the week in review: a poetry-class of 30.000, review debate, short story survey & reviews of the week (short stories, satire, novel, essays, award winners..)

Some poetry / review / short story highlights of the week

Just started - you can still join: Modern & Contemporary American Poetry 
Some days ago, the literary course "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo)" by Al Filreis started. This course is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, from Dickinson and Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." - almost 30.000 people enrolled so far.

The Art of the Book Review + the Book Reviews Rage 
Karen Lillies is currently posting a series of interviews with small press writers and reviewers about the art of book reviewing, and the state of book reviews. Following the current rich discussion of the state of bookreviews, the series now also includes an annotated timeline of the key essays: "Book Reviews Debate Rages On"

A brief survey of the short story 
In a literary series that started in 2007 and includes over 40 features so far, Chris Power portrays authors of short stories, and the development of the short story as format over time. In his own words, the portrays form "... a regular series of blogs that propose to offer a (very) partial survey of the short story, each post dealing with a single author who did or is doing something special with the form"

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Reviews of the Week, via ReviewForward

Review Forward is a new online initiative for indie authors, for self published authors and for book bloggers. More about this initiative & how to join, here: reviewforward.

Berit Ellingsen reviews the flash and short story collection "Together We Can Bury It" by Kathy Fish: "from the harsh and beautiful Foreign Film, to the experimental Movement, the surreal Searching for Samuel Beckett, the magical realism of Snow, the darkness of The Hollow.."

Dorothee Lang writes about Reading the Hugo Award Prize Winners 2012 ".. many of the nominated and winning short stories and novellas are online. Great reads, with themes that speak to our times: multiculture, evolution, choice."

Marcus Speh got heavy mail: "my mini review/story when receiving Action, Figure by Frank Hinton": Action, Figure

Kate Brown interviews writer Christopher Allen' about his novel 'Conversations with S. Teri O'Type' - the interview with Kate is part of Chris Allen's book launch blog tour

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...by the way, there is a Goodreads List of the Reviewed Books & the Reviewers: 
the list includes most of the reviewed books (and books of the reviewers)



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Reviews Continued:

The first review from Asia arrived: Birdy from India writes about a book that is about reading books - Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman: "Ex Libris recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story." 

Sheldon Lee Compton wrote words about words that Brian Allen Carr wrote and called Vampire Conditions: "Every now and again there’s a book that just gives me that feeling of sitting in a warm living room on a winter day and listening to someone who has command of the room tell me something about life and the world I would have never seen in just that way before or maybe every again." - Read all of the words here: Preview Thoughts on Brian Allen Carr’s Vampire Conditions

Anne at Random Things reviews "An Island Between Shores" by Graham Wilson: "At just 148 pages long, this book can be read in one sitting, in fact I think really should be read like this as the story is compelling, often brutal but beautifully told."

More Reviews: review/forward: memoir, scifi, classic, poetry, comic, short stories...