The Missing Link Project: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

I won’t deny that The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank was entertaining, in the way a mindless romantic comedy is a pleasant distraction. That’s not a bad thing at all. I don’t think it’s timeless literature, but I don’t regret having read it.

Having said that, I don’t think I’m going to remember much about it, and certainly won’t remember individual stories, except possibly the only story in the book that isn’t told from the point of view of Jane Rosenal. That story, “The Best Possible Light,” is probably the best story in the book, and is the odd girl out. Jane doesn’t appear, although she is mentioned because she’s living upstairs in her late Aunt Rita’s apartment. As much as I like that story, it might be considered thematically related to the others, but it sticks out.

Except for that story, the linkage here is that all the stories are told from Jane’s point of view, first as a teenager struggling to understand her worldview and then as a young woman who is struggling to understand her manview. All of her relationships fail until she gets hold of the Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, and suddenly this relationship guidebook seems to have given her power over the opposite sex. Except it backfires, of course, as any good romantic comedy must.

So, I didn’t love this book either. My batting average isn’t very good so far.

Stay tuned. Next up, Dubliners by James Joyce.

NaNoWriMo is almost upon us

November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, and it's the 30 days in which crazed writers write a 50,000 word novel (um, that's not a novel, but never mind) and/or die trying. And they report their progress each day. And urge each other on. And, at the end, get a certificate.

I'm not participating, but I did a few years ago. And the result didn't completely suck, which is why it forms the seed inside the novel I'm currently working on.

So, to all you NaNoWriMo-ers, get those pencils sharpened. And good luck!

The Missing Link Project: Later, at the Bar by Rebecca Barry

There’s one terrific story in Rebecca Barry’s Later, at the Bar, which is supposed to be a novel in stories, according to the cover. That story is “How to Save a Wounded Bird,” in which Elizabeth, one of the many bar-goers in this book, rescues a wounded bird and ends up relying on one of her students to get a ride to the wildlife center that has promised to treat it. Except Elizabeth is a wounded bird, of course, because Bobby, her husband has left her (for another man). She lashes out at her student, whom she underestimates, who has his own problems and isn’t as unfeeling and stupid as she thinks he is.

The rest of the stories weave in and around Lucy’s Bar, and in many of them Harlin Wilder plays a part. Harlin is a hard-drinking, hard-luck man whose relationship with Grace pops up from time to time. That’s an interesting thread that gets nicely expanded in the book’s final story, but it doesn’t make this a novel. And since there’s only the one really good story, in my assessment, I’m not sure the book works terribly well as a story collection, either. Once again, though, I may be alone in this opinion. It was a New York Times Notable Book. They might be right. But I'm glad I borrowed it from the library.

Next: The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

The Missing Link Project: Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock

There is a disappointing sameness to the stories in Knockemstiff, Donald Ray Pollock’s collection, which in no way is a novel, although that’s what Publishers Weekly called it. Some of the stories are, considered separately, quite appealing--I remember reading the title story somewhere awhile ago and I would have to say that’s still the one story that holds up well under scrutiny--but mostly the book is about very unsympathetic, addicted, abusive jerks. The fact that they all live in or around Knockemstiff, Ohio, isn’t the only thing that connects them--you wouldn’t want to live next door to a single one of them, and you wouldn’t want your child to go to school with their children. How's that for linked?

It is mildly amusing that characters occasionally recur over the course of the book. Bobby, for example, is the child protagonist of the opening story, in which he sees his father beat up another man in the restroom of a drive in, and then is goaded into beating up the man’s son--an act that pleases Bobby’s father but contributes to Bobby’s twisted character, which we see revealed in later stories. Most of the stories in the book are told in the first person, and the only sensible reaction a reader can have to these narrators is either to yell at the page, “Don’t do that! You’re making a big mistake!” or to cheer when they get raped, or beaten up, or thrown out on the streets, because that’s pretty much what they deserve.

I should say that I’m not a fan of the “transgressive” genre--think Chuck Palahniuk, who, not surprisingly, blurbed this book--in which violence and drugs seem to be the whole point of life. That’s certainly the case here. I can take that for a story at a time when I come across it in a magazine, but as a book it isn’t something I want to read in one go. Or at all.

