DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Colorful Stories for Children, With the Darkest History as Backdrop
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Claire Moses | Elizabeth A. Harris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

AMSTERDAM — During World War II, a clutch of whimsical children’s books were published in the Netherlands under a pen name, El Pintor. One book shows children flying on the backs of sparrows. The books did more than entertain children during the grim days of war. Behind the pseudonym El Pintor was a Jewish couple, Galinka Ehrenfest and Jacob Kloot. They did so at great risk, said Linda Horn, who wrote a book published in the Netherlands about Ehrenfest’s life.

☆ Dawn Davis Resigns as Bon Appétit Editor to Rejoin Simon & Schuster
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Julia Moskin | Elizabeth A. Harris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Dawn Davis, a veteran book editor who was hired in 2020 to put Bon Appétit magazine back on track after mass resignations and allegations of racism at its parent company, Condé Nast, resigned on Tuesday. She will return to Simon & Schuster as the publisher of 37 Ink, an imprint she founded in 2013, and as executive editor of the Simon & Schuster trade imprint. “I’ve made the difficult decision to return to book publishing,” Ms. Davis wrote in a note to her staff at Bon Appétit and Epicurious, the company’s recipe website. She said that she would remain in the job until September, and cited successes like “helping build Bon Appétit and Epicurious’ authority in the culinary industry, developing delicious and thought-provoking content, growing our audiences across channels, and diversifying our team and the audiences that we reach.”But, she said in a public statement, “being away from books has only made me realize how much I love working on manuscripts.” She did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In her first editor’s letter at Bon Appétit, in February 2021, Ms. Davis wrote that “when the call came to leave book publishing to take the helm at this storied magazine as it reckoned with racial and cultural equity, it was impossible to resist.”

Proponents of the restrictions say their aims are to protect students from inappropriate materials and to give parents more control over their children’s education. In focusing on “parents’ rights,” Mr. DeSantis is trying to build on the popularity he amassed when he resisted Covid-19 restrictions, particularly in schools. His Parental Rights in Education law, for example, constrains instruction on gender and sexuality, which has led some districts to remove books with L.G.B.T.Q. Some teachers and librarians say the policies are vague, with imprecise language and broad requirements, leading to some confusion. “It is a whole new level of fear,” said Kathleen Daniels, the president of the Florida Association for Media in Education, a professional organization for school librarians and media educators.

☆ Peering Into the Future of Novels, With Trained Machines Ready
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Elizabeth A. Harris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gus forced himself to take a bite, but the flavor was rancid, a sickly sweet imitation of cheese. Aidan Marchine, however, is an unusual author — at least for now — because Aidan Marchine is a set of computer systems. The journalist and author Stephen Marche wrote “Death of an Author” using three artificial intelligence programs. Or three artificial intelligence programs wrote it with extensive plotting and prompting from Stephen Marche. “I am the creator of this work, 100 percent,” Marche said, “but, on the other hand, I didn’t create the words.”

Before “Heartstopper” became a global phenomenon, it was a web comic, published online by the author, Alice Oseman, a few pages at a time. Oseman, 28, began the webcomic in 2016 just after finishing college, and she was the creator, writer and an executive producer of the Netflix series. The main story between Nick and Charlie remains largely unchanged, she said; much of the new material in the Netflix series came from expanding the supporting characters. Rugby scenes were also tricky to film – in the book and on the show, Nick is a rugby player and Charlie joins the team. While filming, she was part of an enormous team, and spent 11-hour days on location in Paris and at a school in Slough, England.

☆ A Fast-Growing Network of Conservative Groups Is Fueling a Surge in Book Bans
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Elizabeth A. Harris | Alexandra Alter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The alliance has a network of more than 250,000 people it can mobilize to flood politicians with letters. Referred to by Mr. Flaugh as “the back office,” this network sprang into action this year to support a bill that requires Florida districts to report all book objections to the state. Some librarians and parents are concerned it will have a chilling effect. The summit also drew other prominent political figures from the right, including Senator Rick Scott of Florida and the Trump administration cabinet members Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos. In her remarks, Ms. DeVos called for dismantling the Department of Education, which she used to run.

Many were especially wary of Penguin Random House — already by far the largest publisher in the United States — getting even bigger by absorbing a rival. Penguin Random House has about 100 imprints; together they publish more than 2,000 titles a year. The merger would have given it Simon & Schuster’s approximately 50 imprints, as well as the company’s vast and valuable backlist of older titles. “The market is already too consolidated,” said Mary Rasenberger, chief executive of the Authors Guild, an advocacy group for writers that opposed the purchase. The company’s recent performance has been strong, even as the results have sagged at other major publishers.

Persons: Simon, Schuster —, United States —, Schuster’s, ”, Mary Rasenberger, Simon & Schuster Organizations: Random, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, United States, Justice Department, Guild, Simon & Locations: United

☆ Early Cormac McCarthy Interviews Rediscovered
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-30 | by ( Elizabeth A. Harris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Cormac McCarthy doesn’t do interviews. During his long career, McCarthy, 89, has sat for vanishingly few of them. Scholars of his work say he has long been resistant to publicly analyzing his writing process. Between 1968 and 1980, he gave at least 10 interviews to small local papers in Lexington, Kentucky, and east Tennessee, a region where he lived and had friends. Writing, he said, was a “compulsion” and “not a conscious process.” Asked to give practical advice to starting writers, he said, “Read.”

Persons: Cormac McCarthy doesn’t, McCarthy, Oprah, —, “, “ Read, ” Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Lexington , Kentucky, Tennessee

Search resuls for: "Elizabeth A. Harris"

8 mentions found