National Book Festival 2021

The 21th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held September 17-26, 2021 in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public.

More than 100 authors, poets, and illustrators will be making presentations throughout the festival on stages for Children, Teens, Fiction, History & Biography, International, Poetry & Prose, Genre Fiction, Science, and other themes & genres. Speakers include such writers as Kazuo Ishiguro, Roxane Gay, Nikki Giovanni, Joy Harjo, George Saunders, and many others. 

Further information, including a schedule of events and an FAQ can be found at the festival website. 

This year's poster was designed by Dana Tanamachi; a gallery of all Festival posters from 2001 to 2021 can be viewed here.

The Spirit That Moves Us Press: Morty Sklar

For those who may not know, the poet and publisher, Morty Sklar [1935-2018], died at the end of December 2018 in Jackson Heights, Queens. Morty had ridden his motorcycle out to Iowa City circa 1971, and ended up staying until 1989, when he moved back to New York City. The Common Curator met him in 1988 at a rooming house, where Morty happened to be the resident manager (the property, incidentally, was owned by W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, which became The Field of Dreams phenomenon). Morty was a true character, with a bottomless reservoir of stories and anecdotes, all conveyed with a pronounced New York accent that was never tempered in the slightest by nearly two decades of Iowa living. 

Morty operated The Spirit That Moves Us Press out of his then-quarters in the house, and a key element of his enterprise was a large, archaic IBM composing machine with which he electronically typeset all his books. His most notable publication was no doubt Jaroslav Seifert's The Casting of Bells (1983). In the following year Seifert won the Nobel Prize for Literature, yet was not then widely known in literary circles outside his native Czechoslavakia. Needless to say, after the prize was announced, journalists and critics from across the U.S. and abroad were scrambling to find copies of Seifert's work in English translation, and inundated Morty with book orders. Unfortunately, according to Morty's recounting, he had recently moved, and the phone company had messed up his call-forwarding request, hence he lost many potential sales as well as a good portion of once-in-a-lifetime publicity. Such are the travails of small presses! 

The Spirit That Moves Us magazine was the first thing Morty published, in 1975, and he went on to issue a number of books of poetry, fiction & essays, including: The Actualist Anthology; Nuke-Rebuke; Editor's Choice (a series); Patchwork of Dreams: Voices from the Heart of the New America; and similar collections. In addition, he published volumes by individual poets, including Seifert (several titles), local Chuck Miller, and others. His own poetry, The Smell of Life: Poems 1969-2005, was also published under the TSTMUP imprint. Morty's final book was The Ultimate Actualist Convention: A Detailed View of Iowa City Actualism in the 1970s & 1980s and Its Migration to the San Francisco Bay Area, which came out in 2017.

The Common Curator last saw Morty in the late 1990's/early 2000's at the annual Small Press Fair held in Manhattan, where they both periodically exhibited their wares after leaving Iowa. There's a lot more that could be related, of course, and for those who are interested, below are compiled various resources that touch on Morty's life and career as an author, editor, and small press publisher. He was still giving readings as of last summer, and video of that and other things can be found at his YouTube channel. 

Morty was always a New Yorker through and through, but it seemed that he nevertheless found Iowa to be fertile ground for his fertile mind, and that in the end he gave as much to the City of Literature as he harvested.

May the Spirit Move Us All in 2019!

   *  *  *  *

-- Obituary [Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 1, 2019]

-- The Spirit That Moves Us Press [established circa 1975]

-- YouTube Channel [including readings and miscellanea]

-- The Reminiscences of Morty Sklar [Phoenix House Foundation Oral History Project, Columbia University, September 25, 2014]

-- Poet & Writers Biography

-- Poetry City Actualized: A Look Back at the Birth of an Iowa City-based Literary Movement [Little Village, January 9, 2015]

-- Vibrant Tales In Small Book On Queens [New York Times article about the anthology, Patchwork of Dreams, December 7, 1996]

-- Little-Known in U.S., Nobel Poet Praised Here [New York Times article about Jaroslav Seifert, whom Sklar published the year prior, October 12, 1984]

. . . ''The Casting of Bells,'' a 64-page collection translated by Tom O'Grady and Paul Jagasich, and published in August 1983 by The Spirit That Moves Us Press in Iowa City, Iowa. Morty Sklar, who described himself yesterday as ''publisher, editor, typesetter and stamp licker'' of the press, said his is a small, independent press that publishes two books a year. He published 1,000 copies of the Seifert book, but yesterday, upon hearing the news from Sweden, he reordered 2,500 more. It is available in paperback for $6.

