Thursday, September 28, 2006

In writing news

Arbiter of Grammar and Style Goes Online
By DINITIA SMITH
There are those who say that in the Internet age the rules of grammar and style are dead. But the people at the University of Chicago Press, publisher of the Chicago Manual of Style, are not among them. And so starting tomorrow the manual — sometimes known as publishing’s Miss Manners — will be available online by subscription, meaning that those who need to know, pronto, whether it is ever all right to capitalize the first letters of e. e. cummings’s name will no longer have to search through the more than 956-page volume to find the answer. The price for the online manual will be $25 for individuals for the first year, $30 thereafter, and more for institutions, depending on their size. The list price of the hardcover print version is $55.

Children Get a Poet Laureate
By JULIE BOSMAN
The Poetry Foundation has named Jack Prelutsky its first children's poet laureate, in the hopes that the appointment will raise awareness of the genre and encourage more poets to write for children. Mr. Prelutsky, 66, is the author of more than 35 books, including "Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, and Other Poems" (Greenwillow). Collectively his books and anthologies have sold more than a million copies. A Brooklyn native, Mr. Prelutsky has not always had a glowing opinion of poetry, which he began writing at 24. "For the longest time, I thought of poetry as the literary equivalent of liver," he said in a telephone interview. "It took me a long time to recover from that." He will receive $25,000 and the Children's Poet Laureate Medallion. "I'm honored and baffled by this whole thing," he said. "And tickled."

Posted by princess kanomanom @ 10:31 AM