How to use this Page

Amy Tan has been working on a non-fiction book entitled A Writer’s Mind. For this project, Tan (pictured, via) will focus on the subject of creativity.

Tan explained in a Facebook post that she feels her 2008 TED talk, which is called “Where does creativity hide?,” is incomplete. She wants to continue the discussion on creativity and examine her own “writer’s mind.”

At this point in time, no publication date for this book has been announced. To help with the wait, follow this link to watch Tan’s TED talk.

Have you ever written a letter to one of your favorite authors?

More than 50,000 young readers (grades 4 through 12) participated in the Library of Congress’ Letters About Literature program. Each participant was tasked with writing a letter to an author (living or deceased) about how one of their books affected them.

According to the press release, this “initiative is a reading-promotion program of the Center for the Book, with the goal of instilling a lifelong love of reading in the nation’s youth.” Below, we’ve posted the full list of winners and honors.

Level 1 (Grades 4 to 6)

National Prize: Gerel Sanzhikov of New Jersey’s letter focused on The Running Dream by Wendell Van Draanen.

National Honor Award: Chelsea Brown of Virginia’s letter focused on Shades of Black by Sandra L. Pinkney.

Level 2 (Grades 7 to 8)

National Prize: Gabriel Ferris of Maine’s letter focused on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

National Honor Award (three-way tie): Emmy Goyette of New Hampshire’s letter focused on Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Jonathan Hoff of New Jersey’s letter focused on Maus by Art Spiegelman.

Julianna Gorman of Maryland’s letter focused on Night by Elie Wiesel.

Level 3 (Grades 9 to 12)

National Prize: Aidan Kingwell of Illinois’ letter focused on the Mary Oliver poem \"When Death Comes.\"

National Honor Award (tied between two participants): Lisa Le of the District of Columbia’s focused on The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

Hannah DesChamp of Oregon’s letter focused on the Pablo Neruda poem \"I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You.\"

Michael McKenzie has been named executive director of publicity at Algonquin. His start date has been set for May 26th.

McKenzie will be based at the publishing house’s New York office. He will manage publicity projects for both the adult and children’s books list.

Prior to this development, McKenzie serve as the senior of director of publicity of the Ecco and Harper imprints at HarperCollins. In the past, he has worked on campaigns for authors Michael Chabon, Amy Tan, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Chipotle Mexican Grill has recruited ten new writers to contribute pieces for its “Cultivating Thought” line.

Jonathan Safran Foer returns to serve as both curator and editor. The participants include Neil Gaiman, Aziz Ansari, Augusten Burroughs, Walter Isaacson, Amy Tan, Paulo Coelho, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Barbara Kingsolver, Julia Alverez and Jeffrey Eugenides. The company’s cups and bags will feature short stories and illustrations.

Gaiman announced on his Facebook page that his piece focuses on “refugees and the fragility of the world.” Here’s an excerpt: “There are now fifty million refugees in the world today, more than at any time since the end of the Second World War. And at some point, for each one of those people, the world shifted. Their world, solid and predictable, erupted or dissolved into chaos or danger or pain. They realized that they had to run. You have two minutes to pack. You can only take what you can carry easily.” Follow this link to learn more. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar this week.

To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

Author Amy Tan will discuss her newest novel, The Valley of Amazement, at a signing event. See her on Tuesday, November 5th at Barnes & Noble (Union Square branch) starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Double-duty-book. You can read it, and when you're done, you can wear it. pic.twitter.com/4Od4xTPHqi

— Amy Tan (@AmyTan) September 12, 2013

Novelist Amy Tan inspired fans with review copies of her new novel to pose with the cover. As you can see by the photograph embedded above, her new cover looks very spook beside a reader’s face.

We’ve embedded a Storify post below collecting more fan-shots of the book. Check it out:

Yesterday, Amy Tan posted a playful picture of her forthcoming book, The Valley of Amazement. The result? A Sleeveface-like meme, as people lucky enough to have galleys of the book, which comes out in November, sent the beloved author their own half-face shots.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The American Heritage Dictionary has added a number of writers to its usage panel, including Katherine Boo, Michael Chabon and Amy Tan. See all the 2012 and 2013 additions to the panel below…

The panel is a collection of about 200 novelists, linguists, editors, journalists, poets, and other wordsmiths who guide ”hundreds of supplementary notes inform the reader about usages that are contentious.” They guide readers with extra context for words like “irregardless“ ”affect“  or “impact.” Here’s more from the release:

Since 1964, five years before the publication of the first edition, the editorial staff has turned to the Usage Panel for feedback and guidance. Because we have collected five decades’ worth of information, we can show the change in opinion over time (as at ). Of course the makeup of the Panel has changed over the years. Only one member from the original panel, William Zinsser, remains. Usually panelists stay on until their deaths. We received James Michener’s final ballot, for example, very soon after his death; the ballot is quite likely one of the last items he worked on. Occasionally, a member will ask to retire. As a result, each year we invite a handful of people to join the ranks of the Usage Panel.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Veteran journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld talked about his new novel, Triburbia on the Morning Media Menu today, sharing advice for journalists and writers coping with a dramatically evolving landscape.

