The Art of Packing a Library
I enjoy unpacking the lines at the from Dick Allen’s “After Reading Tichborne’s Elegy” (The Day Before, 2003). Allen died the day after Christmas, age seventy-eight. His seventy-four-line poem is a discursive ramble around his world. Such essayistic blank verse is almost fated to turn out lumpy and self-indulgent because few poets possess minds sufficiently interesting to sustain such a loose-but-orderly project. Allen makes for good company:
“You think of strangers,
Thousands of them, passing you in a mall,
Cirrus clouds laid low, each one that passes,
A tiny mystery: you are walking
Constantly through their slowly moving edges
As they are through yours. What is required,
Or if not required, allowed? And if you have
The will to change the world, yet lack the power,
Are you accomplished in the eyes of God?”
Near the end Allen colonizes Grant Wood’s great Stone City into his poem:
“. . . and you lift your head
Once more from all things asking you to live
For those who suffer, all who speak no longer
Of terror, wonder, and you see upon the wall
Your print of Wood’s Stone City where a man
Rides a huge white dray beside a windmill
Still as everything the artist froze to stone:
That will not break though you must strike at them.
Strike hard, strike fast, but strike most out of love.
Cling to this day until its flanks are stone.”
Here's How To Catch The Eye Of A Literary Agent - As luck would have it you work at the NSW Parliamentary Library with Kate Curr ;-)
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Judith Curr, president and publisher at Atria Publishing
Group, is leaving after 19 years with Simon & Schuster US. Judith Curr, president and publisher at Atria Publishing Group, is leaving after 19 years with Simon & Schuster US. Curr’s last day at Atria, a general interest publishing division of S&S US, based in New York, is Tuesday (30th January). A search for her replacement has begun with Atria’s v.p. and editor-in-chief, Peter Borland, and v.p. and associate publisher Suzanne Donahue overseeing the division's editorial and publishing activities alongside S&S US c.e.o. Carolyn Reidy. Curr has worked with authors such as Isabel Allende, Shirley MacLaine and Michael Mosley after first joining S&S US as president and publisher of Pocket Books in 1999. In 2002, she became the founding publisher of Atria, and in 2012 was named president and publisher of Atria. Under her leadership, the Atria Group has grown to encompass various publishing imprints such as 37 Ink, Emily Bestler Books, Howard Books, Marble Arch Press, Enliven, Atria Books Español and Strebor Books, delivering popular titles for a multi-faceted readership across an impressive range of publishing categories. In her message announcing Curr’s departure, Reidy said the publisher was “particularly adept at identifying trends and cultural phenomena and then publishing to satisfy a readership that did not exist previously”. “Perhaps the most impressive example of her publisher’s intuition' was Rhonda Byrne’s [self-help manual] The Secret, of which there are now more than 35 million copies in print in 53 languages," Reidy said. "More recently Atria has had success with previously self-published “indie” authors, and with Keywords Press, dedicated to publishing the stars of new media.” Curr was described as “smart, creative and personable” by Reidy. The S&S c.e.o. said Curr was “always keen to try out new ideas and methods of publishing” and that she was “deeply committed to bringing new and underserved voices to readers” promoting diversity across Atria’s lists. Originally from Australia, Curr has been an executive in American publishing since 1996. She also teaches a course on publishing at New York University. In December 2015, Curr spoke at The Bookseller's Futurebook conference on a panel titled, ‘Writing the future: author-centric publishing’. She discussed how the "publisher’s role is to establish environments for authors to be creative, to encourage experimentation and to understand the shifting needs and nature of the readers". No reason was given for Curr’s departure and her next position is not known. |
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's will launch the Versify imprint in spring 2019, "curated" by author Kwame Alexander -- working will executive editor Margaret Raymo, editorial project manager Erika Turner and an advisory council of students from across the country. The line will "publish innovative creators with fresh stories" and "reflects Alexander's vision that accessible and powerful prose and poetry can celebrate the lives and reflect the possibilities of all children." He says in the announcement, "My goal is just to make sure there are more chefs in the kitchen, more voices in the room, that create unique and intelligent entertainment that electrifies and edifies young people." The launch list includes Last Last-Day-of-Summer, a middle-grade "modern day Phantom Tollbooth" by founding member of We Need Diverse Books, Lamar Giles.
Alexander tells the NYT he views Versify "as a way to leverage his professional connections and marketing savvy to boost the profiles of newer writers. 'I see a lot more publishers being in tune to what’s happening outside their communities, and you have a lot more writers of color having an opportunity to get their voices heard,' he said. 'There is an opportunity with this imprint for me to do that on a mass scale.'"
What Happens When You Publish A Novel
from Literary Hub
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