Expand your mind with a new magazine of psychedelic art and literature
lithub.com – Monday May 13, 2024
Are you ready to take a trip?
Elastic, a biannual print magazine of psychedelic art and literature that will debut in spring 2025, aims to publish art and writing that’s “immersive, dreamlike, daring, genre- and time-bending, and that acts to expand the mind and the vast possibilities of narrative.”
Founding editor-in-chief Hillary Brenhouse was previously the editorial director of Bold Type Books and editor-in-chief of Guernica magazine. She’ll be joined by editor Meara Sharma, formerly the editor-in-chief of Adi magazine, and a body of contributing editors and artists that includes Jaquira Diaz, Amanda Gunn, Laura van den Berg, Jia Sung, Amber Sparks, and Darian Longmire. The magazine is being supported in part by grants from UC Berkeley and Harvard as part of their Psychedelics in Society and Culture initiative.
WME Acquires Ross Yoon Agency in Expansion of Literary Talent Portfolio
msn.com – Monday May 13, 2024
Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.’s WME announced today it has acquired Ross Yoon Agency.
The Washington D.C.-based agency, Ross Yoon, specializes in literary and commercial nonfiction including memoir, biography, history, popular science, business and psychology. In addition, the literary agency’s president Gail Ross and principal Howard Yoon will join WME as partners.
The current Ross Yoon clients will join WME’s roster — the new clientele will include Ross Yoon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and authors, business, non-profit leaders, doctors, scientists, academics, politicians and media personalities.
Ross Yoon joins WME’s 40-year-old book department, which includes a clientele of best-selling and award-winning fiction and nonfiction authors. Most recently in 2022, WME had over 50 New York Times bestsellers and closed nearly 1,000 international publishing deals.
“This acquisition is a natural evolution of WME’s long history of representing best-selling authors and helping bring their visions to life across platforms,” said WME co-chairmen Christian Muirhead and Richard Weitz. “We are proud that after so many hugely successful independent years Gail and Howard chose WME as their partner in this next phase of growth.”
How sci-fi writer JG Ballard's computer poems predicted ChatGPT
bbc.com – Saturday May 11, 2024
In the 1970s, science fiction writer JG Ballard was intrigued by the growing capabilities of computers – so used one to compose poems. They were a first step on the road to ChatGPT.
The novelist and short story writer JG Ballard, is known for conjuring warped and reimagined versions of the world he occupied. Dealing with strange exaggerations of realities and often detailing the breakdown of social norms, his unconventional works are hard to categorise.
Sitting on the edge of reality, these unsettling visions often provoked controversy. Eschewing a science-fiction of the distant future, Ballard described his own work as being set in "a kind of visionary present".
Today, as we contemplate generative AI writing texts, composing music and creating art, Ballard's visionary present yet again has something prescient and fresh to tell us.
In an interview from 2004, the author Vanora Bennett suggested to Ballard that he writes about "what is just about to happen in a given community". Asked about what "kind of real-life event" inspired the ideas in his fiction Ballard responded:
I just have a feeling in my bones: there's something odd going on, and I explore that by writing a novel, by trying to find the unconscious logic that runs below the surface and looking for the hidden wiring. It's as if there are all these strange lights, and I'm looking for the wiring and the fuse box.
The topics in Ballard's fiction frequently reveal just how highly attuned he was to the subtleties of the emerging technological and social shifts that were, as he puts it, just below the surface. The fuse box of society was often rewired in his ideas.
And with generative AI there is undoubtedly something odd going on, to which Ballard's attention seems to have been drawn long before it even happened.
UK audiobook downloads up 17% last year, Publishers Association data shows
theguardian.com – Wednesday May 8, 2024
The number of UK audiobook downloads increased by 17% between 2022 and 2023, according to new data from the Publishers Association (PA).
Revenue from audiobooks rose 24% across the same period to £206m in 2023, reflecting an increase in the number of audiobook downloads from 50m to 59m, the trade body said.
Over five years, UK audiobook revenue has more than doubled. “It’s fair to say that audio is now a really serious part of the publishing portfolio,” said the PA’s chief executive, Dan Conway. “Audiobooks have established themselves as a major route to market for consumers of books in this country”.
These figures reflect the way the audiobook market has evolved. Spotify made audiobooks available to its Premium subscribers in October, while Audible has expanded from single-narrator audiobooks to those with large, starry casts and sound effects. Sam Mendes-produced audiobooks of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist featuring Ncuti Gatwa, Helena Bonham Carter and Nicola Coughlan were released in the past two years, and there are plans to release new audiobooks of all seven Harry Potter titles, voiced by a cast of more than 100 performers.
