The Writer's News Reprinted from the February 2010 issue of the Writer's Chronicle. News CLMP Literary Magazine Engagement Program CLMP, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, is launching a new “Literary Magazine Engagement Program for Creative Writing Students.’’ Funded by the NEA, and coordinated in partnership with AWP, the new program offers half-price subscriptions for selected literary magazines to writing classes adopting them for course use. (Desk-copy subscriptions are available for professors.) Additionally, once during the semester, senior editors from adopted magazines will take part in a virtual (or in person, if possible) meeting with participating classes. During this meeting, editors may discuss the history of their magazine, the current literary landscape, their curatorial process, etc., allowing students to better understand the publishing community in which they’re most likely to be published. The ultimate goal of this program is to expose students to the variety of magazines out there and promote an active, engaged reading culture among young writers. Participants will be able to choose from the following magazines for adoption during this pilot program:
Classes will be able to order magazines for course adoption directly through the CLMP website. Please contact Jamie Schwartz for more information about joining the program, jschwartz@clmp.org. For additional information about CLMP, please visit: http://www.clmp.org.
Best Practices Document For Fair Use In Poetry The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute at the Poetry Foundation is working with the Center for Social Media at the law school of the American University to help develop a best practices document for fair use in poetry. The CSM has developed such documents for documentary film makers, creators of films for on-line media, and creators of dance-related materials among other groups; information about their work in this area can be seen at http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/. The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute is planning focus group sessions for poets and poetry scholars in Philadelphia on December 28th and/or 29th, with times to be determined based on the schedules of the participants. In particular, HMPI is hoping to learn about what questions and/or anxieties poets and poetry scholars might have around fair use and to get responses to various scenarios in relation to work in which the issue of fair use has been or might become important. The sessions are expected to take no more than three hours; the appropriate meal will be provided. HMPI’s real desire is that this document arise directly out of the questions and needs of the poetry community and that it be functionally useful in addressing these questions and needs. They hope poets will be willing to serve the community in this way. For more information, please e-mail the HMPI director, Katharine Coles, at kcoles@poetryfoundation.org
Citywide Poets Receives The 2009 Coming Up Taller Award
"Unfriend" Named Word Of The Year The New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen “unfriend” as its word of the year, according to PR Newswire. This year’s selection, a word that springs from online networking site Facebook, beat out other techie terms such as “netbook,” “hashtag,” and “sexting” for the top honor. “It has both currency and potential longevity,” said Christine Lindberg, a language researcher for Oxford’s U.S. dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year.” Oxford defines “unfriend,” a verb, as such: “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.” The term drew flack from some members of the online community. One Twitter user wrote: “Frustrated that ‘unfriend’ is the word of the year. It’s definitely ‘defriend’ when referencing Facebook.” Others disagreed. “‘Defriend’ makes me think of ‘defoliate’ and, well, I dunno, it sounds weird,” one wrote. Oxford spokesman Christian Purdy said researchers found that “unfriend” was more commonly used. Facebook spokesperson Meredith Chin said that while several terms are used in-house and in the site, site managers now are considering making “unfriend” the official term. “Overall, we’re thrilled that the idea of people connecting, or even unconnecting, with each other on sites like Facebook has officially become part of the lexicon,” she said.
Proulx Papers Go East
Achebe Shuns Label, 'Father Of Modern African Literature.'
Computerized Exam Markers Fail Hemingway, Churchill, Golding Some of the world’s most well known writers have received failing marks when submitted to a new computerized marking system for British school essays, the Times Online reports. Winston Churchill’s 1940 speech exhorting his countrymen to “fight on the beaches” had a style that was too repetitive according to the computer. The speech was rated below average. William Golding and Ernest Hemingway came up short as well, ranking less than standard in the American equivalent of an A-level English exam. A passage from Golding’s Lord of the Flies was docked for its two-word paragraph: “A face.” Graham Herbert, deputy head of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA), an umbrella body for exam boards and other organizations, said: “The computer was limited in its scope. It couldn’t cope with metaphor and didn’t understand the purpose of the speech. We also tried a passage from Hemingway. It couldn’t understand the fact that he had a very spartan style and (it) said he should write with more care and detail. He was also rated less than average.” This system, already in use in the United States, was created using a range of comments by human graders in response to exam papers. While the program recognizes sentence structure, other elements such as style and purpose are not recognized. According to Herbert, some children in America had “cracked the code” by learning to write in a style that the computer understood. This was called “schmoozing the computer,” he said. “At the moment we do not have a reliable and valid way of assessing English language using a software package, although this is something for which there is demand.”
