Samiya Bashir

Poet, artist, writer, performer, educator and advocate Samiya Bashir is the new executive director of Lambda Literary, which has been led by two interim co-executive directors--Cleopatra Jach Acquaye and Maxwell Scales--since January.

Formerly an associate professor of creative writing at Reed College, Bashir is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Field Theories, winner of the 2018 Oregon Book Award's Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Her honors include the Rome Prize in Literature, the Pushcart Prize, Oregon's Arts & Culture Council Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and two of Michigan's Hopwood Poetry Awards, among numerous other awards, grants, fellowships and residencies. Bashir has also served as editor to national magazines and anthologies of literature and artwork.

Roz Lee, chair of Lambda Literary's board of directors, said that Bashir has "extensive roots within the communities she will be serving and was previously on the board of Fire & Ink, a nonprofit devoted to increasing the understanding, visibility, and awareness of the works of LGBTQ+ writers of African descent and heritage, for more than 15 years. Samiya herself is also a two-time Lambda Literary Awards finalist, and we could not be more excited for all she brings to our organization."

Lee added: "Throughout 2021, Lambda Literary underwent a community-driven strategic planning process, which resulted in a Roadmap for the organization's future. Samiya will now steward that Roadmap, while creating opportunities to apply her own distinctive vision and holding space for ongoing community input. Samiya's three decades of service in and to literary, arts, and LGBTQ+ communities uniquely position her to understand the needs of the organization's constituencies. Samiya's initial team-building focus is dedicated to creating a supportive, service-oriented place to work for LGBTQ+ writers, readers, publishers, bookstore owners, and professionals."

Bashir said, "As someone who has long benefited from this incredible organization and the passionate work of its champions, I know just how important this learning, growing organization is for LGBTQ+ authors and artists, readers, and publishing professionals--those who've paved many paths and those still to come--searching for some star or another to light their way."

Philip Himberg

Philip Himberg, executive director since June 2019 of MacDowell, the writers and artists residency program in Peterborough, N.H., will leave his position, effective December 31. Himberg had been charged by the board of directors to serve as a transitional leader as the residency initiated new programming and policies focused on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility advancements throughout the organization. He said he feels the time is right to begin handing over the reins to a successor, for whom a search has begun.

"I will be leaving with a deep appreciation for the transformative idea and inspirational place that is MacDowell and with pride for what we as a team have accomplished in these unimagined years," he said. "I have tremendous optimism for the leadership role that MacDowell is poised to continue to play among artist residencies.... None of us could have imagined the changes in our world, nor the impact they would have on my personal timeline, but my plan for the remainder of 2022 remains rigorous as does my dedication to the singular world that is MacDowell."

On behalf of the board, president Andrew M. Senchak said: "We deeply respect and admire the job Philip has done. This was one of the most challenging periods in MacDowell's 115-year history, and we are stronger and better prepared for the future because of Philip's tenure."

Queen Elizabeth II

The book trade in the U.K. continues to respond to the death of Queen Elizabeth II by postponing events and announcements.

With the news that the queen's state funeral will take place September 19, the Booksellers Association said the BA Conference & Gardners Trade Show, which had been scheduled to take place September 18-19, has been postponed to October 30-31. "Though deeply saddened not to be able to gather with our bookseller friends this weekend, we are nonetheless pleased that we have been able to reschedule the BA Conference and Gardners Trade Show. We would like to thank our partners and booksellers for their patience," the BA noted.

Gardners added: "We've concluded that it is more appropriate to postpone.... We're hopeful that almost all our delegates and exhibitors will be able to make the new dates. We're hugely excited to have secured this new date, and we can't wait to gather with as many of you as possible that weekend. We thank you for your understanding and we can't wait to see you in October."

A spokesperson for Pan Macmillan told the Bookseller the publisher is "holding on major new announcements for a period out of respect and monitoring media to judge sentiment, making sure that any communication we do is appropriate, and reviewing the events landscape with our partners to assess the viability of events." 

Bonnier Books UK said it had not changed any publication dates but would be "pausing any proactive campaigns related to royal titles during the mourning period."

A number of planned events have already been canceled, including the Polari Prize shortlist showcase, originally due to take place September 15 at the British Library. Publishers "were also making plans for staff ahead of the announcement of the funeral bank holiday," the Bookseller noted, adding that a Hachette staffer said the publisher "has told us that if there is no national bank holiday on a weekday, then as a business we will be giving Friday 16th as a holiday to mark this event and that they will update as things become clearer." 

