The Caine Prize for African Writing has come of age this year, with energetic chairing of the judges by Bernardine Evaristo and a further reaching-out to a wider African and international audience. Read more
Oxford Dictionaries Online,Oxford University Press's free dictionary and language reference service, has just added its new quarterly words, which present a fascinating picture of our changing language. It is updated with new words quarterly. Read more
The Oxford English DictionaryWonderful online resource giving 'a truly astounding picture of the English language as an extraordinary living phenomenon' (Robert McCrum); Over 500,000 words has announced the launch of OED Appeals, a major online initiative set to involve the public in tracing the history of English words. Read more
The 2012 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year
Here's the shortlist for the 2012 Diagram Prize. It looks like it's going to be make this a serious challenger for the barmiest year ever. It'srun by the Bookseller (the UK book trade weekly) with input from dedicated odd title hunters from all over the world. Read more
Open to writers of any nationality writing in English
Entry fee for Best Unpublished Novel £49
Prize:
£15,000 for Best Unpublished Novel, an advance on a publishing deal with Bonnier and £10,000 for Best Published Novel
Submissions for the two 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prizes are now open. The international prize is now in its sixth year. Entries are accepted from writers of any nationality, writing in English. The deadline is 7 March. Read more
I have discovered that I cannot burn a candle at one end and write a book with the other.'
Booksellers have had many years of making themselves resilient, having had to live through the advent and growth of Amazon - they are entrepreneurial and hard-working, resourceful and creative. Read more
‘Poetry is definitely having a renaissance. There's been a real sea-change in terms of how it's seen, especially in lockdown. Poetry is the perfectly transportable art form. Owning a book is all you need to experience it. Poetry doesn't necessarily give us the answers, but it does give us the tools to think with and helps us process issues.
"If you would be a poet," Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a man who would know, wrote in 2007, "create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if it means sounding apocalyptic...."
A few years ago at a Radcliffe Institute exhibit, I came across photos of a draft of what would become Angela Davis' autobiography. A foundational Black literary text, bare-boned and vulnerable, is not something you often get to see. The manuscript bloomed with the strokes of a blue pen, notes from the editor on what needed to be changed. Read more
In early February, after a month of lockdown, William Sutcliffe wrote on Twitter: "I have been a professional writer for more than twenty years. I have made my living from the resource of my imagination. Last night I had a dream about unloading the dishwasher." Read more
Sales of print books continued to ride a hot streak into February with units jumping 25.7% in the first week of the month over the first week of February 2020 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The increase was the highest yet this year, and unit sales of print books were up 22.1% through February 6, 2021.
Even if-as per my last essay for Lit Hub-we know how to read, there remains the equally vexed question of what we should read. If the 21st century is notable for anything much at all when it comes to literature-and I use the term in its broadest sense, as will become clear-it's the spiking of formerly big literary guns, and the dismantling of what used to be understood as the canon. Read more
Book-to-screen deals are reported by the Hollywood trades in pieces that dutifully mention the novelists, directors and actors involved but often leave out the people who actually made it happen - the agent or manager who hooked up the players, the producer who optioned it years ago, the book scout whose secret source shared the proposal before book publishers had even seen it.
'A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.'
Why the bookselling sector is holding strong
Booksellers have had many years of making themselves resilient, having had to live through the advent and growth of Amazon - they are entrepreneurial and hard-working, resourceful and creative. Read more