BTW News Briefs

Small Press Fair This Weekend

The 18th Independent and Small Press Book Fair will take place on Saturday, December 3, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on Sunday, December 4, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Small Press Center in Manhattan. The fair will host programs on myriad topics including graphic novels, crime fiction, and literary blogging. "How to Find a Literary Agent and Publisher" and "Getting Your Book Published" are some of the workshops available. Approximately 4,000 visitors are expected to attend the fair.

The fair will be at the Small Press Center, The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, at 20 West 44th Street, Manhattan. For more information visit www.smallpress.org.

Pen/Newman's Own Seeks Nominations for First Amendment Award

For the 14th consecutive year, Newman's Own, the food company whose founder and president, actor Paul Newman, donates all after-tax profits to charity, is funding a First Amendment Prize administered by PEN American Center.

The $25,000 award, established by Newman and his long-time business partner, literary biographer A.E. Hotchner, is presented to a U.S. resident who has fought courageously, despite adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of expression as it applies to the written word.

The award is designed to highlight the efforts of people whose achievements on behalf of the First Amendment have not otherwise garnered recognition through institutional affiliation or public visibility. The $25,000 award is presented at the annual PEN benefit dinner in New York City in late spring. Nominations are being accepted from November 29 through December 31, 2005, through an online form.

Howorth Offers Picks for Southern Literature

Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books, past president of the American Booksellers Association, and mayor of Oxford, Mississippi, created his own "Picks List of Essential Southern Literature" to help readers "understand the South and all its complexity," as reported in the Bradenton Herald. The list in the Herald included All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (Theodore Rosengarten, University Of Chicago Press); Absalom, Absalom (William Faulkner, Vintage); The Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor (Library of America), and The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (Harvest).

Seattle Tops Ranking of America's Most Literate Cities

According to the recently released "America's Most Literate Cities," a study that ranks how literate the 69 largest cities in the U.S. are, Minnesota scores with two cities in the top ten -- Minneapolis and St. Paul. And while Seattle topped the list, for the second year in a row New York City failed to crack even the top 30.

Previous years' studies focused on five key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, and educational attainment. The 2005 study introduced a new factor -- the Internet -- to gauge the expansion of literacy to online media.

According to the study, the Top Ten most literate cities in the U.S. are:

1. Seattle
2. Minneapolis
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Atlanta
5. San Francisco
6. Denver
7. Boston
8. Pittsburgh
9. Cincinnati
10. St. Paul