"Last Summer I returned to my old library. The total solar eclipse was happening soon, and I was to give a talk about what to expect. The librarian of my youth had long since retired, and much had changed.... But the front desk still had books on display. Books about astronomy and Sally Ride. And among the adults shuffling in for the talk were perhaps a dozen children. Some had ridden to the library on bikes. They brought books to the front desk, and checked them out with their own library cards. When it was time for the talk, they sat in the front. They asked questions. They knew they could because this was their library. And even if they were only nine years old, they heard the same message every time they walked through the door. Welcome to the library. Here you are part of our community. Here you have standing."

A bookstore called Bookish: An Indie Shop for Folks Who Read, will open August 11 in Fort Smith, Ark., Talk Business & Politics reported. The store will carry new books for children and adults, along with an assortment of sidelines, gift items and children's products.

Jennifer Battles (l.) and Sara Putnam

Bookish is the brainchild of two high school English teachers, Jennifer Battles and Sara Putnam. Both have master's degrees and have nearly 30 years of combined experience in the classroom. And Battles's mother, Linda, an elementary school teacher for more than 40 years, is the store's children's literature specialist.

In addition to traditional author talks and signings, their programming plans include "writing and other creative workshops, literary lunches, and special dinner events."

Battles told Talk Business & Politics: "The biggest challenge facing independent bookstores is competition from mass marketers. Small bookstores cannot compete with the deep discounts offered by Amazon and other large retailers, but Bookish can compete by serving a local market and offering specialized products."

National Book Store, which has more than 230 stores in the Philippines, is beginning a franchise program, the Business Mirror reported. The franchise will be called NBS Express, or NBEX, a convenience store format that the company originally opened in and around Manila. It has since expanded NBEX stores to other parts of the country.

NBS group managing director Alexandra Ramos-Padilla said that franchisees would need to invest an initial amount of 450,000 pisos (about $8,445) and that the total capital requirement is 6 million pisos ($112,610). The required space must be at least 150 square meters (about 1,615 square feet). Franchisees will pay a royalty of 1% of gross sales.

The franchise fee will include use of trademark, a procurement program, opening assistance, site approval, use of operating manual, research and development and training for franchisee and staff. Through the program, Ramos-Padilla said, NBEX franchisees become part of an "accessible chain of bookstores bringing a functional selection of books, schools and office supplies and fast-lifestyle commodities for students and small business owners who have a dynamic way of living."

Atria Publishing Group has merged its publicity and marketing teams into an integrated marketing department "in order to better coordinate and focus the overall outreach and marketing on behalf of our authors," senior v-p and publisher Libby McGuire wrote in a memo to Simon & Schuster announcing the changes.

Kristin Fassler

As a result, effective August 1, Kristin Fassler is joining Atria as v-p, director of integrated marketing, a new position. She was most recently v-p, director of marketing, at Random House, overseeing the Ballantine Bantam Dell imprint. She began her publishing career selling national accounts at both HarperCollins and Random House and moved to marketing in 2009.

In addition, Dana Trocker is joining Atria as director of marketing. She has been associate director of marketing at the Simon & Schuster trade imprint. Before joining S&S in 2013, she worked at the Macmillan Speakers Bureau.

Under the new structure, Atria is abolishing the role of v-p, director of publicity. As a result, Paul Olsewski will be leaving the company as of July 27. McGuire wrote that "in his eight years at Atria, Paul has distinguished himself through the many remarkable campaigns he has coordinated for specific titles, as well as the immense care and skill he brings to managing a busy department. He has assembled a talented team of professionals at all levels, and created an environment where people can learn, grow, and do their best work. His personal passion for the books we publish has launched numerous successful publications and literary careers."

Concerning the merger of the marketing and publicity departments, McGuire commented: "Book publicity and marketing have changed in recent years, as the tried and true levers that drive book sales, such as media and author events, have been supplemented by methods such as social media influencers, podcasts, and newsletters. Many of these newer outlets are reached by both marketing and publicity, and our new integrated marketing team will be better able to determine the most suitable approach for any given author or title, and then execute a publishing plan in a manner that will grow the author's audience and be cost-efficient for Atria. Our decisions about how we market and publicize will be informed by data measuring the effectiveness of the campaigns we conduct, and testing new marketing vehicles, all within a department that will be flexible, nimble, and able to reach the intended audience for the great variety of books we publish."