Follow this link to read a Byliner excerpt from his book, a section about a journalist caught fabricating chunks of his memoir. It arrived as a timely piece of writing after Jonah Lehrer‘s recent scandal.

Press play to listen, but we’ve included quotes from the interview below: “Even though we seem to be able to unmask journalistic frauds with greater and greater regularity, is that really improving journalism at all? That’s a funny thing that’s happening. Journalism is self-policing itself probably better than ever, but meanwhile, journalism isn’t getting any better for all of that.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Digital publisher Byliner.com will launch its new fiction initiative with “Rules for Virgins,” a new story (set in 1912 Shanghai) by Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan.

Byliner Fiction will feature everything from short stories to novellas. Here’s more from the release: “We are beginning to build a structured archive on Byliner.com of great short fiction from writers such as Annie Proulx, Jonathan Franzen, Lorrie Moore, Paul Theroux, and Stewart O’Nan.”

Byliner will release Tan’s story, priced at $2.99, on December 5th. Readers can find it in the Amazon Kindle Singles store, at BarnesAndNoble.com, as a Quick Read in Apple’s iBook store and in the Google eBookstore. According to the company, this will be Tan’s first fiction publication in six years. Tan’s new novel, The Valley of Amazement, will be published by HarperCollins’ Ecco imprint.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

HarperCollins has acquired the U.S. and Canadian rights to bestselling author Amy Tan‘s (pictured, via) forthcoming novel, The Valley of Amazement.

In the U.S., Ecco publisher Daniel Halpern negotiated with Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency president Sandra Dijkstra. In Canada, Harper Canada publisher Iris Tupholme ironed out a contract with Westwood Creative Artists literary agent John Pearce.

Tan described her book in the release: “A painting called the ‘Valley of Amazement’ is passed along through three generations of women of the same family. Despite vast differences in their upbringing, culture and circumstances, each of the women is drawn to discover the meaning of the painting and the unknown histories of their mothers.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

A friend has the enviable position of finding himself receiving an offer of representation for his first adult novel. It’s an amazing story: first novel, first agent who saw it is totally enthusiastic. Thrilling!

But on the heels of the excitement comes the realization that possible publication brings with it a new set of problems. Right now, you may be thinking that if you get an offer or publication, heaven has come down to earth. And you’re right!

But it’s also true that as acceptance of your recognition for your hard work moves to the next phase–publication–there are new questions.

Money. Yes, there’s the money question. Children’s book advances are more modest than those for adults; but both can bring in a chunk of change. How does this affect your financial status? For my friend, he has health issues and has government health insurance which may be in jeopardy. Of course, if the chunk of change is substantial enough, it’s no problem. But if it’s just barely enough, he’ll lose his health benefits only to need them back next year. Writing can be feast or famine, lean years alternating with fat years.

Public speaking. My friend also does NOT want to speak in public. That may change once the process rolls around, but his initial reaction is a resounding, “No!” It’s really OK. He just needs to write a great story; let the publisher sell it to the public. I know: in today’s digital world, many authors do a lot of promotion. But it’s not really necessary.

The Next Book. Of course, acceptance of one book brings the hope of a career! You hope for a string of novels (or other genre books) that come out at regular intervals and creates a strong audience for your work. That means in the excitement of getting an agent, submissions to editors and acceptance–you must write the next one. And that “sophomore” offering must be excellent, meeting the promise of the first one. In fact, the pressure is really on to exceed that first one.

Amy Tan has an instructive essay, “angst and the second book,” in her book of essays, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life. She says, “I am glad that I shall never again have to write a Second Book.”

It was a real struggle to meet the “promise of the first novel.” One author told her, “The Second Book is doomed no matter what you do. Just get it over with, let the critics bury it, then move on to your third book and don’t look back.”

Instead, Tan struggled. She wrote 1000 pages on various topics. Finally, she shut out the world and wrote 30 pages and found a character she liked. She took the character with her to a different story and rewrote it six times to find a question in the character’s heart. Finally, she found a reason to tell that story: it was a gift to someone. That book became The Kitchen God’s Wife. Later, at a luncheoen, someone asked, “How does it feel to have written your best book second?”