Centre for the Book setting up children’s literature network blog.

The Centre for the Book is setting up a Children’s Literature Network Blog. The categories for the blog are listed below. If you would like to be on the blog, or to have a link to your website or blog on it, please send information to mairefisher@gmail.com

If you think we have missed a category or subcategory, please let us know and we will add it.


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Illustrators’ Project Centre for the Book

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OF GENERAL INTEREST

The latest from McSweeney's

After several months of secret labor in our mountaintop dojo, we're emerging from summer with four glorious items in hand (that's one item in each hand--we are built like Vitruvian Man). As of today, on our website and nowhere else, you can secure your copies of Bowl of Cherries, Millard Kaufman's stunning novel of young love and unorthodox acoustics and Iraqi imprisonment (Millard's ninety, by the way, and this is his first novel); McSweeney's 24, our two-in-one, Siamese-twin issue with six superb stories of troublesome times on one side and many gorgeous essays about running with Donald Barthelme on the other (along with two rare stories by the man himself); One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box, which features the very short, very sharp work of Sarah Manguso, Dave Eggers, and Deb Olin Unferth, with a small hardcover book for each of them and a gold-sprinkled slipcase for all of them; and Wholphin No. 4, our DVD quarterly's newest issue, and the first one to encompass Maggie Gyllenhaal, chimpanzees, and the chilling third installment of The Power of Nightmares. You can hear more about all of these at www.mcsweeneys.com

Rose Moss at Centre for the Book in Cape Town

Rose Moss will be reading from her collection of short stories 'In Court' published by Penguin and talking about her writing life on Thursday 30th August at lunch time at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town. 62 Queen Victoria Street. 13h00 to 14h00.

RSVP
Gaynor Young
cfbadmin@nlsa.ac.za
021 4232669

Looking for writer for 2008 Cutting Edge series

Peter Lancett, the series and commissioning editor for Ransom Publishing in the UK, is looking for a SOUTH AFRICAN writer to contribute a novella (30 - 35,000 words) to the 2008 Cutting Edge series. This series is aimed at teenagers and deals with hard-hitting issues - drugs, alienation, violence, death, crime etc. He is particularly looking for a writer who can contribute a work told from the perspective of a township kid. All works in this series are told in the first person.

If you are a SOUTH AFRICAN writer, interested in contributing to this series, please contact peter@xlitherfilms.com

Jacana Media invite you to the launch of Pregs Govender's Love & Courage

Guest Speakers: Amina Mama & Baleka Mbete
Poetry by Malika Ndlovu

Tuesday 21 August 5:30 for 6pm
Centre for the Book, 52 Queen Victoria Str, Cape Town
RSVP: Karin Iten 011 628 3200 karin@jacana.co.za

Finalists for sixth annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism announced

International Policy Network today announced the six finalists for the sixth annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism. The Prize – named in honour of the great 19th Century French philosopher and essayist Frédéric Bastiat – celebrates writers whose work cleverly and wittily promotes the institutions of the free society.

Commenting on the announcement, IPN Executive Director Julian Morris, said, “This year, we received over 280 submissions from writers in more than 60 countries, the overwhelming majority of them very high calibre.

The final decision is now in the hands of our eminent panel of judges, which comprises two former winners, Brian Carney (Wall Street Journal) and Amity Shlaes (syndicated Bloomberg columnist), two world-renowned economists, Professors Bibek Debroy and Wolfgang Kasper, and the Chief Judge of the DC Court of Appeals, Douglas Ginsburg. We look forward to announcing this year’s winners at the Bastiat Prize dinner on October 24th.”

The 2007 finalists (in alphabetical order followed by the publication(s) in which their entries appeared):

* Clive Crook

The Atlantic Monthly, USA; National Journal, USA

* Jonah Goldberg

LA Times, USA; Orlando Sentinel/syndicated, USA; National Review, USA

* A. Barton Hinkle

Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA

* Dominic Lawson

The Independent, UK

* Patrick McIlheran

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA

* Amit Varma

Mint, India
The winners will be announced at the Bastiat Prize Dinner in New York on 24th October 2007. The first prize winner will receive US$10,000 and an engraved candlestick. Second and third prize winners will receive $4000 and $1000 respectively, as well as an engraved candlestick.

The Bastiat Prize was first awarded in 2002 and judges have included Lady Thatcher and Nobel-Prize-winners James Buchanan and Milton Friedman.