Having said that, the book is as "linked" as most. There are overlapping and repeated characters (although, like the stories themselves, these characters are at times indistinguishable); the stories are all set in the vicinity of the same small Ohio town in roughly the same time period; and they all deal with a kind of alienation that bleeds into savagery, in a way that feels more true than it does real. It's not an uplifting read, to say the least.

Next up: Later, at the Bar, by Rebecca Barry

North Carolina Readings

I'm looking forward to next weekend's swing through North Carolina for a series of readings with my good friend Mary Akers (Women up on Blocks).

First up is our appearance at McIntyre's Fine Books in Pittsboro on Friday, November 6, at 2:00pm.

On Saturday afternoon, November 7, at 1:00pm, we'll be at Shakespeare & Co. in Kernersville.

And on Sunday afternoon, November 8, at 3:00pm, we'll be doing our thing at Malaprop's Bookstore & Cafe in Asheville. (Although I see that Barbara Kingsolver is reading there next week, too, and they've had such a demand that they had to move it to the high school auditorium, so maybe they'll have to relocate us, too? Heh. Actually, I wish I could get there to see Kingsolver!)

It would be great if you could come out to see us for one of these readings!

The Missing Link Project

I've been thinking a lot lately about linked short story collections (or story cycles, or novels in stories), partly because my recently published book, In an Uncharted Country, is a linked story collection, and I've written an as-yet-unpublished novel in stories, but also because it's a topic on which I'll be speaking at a conference next month.

As I gather my thoughts--what are these different animals?--and what are the strategies that various authors have chosen for linking their stories?--and do any of them really work as a novel?--I've begun collecting a list of books that fall into this "genre" and I'm trying to read as many as I can. Since I'm doing this anyway, I thought I might share my results here, in what I'm calling my "Missing Link" project. Stay tuned as I write about many examples.

The first book that I'll profile, beginning tomorrow, is Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock.

Book Talk with Kevin Wilson

Book Talk Video - Kevin Wilson from stephen usery on Vimeo.

Artistic Entrepreneurship

Last week I attended a FREE seminar on Artistic Entrepreneurship sponsored by the Staunton Creative Community Fund and the Staunton Augusta Arts Center. The seminar, which was held in the beautiful R.R. Smith Center, was very well attended--I was sitting up front so didn't get a head count, but all the chairs in the room were filled and I'd say there were at least 40 people there.

It turned out not to be terribly relevant to my current work. As a fiction writer, the extent of my entrepreneurship is trying to get people to buy my book, and while that does require some creativity, it doesn't involve a lot of the things that the seminar discussed, like setting up an LLC, having studio insurance for visiting patrons, developing a business plan, hiring employees, etc. I could imagine one day having a writing-related endeavor that might involve some or all of these topics (I've already experienced the writer's consignment arrangement with retailers that bears some similarity to the deal artists and craftspeople sometimes enter into with gallery owners), but not at the moment.

Still, it was interesting, and the material was relevant to almost everyone else who was there--craftspeople working in every conceivable medium, painters, sculptors, designers, gallery owners. Quite a variety. Thanks to SCCF and SAArts for hosting the seminar!

Novel in Progress

I'm working on a novel. (I know: Who isn't?) I've just published a collection of short stories, my agent is working to sell a novel-in-stories (or so I insist on calling it; it may just be another collection of linked stories), and I've got a novel languishing in a drawer that one day I would like revisit, now that I sort of know what I'm doing. In the meantime, though, I'm working on a shortish novel that has themes and characters that attract me. I've given myself a deadline of the end of the year to finish it, and I think I can meet that deadline. It won't be easy.

Actually, I have a full draft finished, and except for some wrinkles that have come to me that I want to apply to the ending, the draft follows the basic plot that I'm still working with. What's changing drastically, though, is voice--I'm going from a single narrator to three, although the original third person narrator continues to provide the focus for the book. The challenge now is to layer in my themes and these additional voices.

I don't want to say anything about plot at this point, or characters or setting for that matter. Maybe I'll have more to say as I get closer to the end.

