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Zoe T. Leroy links interesting article on the death of book pages from L.A. Times

Submitted by zwhittall on October 15, 2007 - 9:03pm
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Zoe T. Leroy links interesting article on the death of book pages from L.A. Times

"The truth is that the book and newspaper businesses share the same dreadful fear: that people will stop reading. And the fear may be well-founded. Across the country, newspaper circulations are down — and this is clearly part of the reason for the cuts to book sections. At the same time, the book business increasingly relies on an aging customer base that may not be refueling itself with enough new readers.

In the past, newspaper executives understood the symbiotic relationship between their product and books. People who read books also read newspapers. From that basic tenet came a philosophy: If you foster books, you foster reading. If you foster reading, you foster newspapers. That loss-leader ends up helping you build and keep your base."

Was reading this and felt like he made some thoughtful and interesting points, not the usual kvetching of Why Are Reviews Not Critical Enough? Why Are Book Pages Shrinking? It's written by Michael Connelly. What do you think?

The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book: Toronto.

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Date
Fri January 21, 2011

On Ekphrasis, with Aislinn Hunter

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Submitted by erin on January 21, 2011 - 11:00am

On Ekphrasis, with Aislinn Hunter

What happens when two forms of art are bounced off one another? That's what the 2011 Arc Poetry Magazine's Poetry Annual 2011: Poet as Art Thief wanted to explore. This year, Arc celebrates ekphrasis — the representation of visual art within a literary work and vice-versa. Through a diverse series of poetry, art, essays and interviews, Canadian artists render a feast for the senses as they meditate on the place of art in poetry.

To get a better handle on what ekphrasis really is, Open Book will be profiling three contributors to this remarkable issue. Today, Arc Poetry Annual 2011 guest editor Aislinn Hunter tells us how visual art inspired her to write, and explains why she sees such rich possibilities in the act of ekphrasis.

Who knows? With the weekend coming up, maybe you'll want to try out some ekphrastic poetry yourself. To get started, check out these AGO exhibits and hear some of Arc's contributors read the poems they were inspired to write.

Zoe Whittall

Zoe Whittall is the author of the novel Bottle Rocket Hearts (Cormorant, 2007) and two volumes of poetry, The Emily Valentine Poems (Snare, 2006) and The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (McGilligan, 2001).

Go to Zoe Whittall’s Author Page