The Final Number of the Wapsipinicon Almanac

The latest--and final--annual installment of the eclectic Wapsipinicon Almanac is now available for purchase and perusal. Published and letterpress printed since 1988 by Timothy Fay of Route 3 Press, the present issue, as with previous numbers, features an engaging mix of essays, reviews, fiction, poetry, art, wit, and wisdom.

Number 25 can be purchased at bookstores and other establishments or by writing the publisher directly at Wapsipinicon Almanac, 19948 Shooting Star Road, Anamosa, Iowa 52205. Single copies are $9, plus $2.70 for postage; Iowa residents should also include 63-cents for sales tax.

The front cover shown here was designed by Will Thomson of Iowa City, his seventh cover overall for the almanac. A brief history of the publication can be viewed at the Almanac's website, and a video of "Linotype Operator Emeritus" Eldon Meeks in action can be viewed here.

The 2018 National Book Festival

The 18th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, September 1, 2018, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public.

More than 100 authors, poets, and illustrators will be making presentations throughout the day on stages for Children, Teens, Youth Poetry Slam, Fiction, History & Biography, Understanding Our World, and other themes or genres. Speakers include such writers as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Amy Tan, Dave Eggers, Jon Meacham, Annie Proulx, Robert Hass, U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, and many others. 

Further information, including a schedule of events and a map of the festival grounds, can be found at the festival website. Mobile apps are also available for the Festival. This year's poster was designed by Gaby D'Allesandro; a gallery of all Festival posters from 2001 to 2018 can be viewed here.

RAGBRAI XLVI: Book It To Iowa City

The 20,000 or so riders on RAGBRAI XLVI, the 46th iteration of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, will begin streaming into Iowa City on the morning of Friday, July 27, 2018. For this penultimate segment of the week-long ride, bicyclists will be covering 58 miles from Sigourney to Iowa City; the last stretch, Day 7, will cover the final 69 miles to Davenport. Every year the ride commences somewhere along the Missouri River and ends somewhere along the Mississippi River. This year's route, which originated in Onawa, measures approximately 428 miles, and includes some 12,576 feet of climb.

The first ride, in 1973, was the brainchild of journalists Donald Kaul and John Karras of the Des Moines Register, and the ride has since evolved into an internationally renowned event, the oldest, largest, and longest such bicycle ride in the world. Unfortunately, one of the co-founders, Donald Kaul, died at age 83 on Sunday, July 22, 2018, coincidentally the first day of this year's ride.

Kaul was especially well known for his nationally-syndicated column "Over the Coffee," which skewered hypocrites of all political stripes, including himself, if necessary. Kaul's writing manifested good sense, an agile wit, as well as deep compassion and human decency, qualities which are always needed but often lacking, then as now. Three collections of Kaul's columns have been published, and an archive of later work (2008-2016) can be found online at OtherWords. "Newspaper Nostalgia" recounts some of the many changes Kaul witnessed in over 50 years of journalism, beginning with the start of his career at the Register in the early '60s.

The Common Curator rode RAGBRAI in 2012, details of which can be found in the post, Livin' XL.

The Republication of Edward S. Curtis' The North American Indian

Edward S. Curtis [1868-1952] published The North American Indian [Being a Series of Volumes Picturing and Describing the Indians of the United States and Alaska] during the period 1907-1930. It comprised 20 volumes of narrative text accompanied by 20 portfolios of photogravures; the text tallied over 5,000 pages, and the photographic images numbered over 2,200. Less than half of the projected 500 sets were ultimately produced.

The original prospectus described this project as "The most gigantic undertaking in the making of books since the King James edition of the Bible . . . ." Curtis both authored the text and photographed the images, and was supported in his field work by the patronage of J. Pierpont Morgan. Frederick Webb Hodge, who worked at the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1905 to 1918 and later at the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, served as the editor for the series. Theodore Roosevelt contributed a brief foreword.

In the course of his research, Curtis took over 40,000 photographic images of some 80 tribes, recorded over 10,000 wax cylinders of Native American languages and music, and observed and described many aspects of Indian traditions, customs, and ways of life. As valuable as Curtis' documentation is--and in many cases, it is the only such historical information available--it also reflects certain attitudes and mindsets no longer current among scholars and historians. Among other criticisms, the staging of some photographs raises important questions of representation and interpretation in Curtis' work.

To mark the sesquicentennial of Curtis' birth, Christopher Cardozo Fine Art is republishing Curtis' magnum opus in its entirety, with meticulous attention to reproducing the quality of the original set. The video above gives a brief overview of the process and rationale for the undertaking. Further details as well as ordering information is available at the publisher's website.

