Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award

A call for applications....

 

The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is a one-time grant of $1,500 for an emerging writer of color.

An unpublished writer is preferred, although publication of one work of short fiction or academic work will not disqualify an applicant. This grant is intended to support the recipient in activities related to writing and career development. These activities include workshops, seminars, conferences, and retreats; online courses; and research activities required for completion of the work.

The grant is administered by Sisters in Crime, a 3,600-member organization of mystery authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers and librarians. Sisters in Crime was founded by Sara Paretsky and a group of women at the 1986 Bouchercon in Baltimore. In 2014 the group invites members to: “SinC Up With Great Crime Writing! Our mission is to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers.”

 

More:  http://www.sistersincrime.org/associations/10614/files/14EleanorTaylorBland-GrantAnnouncement.pdf 

 

Picture: Mystery writer Eleanor Taylor Bland (1944-2010).

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Josh Bartlett wins Garber Prize

Congratulations to Writers Institute Grad Assistant Josh Bartlett for winning the Spring 2014 Eugene K. Garber Prize for Short Fiction for his story, "French Twist."

Photo:  Josh with Alex Trebek during his appearance on Jeopardy! in 2012 (the show aired on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22nd).

The prize is endowed by Professor Emeritus Gene Garber of the UAlbany English Department:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/garber_eugene_k.html

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Short Essay Contest, Deadline April 15th

You are invited to enter the first New York State “Poetry Unites” short essay contest.

Open to all New York State residents for the best short essay (no longer than 600 words) about your favorite poem

After a successful six-year run in Europe, the Poetry Unites contest, inspired by Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem project, has come to New York State.

Marie Howe, the New York State Poet (appointed by Governor Cuomo under the sponsorship of the New York State Writers Institute), and Corinne Evens, a philanthropist, in co-ordination with the Academy of American Poets, the New York State Writers Institute, and the New York State Office of Cultural Education, are pleased to announce a contest for the best short essay about a favorite poem. The contest is open to all New York State residents.

Awards:

·         The four winners of the main prize will be featured in short film profiles, which will be placed on the Academy of American Poets website, New York State Library website, New York State Writers Institute website, and may be broadcast in the USA by Public Television .

·         All winners will be invited to NYC gala in October 2014. The invitation will cover travel expenses within New York State.

More information:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/poetry_unites14.html

Picture:  Walker Hancock's bust of Robert Frost.

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National Book Award Poetry Longlist Announced

Three past visitors to the NYS Writers Institute appear on the National Book Award's longlist for the award in poetry.

They include Lucie Brock-Broido, for Stay, Illusion; Andrei Codrescu for So Recently Rent a World, New and Selected Poems: 1968-2012; and Frank Bidart for Metaphysical Dog.

See Frank Bidart speak at the Institute on Youtube in 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReSgPXq2W_8

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The Short, Short Stories of Lydia Davis

The New York Times blog discusses the shortness of Lydia Davis's short stories following the announcement of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize:

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/the-short-story-of-lydia-daviss-man-booker-prize/

Lydia will teach another multiple-week Community Writers Workshop in Fall 2013 (free and open to the public on a competitive basis).

More about her here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/davis_lydia13.html

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Sweet Picture of Lydia Davis in the Los Angeles Times

The LA Times has a nice picture of the NYS Writers Institute's Lydia Davis at the moment she
learned she had won the Man Booker International Prize.

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-lydia-davis-wins-man-booker-international-prize-20130522,0,2279746.story

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President Jones Congratulates Lydia Davis on Her Booker International Prize

“Lydia Davis has repeatedly challenged our notions of storytelling, and in doing so has influenced a generation of writers, both here in Albany and on the international stage,” said UAlbany President Robert J. Jones. “We’re extremely proud of her great honor and international acclaim.”

 

More about Lydia Davis and the 2013 Man Booker International Prize here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/davis_lydia13.html

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Our Own Lydia Davis Wins the Booker International Prize!

Lydia Davis, leading author of short fiction, New York State Writers Institute Writing Fellow, and a University at Albany English Department faculty member, has been awarded the 2013 Man Booker International Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of literature. The award is given every two years to an author of any nationality in order to recognize an outstanding body of work in English or available in English translation. Sir Christopher Ricks, chair of the judges’ panel, said that Davis’s “writings fling their lithe arms wide to embrace many a kind. Just how to categorise them? They have been called stories but could equally be miniatures, anecdotes, essays, jokes, parables, fables, texts, aphorisms or even apophthegms, prayers or simply observations…. There is a vigilance to her stories, and great imaginative attention.”

