Judge suggests DoJ will prove Apple’s guilt, Granta turmoil continues, and more

• Judge expresses “tentative view” the government will make its case against Apple
• Granta Books’ billionaire owner to take over editorial and operational control
• Anansi announces Broken Social Scene contest winners
• Chinua Achebe buried in Nigerian hometown
• How pop culture contributes to the dictionary

Lydia Davis awarded Man Booker, Martin Short announces memoir, and more

• Lydia Davis wins Man Booker International Prize
• Martin Short to write memoir for HarperCollins
• New York bookstore thrives despite uncertainty
• CNN anchor Piers Morgan to write memoir
• U.S. publishers embracing more international titles

Amazon launches digital platform for fan fiction

Amazon announced the launch of Kindle Worlds, a new digital publishing platform for fan fiction, touted as the first legal commercial platform of its kind.

Despite the prevalence of online fan fiction, copyright laws make it illegal to profit from it. Kindle Worlds, however, has acquired licences for three book series from Warner Bros.’ Alloy Entertainment: Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar, Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard, and Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith. More licences will be announced soon. Royalties will be paid by Amazon to rights holders of the original work, and authors will receive a royalty rate of 35 per cent of net revenue for works of at least 10,000 words.

Concurrently, Amazon launched a pilot program for shorter works (between 5,000 and 10,000 words), which are typically priced under $1. Authors will be paid a 20 per cent royalty rate.

Fan-fiction submissions are being accepted as of today, with the digital storefront to launch in June.

Trevor Cole wins Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for writing

Trevor Cole

The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the winners of the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Awards. The seven recipients are mid-career artists who have been recognized in the seven arts practices funded by the Canada Council: writing and publishing, integrated arts, dance, media arts, theatre, visual arts, and music.

Writer Trevor Cole is one this year’s winner. Cole’s third novel, Practical Jean, won the Leacock Medal for Humour in 2011, and his first two novels were both nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award. Before starting to write fiction, Cole was an editor and journalist with The Globe and Mail.

Other winners include contemporary puppeteer Julie Desrosiers, performer Sandra Laronde, filmmaker Lindsay McIntyre, playwright Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, sculptor and installation artist Reece Terris, and jazz musician Ben Wendel.

Amazon announces Breakthrough Novel finalists, ChiZine putting together horror anthology, and more

• Amazon Publishing reveals Breakthrough Novel Award finalists
• ChiZine accepting terror and supernatural fiction submissions
• Plagiarism controversy hits poetry community again
• Children’s publisher Barefoot Books leaves Amazon
• Association of American Publishers merging with the Association of Educational Publishers

Richard Wagamese wins First Nation Communities Read competition

First Nation Communities Read has revealed Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse (Douglas & McIntyre) as the winner of the annual community-reading program.

Chosen from more than 35 submissions, a jury of librarians from First Nation public libraries in Ontario called Indian Horse “strong, humane, and engaging.”

Now in its 10th year, the First Nation Communities Read program was developed to promote and increase awareness of aboriginal authors and illustrators, and to encourage family literacy, inter-generational storytelling, and the understanding of aboriginal voices and experiences.

Public libraries in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C., the Yukon, and Northwest Territories will promote the program with a poster featuring Indian Horse. Wagamese will visit First Nation communities in Ontario and participate in other First Nation Communities Reads activities.

David Rakoff book trailer, likeable characters in fiction, and more

• Book trailer for David Rakoff’s posthumous book
• Authors discuss “likeability” of fictional characters
• Tragedy motivates Indian school to open student book bank
• Harry Potter first edition auctioned in U.K.
• Gerbrand Bakker wins Independent Foreign Fiction prize

Photos: Kids Can Press’s 40th anniversary at Forest of Trees

Franklin the Turtle and Scaredy Squirrel made appearances at Kids Can Press’s 40th anniversary party on May 16, joining thousands of children at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre as part of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading Festival of Trees.

Click on the thumbnails to see photos from the day.

Atlantic Book Award winners announced

The winners of the Atlantic Book Awards were announced last night at a celebration hosted by CBC Radio’s Louise Renault.

The winners are:

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
Live to Tell, Lisa Harrington (Dancing Cat Books)

Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
The Metamorphosis: The Apprenticeship of Harry Houdini, Bruce McNab (Goose Lane Editions)

Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing
The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil, Susan Dodd (Fernwood Publishing)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson
French Taste in Atlantic Canada 1604–1758: A Gastronomic History/ Le goût français au Canada atlantique 1604-1758: une histoire gastronomique, Anne Marie Lane Jonah and Chantal Véchambre (Cape Breton University Press)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
In Search of R.B. Bennett, P.B. Waite (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

E.J. Pratt Poetry Award
Paradoxides, Don McKay (McClelland & Stewart)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)
Anna from Away, D.R. MacDonald (HarperCollins Canada)

Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration
I Is for Island:  A Prince Edward Island Alphabet, Hugh MacDonald; Brenda Jones, illus. (Sleeping Bear Press)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
Dirty Bird, Keir Lowther (Tightrope Books)
atlantic-book-award-winners-announced

Rogers Communication Award for Non-fiction 
In the Field, Joan Sullivan (Breakwater Books)

Canadian Eliza Robertson wins regional Commonwealth prize, Nobel Prize speculation, and more

• Canadian writer Eliza Robertson named regional Commonwealth short-story prize winner 
• Tweet reveals five Nobel Prize in Literature candidates
• Amazon U.K. receives more grant money than it pays in taxes
• Hilary Mantel prefers books with action, gets impatient with romance
• Publishers experiment with digital-only titles