Book trailers are one thing, but what’s a literary short film? According to Red 14 founders Adam Cushman and Mike Sandow, “it’s not advertising a product; it gives a cinematic glimpse into the book, one which will ideally make the viewer interested in learning more about the author, the author’s current book, and the author’s past and future work.” Together, the pair has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund four such films about four worthy titles (Matt Bell’s awesome debut novel among them).
What’s a Literary Short Film?
No Room for Others
African-Americans make up no more than 2% of employees in editorial rooms. In case you’re wondering why publishing is so white, Publishers Weekly reports that unconscious bias is the biggest issue.
Plotting Genres
This week in book-related infographics: “A Plotting of Fiction Genres” from Electric Lit.
Wednesday Links: Honorary Awards; Scottish Flood; Book Sale
Joan Didion and NPR uber-interviewer Terry Gross will be honored at the National Book Awards ceremony in November. Dideon won a National Book Award in 2005 for her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking.The National Library of Scotland flooded yesterday thanks to a faulty sprinkler system. It was a close call: “Some modern books and manuscripts suffered ‘surface’ water damage, but all of the ‘important, iconic’ books were saved.”Oops! A church in England sold some rare tomes for modest though still substantial sum to a book dealer, only to find, too late, that they are worth much, much more.
2010 Best Translated Longlist
Three Percent has unveiled the longlist for its 2010 Best Translated Book Award. Roberto Bolaño, J. M. G. Le Clézio, and Orhan Pamuk all made the cut.
●
●
The Duty of Thankfulness
“The worst insult people hurl at adoptees is that they are ‘ungrateful’ and should ‘go back’ (to their ‘own’ countries, to their old families). That is the moment when adoption becomes a gift—because that is the moment when it becomes clear that adoption belongs to people like the adoptive parent and not people like the adoptee. We shouldn’t want our birth families, our birth cultures. We should be thankful for being taken from the mothers who bore us. This idea of gratitude can ruin thankfulness. Why should we be grateful?” Matthew Salesses writes about gratitude and luck as an adoptee, over at The Toast. You could also check out Salesses’s Millions essay on novel writing, inciting incidents, adoption, and beginnings.
●
●