BTW News Briefs

Fifth Annual West Hollywood Book Fair

The City of West Hollywood and L.A. Weekly will present the Fifth Annual West Hollywood Book Fair, which will take place on Sunday, September 17, 2006, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at West Hollywood Park in West Hollywood. Participating bookstores include Bodhi Tree, Book Soup, Dark Delicacies, Eso Won Books, J. Paul Getty Museum Store, Mysterious Galaxy, Skylight Books, and Distant Lands.

More than 300 authors, poets, actors, and performers will participate, including Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures, Anchor); Hillary Carlip (Queen of the Oddballs: And Other True Stories from a Life Unaccording to Plan, Harper Paperbacks); Bernard Cooper (The Bill From My Father,S&S); and Eduardo Santiago (Tomorrow They Will Kiss, Back Bay). More than 25,000 guests, as well as 100 exhibitors including independent bookstores and literary organizations will attend the Festival.

For more information, visit http://www.westhollywoodbookfair.org/.

NRF: August Books Sales Up Over Last Year

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), spurred by summer vacations, back-to-school shopping, and end of season clearance promotions, retail industry sales for August (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) rose 6.5 percent over last year and increased 0.3 percent seasonally, adjusted over July.

Among its findings, NRF reported that sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores rose 0.8 percent month-to-month and 6.5 percent unadjusted from August 2005. NRF estimates that combined back-to-school and back-to-college sales were $54.2 billion this year.

Thurber Prize Finalists Announced

On September 13, Thurber House, the national literary center for writers and readers, announced the three finalists for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. Now in its 22nd year, Thurber House is based in the boyhood home of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist, James Thurber, in Columbus, Ohio. The award is an annual prize and will be presented at a ceremony at New York's famed Algonquin Hotel, once home to Thurber, on November 6. Writer Henry Alford will serve as the evening's emcee.

The finalists are: Kinky Friedman, Texas Hold 'Em (St. Martin's); Alan Zweibel, The Other Shulman (Villard); and Bill Scheft, Time Won't Let Me (HarperCollins).

Six Women to Receive Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Awards

Six women writers have been singled out for excellence by the Rona Jaffe Foundation and will receive awards of $15,000 each at a ceremony on September 14 in New York City. The Writers Awards program was created by author Rona Jaffe specifically to address the particular difficulties that many women writers have in finding time to write. The Jaffe Writers Awards are given to writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Rona Jaffe passed away in 2005.

The 2006 recipients are:

• Rivka Galchen (Fiction), is currently working on her first novel, Open Letter to The Royal Academy of Meteorology
• Ellen Litman's (Fiction), The Last Chicken in America, will be published by Norton in 2007;
• Melissa Range (Poetry), who is working on a collection of poems entitled Scriptorium;
• Emily Rapp's (Fiction/Nonfiction) first book, Poster Child, will be published by Bloomsbury in January 2007;
• Rita Mae Reese (Fiction/Poetry) is currently working on a novel entitled Local Usage; and
• Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts' (Nonfiction) first book of creative nonfiction, Harlem Is Nowhere, will be published by Little, Brown in 2008.

To learn more, visit: www.ronajaffefoundation.org.