AWP Award Series Winner's Book Continues to Win Accolades
AWP Award Series Runner-Up Book Finds a Publisher
RIP Olivetti
Fitzgerald's Tax Returns An article in the American Scholar about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns might surprise many. A look at the author’s ledgers, meticulously kept by Fitzgerald himself until 1937, reveals a record of earnings from each story, play, and novel he sold, details that debunk his popular reputation as a careless spendthrift. The author recorded by hand entries of royalties as small as $5.10 from the American edition of The Great Gatsby and $0.34 from the English edition, this during the 1929 tax year, a year in which his earnings were in the top 1 percent of those filing returns.
Intercontinental Literary Duel In November, Alexandria, Egypt, faced off against Salinas, California, for National Novel Writing Month, according to the Californian. The cities vied to see who could write the most words in the month-long event. This is the first year that both cities are competing in the program that encourages participants to write a novel of 50,000 words or more during the month, said Lori Wood, Salinas Public Library program manager. “We’re just gong to write like our lives depended on it,” Wood said. The duel ended at midnight at the end of November. Word is still out on which city prevailed, but that’s less the point than showing residents that “literature can be fun,” Wood said. “The winner gets the satisfaction of victory,” she said. “But this is also a profound experience for people.”
Posthumous Books Awaken Debate New works by dead writers are set to appear in the coming months, according to the Wall Street Journal, and not without some controversy. Books by Vladimir Nabokov, William Styron, Graham Greene, Carl Jung, and Kurt Vonnegut are due out this fall. Next year will see works by Ralph Ellison, Donald E. Westlake, and David Foster Wallace. Debate has ensued over what should be published because many of the works are incomplete or appear in multiple drafts. It’s a question of authorial intention. How can we know the author’s final aims for the piece? David Foster Wallace’s novel, Pale King, for example, has multiple versions spread across two computers. “It’s a bit of a puzzle,” said Bonnie Nadell, Wallace’s longtime agent, who’s helping assemble the novel from author notes. In the case of the Nabokov book, if the author had had his way the manuscript would have been burned. And that’s what Harvard English professor Leland de la Durantaye and playwright Tom Stoppard think should have happened. They believe authorial wishes should outweigh public desire to read the material. Others disagree, arguing that if Franz Kafka’s work had been burned per his orders, we would not have “The Trial,” “The Castle,” or “Amerika.” Nabokov’s son expects divided opinion. “Judging by prepublication input, one third of the critics will express their gratitude that I preserved this novel, one third will condemn me for defaming the author, and the remainder will attempt comparisons with my father’s other works—an impossible task,” he wrote.
Awards Madeleine P. Plonsker Emerging Writer’s Residency Prize. $10,000, two-month residency, and first-book publication. Winner: Gretchen Henderson for her prose manuscript Galerie de Diformité. Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant for Literature. $5,000. Winner: Dr. Virginia Gilbert. Beloit Poetry Journal’s 2009 Chad Walsh Poetry Prize. $3,500. Winner: Onna Solomon for “Autism Suite.” The Writer’s Center Announces First Undiscovered Voices Fellowship Recipient. $1,000. Winner: Susan Bucci Mockler. One-year-long fellowship to a promising writer earning less than $25,000 annually. 2010 Mississippi Review Poetry Series Prize. $1,000, publication, and 100 copies of the book. Winners: Martha Greenwald for Other Prohibited Items; Christopher Salerno for Minimum Heroic; and Liana Quill for Fifty Poems. Hungarian Association’s Árpád Academy. Gold medal and induction. Winner: Pat Valdata for The Other Sister.
AWP News Two New Regional Represenatives Elected To AWP's Board This fall, Program Directors in the Southeast and Northeast selected two representatives to AWP’s board. Judith Baumel of Adelphi University was elected to represent the Northeast Region. She will replace outgoing Northeastern representative Ronald Tanner. Martin Lammon of Georgia College and University was elected to represent the Southeast Region. He will replace outgoing Southeast Representative Donald Morrill. Both board members will begin their terms in April. For more information on AWP’s elections, please visit AWP eLink > news > governance.
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