An online edition of The North American Indian is also available as part of Northwestern University's Digital Library Collections. The digitization of the set was largely funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The Library of Congress holds more than 2,400 silver-gelatin photographic prints by Curtis that were acquired through copyright deposit from about 1900 to 1930; of these, 1,608 were not included in The North American Indian. Over 1,000 prints in the Curtis Collection have been digitized and individually described.

All Fools All the Time

What? Don't Worry! MAD magazine, founded in 1952, is being rebooted after 550 issues, and will recommence later this month with issue No. 1 of its new series. Stay tuned for more satire from Alfred E. Neuman and the Usual Gang of Idiots.

2017 National Book Festival

The 17th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, September 2, 2017, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public.

More than 100 authors, poets, and illustrators will be making presentations throughout the day in the theme-based pavilions for Children, Teens, Books to Movies, Contemporary Life, Fiction, Food & Home, Graphic Novels, History & Biography, International, Poetry & Prose, and Science. Speakers include such writers as David McCullough, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Dava Sobel, Ibram X. Kendi, Elizabeth Strout, Jesmyn Ward, Margot Lee Shetterly, and many others. 

Further information, including a schedule of events and a map of the festival grounds, can be found at the festival website. Mobile apps are also available for the Festival. This year's poster was designed by Roz Chast; a gallery of all Festival posters from 2001 to 2017 can be viewed here. 

The National Book Festival: Journey to the Unknown

The 16th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, September 24, 2016, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public.

More than 120 authors, poets, and illustrators will be making presentations throughout the day in the theme-based pavilions for Children, Teens, Books to Movies, Contemporary Life, Fiction, Food & Home, Graphic Novels, History & Biography, International, Poetry & Prose, and Science. Keynote speakers on the main stage include Stephen King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shonda Rhimes, Bob Woodward, Raina Telgemeier, and Salman Rushdie. 

Further information, including a schedule of events and a map of the festival grounds, can be found at the festival website. Mobile apps are also available for the Festival. This year's poster was designed by Yuko Shimizu; a gallery of all Festival posters from 2001 to 2016 can be viewed here. 

The Iowa City Book Festival

One of just eleven UNESCO Cities of Literature in the world and the only one in the United States, Iowa City, Iowa is hosting the seventh annual Iowa City Book Festival, October 1-4, 2015. In partnership with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program and Writers' Workshop, FilmScene, the Mission Creek Festival, as well as other organizations and individuals, the four-day event will feature a Book Fair, readings by numerous authors, and non-stop programming at many venues in and around downtown Iowa City. The 2015 Program can be downloaded as a PDF, and full details can be found at the festival website.

The National Book Festival: "I Cannot Live without Books"

The 15th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, September 5, 2015, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public.

To observe the 200th anniversary of the purchase of Thomas Jefferson's personal library by the Library of Congress, the theme of this year's festival is the following well-known quotation from Jefferson's letter of June 10, 1815 to John Adams: "I cannot live without books."

As in prior years, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are honorary chairs for the event. More than 170 authors, poets, and illustrators will be making presentations throughout the day in the theme-based pavilions for Children, Teens & Children, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Contemporary Life and Poetry & Prose.

Further information, including a schedule of events and a map of the festival grounds, can be found at the festival website. The 2015 poster, shown here, was designed by Peter de Sève.

An earlier Common Curator post provides more background on the Library of Congress' acquisition of Jefferson's library: The British "Light Up" the Library of Congress.

Iowa City Book Festival 2014

One of just seven UNESCO Cities of Literature in the world, Iowa City, Iowa is hosting its sixth annual Book Festival, October 2-5, 2014. In partnership with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program and Writers' Workshop, FilmScene, the Mission Creek Festival, as well as other organizations and individuals, the four-day event will feature a Book Fair, readings by numerous authors, and non-stop programming at many venues in and around downtown Iowa City. The 2014 Program can be downloaded as a PDF, and full details can be found at the festival website.

2014 National Book Festival

The 14th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, August 30, 2014, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public.

As in prior years, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are honorary chairs for the event. More than 100 authors, poets, and illustrators, will be making presentations throughout the day in the theme-based pavilions for Children, Teens & Children, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Contemporary Life and Poetry & Prose.

Schedules are available online for the Author Pavilions and the Library of Congress Pavilion. Further information on the Festival can be found here, and a map of the festival grounds can be viewed here.

The Festival website features an archive of photos, video webcasts, and audio podcasts. The 2014 poster, shown here, was designed by Bob Staake.

National Book Festival 2013

The 13th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday & Sunday, September 21-22, 2013, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The festival is free and open to the public, and will take place rain or shine.

