The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.
A floating pop-up library is opening on New York's Hudson River this fall. The creation of the artist Beatrice Glow, The Floating Library will appear "aboard the historic Lilac Museum Steamship berthed at Pier 25 on the Hudson River in New York City" from Sept. 6 to Oct. 3, according to the library's website. "The ship's main deck will be transformed into an outdoor reading lounge to offer library visitors a range of reading materials from underrepresented authors, artist books, poetry, manifestoes, as well as book collection, that, at the end of the lifecycle of the project, will be donated to local high school students with demonstrated need." This is not the first floating library — another, the brainchild of the artist Sarah Peters, appeared last year on Minneapolis' Cedar Lake.
For Rookie magazine, Monika Zaleska interviews writer Sheila Heti: "[B]eing an artist is really just about making art. It's really just about doing the work. It's not a lifestyle. It's not an attitude. It's not a look. It really is just about working."
Neil Gaiman is coming out with a collection of short fiction, the author said in response to a question on his Tumblr. Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances will be published in February by HarperCollins. All except one of the stories has been published previously, HarperCollins confirmed in an email. The new story, "Black Dog," is set in the world of his novel American Gods.
Nick Cannon is entering the (already heavily populated) world of celebrity children's books. Neon Aliens Ate My Homework and Other Poems will come out from Scholastic in March. In a press release, Cannon said, "When I was eight years old, I got a spiral notebook and wrote my first poem/rap. I filled that notebook with poems, rhymes, jokes, and witty stories. I still keep one to this day. I hope that poems in Neon Aliens will help inspire kids to want to get out a pen and paper to write or draw their own thoughts, rhymes, and stories."
In Slate, Neal Pollack defends Amazon from the accusations that it is bad for authors: "Amazon has supported my strange whims. Their formula for literary success is, as far as I can deduce: Write as many books as you can, and then sell them cheaply and in bulk. But that doesn't mean making a shoddy product."
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