Bookish News and Publishing Tidbits 27 June 2012

RIASS stuff:

Book Review: Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman'(Rating: )

A'giveaway of ten (yes, ten) book packs consisting of a copy of'Catch Up with the Sun'and a Book Seat!'(Aussies only, please)

Literary Giveaway Blog Hop: Instances of the Number 3 by Salley Vickers'(open to alllast day to enter!)

Are you a nerdy type? My husband is looking for a top-notch web developer to join his company.'Details here.

Other bookish stuff:

The Federal Government has formally responded to the recommendations made by the Book Industry Strategy Group

Jennifer Mills on gender and voice'It amazes me that it's a gender boundary, and not a mental state boundary, that people think is so difficult to cross. Are women really so different from men that we are more strange to each other than the delusional are to the sane? This kind of binary seems itself a kind of insanity. But it also seems to be a common view.

Where is your character going?'Make your characters confront their fears, go to a place they are afraid of and allow something beautiful to happen to them there. Or, pick a place that seems comfortable and safe and violate that safety with something out of the ordinary. Force them to confront an old memory in a location in a place where they grew up, and find something different than they expected. Or allow an element from a location in their past to enter their present day life.

Interview with Mandy Baggott:'I always use the term 'contemporary romance' because my books are all modern day and the main theme is the romantic connection between the two lead characters. However, there is also humour, drama, action, family issues, you name it it's probably there somewhere in my book. I also use the term 'chick-lit'. Some people don't like it, I just see it as standing for popular women's fiction and I'm more than happy to be associated with that!

Intentional errors in prose. A fascinating piece on hindered narrators:'This isn't new, of course. There is a rich tradition of literary hindrance, stretching back through A Clockwork Orange, Tristram Shandy, and even, arguably, to Chaucer. It remains subversive, though'even now that subversiveness is de rigueur. As long as 'good English' is prized and promoted, there will always be a joy in demonstrating how much wonder can be foraged from its cracks.

A feature on Joseph Mitchell: There was this anomalyYou can write something and every sentence in it will be a fact, you can pile up facts, but it wont be true. Inside a fact is another fact, and inside that is another fact. Youve got to get to the'true'facts. When I got [to the New Yorker], I said to myself I dont give a damn what happens, I am going to take my time.

People who work from home slack off by doing laundry'But there is also a compelling case to make that working at home makes people much more efficient, because it allows workers to take care of annoying little chores while still getting their jobs done. Remote working'at leastoccasional'remote working'can be great precisely'because'of the'opportunity it affords to get a certain amount of non-work stuff done.

Interesting Lynn Truss article on holiday reading and how we read differently when were on holiday'On holiday we dive into books for longer periods than usual; absorb them whole; and at the same time completely forget (until it's too late) how they are likely to influence our moods. (see also our article on holiday reading)

Charles'Dickens'identified as author of mystery article

Even Google has a style guide.

Want to write for Mills & Boon? Heres your chance.

Fiction from the New Yorker

Reading books will help shorten Brazilian prisoners sentences

A fundraising project for the Queensland Literary Awards

Women in Media: where journalists can find female expert commentators

Start the Story: a new UK-based childrens literacy magazine

Guardian podcast on the challenges and opportunities of new technology in the design of books'(audio)

Whatever Happened to the Great English Eccentric?'(audio)

Evernight publishing is seeking proofreaders.