BookTok’s influence on publishing is set to last
ft.com – Tuesday May 7, 2024
The bursting of the pandemic sales bubble has been sharp and painful for sectors such as online retail. In publishing, an unlikely source — social media — has helped avoid a hard landing.
Social media should, in theory, be an enemy of the publishing industry given the competing pressures on consumers’ time. Since the pandemic, though, it has produced growth for once-niche genres such as fantasy and propelled authors who were little known to mainstream audiences on to bestseller lists. This will not be a fleeting phenomenon.
BookTok is a community within the video app TikTok in which influencers post content such as reviews of their favourite books. Similar groups can be found on YouTube or Instagram. Yet it is BookTok that has shaken up the sometimes fusty literary world, turbocharging sales of authors such as Sarah J Maas, Colleen Hoover and Alice Oseman among younger readers.
Channel 4 seeks Northern TV writers
prolificnorth.co.uk – Tuesday April 30, 2024
The Channel 4 Writing for Television Awards and Channel 4 Northern Talent Network: Script Hubs are both open for entry until June 4, 2024.
The awards offer new television writers based in the North of England unique opportunities with independent production companies Bonafide Films (Mood, The Last Post), Rollem Productions (Love Lies & Records, Girlfriends) and Red Production Company (It’s a Sin, Happy Valley), which rejoins the programme in 2024 having been one of the inaugural production company partners when the awards were launched in 2014.
The State of the Crime Novel, Part 1: Writing Life
crimereads.com – Tuesday April 30, 2024
Once again, the Edgar Awards are upon us, and once again, I’ve had the privilege of asking dozens of great writers to contribute to our annual roundtable discussion on the state of the genre. This year’s roundtable, like in previous years, is divided into two parts: the first, running today, is focused on craft advice and the writing life, while the second, running tomorrow, will address issues in the genre and the future of crime writing. Thanks so much to the more than 30 nominees who sent in thoughtful, fascinating, and often hilarious responses. The award ceremony is this Wednesday night, and you’ll be able to follow along on social media as winners are announced or take a look at CrimeReads first thing on Thursday morning.
WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR WRITERS WHO ARE JUST STARTING OUT? AND WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF WRITING ADVICE YOU’VE EVER GOTTEN?
William Kent Krueger (nominated for Best Novel – The River We Remember): First piece of advice: Write every day, and write because you love it, not because you hope you’ll get rich and famous from the effort. Second piece of advice: Marry someone with a good job.
The best piece of advice given to me when I was about to become a published author was to get to know the booksellers. If the booksellers like you and appreciate your work, they’ll sell you like crazy and spread the word. I found this to be true.
The one-man-band literary review that’s outpacing the monthly magazines
inews.co.uk – Tuesday April 30, 2024
Ed Needham edits and publishes Strong Words almost singlehandedly from a room in his west London home
Strong Words is an extraordinary magazine about books. Each edition runs to 84 pages and 45,000 words, including reviews of up to 35 new novels and volumes of non-fiction. This writing and reading is done, almost entirely, by one person.
“It is a seven-day-a-week job,” says Ed Needham, who edits and publishes Strong Words from a room in his west London house. “I worked out that it’s the equivalent of writing The Great Gatsby every issue and reading the equivalent of War and Peace every week.”
Such is Needham’s devotion to literature that he has followed this punishing schedule for six years and Strong Words has reached its 50th issue, which is testimony to the quality of the publication and the validity of its founding mission: to write about books in the engaging format of a popular magazine.
Major International Publisher Acquires Chelsea Green Publishing
sevendaysvt.com – Saturday April 20, 2024
Rizzoli International Publications, the New York City-based subsidiary of Italian publishing house Mondadori Group, will acquire Chelsea Green Publishing, the 40-year-old White River Junction company known for its titles on the politics and practice of sustainable living.
Mondadori announced on April 15 that Rizzoli will pay $5 million for the Vermont company and its London subsidiary, Chelsea Green Publishing UK Ltd. The deal is expected to close by June 30.
"This partnership aligns perfectly with our vision of promoting meaningful content that resonates with global audiences while addressing crucial issues related to sustainability and eco-friendly living," Rizzoli's CEO and president Stefano Peccatori said. Rizzoli International publishes illustrated books about fashion, interior design, art, architecture, photography, travel, sports and food. The company began in 1964 as a New York City bookstore, which still operates.
Literary mag launches new writing prize for short stories
quillandquire.com – Saturday April 20, 2024
Attention, short story writers: Montreal-based literary journal yolk is launching the Montreal Fiction Prize.
The prize, open to Canadian writers of stories up to 4,000 words long, carries a $2,000 purse, with two $500 awards for the second- and third-place stories.
Giller Prize-winning author Souvankham Thammavongsa will be the guest judge for the prize’s inaugural year.
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