Britain’s Lessing wins 2007 Nobel for literature
Published October 11th, 2007 | 
British novelist Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday for a body of work that delved into human relations and inspired a generation of feminist writers.
The academy, which awards the coveted 10 million Swedish crown ($1.54 million) prize, called 87-year-old Lessing an “epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny.”
Lessing, the oldest Nobel literature laureate since the prizes began in 1901, was the 34th woman Nobelist and the 11th female to take the literature award.
“Doris doesn’t know yet, because she’s popped to the shops,” said a spokeswoman for Lessing’s agent Jonathan Clowes.
Clowes added in a statement: “We are absolutely delighted and it’s very well deserved.”
Jane Friedman, chief executive of Lessing publisher HarperCollins, called the award a complete surprise.
“This is such wonderful news. This is absolutely extraordinary,” she told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
“She has been an icon for women for a lifetime.”
Nicholas Pearson, Lessing’s editor at HarperCollins division the Fourth Estate, called the news “thrilling.”
“Those early books changed the face of literature — the description of the inner lives of women,” he told Reuters.
Lessing debuted as a novelist with “The Grass is Singing” in 1950, a book that examined the relationship between a white farmer’s wife and her black servant.
Her 1962 work “The Golden Notebook” was widely considered her breakthrough.
“The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th century view of the male-female relationship,” the academy said in its citation.
Lessing was born to British parents in what was then Persia, now Iran. Her family moved to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in 1925.
She ended her formal schooling at 14.
This was the fourth of this year’s crop of Nobel prizes, handed out annually for achievements in science, literature, economics and peace.
By Sarah Edmonds and Niklas Pollard (Additional reporting by Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt, Jerker Hellstrom, Adam Cox and Simon Johnson in Stockholm, Mike Collett-White in London)
Not saying Lessing doesn’t deserve her prize, but why is it that despite publishing so many more books than other countries do, the US of A produces so few Nobel Laureates? Something to ponder.
10 Things That Irritate Me About the Blogosphere
Published October 7th, 2007 | I’ve been blogging for a while now. Maybe too long. Long enough to have accumulated a list of things that piss me off. Ten things to be exact. Ten is a nice round number. I’m sure if I gave it more thought I could come up with more. But anyway here we go:
1. So-called blogs that are nothing but collections of links to other websites.
2. Blogs that have no real content — just a bunch of keywords and phrases for the search engines to generate traffic for the ads on the site.
3. A writer who lists his blog on a blog directory for all to see then, when you click on the link to check out his blog, you find that his blog entries are password protected.
4. A writer’s blog that has no writing at all, password protected or otherwise — just a one-note advertisement for his latest self-published book.
5. Blogs by those big media talking heads like Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin.
6. Blogs that haven’t been updated in years and just sit there like a ghost haunting the Internet and sucking up bandwidth. Hey, if you aren’t going to maintain your blog, why not just delete it and spare us from reading your opinions about stuff that happened five years ago.
7. Photoblogs — unless you are a professional photographer who produced photos of artistic merit, I’m not interested. No one wants to see your pictures of that family vacation to the Grand Canyon.
8. Web design blogs that link to free files you can download only to discover that the links a) are dead b) take you not to free downloadable goodies, but to a paid service or c) take you to files that are corrupt, laden with spyware, viruses or trojan horses and will otherwise crash your PC.
9. A blog that pops-up overnight — say, a month ago entitled “Diary of a Mad Editor” run by a daft cunt who didn’t do her homework and doesn’t seem to realize there is only one, authentic Mad Editor, and she ain’t it.
10. Fucktards who, because they can’t come up with anything better to write about, come up with top ten lists.
You Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours Until We Make Each Other Bleed
Published October 5th, 2007 | There is nothing so odious in small press publishing as the bartering of favors in order to get published. Those identified as alternative or underground writers like to kid themselves that this sort of thing only happens with the MFA crowd. While I’m sure that stuff does happen within that community it is an epidemic among those many subliterate writers haunting small press zines and ezines. And this is how it goes: Writer A starts a zine or ezine and publishes Writer B, who in turn publishes Writer A in his zine or ezine. Then both writers turn around and publish Writer C who, himself has a zine or ezine, publishes A and B and so on and so on and so on . . . .
None of this has anything to do with merit. And because this is a small, closed community, it does nothing to enhance the reputation of the writer beyond his own set. It also leads to a dumbing down of the writer’s art. Bad writers are made to feel warm and fuzzy in the arms of their peers. Publications fold quickly because the so-called “editors” of these quickly thrown together publications don’t know anything about publishing and are too busy publishing the mediocre crap of their cronies to take the time to seek out work of genuine merit. Most of these publications don’t last past the first issue (I can see as you read this, you know of some of the publications I’m talking about). The readers are less for it. The writers are less for it. And the small press community at large is less for it. And yes, I’m sure many will shake their heads and disagree with me. “Oh, you asshole, you. You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Ah, but don’t I? While I’ve got the floor, allow me to give you guys a piece of advice:
1. Do not start a publication before it’s time. If you don’t know anything about the job of editing a publication — learn. If you are doing it right, it’s hard work. If you use the English language as if it were your second language. If you can’t tell the difference between a noun and a verb — that’s hint and a half for your sorry ass that you don’t have the right stuff.
2. I’m not saying that you can’t publish your friends — the small press is a small world after all and you’re going to bump into friends as well as enemies. What I am saying is don’t publish them just because they are your friends. Don’t be afraid to reject their ass if they send you shit.
3. Be a passionate reader and critic.
4. Separate your identity as a writer from your identity as an editor. Do not use your publication as a platform to promote yourself and your own writing.
5. Always push yourself to be better than you are.
