Congratulations, Deb Olin Unferth!

Last fall, Deb Olin Unferth was a featured guest at the reading series I curate for the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction, sharing an excerpt from Vacation. Late last week, I learned that Deb had been named the winner of this year’s Cabell First Novelist Award, a $5,000 prize presented by the English department at Virginia Commonwealth University. It’s great news, and well-deserved recognition; if you haven’t read Vacation yet, track it down!

(Note: I am a former Cabell judge.)

16 August 2009 | events |

A Brief Lesson in Tabloid Philosophy

I don’t usually go “off-message” and talk about anything other than books and writers on this blog, but I went to the little grocery store on the corner earlier today, and I happened to look at the newspapers by the door, which is how I noticed the contrasting approaches New York City’s two daily tabloids, the Post and the Daily News, had taken to the story of Charles Augusto, Jr., a Manhattan business owner who shot four men who tried to rob his store earlier this week, killing two of them.

I really don’t have much to say about the story; I don’t much feel it’s my place to comment. All I’m saying is that these front pages may just tell you everything you’ll ever need to know about the philosophies that guide editorial sensibilities at the two papers.

(Note: I cropped some sort of contest banner from the middle of the Daily News front page, to make the comparison more stark.)

15 August 2009 | uncategorized |