BTW News Briefs

Ruminator Update

"We're still here, and I believe Ruminator will be here in the future," Ruminator Books co-owner David Unowsky said of the 33-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota landmark, which has been struggling to stay open in the face of huge debts, stemming largely from its chief creditor, Macalester College.

Unowsky expressed some guarded optimism about the possible sale of Ruminator Review. Private discussions continue with interested parties for the acclaimed literary magazine, also co-owned by Unowsky and his spouse, Pearl Kilbride. He told BTW that the spring issue of the publication has been suspended.

On the magazine's Web site a notice reads, in part, "Due to transitions within our parent company, Ruminator Review's Spring issue has been cancelled. But not to worry! We're resuming publication with our Summer 2004 issue: The Body: Appetite, Machine, and Consumer. Subscriptions have been extended by an issue to make up for Spring." For more information on Ruminator Books' financial woes, see http://news.bookweb.org/read/2183.

The 2004 Kiriyama Prize Winners

On March 23, the eighth annual Kiriyama Prize was awarded to novelist Shan Sa, author of The Girl Who Played Go (Knopf, USA; Chatto and Windus, UK); and to historian Inga Clendinnen for her book exploring the first years of European settlement in New South Wales, Dancing with Strangers (Text Publishing, Australia). The two authors will share equally the US $30,000 cash award, presented by Pacific Rim Voices, the independent nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating literature that contributes to greater understanding and cooperation among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia.

The Girl Who Played Go -- the first of Sa's books to be translated into English -- is set against the backdrop of war-torn Manchuria in the 1930s and chronicles the story of a spirited 16-year-old Chinese girl and a Japanese soldier in disguise. Clendinnen's Dancing With Strangers is a metaphor for the initial contact in the late 18th century between two vastly different peoples: the British settlers and Aboriginal Australians. The centerpiece of this book is the recreation of the events surrounding the spearing of Governor Phillip at Manly Cove in 1790.

States, Localities Raise Taxes to Combat Budgetary Strain

A recent Knight Ridder article noted the recent trend of many states' governments raising state and local sales taxes to make up for budgetary shortfalls. The average sales tax rate in the U.S. was 8.534 percent last year, KR reported, and explained that states appear to believe that increasing sales tax rates is one of the "least painful" way to generate more state revenue. For instance, Arkansas raised its state sales tax to 6 percent from 5.125 percent, while Idaho, Ohio, and Vermont raised their state sales tax rates by one percent, and New York by .25 percent, last year. Moreover, Florida and Washington each reaped roughly 60 percent of 2002 state revenue from sales taxes, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators. Neither state levies an individual income tax.

Due to the increasing popularity of the Internet as a sales channel, over a year ago, 34 states joined the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) in an attempt to recover from years of budgetary shortfalls by collecting revenue lost through catalog and Internet purchases. SSUTA would simplify tax sales tax, with equal tax treatment between local merchants and remote sellers. Last year, bills were introduced in the House and in the Senate that would grant authority to these 34 states, allowing them to require remote sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes.