Buzz Worthy News
In This week’s Buzz Worthy News: Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club is back, The winner of the Orange Prize is announced, Stephenie Meyer speaks out about E.L.James, another wonderful author passes away and scandalous scandals occur. Read ‘em and weep!
Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly Monday feature focusing on the weekly news and book world gossip. Check back on Fridays for our Hot New Titles posts covering the latest YA releases and hottest cover reveals.
Book World News
The prayers of literally millions of people have been answered. Oprah is reopening her book club after a two year hiatus presumably so that my aunt can buy me more books that I am never going to read. The first book she will be featuring, and will inevitably wind up on my bookshelf whether I like it or not, is Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
“I love this book,” Ms. Winfrey writes in the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, which will highlight the new book club on its cover and feature an interview with Ms. Strayed. “I want to shout it from the mountaintop. I want to shout it from the Web. In fact, I love this book so much and want to talk about it so much, I knew I had to reinvent my book club.”
The sticker is back and digital editions of her book club books will include margin notes by Winfrey so that readers can see which highlighted parts are her favourite.
Winfrey is calling it her Book Club 2.0.
SOURCE: NY TIMES
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Orange prize goes to Madeline Miller for her debut book, The Song of Achilles. This may immeasurably lower me in everyone’s opinion forever, but I didn’t even know this award existed – but now I’m SO into it and will be reading this book from the American Classic’s teacher cum novelist.
The Orange Prize for other dunces like me: “Launched in 1996, the prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created by the artist Grizel Niven.” -Orangeprize.co.uk
Miller on her winning: “Miller — who spent 10 years writing the book while working as a Greek and Latin teacher —said she was “overwhelmed” and “humble” by the £30,000 (nearly $48,000 Cdn) prize.”
SOURCE: CBC
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Stephenie Meyer, whilst on the set for The Host, speaks out about E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy. Everyone hoping for a fight with hair-pulling and enraged shrieks of, “Pay me my royalties! Pay me my royalties!” will be sadly disappointed. Also that’s kind of sexist. Stephenie gave her blessing to James’ trilogy saying:
“I haven’t read it. I mean, that’s really not my genre, not my thing,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve heard about it; I haven’t really gotten into it that much. Good on her — she’s doing well. That’s great!”
Because nobody was going to believe she wasn’t going to be even a little mean about it, they followed up by prodding that without Twilight, the Fifty Shades Trilogy wouldn’t exist.
“It might not exist in the exact form that it’s in,” Meyer said. “Obviously, [James] had a story in her, and so it would’ve come out in some other way.”
Way to be a nice person and spoil everyone’s fun, Meyer!
SOURCE: MTV
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Ellen Levine, children’s fiction and non-fiction author sadly passed away this week at the age of 73 and before Steph and I could reach our lifelong goal of hugging her.
She was a staunch social justice activist, having written many novels and appearing in CBS television documentaries. Her publisher released the following:
“Henry’s Freedom Box (a Caldecott Honor) is the true story of a slave who mailed himself to freedom; Darkness Over Denmark details the rescue of Jews by the Danes in World War II; A Fence Away from Freedom details the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s; Freedom’s Children, a profile of young black civil rights activists in the 1960s, was termed ‘nothing short of wonderful’ in a New York Times review; I Hate English, about a Chinese girl struggling to learn English, has become a resource for ESL teachers.”
Any donations to be made to Planned Parenthood.
SOURCE: Mediabistro
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Camp NaNo is in full swing, and for all those interested – well… you’re four days late but you can still catch up or do the next one in August!
Based on November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Camp NaNoWriMo provides the online support, tracking tools, and hard deadline to help you write the rough draft of your novel in a month… other than November!
Camp NaNoWriMo was established in 2011 as a project of the Office of Letters and Light, the parent 501(c)(3) nonprofit to National Novel Writing Month, and Script Frenzy, and the Young Writers Program. 2012 Camp NaNoWriMo sessions will take place in June and August.
SOURCE: Camp NaNo
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There is an app to navigate BEA for all those lucky enough to attend.
Available for iOS, Android and the mobile web, the app includes an exhibitor list and a floor plan, as well as schedules for author events, signings and panel discussions. If you are in the BEA Digital Zone but you need to find your way to a keynote meeting room, you can use the app to map your location and give you directions. It’s like Google Maps for BEA.
You can also use the app to take notes about the show. There is also a handy “My Show” feature to save all of the events that you would like to attend into a personalized agenda.
If you download and login to the app by June 5th, you’ll be entered into a drawing for an iPad. Follow this link for details.
SOURCE: Mediabistro
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Scandalous Scandals
M.R.Mathias did some more rounds this week after his meltdown on Fantasy Fiction. This time attacking random reviewers for not believing him here and here.
For those too lazy to click the links:
You know who are Nazis? Nazis. Random forum moderators fall into that category less often than one would think. He goes on to claim he has written a short story about Fantasy Fiction titled King of Fools. Classy. After another couple of inflammatory posts he comes out with this one:
Feel free to read the links provided and make up your own minds. Just know that you will be wrong and will deserve to be attacked by Mathias if you express such an opinion. Any attempt to ask him to go away may or may not make you a Nazi.
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Update on Wendy Darling’s Situation:
After our post last Wednesday things promptly went crazy.
It’s important to reiterate that it was not HarperTEEN author of The Selection, Keira Cass who attacked Wendy as some people mistakenly believed. It was a self-published author unconnected to the drama who singled out and attacked Wendy in a post where she gave explicit personal details about Wendy’s real identity.
Some people commented that these details could be found through a Google search, which is true. However:
1) They weren’t common knowledge
2) Wendy had not given this author permission to repost her full name and personal information
3) Doing so in a post attacking Wendy is an implied threat to her safety and privacy
4) Details about many people could easily be looked up in order to discover where they live. Many people don’t realize how easy they are to find with a simple Google search or by even looking up their IP. This doesn’t make it okay to post all the information you gather in one place to threaten someone.
Some brilliant blog posts came out of this debacle as outrage spread across the community.
Stacia Kane uses a brilliant dating analogy:
If you’re REALLY a ridiculous child, you start spreading gossip about him. You tell everyone you know that Brett McSingleguy is a total dickhead, that he’s sexist and stupid, that he thinks he’s so great. Maybe you start following him around and telling women he meets that he’s scum. Maybe you start leaving nasty notes on his Facebook page, or sending emails to his boss accusing him of all manner of things. Maybe you start stalking him. Maybe when he calls the cops on you, you get even angrier.
In other words, maybe you are a fucking psycho. Maybe you should grow the fuck up. Maybe you should get a fucking life. Maybe you should leave this poor man, whose only crime was to not like you, alone.
Anyone see the parallels there?
It was replied to very eloquently by Wendy, covered by Dear Author, and examined on Rose Petals,
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Kat Kennedy
Latest posts by Kat Kennedy (see all)
- Buzz Worthy News: 20th May 2013 - May 20, 2013
- Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey - May 17, 2013
- Cover Reveal + Giveaway: Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff - May 15, 2013
- Buzz Worthy News: 13th May 2013 - May 13, 2013
[...] Mathias in a Buzz Worthy News post on her blog, Cuddlebuggery. But in fact the only two times (one, two) Mathias is mentioned on Cuddlebuggery are in posts created BEFORE June 5th, and have no connection [...]