This year’s panel of judges is:

* Brian Carney

(Editorial Board member, Wall Street Journal)

* Professor Bibek Debroy

(International Management Institute, India)

* Judge Douglas Ginsburg

(Chief Judge, Washington DC Court of Appeals)

* Professor Wolfgang Kasper

(Emeritus Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia)

* Amity Shlaes

(syndicated Bloomberg columnist; visiting senior fellow, Council on

Foreign Relations)

Last year’s joint first prize winners were Tim Harford of the Financial Times and Jamie Whyte for his articles in The Times of London. Rakesh Wadhwa took third prize for his articles in the Himalayan Times. Previous winners include Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal, Amity Shlaes (then with the Financial Times), Robert Guest (The Economist), Sauvik Chakraverti (Economic Times of India) and Brian Carney (then with the Wall Street Journal Europe). Entries for the Bastiat Prize are judged on intellectual content, persuasiveness of language used, and type and location of publication. The Prize is open to all writers, anywhere in the world; writers need not be associated with any specific publication. The Prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society: property rights, the rule of law and limited government.

The Bastiat Prize is sponsored by International Policy Network (IPN), which comprises two sister organisations: a charity based in London and a non-profit 501(c) 3 corporation in the US. For more on IPN and the Bastiat Prize, please browse: www.policynetwork.net and www.bastiatprize.org

*New* commentary: Thoughts on African Writing in the New Century

I have been watching the publishing scene carefully and I have noticed that this era (the eve of the 21st century) might be the time for the African writer or artist. There have been numerous international awards given to African writers lately, for instance, Mann Booker, Caine, and others; and Nigeria, it seems, is once again leading in this explosion of African writing in English. Remember, in the 1950s Nigerian authors were leading the African scene, that is, in the arena of African writing in English. Of course, much was also happening in Francophone Africa, but my focus here is African writing in English. This writing has matured.

Thoughts on African Writing in the New Century - Emmanuel Sigauke

*New* poetry: Three poems by Abbey Khambule

Abbey Khambule is a Johannesburg resident, born in 1981 in Warmbath North West, raised and schooled in Cyverskuil, Atteridgeville, Pretoria and later Alexandra Township. He grew up aspiring to be a well known painter but in recent years has lost himself to poetry. He is studying towards a BA in Creative Writing and makes a living working for a law firm in Sandton.

Three poems - Abbey Khambule

Final edition of Crossing Borders magazine

Issue Twelve, the final edition of the Crossing Borders magazine

http://www.crossingborders-africanwriting.org/magazine/issuetwelve/
series is now available online. The magazine is edited by Becky Clarke, publishing the creative work, short stories and poetry of around 36 Crossing Borders participants over a year.

This edition includes:

Introduction by Becky Ayebia Clarke
'The Role of the Writer as a Social/Political Commentator' by Delia Jarrett - Macauley
'Goat's Feet' by Stanley Gazemba from Kenya
'True Warriors' by Ken Kamoche from Kenya
'The Other Cheek' by Hazel Couvaras from Zambia
Poetry by Zvisinei C. Sandi from Zimbabwe
'Broken Wings' by Batsirai Easther Chigama from Zimbabwe

British Council launches new writing website

The British Council's New Writing website http://newwriting.britishcouncil.org is now live. The theme for this month's focus is Writers on Writing, which examines the inner workings of a writer's mind as two authors discuss the highs and lows of what it takes to be a writer.

Ursula Holden's account of her writing career is inspirational and a homage to her strength and determination. She sent her first novel to over 40 publishers without finding a home for it; her second novel was accepted by Carcanet Press but lack of money prevented publication and it was only when her work was finally picked up by the late Alan Ross of London Magazine that she was finally published. 'Write at Your Own Peril' is an engaging and powerful piece of writing that combines personal memoir with the joys and pains of writing for a living.

Ma Jian left China, uncomfortable at the level of censorship he encountered there. He found Hong Kong to be a city in which he could write freely without losing the inspiration he gained in China. However, when Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese in 1997 his discomfort returned, forcing him to move to the West, far from the people, colours and smells that stimulated his work. His piece 'A Chinese Writer in London' describes the issues he has to confront to continue his work.

The website includes notes for teachers, notes for readers, author interviews and glossaries which we will be updating on a monthly basis, focusing on a wide selection of short stories, poems, novel extracts and essays.