--- 

Lam Wing-Kee

Lam Wing-kei, the former manager of Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books who relocated to Taipei in 2019 after being prosecuted by Chinese authorities, recently applied for permanent residency in Taiwan. The Taipei Times reported that "Lam was imprisoned for nearly eight months, and the Chinese Communist Party asked him to disclose the bookstore's customers and their orders in exchange for his release. Lam in June 2016 returned to Hong Kong, with his criminal record showing a conviction in China for 'illegal operation of book sales.' "

Although he reopened Causeway Books in Taipei in 2020 with the support of a crowdfunding campaign, Lam initially did not accept the "humanitarian aid" political asylum offered by the government. He has stayed in Taiwan on a temporary permit since his arrival, according to a government official. 

Lam had applied with the Ministry of Culture for permanent residency as a "special professional" in the field of culture. If the ministry approves his application, it would forward the case to the National Immigration Agency, which would issue a permanent residency card, the official said.

--- 

The Bologna Children's Book Fair's Agents Centre is expanding its offering to exhibiting publisher rights professionals across the industry, including adult general trade publishing in addition to children's. The fair will celebrate its 60th anniversary March 6-9, 2023.

"Our BCBF Agents' Centre has enjoyed great success over many years and it seems a logical next step in its development that we welcome a broader audience from rights trading communities," said BCBF director Elena Pasoli. "Offering new opportunities to the wider publishing industry is a great way of celebrating a milestone birthday for Bologna."

Jacks Thomas, guest director, BolognaBookPlus, added: "This is a great opportunity for BolognaBookPlus general trade rights professionals who can now sit alongside their children's publishing counterparts in the vibrant Bologna Rights Centre--a great addition to the overall BBPlus offering."

--- 

In a recent episode of The Debrief, host John Beauchamp spoke with Nadiia Moroz-Olshanska, who helps run the Nić Ukrainian bookstore and café on Sławkowska Street in the heart of the Old Town, Kraków, Poland.

The café "originally opened in the midst of lockdown in October 2020, providing a safe haven for Ukrainians in Kraków," TFN noted. "As Moroz-Olshanska says, Ukrainians make up 10% of income tax revenue for the city of Kraków, with Nić catering for the cultural needs of the Ukrainian expat population. Since February this year, Nić is also engaged in supportive activities of the Ukrainian war effort."

By March, "we knew that we were in for a marathon, and a very long one [at that]," Moroz-Olshanska said. --Robert Gray

Spanish novelist, translator and columnist Javier Marías, "a writer regularly touted as a candidate for the Nobel prize for literature," died September 11, the Guardian reported. He was 70. Marías "published his debut novel, The Dominions of the Wolf, at the age of 20. It was followed by 15 others, among them All Souls, which was inspired by his time teaching at Oxford University, and A Heart So White, a mysterious meditation on love, family and the past that is perhaps his best-known book." Other works include Dark Back of Time; Tomás Nevinson; Tomorrow in the Battle Think of Me; The Infatuations; When I Was Mortal; Thus Bad Begins and Berta Isla.

Writing in El País, his friend and fellow writer Eduardo Mendoza said Marías had overcome his early influences to "to find a voice, a subject and a style that were so distinctively his own that they turned him into a strange phenomenon. Javier Marías's writing doesn't resemble anyone else's. It's easy to parody, but impossible to imitate."

Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called Marías "one of the great writers of our time" and said Sunday was "a sad day for Spanish literature."

Simon Prosser, Hamish Hamilton publishing director, told the Bookseller that Marías was "a truly superb and original writer with a voice entirely of his own; a master of the elegant, sinuous, always surprising sentence; a poet of the comma--the pause that isn't an end; and an essayist of rare intelligence, wit and insight, with a weekly column in El País.... He was one of the greats of contemporary literature, constantly tipped for the Nobel, which sadly, like W.G. Sebald, with whom he is often compared, he never won. A bestseller in Spain as well as other European countries, he was also an immensely popular writer among readers. And for good reason: once hooked, it is very hard to put a book by Marías down.... I will miss him deeply, both as a writer and as a person."

In a Guardian tribute, author Alberto Manguel wrote: "Perhaps because Javier Marías felt deeply the absurdity of everyday life and had the sense that history is a game played out with dreadful consequences, he became interested in two pursuits that echo our witless absurdity: the art of spying and the craft of writing fiction. Of the first he became a canny investigator and observer, of the second a talented practitioner. Fifteen novels and several collections of short stories testify to these two lifelong interests, and his success can be measured in the enthusiasm of the reading public who eagerly sought out his books, published in close to 50 languages."

