The Guardian Review’s Christmas Book List
The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2006
The Australian: What Writers Read This Year
Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of the Year
Salon.com’s Best Fiction of 2006
Salon.com’s Best Non-fiction of 2006
Bookslut’s Best Covers of 2006
The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association’s Best Holiday Reads
According to Sydney PEN, thirty-eight writers and journalists have been killed in the past year. The most dangerous countries have been Iraq, Pakistan, the Phillipines, Sri Lanka and Russia. PEN has a list of killings on its website, with suspected motives for each. While in some cases it is unclear whether death was directly linked to the victim’s writing, for the majority the victim had published criticism of political or social corruption and oppression.
International PEN is an association that exists to promote friendship and cooperation between writers worldwide, to fight for freedom of expression and to represent the conscience of literature.
Join us at AWM Online on Monday 11th December for our regular live forum with special guest, acclaimed author Linda Jaivin (Eat Me, The Infernal Optimist, The Monkey and The Dragon). One of our most popular tutors and writer’s festival favourite, Linda will be joined by freelance writer and all round comic genius David Smiedt (Delivering the Male, 100 Years of Australian Comedy) in what promises to be a most amusing and enjoyable discussion. Both of these writers have a serious side too, and are passionate about their respective areas of activism and interest.
Log in at 12 noon (Eastern Daylight Time) for an up close and personal conversation with our guests, and contribute to the discussion.
Don’t forget you will find our past forums archived on the site containing gems from the wonderful and talented guests who have graced our virtual stage thus far.
Fraudulent literary agent Martha Ivery has been sentenced to 65 months in federal prison, plus three years of probation. She was also ordered to make restitution to her victims. A.C Crispin, of Writer Beware and Science Fiction Writers of America, attented the sentencing and blogged it here.
Ivery’s scams duped hundreds of writers, and included a fee-charging literary agency, expensive vanity presses, kick-backs from other vanity publishers, and paid services that were never delivered. According to Writer Beware, Ivery solicited business and payments under several aliases, harassed writers for fees, threatened them with blacklisting when they didn’t comply, and fabricated wild excuses for her nonperformance and lack of real sales. She even faked her own death!
Estimates put the amount she raked in at around US$730,000, from almost 300 writers across America. Writer Beware admin was instrumental in the case, had been investigating Ivery since 1996, and also received threats from her (including a strange one that referenced the film Death Becomes Her).
Visit Writer Beware for more info.