From the Director: Notable Fiction Honored by PEN

by Helene Atwan

I have the honor to serve as the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award administrator for PEN-NE (please visit the web site if you don’t know this wonderful organization, devoted to the causes of literacy and freedom of expression). Last Sunday was the day that the award was conferred, this year to novelist Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown), a remarkably witty and deeply affecting book about the world of work in an era of downsizing. The Hemingway is for a first work of fiction, and the judges also named two finalists, Rebecca Curtis for Twenty Grand (Harper Perennial) and Ravi Howard for Like Trees, Walking (Amistad). In the same ceremony, at the magisterial John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester, Mass., PEN-NE handed out the L.L.Winship Award for fiction to Rishi Reddi for Karma and Other Stories (Harper Perennial), in Poetry to Ann Killough for Beloved Idea (Alice James Books), and in nonfiction to Kristin Laine for American Band (Gotham Books).

New Year's Reflections & Resolutions

First and foremost for a publishing house, of course, are the books: in the reflection bank, the books we published in 2007; in the resolutions file, those we look forward to publishing in 2008. For any of you unfortunate enough to have missed reading Beacon books this past year, here's hoping 2008 brings relief in large doses. We're really looking forward to publishing books which tackle some urgent issues in this election year.

As you know if you're reading this page, one of our new ventures in 2007 was this blog. When we launched it in Banned Books Week back in September, it was our hope to offer some interesting and provocative posts that might lead readers back to books. But after only three months, I've come to feel that the blog in and of itself is an achievement and well worth reading even if it doesn't lead you back to the printed word (though I won't deny that we all still fervently hope that it will).

So I want to take a minute to thank all of the Beacon Press authors who have contributed to the blog in 2007, and especially to thank the authors who are not (or not yet) published by Beacon for their posts.  And to thank you for dropping by to sample their contributions. Keep coming back; we're resolved to make it well worth the trip.

May your New Year be full of good reading, no matter where you find it.

Helene Atwan

Helene Atwan began her career in publishing at Random House in 1976; she worked at A.A.Knopf, Viking Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Simon and Schuster, before being named director of Beacon Press in 1995.  She served for eight years on the board of PEN-New England and is the Administrator of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

One Dangerous Author: An Interview with Lois Lowry

In honor of banned book week, Beacon director Helene Atwan checked in with one of America's most beloved (and sometimes banned) authors, Lois Lowry. Lois and Helene became friends while serving together on the board of PEN New England, a branch of PEN, the oldest human rights organization in the world. PEN has been fighting for free speech and the rights of readers and writers for decades. If you're a Poet, Essayist, Editor, Novelist, Bookseller, Librarian, or passionate reader and you haven’t been to any of the PEN programs, you will definitely want to jump to those web sites as soon as you’ve finished reading today's Beacon Broadside.

Lowry is the acclaimed author of books for children, young adults, and readers of all ages, including the Anastasia Krupnik and Gooney Birds series. She is also the author of The Giver, which has sold over 5 million copies, won the American Library Association's Newbery Medal, and is currently being made into a motion picture by Warner Brothers. The Giver won another, more dubious honor from the ALA when it made its list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-1999, and the book continues to draw challenges around the country.

Thoughts on the launch of Beacon Broadside

Before Beacon Broadside launches, setting off into new territory for our press, I thought it might be good to think about the ways in which blogging distinguishes itself from print publication. 

I Googled the phrase “books not blogs,” and found this, from Dec. 31, 2004,  by Bob Baxley of the blog Drowning in the Current. I don’t know Baxley, and he seems to have let this blog go fallow earlier this year, but I was intrigued by these sentences from his New Year’s Eve reflection: