Kelly Barnhill, author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, is the winner of this year’s Newbery Medal for “most outstanding contribution to children’s literature,” and Javaka Steptoe, author of Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, won this year’s Caldecott Medal.
2017 Newbery and Caldecott Winners
Powerhouse
Big news in the publishing world: Penguin and Random House have announced their decision to merge.
A Bolaño Gallery Show
“Rockslide Sky,” an exhibition of art inspired by Roberto Bolaño‘s story “Gomez Palacio,” has just completed its run at Fordham University’s Center Gallery/Lipani Gallery…but a slideshow lives on in cyberspace. (I like feel this one would have made a nice cover for Last Evenings on Earth, but Bolañophiles may want to click through all 18.)
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Not Foster Wallace
It was, in retrospect, only a matter of time until someone spotted the gap in the market and set up a blog dedicated exclusively to images of guys who sort of look like (but crucially are not) David Foster Wallace. A tip of the bandana to Matt Bucher for highlighting this via Twitter.
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Lauren Groff Finds Joy in Bending Time
Lauren Groff discusses her new novella, What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?, and how allowing herself to play with time breathed new life into the story.
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Measuring Detail Density
“Every story that works gets the level of description that it needs. Which isn’t to say that the level of description needed for every successful story is the same.” Tobias Carroll surveys the wide variety of detail density in fiction for Electric Literature.
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Inspiration, Via Goat
Literary prizes are nothing new, but prizes that give writers real estate are a thoroughly modern development. At Salon, Michele Filgate investigates our odd new economy, in which lucky writers win leases to homes, inns and (in one case) a goat farm. You could also read our own Nick Ripatrazone on the Amtrak residency.
Tuesday New Release Day: Doctorow; Joyce; Cantor; Creeley; Urquhart; Russell; Vonnegut; Kushner
Out this week: Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow; Perfect by Rachel Joyce; A Highly Unlikely Scenario by Rachel Cantor; Selected Letters of Robert Creeley; The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart; and new paperback editions of Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Kurt Vonnegut’s Letters and Year in Reading favorite Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers.
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