BTW News Briefs

Authors Guild Online Auction Underway

The Authors Guild online auction benefiting the Authors Guild Foundation is now live and open to the public.

The Guild is auctioning off a variety of items and services from well-known authors, including book club appearances, signed books, manuscript reviews, and dinners with authors. Writers who have contributed to the auction include Sherman Alexie, Barry Beckham, Rich Benjamin, Roy Blount Jr., Jennifer Egan, Peter Gethers, Gish Jen, Erica Jong, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Roxana Robinson, Richard Russo, James Shapiro, Jonathan Taplin, Scott Turow, Nick Taylor, Rachel Vail, and Nicholas Weinstock.

All auction items can be viewed on the Guild’s Bidding for Good webpage. The deadline to bid online is Tuesday, May 23, at 3:00 p.m. The auction will continue at the Authors Guild’s annual Gala on Wednesday, May 24, in New York City.

The Authors Guild Foundation advocates for copyright protection, fair contracts, free expression, and the value of writers to society and educates authors in the business of writing.

Museum Store Association to Launch Holiday Shopping Campaign

Museum Store Sunday, a new holiday shopping campaign created by the Museum Store Association (MSA), will take place on November 26, the Sunday following Thanksgiving 2017.

In the spirit of Black Friday, Shop Small Saturday (and Indies First), Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday, MSA has claimed that Sunday as the day to shop and support museum stores and their institutions worldwide. The event will also “focus much-needed attention on the unique retail experience provided by museum stores,” said Executive Director Jason Harbonic.

All non-profit retailers, both MSA members and non-members, are invited to participate in Museum Store Sunday; MSA members will receive special marketing information as well as event and publicity assistance.

Ingram Publisher Services Signs Five Publishers

Ingram Publisher Services has announced the addition of five publisher clients to its distribution network.

The five publishers are Dovetail Press, the sister publishing company of Brooklyn-based kitchen and entertainment product company W&P Design; PIE International, a Tokyo-based publisher of books on Japanese design culture; Oceanview Publishing, which publishes mystery, thriller, and suspense fiction; The TMG Firm, an independent business book publisher; and Ramsey Press, owned by businessman and author Dave Ramsey of Ramsey Solutions.

Reading Group Choices Publishes List of Readers’ Favorite Titles

Reading Group Choices, which provides resources and recommendations for book clubs and reading groups, has tallied the results of its annual survey, which asks readers questions about their favorite fiction, nonfiction, and YA books from the 2016 print edition of Reading Group Choices. A “most read” list was also compiled this year.

Readers’ favorite fiction, nonfiction, and young adult 2016 lists can be found on the Reading Group Choices website, along with the top 10 most-read books from the 2016 edition of Reading Group Choices.

Margarita Engle Named Young People’s Poet Laureate

The Poetry Foundation has chosen Margarita Engle as its new Young People’s Poet Laureate. Awarded every two years, the $25,000 laureate title is given to a living writer in recognition of a career devoted to writing exceptional poetry for young readers.

As poet laureate, Engle, the author of Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music, will advise the Poetry Foundation on matters relating to young people’s literature and engage in a variety of projects to help instill a love of poetry in youth.

Engle’s poetry is currently featured on the Poetry Foundation’s website.

International Dylan Thomas Prize Winner Announced

Fiona McFarlane has won the £30,000 International Dylan Thomas Prize for her short story collection The High Places (published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux in the U.S. and Sceptre in the U.K.).

The High Places is the second book by McFarlane, an Australian writer whose first novel, The Night Guest, won the inaugural Voss Literary Prize and the 2014 Barbara Jefferis Award.

The International Dylan Thomas Prize is awarded for a published literary work of fiction in the English language written by an author aged 39 or under.

Winner of Inaugural Albertine Prize Announced

The inaugural Albertine Prize of $10,000 has been awarded to Bardo or Not Bardo, by Antoine Volodine, translated by J.T. Mahany (published by Open Letter Books in the U.S. and by les éditions du Seuil in France).

The Albertine Prize, a reader’s choice award, honors the author and translator of a French-language novel published in the U.S. during the past year.

Bardo or Not Bardo was chosen from 10 finalists, following two rounds of online voting open to readers across the U.S.