Jon McGregor has won the International Impac Dublin Literary Award, otherwise known as the richest literary prize in all the land*, for his novel Even the Dogs. To check out the rest of the pool, you can revisit our coverage of both the long and shortlist for the prize. (McGregor’s tweet about this whole affair was pretty grand, by the way.) [*Ed note: a reader in the comments below has disputed this claim.]
McGregor Takes the IMPAC
New Edith Wharton Discovered
A new short story by Edith Wharton has been discovered in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library at Yale. The nine-page story, “The Field of Honour,” takes place in 1915. We reflect on Wharton’s work.
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A Conversation with Morgan Parker
On his podcast, David Naimon spoke with poet Morgan Parker about her new collection, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé. It's a book "at the intersections of mythology and sorrow, of vulnerability and posturing, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence," Naimon says. (Bonus: Parker's book was recently featured in Nick Ripatrazone's list of five poetry collections you should buy.)
This is a Curiosity-novel
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Solitary Reader
Rebecca Solnit writes on loneliness, intimacy, and writing in The Faraway Nearby. Melissa Holbrook Pierson reviewed the book at The Millions.
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Anthology of African LGBT Writing
Poet Abayomi Animashaun has issued a call for “poems by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals living in Africa and in the Diaspora.” Submissions “of high merit” will be considered for a forthcoming anthology.
Raising Children and Writing Books
"Quite possibly I’m a narrower, nastier and less morally responsible writer now than I was the day before my son was born. I certainly hope so." We know Father's Day was over a week ago, but here's a belated link to a refreshingly cliché-free New York Times Bookends piece on parenting and writing, featuring James Parker and Mohsin Hamid.
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Kickstarter: Blessing or Curse?
Is Kickstarter a viable tool for self-published authors, or is it instead “a bit of a nightmare?”
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I don’t know why everyone says it is, but the IMPAC isn’t the world’s highest-paid lit prize. Have you heard of the Nobel? (see also, many more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world%27s_richest_literary_prizes) . Really, McGregor should feel pretty hard done by…
Thanks for pointing that out, Tom. I’ve updated the post. I’ll admit that I’d always repeated the claim, despite knowing about the Nobel’s higher award, because I figured there was some manner of technicality involved. Going through the list on Wikipedia, my first suspicion was that the Impac was the only one open to a global field of authors, or that perhaps the more lucrative prizes were enacted (or had money added to them) after the Impac had already been set up. I don’t really believe that’s the case, so now I’m wondering why the claim’s been circulating, too.
The Impac website claims that the prize is the largest “of its kind.” As someone who doesn’t know much about the other prizes on that Wikipedia list (other than the Nobel, which doesn’t apply to what I’m about to say), perhaps that means it’s the most lucrative international prize set up with the longlist/shortlist format. (The Nobel’s a wild guess for everybody until it’s awarded each year.)