22 July, 2007

Some good news and some not-unexpected news

The world is full of invisible newspapers. Apparently, Simmone Howell and Charles Dickens and I are on the Age's teen top forty, which I can't find online; their book section, like book sections worldwide, is wall-to-wall Rowling and Potter.

And the Irish Times won't let me look at who got on the Frank O'Connor shortlist, but as no one contacted me to insist I come to Cork, I'm obviously not one of them. Well, it was fun dreaming. (I think buying that map of Ireland probably jinxed me, however much I insisted to myself it was for the purposes of family history reference. You have to be careful with these things.)

No writing was or will be done this weekend. Today is yum cha and then the Birthday Dinner for Jack tonight—he's invisible too so far, hasn't come back from his night's carousing. Yesterday was sleeping in, exercise and relaxation. Tomorrow, back to the coalface for the final walk-through.

3 Comments:

Blogger Fence said...

Well, through copy and paste I give you:

Authors from five countries, including two from the US, have been shortlisted for this year's Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize.

This is the third year of the prize, which is funded by Cork City Council, administered by the Munster Literature Centre in Cork, and is awarded in association with The Irish Times.

The €35,000 prize will be presented during the closing ceremony of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork this September. The award was originally established as part of Cork's year as European Capital of Culture in 2005 and is the most valuable prize in the world for a short story collection.

The authors shortlisted for the 2007 prize include two filmmakers, an actor and the erstwhile chief executive of two of the world's largest digital media companies.

They are: British writer Simon Robson for The Separate Heart (Jonathan Cape); Olaf Olafsson, from Iceland, for Valentines (Pantheon Books); Etgar Keret, from Israel, for Missing Kissinger (Chatto & Windus); Miranda July, from the US, for No One Belongs Here More Than You (Canongate); Charlotte Grimshaw, from New Zealand, for Opportunity (Random House); and Manuel Muñoz, from the US, for The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue (Algonquin Books).

The inaugural prize, two years ago, was won by the Chinese-born writer, Liyun Li, for her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, while last year's award was won by Haruki Murakami, one of Japan's best known writers, for the collection, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman.

The judges this year are authors Rick Moody, Segun Afolabi and Nuala Ní Chonchúir, and the chairman of the panel is Munster Literature Centre director Pat Cotter.

22 July, 2007 21:41  
Blogger Among Amid While said...

Thanks, Fence! I'm astounded that neither David Malouf nor Alice Hoffman are there. Dang it, I haven't read any of the shortlisted ones. In fact, the only one I've heard of is the Miranda July. Sometimes I think I am going to be completely crushed under the books I've yet to read.

22 July, 2007 22:04  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi margo,
it was in last saturday's age - I am a week late, lately. they were trying to reassure people that the end of HP is not the end of literature ... keep tossing dwarves!
sh

22 July, 2007 23:12  

Post a Comment

<< Home