Tattered Essence

Ever wonder who the world’s most translated authors are? When you think of this who comes to mind? Recent success stories like JK Rowling? Long successful authors like Stephen King?

Well, if this is the kind of thing you ponder then you are in luck! UNESCO actually maintains a list of the world’s most translated authors.

Here is the current top 10:

• Agatha Christie
• Jules Verne
• William Shakespeare
• Vladimir Lenin
• Enid Blyton
• Barbara Cartland
• Danielle Steel
• Hans Christian Andersen
• Stephen King
• Brothers Grimm

You know, I love books. But it seems like I never have enough time to read them. But somehow I keep acquiring new ones! At least that is how it seems. And the pile of books by my bed just keeps growing. And I never have time to read them. And that is truly a bummer.

The Dylan Thomas Prize is now looking for nominations for the 2008 award. The £60,000 prize is awarded to the best book in English (novel, poetry, or short stories) published by an author under 30. In 2006, Rachel Trezise won for her collection of short stories, Fresh Apples.

For more info, contact the Dylan Thomas Prize, Tim Prosser, CEO; 44-1792-474051 or 44-7968-854435. Email: tim@dylanthomasprize.com. Web: http://www.dylanthomasprize.com.

The Prize aims to encourage, promote and reward exciting new writing in the English speaking world in commemoration of the life and work of Dylan Thomas. Entrants should be the author of a published book (in English), under the age of 30, writing within one of the following categories: poetry, novel, collection of short stories by one author, play that has been professionally performed, a broadcast radio play, a professionally produced screenplay that has resulted in a feature-length film. Authors need to be nominated by their publishers or producers (in the case of performance art). To be eligible a literary work must have been commercially published, for the first time in the English language between 27th April 2006 and 30th April 2008.

The Guardian newspaper has done an article where they offered up eight rules authors should follow to avoid scandals. Here are those eight rules:

1. Do not use the word “memoir” unless you mean it.
2. If you’re not sure whether what you’re writing is a memoir or not, guess what? It’s a novel.
3. No more than half a page of plagiarism per book.
4. Don’t make up exact dates that you can’t remember. Instead, be general: “The most important day of my life was the day of my son’s birth, in the summer of 2005 . . . “
5. Just say no to sending a friend out in public with a wig as you.
6. If you’re in a flame war and you’re about to go sock puppet, take a 10-minute break and go to a coffee shop without a wi-fi facility. Maybe the walk will cool you down.
7. Go ahead and make up dialogue. Everybody except Tom Wolfe does.
8. Pick a name. “Benjamin Black is John Banville” is just not a good look.

You can read the rest of the article by visiting the Guardian site.

If you spend a lot of time on blogs and personal sites then you might have noticed something. There are a lot of people that are selling e-books.

There are even some authors selling e-books.

So I have one question for you. Are e-books books too? Or are they more like magazines? Or pamphlets even?

Should as much stock be given to e-books as there are to books?

I mean seriously? Does anyone read these days. I know that people write. But who are they writing for? Maybe it is just an American thing? Maybe Americans are the ones that do not read! I don’t know. What do you think?