"Between 2002 and 2007, Marías embarked on his magnum opus: the monumental trilogy under the title Your Face Tomorrow, his approach to the Spanish Civil War through an incident inspired by the denunciation of his father, a philosopher and disciple of José Ortega y Gasset," El País reported. "Imprisoned as a Republican sympathizer, Julián Marías was forbidden from teaching at universities during the Franco regime for refusing to sign his name to the principles of the Nationalist movement. That forced him to make regular trips to the United States to be able to lecture and as such Javier Marías spent the first year of his life in Massachusetts, near Wellesley College, where his father was a visiting professor."

In a prologue added to the 50th anniversary commemorative edition of The Wolf's Domains, Marías observed that, in answer to the frequent question of why he wrote, he tended to reply half in jest: "So I don't have to suffer a boss and I don't have to wake up early or work fixed hours." He also noted that the office of a writer was not "the best way for a lazy person to spend his life.... Sometimes I put my head in my hands, conscious as I am that every page has been patiently written and re-written, always on paper and typewriter, with corrections done by hand and then typed out again." For years, Marías believed "I will not live long, who knows why." What he never imagined then, he said, was that the "almost childish game" of writing would lead him to "work so much."

On Thursday, September 8, the Center for Fiction, Brooklyn, N.Y., in collaboration with WORD Theatre, hosted a celebratory event for Randall Kenan's posthumous essay collection, Black Folk Could Fly (Norton). Pictured (l.-r.) are actors Michael Boatman, Marinda Anderson, Ryan Jamaal Swain and CG, who read passages from the book on stage. The performance was followed by a discussion of Kenan's life and work with A.M. Homes and Elias Rodriques.

Russo's Books, Bakersfield, Calif., recently highlighted the launch of the Sacramento Rolling Library Train by sharing a Facebook post from Patrick Kennedy, a Sacramento County Supervisor who wrote: "The Sacramento Regional Transit District and the Sacramento Public Library [have] launched Sacramento's first Rolling Library Train. The brightly decorated train promotes riding and reading. Riders simply take out their phone, scan the QR code, which takes them to different library resources that they can access for free.  

"The Sacramento Rolling Library Train will make it even easier for the community to experience the Sacramento Public Library's incredible wealth of services and programming focused on early learning, technology, and creation. I am looking forward to riding these trains on my regular commute through your neighborhood and enjoying the available e-books. When you see the brightly colored train come through, be sure to hop on board to ride and read!"

"Being able to make yourself laugh is an important skill," Main Street Books, Lafayette, Ind., noted in tweeting a photo of the bookshop's sidewalk chalkboard message: "News stories keep saying Amazon killed all the bookstores... but we're still here! Maybe we're UNDEAD?"

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi (Amistad).

Last night's Emmy Awards celebration was nearly a shutout as far as book-related major category winners were concerned. The exception to the rule was Dopesick, Hulu's limited series drama about the opioid crisis based on Beth Macy's book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America. 

Michael Keaton won the Emmy for lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie category. The project, Keaton's first television show, was a personal one for the actor, whose nephew died from a drug overdose.

Dopesick's "Breakthrough Pain" episode had earlier won a Creative Arts Emmy for outstanding cinematography for a limited or anthology series or movie.

Today:
Fox & Friends: Pastor Max Lucado, author of Help Is Here: Finding Fresh Strength and Purpose in the Power of the Holy Spirit (Thomas Nelson, $25.99, 9781400224814).

Fresh Air: David Enrich, author of Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice (Mariner Books, $32.50, 9780063142176).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Nina Totenberg, author of Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships (Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 9781982188085).

Good Morning America: Serena Williams, author of The Adventures of Qai Qai (Feiwel & Friends, $18.99, 9781250831408).

Today Show: David Milch, author of Life's Work: A Memoir (Random House, $28, 9780525510741).

Tamron Hall: Jon Sternfeld, co-author, with Michael K. Williams, of Scenes from My Life: A Memoir (Crown, $28.99, 9780593240373).

Netflix offered a first look at The School for Good and Evil, a movie based on the book series by Soman Chainani, Entertainment Weekly reported. The cast includes Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington and Laurence Fishburne. The film premieres October 19.

Director Paul Feig was first brought the script more than three years ago and couldn't get the story out of his head: "I'm always looking for female friendship stories--those are my favorite movies to make--and I've also always wanted to create a world, and I've never really had a chance to do that. I got to scratch the surface of it with Ghostbusters, but that was still our world. So this just had everything I wanted. It was only after I read the script that I started reading the books, and I fell in love with everything in them. They're very dense books, very inventive and fun, like Alice in Wonderland."

