphabet Versus The Goddess) , Tess Uriza Holthe ( When the Elephants Dance ), Jewelle Gomez ( The Gilda Stories) and Candace Hern ( Once A Scoundrel) .

The list of presenters teaching at the conference continues to grow and impress even its own creators, Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen of the Larsen Pomada Literary Agency. Check the website www.SanFranciscoWritersConference.com for more event information.

Judges Select Finalists for the National Book Awards

Books are highlighted when author and radio show host Garrison Keillor announced the finalists for the National Book Awards during a ceremony Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004 in St. Paul, Minn.

The winners in each of four categories--young people's literature, nonfiction, poetry and fiction--will be named at a dinner Nov. 17 in New York also hosted by Garrison Keillor.

The full list as well as the program leading up to November 17 th can be viewed at http://www.nationalbook.org/index.html#

Smithsonian Plans Cuts in Publishing

By Jacqueline Trescott
The Washington Post

The Smithsonian Institution is dismantling Smithsonian Books, a widely respected publishing division of the museum and research complex that dates back 156 years.

Driven by a loss of $2 million in the past decade, officials said, the move will result in publishing fewer scholarly books and in enlisting corporate partners to make the Smithsonian brand more profitable. Critics assert that overhauling the book unit disrupts an essential part of the original Smithsonian mission - to "increase and diffuse knowledge."

Edinburgh Named World's First City of Literature

The Scots have had Edinburgh named as the world's first City of Literature by the United Nations' cultural body Unesco. It's a decision that will surprise other cities which claim to know all about literature, Dublin included.

Scottish Culture Minister Patricia Ferguson said the decision confirmed the city's literary credentials. Leading Scottish writers, including JK Rowling, (left) Dame Muriel Spark and Ian Rankin, not surprisingly, backed the campaign.

The campaign team said the city's writers included the dead literary greats Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Burns, who all lived and wrote in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh hosts some of the world's leading arts festivals, including the world famous book festival.

© askaboutwriting.net october 2004

9/11 Commission Nominated for Top US Literary Award

The account by the US government's 9/11 Commission of the September 11 th , 2001 attacks became a surprise bestseller with more than a million copies sold. It is now up for the National Book Award's non-fiction prize.

The report becoming a bestseller is all the more surprising because it was posted for free on the Internet.

Released as a $10 paperback, and online for free, the 9/11 Commission's report sold like a bestseller, particularly areas affected by the terrorist attacks.

© askaboutwriting.net october 2004

Noble Prize for Literature Awarded

Elfriede Jelinek, the Austrian novelist and playwright, has been awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Swedish Academy awards the prizes and praised Jelinek's musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power.

Jelinek was born in 1946 and is best known for her novel The Piano Teacher, which was made into a film in 2001. Her monetary prize is 10 million Swedish crowns worth $1.36 million.

Is Publishing a Kind of War ?

During this last Buchmesse in Frankfurt, the largest in the world, it was Arabic all over.

It was a choice that generated a lot of discussion, but the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroeder, called it a wonderful initiative to host the Arabic countries.

This can lead to a change of view on these countries, as the current idea is rather negative.

Top security surrounded the event, with the wife of Egyptian President Moebarak and secretary-general of the Arab Liga, Amre Moessa as most prominent guests of honour.

Although this was a great chance for more dialogue between East and West, it should be noted that in none of the 22 invited countries is there freedom of press; criticism can only come from outside countries.

Much Arabian literature has been written in exile, like Maroccan writer, Tahar Ben Jalloun, who fled his country 30 years ago to write his novels in French about Arabian controversial subjects, like sexuality, religion and politics.

Some meaningful Arabic literature is being published in the country itself. An example is the work of Nobel Prize winner (1988) Nagieb Mahfoez, who wrote 30 novels, some of which were even on the wide screen. But he has paid a high price for his succes; he was on a death list of an islamic fundamentalismic group and was stabbed 10 years ago in fornt of his home in Cairo. Now, at the age of 92, he never leaves his house and is under constant police surveillance.

Of course the Arabic world can use support, there are few editions of new literature coming out, and in addition, the quality of paper and ink is very poor. This is quite the opposite to the printing of religious or propagandistic literature which excels in both quality and design.

Frankfurter Buchmesse Press Centre/ De Telegraaf 2004-10-08