Amazon plans to open a fulfillment center in Spokane, its first in Eastern Washington. The company currently employs more than 50,000 people across the state at its headquarters in Seattle and facilities supporting customer fulfillment in DuPont, Kent and Sumner. At the new 600,000-square-foot warehouse, employees will work alongside Amazon Robotics.

Mark Stewart, Amazon's v-p of North America customer fulfillment, said, "Washington is known for providing great opportunities for jobs and customer experience, and we are grateful to the dedicated local and state officials and teams who came together to support Amazon in bringing a new fulfillment center to Eastern Washington."

Governor Jay Inslee congratulated the online retailer as well as "all the local partners who have worked so hard to bring these exciting job opportunities to the region."

Larry Krauter, chairman of the West Plains/Airport Area Public Development Authority, said, "Amazon's decision to build their new facility format in our community validates the innovative vision of leaders from Spokane County, the City of Spokane and Spokane International Airport to create the first County-City PDA in the state."

Marion Woodman, a psychoanalyst "whose popular books and lectures on mythical archetypes resonated with millions of women longing for a language to explore the primal, unconscious elements of feminine identity," died July 9, the New York Times reported. She was 89. Woodman and poet Robert Bly co-authored The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine.

Woodman's self-transformation, "in her mid-40s, stood as an example to the many others for whom she would become a catalyzing influence," the Times noted. In a series of books, including Addiction to Perfection, The Pregnant Virgin and Bone: Dying Into Life, Woodman "found an international audience, giving women a poetic, mythically vivid sense of femininity."

"She had that dramatic flair to her, and a poetic sensibility, that really came out when she was speaking," said Dorothy Gardner, a Jungian analyst in Toronto and a former collaborator. "She was very present to others, and she had an amazing gift of making you feel you were the only one in the room--that she was talking to you alone--though many others were there."

Judith Harris, a Jungian analyst in Zurich, said Woodman "had the courage to explore the images of illness people held in their bodies.... Both as analyst and workshop leader, she would go places where others were afraid to go."

A group of Pacific Northwest authors recently visited Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo, Wash., to present a $500 check on behalf of Sisters in Crime, to help the store promote women mystery writers. Pictured: (l.-r.): Alice K. Boatwright, Suzanne Droppert of Liberty Bay, Erica Miner, Marty Wingate, Martha Crites, Waverly Curtis, Candace Robb.

The London Review Bookshop has issued "a challenge or gauntlet, thrown down from us, to the other small bookshops in London @KirkdaleBooks @BurleyFisher @pagesofhackney @reviewbookshop @gaystheword."

The proposed contest: "We challenge you to the Summer Pub Olympiad: one round each of pétanque. Bar billiards, darts, table skittles (if poss.), each in a separate pub; two players to be nominated in advance for each round. Overall winner receives a cheap trophy from timpsons to be displayed in back room."

LRB Bookshop later added: "yes! sorry how did we miss them off original gauntlet. consider yourself gauntleted, @wordonthewater & @Biggreenbooks."

The Frankfurt Book Fair New York's Book of the Month for July is Sand by Wolfgang Herrndorf, translated by Tim Mohr and published in June by New York Review Books Classics.

Frankfurt Book Fair New York described the book this way: "North Africa, 1972. While the world is reeling from the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, a series of mysterious events is playing out in the Sahara. Four people are murdered in a hippie commune, a suitcase full of money disappears, and a pair of unenthusiastic detectives are assigned to investigate. In the midst of it all, a man with no memory tries to evade his armed pursuers. Who are they? What do they want from him? If he could just recall his own identity he might have a chance of working it out...

"This darkly sophisticated literary thriller, the last novel Wolfgang Herrndorf completed before his untimely death in 2013, is, in the words of Michael Maar, 'the greatest, grisliest, funniest, and wisest novel of the past decade.' Certainly no reader will ever forget it."

Herrndorf studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg, then worked as a magazine illustrator in Berlin. He published his first novel, In Plüschgewittern (Storm of Plush), in 2002. In 2007, his collection of short stories, Diesseits des Van-Allen-Gürtels (This Side of the Van Allen Belt), received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize Audience Award. In early 2010, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor; his novel Tschick (Why We Took the Car) was published just months later and was eventually translated into 24 languages. Sand was released in 2011; it was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. His posts on Arbeit und Struktur (Work and Structure), the blog he started after receiving his cancer diagnosis, have been published as a book of the same name. An unfinished sequel to Tschick, Bilder einer großen Liebe (Pictures of Your True Love), was released in 2014.

