Wrap-up of LA Times Festival of Books
The Los Angeles Times has rounded up its coverage of its 2011 Festival of Books this past weekend. Here’s a sampling.
Patti Smith and Dave Eggers discussed writing before a rapt audience. When Smith read from her work, “There was a moment when Smith had to pause, a rush of sorrow greeting her from the page, making her voice waver.” Eggers on his process: “Hunched in what he called his ‘writing position’ in his shed/studio, eking out a few hundred words a day, Eggers thinks about people who are ‘really working for a living.’”
Benjamin Hale, Olga Grushin, L.A. Times Book Prize-fiction finalist Frederick Reiken, and L.A. Times Book Prize-fiction winner Jennifer Egan formed a panel to discuss their flirtations with form. “Egan probably summed it up best: Form should allow you to ‘do what needs to be done in the freest way possible.’"
Daniel Clowes on graphic novels: “It’s a very delicate and complicated language.”
At Chapman University’s booth, participants were invited to create their own refrigerator magnet poetry, personalized with a photo. “We may need to get some people to take photos of prepositions.” Check their website for some poetic results.
A panel of several successful West Coast booksellers offered seven survival tips for indie booksellers, among them to partner with print-on-demand companies and local self-published authors.
If you attended, tell us about your experiences too.
A few other items to pass along:
Poet and TQO contributor D.A. Powell will add a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship to his numerous accolades. Northwestern faculty Eula Biss has already been noted in this blog as receiving a Fellowship. Congratulations to both.
The June 2011 issue of Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal features conversations between pairs of its numerous contributors since 1990. To pre-order a copy, write to Bridges c/o Clare Kinberg, ckinberg@gmail.com.
Read a poem by Patti Smith published last week online at Granta.