As in prior years, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are honorary chairs for the event. More than 100 authors, illustrators, and poets will be making presentations throughout the day in the theme-based pavilions for Children, Teens & Children, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Contemporary Life and Poetry & Prose.

Schedules are available online for the Author Pavilions and the Library of Congress Pavilion. A map of the festival grounds can be downloaded here [PDF]. The Library of Congress is also sponsoring a survey about "Books that Shaped the World," which can be completed online.

The Festival website features an archive of video webcasts and audio podcasts. The 2013 poster, shown here, was designed by Suzy Lee.

The Wapsipinicon Almanac Fresh Off the Press

Volume 17 of the Wapsipinicon Almanac is now available for consumption. Published and printed since 1988 by Timothy Fay of Route 3 Press (Anamosa, Iowa), the present issue, as with previous numbers, features an engaging mix of essays, reviews, fiction, poetry, art, wit and wisdom. Ordering details are available on the Almanac's web site.

The cover shown here for the new volume is based on an original scratchboard drawing by Stone City artist Nancy Lindsay. Previous covers and contents pages, as well as a brief history of the Almanac, can be viewed at the web site.

Artists' Books: When the Goblet Becomes the Wine

Books created by artists from around the country will be on display during a trunk sale and program by Vamp & Tramp Booksellers on November 16, 2010 in the Hanes Art Center at UNC.

The program will feature Bill and Vicky Stewart, owners of Vamp & Tramp, which is based in Birmingham, Alabama. Their talk, “Artists’ Books: When the Goblet Becomes the Wine,” will give an introduction to the genre, which is defined as works of art in the form of books.

Vamp & Tramp represents more than 300 contemporary fine presses and book artists. The Stewarts will showcase books in their inventory, selected to represent a wide range of the work currently being done by book artists.

The book sale will be held from 3-5:30pm at the Sloane Art Library. A reception will begin at 5:15pm in the lobby before the presentation at 6pm in the Hanes Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Note: The title of the Stewarts' presentation alludes to an essay by Beatrice Ward, "The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should Be Invisible" (The Crystal Goblet: Sixteen Essays on Typography, 1956), wherein she observes that ". . . you will find that almost all the virtues of the perfect wine-glass have a parallel in typography."

Banned Books Week 2010

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (September 25 to October 2, 2010) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

For more information on getting involved with Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, please see the American Library Association's Calendar of Events and Ideas and Resources. You can also contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.

Beyond Impact Factor: Panel & Discussion

Beyond Impact Factor: Understanding & Supporting Scholarly Work in the New Academy
Wednesday, June 9, 2010, 9am-12:30pm
Pleasants Family Assembly Room, Wilson Library, UNC

The UNC Libraries' Scholarly Communications Committee invites you to a half-day panel and discussion, exploring alternative forms of scholarly output and their impact on academia. Please register by Friday, June 4. Beverages and refreshments will be served.

Panelists include:

Gary Marchionini (moderator), Dean, School of Information and Library Science, UNC
Phil Edwards, Instructor in School of Information and Library Science, UNC
Molly Keener, Scholarly Communications Librarian, Wake Forest University
Erin O'Meara, Electronic Records Archivist, UNC
Kevin Smith, Scholarly Communications Officer, Duke

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Read more . . .

Social History of Medicine Journal Seeks New Co-Editor

Social History of Medicine seeks a new co-editor to join Graham Mooney (co-editor), Anna Crozier (book reviews editor), and Ruth Biddiss (assistant editor). The new co-editor will succeed Bill Luckin, who will retire at the beginning of 2011.

Social History of Medicine is the leading international journal in itsf ield and covers all aspects of the social, cultural and economic history of medicine. It is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. The journal appears three times annually but we are currently exploring options toexpand to four issues per year.

We are looking for a experienced, competent and well established medical historians who will ensure editorial cohesion. Expertise in all areas of history of medicine and/or time-periods will be considered but we are in particular looking for candidates with a background in pre-1800 and/ornon-Western history of medicine.

Applicants are asked to send a C.V. and statement of interest to the Chair of the Society, Dr Lutz Sauerteig, Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Wolfson Research Institute, Durham University,Queen's Campus, Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, UK (l.d.sauerteig@durham.ac.uk).

The application should provide a brief account of why the candidate is attracted to the post, an outline of what they would contribute to SHM, and a synopsis of their relevant experience. Informal enquiries about the nature of the post can be made by e-mail to Graham Mooney (gmooney3@jhmi.edu) or Bill Luckin (billluckin@googlemail.com).

Further details about the journal and the Society for the Social History of Medicine can be found at the Society's web site. The search is open until the position has been filled.