Sunday, November 22, 2009

Dave Egger wins The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community

The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community is presented to an individual for outstanding service to the American literary community, whose life and work exemplify the goals of the National Book Foundation to expand the audience for literature and to enhance the cultural value of literature in America.

Dave Eggers, author, editor, journalist, publisher, screenwriter, and co-founder of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth. Eggers’ first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has since written a number of books including the You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002) and the novel What is the What (2006), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In addition to writing, Eggers co-founded McSweeney’s (www.mcsweeneys.net), an independent publishing house that publishes two print magazines, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern (since 1998), The Believer (since 2003), Wholphin (since 2005), a short-film DVD quarterly, and a daily humor website.


DENDROCHRONOLOGY by Greta Goetz

"Having walked past the dark wood of obscure selves, Greta Goetz finds (and loses) her self at a Swiss boarding school, an Asian sea, a monastery in Serbia, in pseudo-Egyptian lobbies, on rocks above the Mediterranean, her native alienation all the while leading her to ask endless, heartbreakingly hopeful questions. Embarrassment, confusion, doubt, waking up fully alive, wanting to write a poem for everyone—it would be too much for anyone. That's how she knows it's what she's meant to do. It's our good luck to overhear it." —Jordan Davis


60th National Book Awards

The interviews reveal how the authors feel about being a National Book Award Finalist, offer insight into how and why a nominated book was conceived and written, and thoughts on reading. The interviews are available at http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2009.html.

A Magazine of Art & Politics

New from Guernica:

Roberto Bolaño is being sold in the U.S. as the next García Márquez, a darker, wilder, decidedly un-magical paragon of Latin American literature. His former friend and fellow novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya isn't buying it.


Stan Brock

DZANC BOOKS WRITE-A-THON

The idea behind the write-a-thon will be similar to bowl-a-thons, or walk-a-thons, or, well you get the picture - other a-thons that you've probably supported or participated in during your lifetime, only with writing being the catalyst to the raising of funds. For one day, people will volunteer to write to help raise money, and they will ask people to fill out a donation sheet to support their efforts.

For volunteers

1. Thursday, December 17 thorugh Sunday December 20, 2009.
Last year we ran the write-a-thon on a single day and many authors were upset that they already had unbreakable plans for that date. This way if an author are available on any, or all, of the four dates, they can participate.
These will be the dates that those helping out Dzanc Books by raising money will be writing. Again I'm asking that you authors out there please consider being one of those that help us raise money that day. If you are interested, please email us at info@dzancbooks.org.

2. Dzanc Books will provide a donation request email for those authors participating.

3. Your sponsors will be able to make donation pledges through our website (this will be set up early next week) via Paypal, or if they prefer to donate by check, an address will be provided. We will provide the sponsors with a tax receipt immediately this year - last year we used a mass emailing method after the event was over, and heard from some people well after the fact that they did not receive that email, so we will not use that same plan this year.

4. The mornings of the 17th through the 20th, we will send out a prompt or topic, and will post it on our website. Writers will then spend the day writing stories, or poems, or essays, using that prompt or topic (this will give those sponsoring an understanding that the work done was all done on during the write-a-thon dates).

5. Those donating will be sent proof of your participation via email. We will send out the proof of participation notices beginning on Monday the 21st.

Our goal for this event, considering there are over 2000 writers in the
Emerging Writers Network, is $20,000, or, an average of $10 raised per person. To put this in a proper context, that would pay for just under 3 full Dzanc Writer in Residence Programs, or the Dzanc Prize plus approximately 2 full DWIRPs. We will obviously be thrilled to find out after the fact that we were shortchanging ourselves with that goal. We do hope each and every member of EWN, and those who have become fans of Dzanc, will participate in our inaugural Write-A-Thon.

Your support means everything to us. We at Dzanc are truly trying to make a contribution through our charity programs and the works we publish, and while we are dedicated and diligent and will not fail in our intent, without your support, our efforts become increasingly difficult. We thank you in advance for joining us in our Write-A-Thon and your continual support of our programs and authors.

Again, for those that wish to participate, or those who wish to donate but do not know of any writers that will be participating, please contact us at
info@dzancbooks.org. Dzanc Books will also be giving a set of our Dzanc 2009 titles (from Mike Czyzniejewski's story collection through Laura van den Berg's collection) to the writer that raises the most money.

Thank you,

Dan Wickett
EWN/Dzanc Books

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Absinthe: New European Writing Joins Dzanc Books

November 18, 2009 - Ann Arbor, MI-In an effort to further our mission for bringing great writing to a broader audience, Dzanc Books is proud to announce that the literary journal, Absinthe: New (www.absinthenew.com), has become an imprint of Dzanc. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit publisher dedicated to publishingtop drawer literature and sponsoring free readings and workshops across the country, Dzanc is excited by the opportunity to work with the editors of Absinthe, Dwayne Hayes and Jessica Bomarito. Absinthe will serve as an invaluable addition to Dzanc, bringing the work of European writers and artists to North American audiences for the first time.

Dzanc is committed to finding the absolute best literature to publish. We believe publishing works from around the world is important on two fronts - a) there is some incredible work being done in Europethat has not been made available to those who only read English, and b) reading work from different world view points is essential to having a better understanding of the world we live in, and our own place in it.

Dwayne and Jessica have published twelve fantastic issues ofAbsinthe and Dzanc looks forward to being a part of their publishing dozens more. Readers of Absinthe may have noticed the Dzanc Books logo on the past few issues as we've had an informal arrangement helping out with some printing aspects. Dzanc is now excited to formalize our relationship with Absinthe and looks forward to doing many wonderful things with Absinthe in the future.


About Dzanc Books
Dzanc Books is a 501(c)3 non-profit literary publisher based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If you would like to learn more about books and programs, or make a donation, please visit our website at www.dzancbooks.org.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.



Please visit this site and click here to sponsor me for the month.
Type in lisa m. and my donation page will appear. Thanks for those who have supported me in the past.