PRH Partners With the James Baldwin Family to Launch New Creative Writing Award for Fiction
global.penguinrandomhouse.com – Tuesday August 6, 2024
Penguin Random House has partnered with James Baldwin family to launch The James Baldwin Award for Fiction, a creative writing award for fiction for public high school students, in honor of the 100th birthday of the literary legend and civil rights champion. The award will recognize a student for an original literary composition in English for fiction with a first-place prize of $10,000.
The James Baldwin Award for Fiction is one of six creative writing awards given by Penguin Random House as part of their signature Creative Writing Awards (CWA) program. Other categories include the Freedom of Expression Award; the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry; the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir; the Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word; and the NYC Entrant Award.
Since 1993, the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards have awarded more than $2.9 million dollars to public high school students for their original compositions. In partnership with nonprofit We Need Diverse Books, the program empowers and celebrates hundreds of young writers each year and underscores Penguin Random House’s commitment supporting the next generation of readers and authors and amplifying diverse voices and stories. Creative Writing Award winners have gone on to become professional and award-winning authors.
Riposte magazine returns as a ‘visceral’ new literary journal
dazeddigital.com – Saturday August 3, 2024
Danielle Pender’s beloved magazine has undergone a ‘super chic’ rebrand, with its latest issue featuring writing from Sheena Patel, Halima Jibril, Charlie Porter and more
When Riposte Magazine first launched in 2013, it quickly cultivated a space for the culturally avid and curious. Independent magazines were blossoming with fresh points of view, fostering communities with each conceptual revolution and zine drop. Ione Gamble’s Polyester was growing, a sparkling ode to having ‘faith in your own bad taste’ and a challenge to what we should both hold close and explode of girlhood. Kieran Yates’ British Values was celebrating the UK’s immigrant communities, while Strike! Magazine was anarchically swinging at the publishing industry, and Mushpit was running all over London to its own mad melody.
“2013 feels like a really long time ago,” says founder Danielle Pender today. “It was before #MeToo, the women’s march, and the Black Lives Matter movement had just started in July of that year. Tumblr was still at its peak, we hadn’t been Girlbossed yet, and Obama was still president.”
Riposte, founded and edited by writer and Watching Women and Girls author Pender, took on societal pressure points for women and the subsequent solidarity borne from them. “We were originally railing against the narrow representation of women in the media and writing features on forgotten women; it feels almost quaint now,” she says. “The magazine evolved and became a lot more progressive. I’m really proud of the women we platformed and the features we published, especially the more political articles and social commentary pieces.”
Duckworth Books buys September Publishing for undisclosed sum
thebookseller.com – Thursday August 1, 2024
September Publishing will become an imprint at Duckworth Books after being sold for an undisclosed sum.
The full team of three will transfer over, including September’s publisher Hannah MacDonald who will continue to lead the list, now as an imprint of Duckworth Books.
Founded by MacDonald in 2014, September has won the Regional Small Press of the Year award twice and been shortlisted every year since the award started. It has a core of upmarket mind-body-spirit publishing and has published five titles with author Sharon Blackie, as well as a wider range of illustrated and narrative non-fiction. September also has publishing relationships with the Van Gogh Museum and English Heritage.
BAFTA Rocliffe new writing competition
cinematography.world – Saturday July 27, 2024
The BAFTA Rocliffe new writing competition is a platform for aspiring screenwriters to have their work showcased and a fantastic opportunity to take their writing career to the next level.
The competition, which runs twice a year, calls submissions for Film, Television Drama, Children, Family & YA Media, and Television Comedy scripts. In 2024, we will be running Television Comedy and Film.
Following a blind judging process, selected script extracts are performed by a professional cast to an audience of producers, development executives, directors, actors and literary agents, aiming to give a platform to emerging writing talent from across the country.
Amanda Harris to leave YMU in 2025 and set up new literary agency
thebookseller.com – Friday July 26, 2024
Literary agent Amanda Harris is leaving YMU to set up her own literary agency. Harris will be leaving the company in early 2025, however she will continue to work with YMU clients on future projects.
Speaking exclusively to The Bookseller, Harris, managing director of Literary, said: "I have had a great time at YMU, and I am thrilled to be continuing my work with YMU clients as I take the next step in my agenting career. I feel very honoured to have launched a bespoke literary business within the company, and to have worked with such a talented team of award-winning agents.