Tim Mohr has translated the work of such authors as Alina Bronsky, Stefanie de Velasco, and Charlotte Roche, as well as Wolfgang Herrndorf's novel Tschick. His own writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Playboy, and New York magazine, among other publications. His history of East German punk rock, Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, will be published in September by Algonquin Books.

At Penguin Random House:

Erica Curtis has been appointed v-p, director of marketing strategy and campaigns & analytics, at Penguin Random House.

Max Minckler has been named senior director, consumer insights, at Penguin Random House. He was previously director of consumer insights, Random House Publishing Group.

Susan Corcoran has been named senior v-p, director of publicity, at Random House, and now has responsibility for title publicity for all Random House imprints as well as Random House Speakers Bureau and Strategic Partnerships. She began her career as an assistant in the Bantam publicity department and for the past 10 years has directed Ballantine Bantam Dell publicity strategy.

Leigh Marchant has been appointed senior v-p, director, marketing and business development, at Random House. Since joining the company eight years ago from Barnes & Noble, she has overseen marketing for Random House, the Dial Press, Modern Library, One World and Spiegel & Grau.

Sommelier of Deformity by Nick Yetto (Turner).

Today:
Fresh Air: Emily Danforth, author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Balzer + Bray, $9.99, 9780062020574), the basis for the new film with the same title.

Brett Haley (Hearts Beat Loud, The Hero) will direct All the Bright Places, the film adaptation of Jennifer Niven's YA novel that "is ramping up again behind the Mazur/Kaplan Company and Echo Lake Entertainment," Deadline reported. Justice Smith and Elle Fanning will star in the film. Liz Hannah (The Post) is writing the script with Niven, and production is set to begin in the fall on "a project that at one time had Miguel Arteta attached to direct Fanning."

Paula Mazur and Mitchell Kaplan of Mazur/Kaplan (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) are producing, along with Echo Lake's Doug Mankoff, Andy Spaulding and Brittany Kahan, and Fanning. Hannah is also an executive producer. Kaplan is the owner of Books & Books in southern Florida and the Cayman Islands.

The winners of the 2018 New England Book Awards, sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association and honoring books either about New England, set in New England or by an author residing in New England, are:

Fiction: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin)
Nonfiction: Vacationland by John Hodgman (Penguin)
Children's: Rescue and Jessica by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, illustrated by Scott Magoon (Candlewick)
Young Adult: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (Little Brown)

The awards will be presented at the Awards Banquet on September 26 in Providence, R.I., during NEIBA's Fall Conference.

---

The winners of the 2018 RITA Awards, sponsored by the Romance Writers of America, are:

Best first book: Take the Lead by Alexis Daria (St. Martin's/Swerve)
Mainstream fiction with a central romance: Now that You Mention It by Kristan Higgins (Harlequin)
Contemporary romance, long: Falling Hard by Lexi Ryan (self-pub)
Contemporary Romance, mid-length: Tell Me by Abigail Strom (Amazon/Montlake Publishing)
Contemporary romance, short: Second Chance Summer by Kait Nolan (self-pub)
Erotic romance: Wicked Dirty by J. Kenner (Martini & Olive Books)
Historical romance, long: Between the Devil and the Duke by Kelly Bowen (Grand Central/Forever)
Historical romance, short: Waltzing with the Earl by Catherine Tinley (Harlequin Mills & Boon, Historical)
Paranormal romance: Hunt the Darkness by Stephanie Rowe (self-pub)
Romance novella: Forbidden River by Brynn Kelly (Harlequin)
Romantic suspense: The Fixer by HelenKay Dimon (Avon)
Young adult romance: Seize Today by Pintip Dunn (Entangled Teen)
Romance with religious or spiritual elements: Then There Was You by Kara Isaac (self-pub)

Winners of this year's RWA Golden Heart awards, which recognize excellence in unpublished romance manuscripts, can be found here.

photo: Glen Rose Photography

David Bell is the author of Bring Her Home and Since She Went Away. He's an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., where he directs the MFA program. He received an M.A. in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a Ph.D. in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. Somebody's Daughter (Berkley, July 10, 2018) is his eighth novel.

On your nightstand now:

Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser. Not only is Jessica a talented writer, but she's also become a friend. (I overlook the fact that she roots for the Pittsburgh Steelers.) Her first novel, Almost Missed You, was excellent, and her second promises more of the same. Who could resist a story about a night of wine drinking around a fire pit going wrong?

