The polymath Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was only one of numerous women in Spain and its New World colonies who became accomplished authors during the 16th and 17th centuries (and who should be better known today). Many of them were, in fact, nuns, and one of them really did run away from the convent, dress and pass as a man, and had some hair-raising adventures in New Spain. – Public Radio International
Category: words
Early, Unfinished Story By Louisa May Alcott Published For First Time — With Invitation For Writers To Finish It
“Aunt Nellie’s Diary,” a 9,000-word piece written when Alcott was in her late teens, “is narrated by the 40-year-old title character, and follows her observations as a romantic triangle appears to unfold among her orphaned, fair-haired niece” and two friends. The fragment appears in the latest issue of The Strand Magazine, which will “post guidelines in the coming weeks” for writers to submit their own endings. – Yahoo! (AP)
Google News Starts Program ‘To Pay Publishers For High-Quality Content’
“The U.S. internet giant has for years tried to fend off demands for payment from news publishers worldwide in return for using their content, with European media groups among their fiercest critics. … The new product” — which is launching with news publishers from Germany, Australia and Brazil and will subsequently add more — “will be available on Google News and Discover. [An exec] said Google would also offer to pay for free access for users to read paywalled articles on a publisher’s site where available.” – Reuters
Black-Owned Bookstores Are Suddenly Getting More Business Than They Ever Planned For
“As Americans grapple with the country’s history of racism, many of them have turned to books, propelling titles like How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo to the best-seller lists. … All that demand, however, is becoming a challenge for some Black-owned bookstores around the United States, as they attempt to manage the deluge of orders, a handful of titles that are out of stock, and occasionally, customers angered by the delays.” – The New York Times
John Bolton’s Tell-Not-Quite-All Officially Hits Stores, And Booksellers Are …
One might say that they’re conflicted. Barnes & Noble says that The Room Where It Happened is already at the top of its bestsellers list. “In contrast, a survey of participants in PW‘s Bxsellers Facebook group indicated that a slight majority of the approximately 30 respondents intend to stock the book, although many of them expressed caveats. Almost half of the indie booksellers responding to PW‘s query are opting to fulfill special orders only, while three booksellers disclosed that they flatly refuse to sell the book at all.” – Publishers Weekly
Two Men Get Home Sentences After Massive, Decades Long Thefts From Carnegie Library
The judge noted that without the pandemic, their sentences would be significantly more severe. “The stolen items included a 1787 first-edition book signed by Thomas Jefferson, a rare copy of “The Journal of Major George Washington” and a version of Isaac Newton’s “Principia,” among the most influential books in science, said to be worth $900,000, the authorities said.” – The New York Times
What’s Changed For LGBTQ Authors In India Since The End To An Anti-Gay Law?
Before the virus hit, there was Rainbow Litfest in December. “Drawn by the promise of themes long pushed under the rug — non-normative sexualities in religion and mythology, history and politics, film and television, fiction, politics and the workplace, and, of course, the law — queer people came to Delhi’s Gulmohar Park from cities, small towns, and villages across the country.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
When Events (Even Beyond A Pandemic) Overtake Your Book Launch
Bakari Sellers’ new book is about race in the United States. Sellers: “When I wrote the book, I thought: This can be the spark to conversations about race. I didn’t know I was going to be starting a spark when the country was on fire.” – The Washington Post
Need To Diversify Your Reading?
Look to Black Bookstagram for recommendations on everything from history to science fiction to romance. – BuzzFeed
Writing In The Time Of Endless Pandemic Distraction
Our brains, working at home: “The kitchen is a mess. How can I concentrate when I know that two rooms over, the kitchen is a mess? The sink is filled with plates and glasses that couldn’t fit into the dishwasher the night before, so now we have a lag in the dishwashing. There is no end to the dishwashing. There is no tabula rasa. It doesn’t help that the pans all have special requirements, they need so much individualized care they might as well be hothouse orchids.” – LitHub