"YMU Literary’s impact on the group, and the UK publishing industry, is reflected in the bestseller charts, national book awards and huge TCM sales figures achieved by our authors and their publishers."
Plans for national writing centre put to government
bbc.co.uk – Wednesday July 24, 2024
Plans to create a national writing centre in the North East have been put to the government.
The Centre for Writing would be based at Bolbec Hall in Westgate Road, Newcastle, and would support community writing and reading initiatives.
New Writing North, the charity behind the plan, said the centre would cost £14m and it was seeking £5m from the government's Cultural Development Fund.
Claire Malcolm, the charity's CEO, said the investment would "help train and develop a new generation of local talent".
"I want young people here to be able to grow up to be publishers, writers and creatives without presuming they need to leave the North East to achieve their ambition," she added.
If approved, the centre would provide support for professional writers and publishing businesses across the north of England.
Max Edwards leaves Aevitas to return to Apple Tree Literary
thebookseller.com – Monday July 22, 2024
Max Edwards has left Aevitas Creative Management after five years to re-open his own agency, Apple Tree Literary.
Having originally founded Apple Tree in February 2019, Edwards merged it with Aevitas later that year. He brings his list of authors with him to the re-launched Apple Tree Literary.
Edwards said: “I’m excited to be re-launching Apple Tree Literary. I have learnt so much over the last five years and will miss all my former colleagues at Aevitas Creative Management. But the opportunity to grow my own agency from a sapling once more is a thrilling one. I look forward to nurturing the continued successes of my brilliant clients, and to working closely with their publishers around the world.”
Toby Mundy, c.e.o. of ACM UK, said: “I think I speak for everyone at Aevitas Creative Management when I wish Max the very best with his new venture. I look forward to seeing him and his clients flourish in their new home."
First romantic fiction festival held in Manchester
thebookseller.com – Saturday July 20, 2024
The first romantic fiction festival was held in Manchester last week, which saw readers and writers gather from across the country.
Manchester Central Library hosted Love Stories etc festival on 13th July, with 28 author panels, five writing workshops and an immensely popular book stall staffed by romance experts from Waterstones Arndale.
Co-directed and co-founded by Simon & Schuster’s brand development director Sara-Jade Virtue and HarperNorth’s head of marketing and publicity Alice Murphy-Pyle, the cross-publishing festival featured authors from several publishers at all stages of their careers. Authors including Milly Johnson, Harriet Evans, Cesca Major, P J Ellis, Veronica Henry and Isabelle Broom took to the performance space, while workshops from literary agent Lisa Highton, the RNA and publishing staff helped inspire writers.
Digital Audio Up 15 Percent: A 23-Percent Jump YTD
publishingperspectives.com – Saturday July 20, 2024
In its May 2024 StatShot report released this morning (July 18), the Association of American Publishers (AAP) cites total revenues across all categories up 10.8 percent over May 2023, at US$1.1 billion.
Year-to-date revenues, the AAP reports, were up 5.5 percent, at US$5.2 billion for the first five months of the year.
For a second month, the United States’ book publishing industry—as assessed by the StatShot program—shows a significant boost. The analysis shows total gross sales increasing 5 percent, with net sales rising 11 percent, according to the report’s authors.
The trade itself—the commercial books industry and the part of the international business most closely followed by Publishing Perspectives—saw gross sales of 9 percent, but because of a 31-percent decrease in returns, that gross-sales figure jumped to 31 percent. Hardback and paperback formats in the trade saw increases of 21 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in net sales, boosting the year-to-date trade net sales to 5 percent.
United Agents' Kat Aitken and Seren Adams launch new agency Lexington Literary
thebookseller.com – Wednesday July 17, 2024
Kat Aitken and Seren Adams have left United Agents after nine years to found new agency, Lexington Literary.
The agency will be looking for new writers of bold and emotive literary and upmarket fiction, narrative non-fiction with a strong hook, and general non-fiction by experts and academics.
Their clients include Caleb Azumah Nelson, winner of the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize and bestselling author of Open Water and Small Worlds (Viking), #Merky Books Prize-winning debut novelist William Rayfet Hunter, Granta Best Young British Novelist Lauren Aimee Curtis, and forthcoming debut novelist Róisín Lanigan.
In non-fiction, Lexington Literary represents Forward Prize-shortlisted Ralf Webb, academic Orlando Reade, and Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize shortlistees Asa Seresin and Benoît Loiseau, among others.
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