Feig added that he worked closely with Chainani on the adaptation and "was really jonesing to get to work with visual artists to create something new. If you look at all my movies, you'll notice I always take on a different genre every time. I want to work my way through all the genres, but fantasy was never a genre that I thought I would end up doing. It is a hard genre to do, and is a very specific genre. But once I read this and could visualize the world of it, it was really fun."

EW added that if all goes according to plan, Feig hopes to explore this new world further with sequels. "The goal is definitely for this to be a franchise," he said. "I mean, this cast is just stellar. I have to pinch myself every time I watch the movie. From Charlize, and Kerry, and Laurence, to Michelle [Yeoh], and Cate Blanchett as the voice of the [Storian], to this amazing new young cast who are just so deep and wonderful, inventive and charismatic, it was really a thrill."

Elodie Harper won the £2,000 (about $2,385) Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, which honors "a compelling novel, of any genre with brilliant characterization and a distinctive voice that is confidently written and assuredly realized," for her debut, The Wolf Den. Judges praised the novel as "rich and immersive" as well as "mesmerizing." In addition to the cash prize, the winner receives an engraved glass bell.

David Headley, co-founder of Goldsboro Books and founder of the Glass Bell Award, said: "This year's all female shortlist was particularly compelling, traversing centuries of history--from Ancient Britain to 1960s Uganda--and spotlighting the voices history has often neglected or silenced. It was a tough challenge to select our winner from such a fantastic line-up, but our team at Goldsboro Books were consistently drawn back to Elodie Harper's mesmerizing The Wolf Den. With rich and immersive historic detail, Harper brings to life the untold stories of the women enslaved in Pompeii's most notorious brothel, powerfully exploring bonds of sisterhood as they navigate a brutal world without personal freedom."

When he's hired to determine if an apparent accident is murder, a gay detective reveals the cracks in a powerful queer family in Lev AC Rosen's insightful, character-driven mystery, Lavender House. Rosen (Camp) is known for his contemporary novels for young adults, but Lavender House demonstrates his skill at compelling, thoughtful and twisty adult historical mystery. It's 1952 in San Francisco, and Andy Mills has just been fired from his job as a police detective after being caught with another man in a raid on a gay club. Andy is drinking himself into a suicidal stupor when Pearl approaches him with a proposition: Will he come stay with her family and determine if the recent death of her life partner, Irene Lamontaine--family matriarch and head of the Lamontaine Soap empire--was truly an accident?

Hidden away in Lavender House, named for its inhabitants and for soap maker Irene's abundant lavender-filled gardens, Pearl and Irene's family is unconventional, especially by rigid post-war standards. With one exception, the other occupants (and suspects) are also all queer: Pearl and Irene's son and Lamontaine heir Henry and his former-dancer partner Cliff; Henry's legal wife, Margo, and her club-owner partner Elsie; and three staff members. The last is Margo's irritable, heterosexual mother, residing in an uneasy truce with this found family and their secrets.

Andy gets to know every character, with all their petty squabbles and the festering resentments. Underpinning the murder mystery is commentary on queerness, freedom and what it means to be family, which flavors every interaction. At the start, Andy's individualistic outlook has led him to a very dark emotional place and now he has to learn how to embody his sexuality, navigate the loss of his perceived former safety and find his place in a society that doesn't want him.

Even with the bitterness and murder, there's a fierce love and loyalty in this family that draws in Andy and readers: "I've had my real family, then the army, then the police force. Families where I couldn't be myself, not openly like here. Even with the murder and rats in my soap, it's kind of beautiful."

Readers who love queer history, complicated family dynamics, flawed characters and a good murder mystery will be eager for more. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian and freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Perfect for fans of Knives Out, Lavender House is a queer, mid-century take on the family-centric murder mystery showcasing Lev AC Rosen's masterful character development.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. Make It Count by Hunter Ballew
2. Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score
3. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter
4. My Beacon (Bewitched and Bewildered Book 13) by Alanea Alder
5. Dangerous Encounter by Riley Edwards
6. Frank (Guardian Defenders Book 5) by Kris Michaels
7. I Am Fun Size, and So Are YOU! by Anjali Bhimani
8. Epic Life by Justin Breen
9. What Hunts Inside the Shadows (Of Flesh & Bone Book 2) by Harper L. Woods
10. Six-Figure Sales Secrets by Marcus Chan

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]