Favorite book when you were a child:

King Arthur and His Knights by Mabel Louise Robinson

I read and re-read this book in grade school. What more could you ask for as a 10-year-old? Knights, swords, friendship, betrayal, wizards, magic, love. It has everything!

Your top five authors:

Stephen King because he's Stephen King. And because when I first started reading grown-up books, he showed me how important characters are to a great story. We remember the killer clowns and haunted cars, but none of it would have mattered if King didn't make us all care deeply about the characters.

Octavia Butler because she combined big, important ideas with rich, fantastic storytelling. Her books and stories are the perfect marriage between the compelling and the thoughtful. I also heard her speak once, and her journey as a writer inspires as well. Every beginning writer should listen to her.

Elmore Leonard because I read his books over and over again, and they taught me about plot and character and language and voice. And to this day I could re-read any one of them and learn something new. One of the biggest influences on my progress as a suspense writer.

Tom Clancy because his books are big and compelling and they mix politics, war and spycraft like nobody else. He created a distinctive world and wrote with an idiosyncratic voice. I wish he'd stuck around to write more, but what we have will be read for a long, long time.

Ursula Le Guin because "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is one of the greatest short stories ever written. Because everything she wrote was literary and compelling and bursting with wisdom and ideas. A master of science fiction and fantasy.

Book you've faked reading:

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

Let's just say I (ahem) faked reading a number of books in graduate school, but this is the one I faked the most. Because it's the longest and the densest and the least coherent. Don't tell my exam committee.

Book you're an evangelist for:

South of the Big Four by Don Kurtz.

A brilliant, compelling book about a guy who returns to his hometown and farms the land that used to belong to his family. Great characters, loads of plot and a stunning ending. If there were any justice in the world, this book would be considered a modern classic. Because it is.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner.

The cover shows a giant man in a loincloth holding a sword and flying in front of the moon. What young man wouldn't want to read about such a hero? And, by the way, the writing is excellent. Wagner is a master of both fantasy and horror.

Book you hid from your parents:

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.

I don't know why I picked this up in the public library when I was about 14. Maybe because the cover showed a nearly naked woman with giant thumbs? But inside I found lively writing, hilarious social commentary and a bizarre cast of characters. This was a book that showed me a very different world than the one I was living in. I'll never forget it because of that. And, no, Mom and Dad wouldn't have understood. That was the point.

Book that changed your life:

Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker.

When I first started contemplating writing suspense novels, I read a number of Parker's books. They're all tightly plotted and concisely written. And they're also all about something more than just the resolution of the mystery. Parker's books say something. For my money, Rachel Wallace is the best of the bunch. I read it again and again, using it as a textbook for my own writing.

Favorite line from a book:

"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon." --from The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley

Not only is The Last Good Kiss a great mystery novel that also subverts and comments on mystery novels, it opens with what has to be the greatest first line of any book I've ever read. How could you read that sentence and not keep going?

Five books you'll never part with:

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Is it the greatest vampire novel ever written? The greatest zombie novel ever written? The greatest post-apocalyptic story ever told? Yes, yes and yes. Much imitated but never equaled. A true classic that's as fresh today as it was 60 years ago.

Indian Country by Dorothy M. Johnson
A couple of these stories became classic movies: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and A Man Called Horse. All of these stories are excellent glimpses into our frontier past. Clear, sharp writing and heartbreaking characters. Johnson deserves a wider audience.

Hondo by Louis L'Amour
My dad loved Louis L'Amour, and I think this is L'Amour's best book. The tough and sentimental story of a man befriending a young boy and then falling in love with the boy's mother. The basis for a really good movie starring John Wayne, but always an amazing book to be read again and again.

Collected Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Nearly every story in the book--and it's a thick book--is memorable and can be considered a classic. O'Connor's characters are so human and so flawed and so heartbreakingly, darkly funny. These are stories I return to again and again, both as a writer and as a teacher.

Imaro by Charles Saunders
Charles Saunders deserves a wider audience as well. His hero, Imaro, came along in the '70s and showed us all something very different--fantasy set in Africa featuring a Conan-like hero and inspired by both history, myth and legend. If you loved The Black Panther, then you should really read anything by Saunders.  

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

I read this book as soon as it came out, and it blew my mind. Amazing characters that seemed to jump off the page, a rich story about the closing of the west and powerful, vivid writing. I've read the book a few times since then, but nothing can replicate that first time when I was about 15, devouring all 800 pages during an Ohio summer. A great book.