Category events:

Tim Park, who blogs for the New York Review of Books, had an interesting post recently about the pressure that writers (particularly non-American writers) feel to reach an international audience and the way this is affecting what and how they write:

There is a growing sense that for an author to be considered “great,” he or she must be an international rather than a national phenomenon . . . [M]ore and more European, African, Asian and South American authors see themselves as having “failed” if they do not reach an international audience.

Park goes on to describe how this pressure has increased with the advent of electronic submissions, which enable an author to send a new work simultaneously to publishers all over the world, such that international rights may even be purchased before the writer has found a publisher in his or her own country:

An astute agent can then orchestrate the simultaneous launch of a work in many different countries using promotional strategies that we normally associate with multinational corporations. Thus a reader picking up a copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, or the latest Harry Potter, or indeed a work by Umberto Eco, or Haruki Murakami, or Ian McEwan, does so in the knowledge that this same work is being read now, all over the world . . . This perception adds to the book’s attraction.

Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak and My Life in Heavy Metal, among others, has taken publishing matters into his own hands. Though Almond is still a hot commodity (his Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life will be availble April 13, 2010), he found that one of his book ideas was not generating much interest with publishers. His idea was a book that could be flipped over and read in two directions. One side would offer short stories, and the other side would contain essays about writing. The title? This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey.

Congratulations to The Rumpus, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary and, therewith, its “fitness for survival in the age of the interwebs.” Founded in San Francisco by Stephen Elliott, author of the much-acclaimed Adderall Diaries, The Rumpus is a relatively edgy magazine seeking to offer fresh coverage of books, music, art, comics, politics, film . . . and sex. From their statement of purpose:

Apparently poetry by fishermen is so popular that there are two separate gatherings of fisher poets on the Oregon Coast this year. The 13th annual Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon, will meet the weekend of February 26, 2010, and the inaugural 2010 FisherPoets on the Edge met this past weekend, January 16-19, in Newport, Oregon.

Fisher poets are people who write poetry and are involved with the fishing industry.

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