The Caine Prize for African Writing has come of age this year, with energetic chairing of the judges by Bernardine Evaristo and a further reaching-out to a wider African and international audience. Read more
Oxford Dictionaries Online,Oxford University Press's free dictionary and language reference service, has just added its new quarterly words, which present a fascinating picture of our changing language. It is updated with new words quarterly. Read more
The Oxford English DictionaryWonderful online resource giving 'a truly astounding picture of the English language as an extraordinary living phenomenon' (Robert McCrum); Over 500,000 words has announced the launch of OED Appeals, a major online initiative set to involve the public in tracing the history of English words. Read more
The 2012 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year
Here's the shortlist for the 2012 Diagram Prize. It looks like it's going to be make this a serious challenger for the barmiest year ever. It'srun by the Bookseller (the UK book trade weekly) with input from dedicated odd title hunters from all over the world. Read more
Open to unpublished, unagented children’s writers based anywhere in the world.
Entry fee £20
Prize:
First Prize: a publishing contract with Chicken House with an advance of £10,000, plus the offer of representation from literary agent representation by Lydia Silver of Darley Anderson Children's Book Agency.
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers