Literary Links

Book Banners Are Weaponizing Legitimate Resources: Book Censorship News, October 28, 2022

Danika Ellis writes, “One of the strategies book banners are using that makes me nervous is that they are weaponizing resources that were never meant to defend book banning.” She’s particularly concerned about “resources that were specifically made to help teachers and parents find diverse books for kids.”

Category: Censorship

Open Letter Condemns Amy Coney Barrett Book Deal

This article from Publishers Weekly covers “protest of the acquisition of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s forthcoming memoir by Penguin Random House.” At first glance this piece appears to be about another case of cancel culture. But the situation is more complicated than that. 

At the core of the statement argument against PRH’s decision to publish Coney Barrett is the alleged violation of the Bertelsmann Code of Conduct. The statement notes that Human Rights Watch, which was founded by former Random House publisher Robert L. Bernstein, cited the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in declaring abortion access a human right.

Categories: Censorship, Publishing

Lost John Steinbeck essay about American democracy published

“How About McCarthyism? was originally published in France in 1954 and its warning of ‘the taking of power by a self-interested group’ has now been translated”

The Guardian reports that “[t]he piece is being published in English in the Strand Magazine, a US-based print magazine that publishes short fiction, articles and interviews.”

Category: Author News

 When Only a Ghost Will Do: On Ghostwriting

Professional ghostwriter Christina Hamlett explains all the details about ghostwriting. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween.

Category: Writing

Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity, and Book Publishing

PEN America, a 100-year-old organization that celebrates and defends free expression, has issued a detailed report about diversity in the writing and publishing industry: “more recent figures indicate that both the publishing industry, and the books it puts out, remain disproportionately white.”

Categories: Publishing, Writing

Salman Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and use of one hand, says agent

The Guardian reveals the “full extent of injuries from ‘brutal attack’ on Satanic Verses author in New York state in August.”

Category: Author News 

How #BookTok is changing literature

“TikTok is having an ‘unprecedented’ impact on publishing, but is it shaping a new wave of fiction?”

Ellen Peirson-Hagger considers the influence BookTok, the literature-related subgroup on TikTok, has on the publishing industry: “While the BookTok phenomenon – and the platform as a whole – grew significantly during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the trend on the industry is still being felt more than two years later.”

She discusses the significance of BookTok’s influence on readers, writers, and publishers, especially the question of whether writers and publishers will shape their books to conform to BookTokers’ expectations.

Categories: Publishing, Reading, Writing

The Latest Research to Live Happily Ever After

In this interview research psychologist Dr. Karin Sternberg discusses how the love stories we tell ourselves unconsciously influence our choice of partner and the quality of our relationships.

when you think about what is important, when you’re looking for a partner, you might think about age, culture, hobbies, religion, education, these things that are obvious. You don’t even really have to think about them. But what’s really very important is the unconscious things that people are not aware of. So, for example, we have found that everybody has a set of love stories, and when we talk about love stories, we talk about a set of ideas, beliefs and preconceptions about what a relationship should be like. The problem is you’re not consciously aware of your love stories, but they influence everything that you do and feel. Your love stories influence what kind of a partner you’re looking for, your behavior, your expectations, how you interpret your partner’s behavior. But people aren’t aware of them. And so just being aware of those love stories is very important because you can only have a happy relationship when your love story matches the love story or one of the love stories of your partner.

Categories: Life Stories in Literature, Literature & Psychology

Mature Sleuths Show Us Getting Older Means Getting Better

In this “celebration of cozy mysteries with older protagonists,” novelist Christina Romeril explains that mature sleuths such as Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher “have been cozy mystery staples for many generations” because they are “likeable and invoke a feeling of connection and community within their cozy settings.” She lists examples of earlier series with older protagonists that led up to her creation of her Killer Chocolate Mysteries, the debut novel of which is A Christmas Candy Killing.

Categories: Author News, Older Adults in Literature, Literary History, Writing

‘Whatever I was going to be I wanted to be really good’: Cormac McCarthy’s life in writing

“Richard B Woodward, who has known McCarthy for 30 years, on the reclusive author’s love of scientific thinking, and why he will publish two novels in two months after a 16-year wait.”

Categories: Author News, Writing

© 2022 by Mary Daniels Brown