Writing in the Guardian (UK) in 2009, Hephzibah Anderson declared that the Booker International Prize “is fast becoming the more significant award, appearing an ever more competent alternative to the Nobel.” Previous winners have included Philip Roth (2011), Alice Munro (2009), Chinua Achebe (2007) and Ismail Kadare (2005). The prize is £60,000 (approximately $91,000).

Lydia Davis has been called “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review), “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon), and “one of the best writers in America” (O Magazine). She is renowned in literary circles for perfecting the craft of the “extremely short short story,” and has begun to enjoy a much wider readership. Novelist Dave Eggers has said that Davis’s work, “blows the roof off of so many of our assumptions about what constitutes short fiction.”

This coming fall semester at UAlbany, Davis is scheduled to teach a tuition-free writing workshop over the course of several weeks, open to the public on a competitive basis, under the sponsorship of the New York State Writers Institute. Davis has taught community writing workshops for the Institute on five previous occasions (2005-2009). She first visited UAlbany in 2000 as a guest of the Institute’s Visiting Writers Series. During that visit, Institute Director Donald Faulkner, among others, suggested she apply for a teaching position in the English Department. She joined the faculty and became an Institute Writing Fellow in 2002. Faulkner commented, “We are very proud to count Lydia Davis among our Fellows. She is a great talent, an excellent teacher, and a wonderful colleague. She richly deserves this award.”

Her newest book is The Collected Stories (2009), a compilation of stories from four previously published volumes including Varieties of Disturbance (2007), Samuel Johnson is Indignant (2001), Almost No Memory (1997) and Break it Down (1986). Appearing to rave reviews in the mainstream press, the book is being described as a “surprise bestseller” by its publisher, Farrar Straus and Giroux.

In a New Yorker review, James Wood said, “Finally, one can read a large portion of Davis’s work, spanning three decades and more than seven hundred pages, and a grand cumulative achievement comes into view— a body of work probably unique in American writing, in its combination of lucidity, aphoristic brevity, formal originality, sly comedy, metaphysical bleakness, philosophical pressure, and human wisdom. I suspect that [the book] will in time be seen as one of the great, strange American literary contributions, distinct and crookedly personal, like the work of Flannery O’Connor, or Donald Barthelme, or J. F. Powers.”

Davis received a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation award in 2003. In granting the award the Foundation praised Davis’s work for showing “how language itself can entertain, how all that what one word says, and leaves unsaid, can hold a reader’s interest…. Davis grants readers a glimpse of life’s previously invisible details, revealing new sources of philosophical insights and beauty.”

A Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, Davis is also one of the most respected translators into English of French literary fiction by Proust, Flaubert, Foucault and Blanchot. In 2003, Davis published a new translation— the first in more than 80 years— of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece, Swann’s Way (2003), one of the most important literary works of the 20th century. The Sunday Telegraph (London) called the new translation “A triumph [that] will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new audiences throughout the English-speaking world.” Writing for the Irish Times, Frank Wynne said, “What soars in this new version is the simplicity of language and fidelity to the cambers of Proust’s prose… Davis’ translation is magnificent, precise.” Her 2010 translation of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary also received high praise in major publications throughout the world.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620.

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Junot Diaz Wins MacArthur "Genius" Award

Junot Diaz, who visits Albany Thursday, has just been awarded a $100,000 no-strings-attached MacArthur Foundation grant.

From the L. A. Times:

On Monday, news of who would be named the 2012 MacArthur Fellows leaked out early in reports by the Associated Press and elsewhere. Two writers are among the 23 artists, scientists and thinkers on the list: Junot Diaz and Dinaw Mengestu.

Diaz is the author of, most recently, the short story collection "This Is How You Lose Her," published in September. Mengestu's most recent work is the 2010 novel "How to Read the Air." Both are published by Riverhead.

Each author will receive a no-strings-attached "genius grant" of $500,000. All MacArthur Fellows are awarded $100,000 a year for five years.

More:  http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-macarthur-genius-junot-diaz-dinaw-mengestu-20121001,0,2594121.story

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