Twenty-five-year-old Nigerian teacher Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been chosen for the short list of this year’s £30,000 Orange award, “defeating more than a dozen highly tipped and experienced authors. Adichie is up against the Booker prizewinner Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Gillian Slovo’s panoramic vision of communist Russia, The Ice Road, and three other novels.”
Tag: 04.27.04
Control Your Book
Self-published print-on-demand books are becoming more and more popular with writers. It’s all about control. “Why do all the work for a paltry 10 to 15 per cent when you can make triple that or more? Authors today like to be in control of their own destinies. The thought of a big publishing house changing their title, dressing the book or rearranging text is unacceptable.”
What’s It Take To Make It As An Artist?
“There are plenty of painters of real accomplishment working in as modern and abstract a mode as one could wish, who never achieve the support of any public gallery or institution, if they are perhaps a shade too old, their gallery is not quite advanced enough, their work is no longer seen as “cutting edge” or their face don’t fit.”
Bowie To Fans: Take My Songs
David Bowie isn’t concerned about piracy of his music. In fact he’s encouraging it and says he’ll give a prize for the most creative remix of his work. “The musician’s Web site urges fans to mix classic Bowie songs with material from his latest album, “Reality,” to create a “mash-up” — a track that uses vocals from one song superimposed over the backing tracks of another.”
Regina Gallery Saved By City Council
The Regina (Saskatchewan) city council has approved a controversial new library budget Monday that “delays the closures of three branches, the Dunlop Art Gallery and the Prairie History Room, but the new plan came at a price: the resignation of almost half of the library board.”
Riopelle Heirs Settle Estate Dispute
Heirs of the late Canadian painter Jean Paul Riopelle have settled their disputes and dropped their lawsuits against one another. Ripelle’s children “agreed to the sale of a small number of paintings to cover their father’s debts and to drop litigation against Huguette Vachon, their father’s common-law wife.”
Gordon: Milwaukee Museum On Track
Milwaukee Art Museum director David Gordon takes exception to a Milwuakee Journal-Sentinel story painting the museum’s financial situation: “We have conditional commitments for over $16m of the $25m target, this being the gap between the $125m cost of the Calatrava, the gardens, the refitting of the permanent collection, and the $100m so far raised. On an operating basis before interest and depreciation we made a surplus for each of the past two years since the Calatrava opened and if we miss a surplus this year it should be by a small margin.”
It’s Official – Colorado Symphony Chooses Kahane
The Colorado Symphony chooses Jeffrey Kahane as its new music director. “The Los Angeles native, a finalist in the 1981 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and winner of the 1983 Rubenstein Competition, remains most widely known as a virtuoso pianist. But his reputation as a conductor is quickly catching up.”
Spacey Takes On The Old Vic
Kevin Spacey is a big-time Hollywood actor. So why is he running the Old Vic? “After spending an hour and a half in Spacey’s company, I emerged from the Old Vic convinced that he is a man who means business, is in it for the long haul, and could be just the chap to restore the theatre to its former glories. It’s the first time so high-profile an actor has doubled as a theatre’s director since Olivier ran the National Theatre company at the same address in the ’60s and early ’70s.”
PuppetMaster
“Ronnie Burkett is the first to see the potential absurdity in ‘a grown man who spends his nights jiggling jointed dolls’. Recognising not just the theatre’s but most of the western world’s antipathy for puppets, he even admits: ‘It’s ridiculous – I wouldn’t pay to see it.’ None the less, his Memory Dress Trilogy has won him a reputation as one of the great theatre artists of the world.”