The New Yorker: "Procedure in Plain Air" by Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City, from which a story was excerpted in The New Yorker earlier this year, was recently released, so presumably the current story is not part of that book. It could be though, from what I know about it. Here we also have a portrait of New York City that is slightly off its axis—a little bit weird, but not alarmingly so. The protagonist, Stevick, is unemployed and hangs out near his favorite coffee shop, but not inside because he might run into his ex. While sitting on a bench outside, he witness an “installation”—two men in orange jumpsuits install a third, who is bound and gagged, in a hole in the pavement that they have dug. They cover it with boards and leave, assigning Stevick the task of standing over the hole with an umbrella to keep the fellow in the hole from getting wet. Eventually, another guy comes buy to feed the guy in the hole and he also gives Stevick a sandwich, along with a duffel bag. It is only when Stevick’s ex comes by, and seems to find nothing terribly odd about the situation, that Stevick learns that he’s been issued his own orange jumpsuit, and has a few extras to boot.

What’s it all mean? Possibly nothing. We live in a world where anything can happen and often does. So, maybe it’s just a story about a guy who stumbles across a job of taking care of a guy in a hole. But I don’t think so. For one thing, the title of the story is odd. In English, at least in my English, we don’t use the expression “in plain air.” We do, in speaking of art, however, use the French expression, “en plein air,” meaning “in the open air,” which refers to painting out of doors. The language of art is used in the story, also, when the activity of sticking the guy in the ground is referred to as an “installation.” It’s as if whatever is going on here is an art piece, a combination performance and sculpture that New Yorkers, for the most part, are too oblivious to notice.

Still, what’s it mean? Again, maybe nothing, but what I see here is mistreatment of a human being by other human beings, in which the prisoner himself remains silent, and against which those who witness the treatment also remain silent. Not only are the witnesses silent, they are enlisted to help, not only with the current prisoner, but potentially with other prisoners, although it is acknowledged that they themselves may be the next prisoner. Stevick is issued extra jumpsuits because through his behavior he is going to recruit more people to the cause.

Or maybe not. Thoughts?

October 26, 2009: “Procedure in Plain Air” by Jonathan Lethem

Writers at the Beach

I've just confirmed that I will be a speaker at the Writers at the Beach conference in Rehoboth Beach, March 26-28, 2010. This is a terrific conference that has a charitable focus; 100% of conference proceeds will be donated to the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.

It's not only a worthwhile charitable effort, it's also attracted a terrific lineup of speakers, including Robert Bausch, Steve Luxenberg, C.M. Mayo, Michael Blumenthal, Sheri Reynolds, Carolyn Parkhurst, and many others. It looks like a great opportunity for writers!

LitDrift.com

I've just heard about a new blog/zine called LitDrift that looks pretty interesting. I poked around a little and I saw a way to get free books (always a good thing), writing prompts, stories about writing, and more.

From the "About" page:

Lit Drift is a blog, resource, and community dedicated to the art & craft of storytelling in the 21st century. Our name is a nod to how traditional forms of storytelling are, well, drifting into forms wholly new and unexpected. We’re interested in sifting through the palimpsests known as the Internet, the arts, and the in-between to uncover those new forms and techniques in constructing fiction.

Still

Rusty Barnes at Fried Chicken and Coffee reports on the birth of a new magazine: Still: Literature of the Mountain South, edited by Silas House, Marianne Worthington, and Jason Howard.

Definitely worth checking out.

ASC: Henry IV, Part 1

Do not miss the American Shakespeare Center’s production of Henry IV Part 1 at the Blackfriars Playhouse, through November 27. I’ll definitely be seeing it at least one more time. The entire play and everyone in it is marvelous, but the performance that is most captivating is James Keegan as Falstaff. Keegan is also Falstaff in this season’s Merry Wives of Windsor, but this is a different sort of play and a different sort of Falstaff.

In Henry IV, Prince Hal (beautifully portrayed by Luke Eddy) learns about real life among the people, including rogues like Falstaff who loves life beyond measure, and also loves Hal. When Hal is summoned by his father, King Henry IV, to join the wars against the rebel Harry Percy, Falstaff cautions him, not only out of self-interest but also out of genuine concern. In the ensuing fight, Hal emerges with great honor, and Falstaff is saved from himself, at least for now.

René Thornton Jr. is wonderful as King Henry IV. His presence is commanding, and he makes one of the most believable kings I’ve seen. Tobias Shaw is excellent as Hotspur, Harry Percy, a hothead who listens to no one, including his uncle, the frustrated Earl of Worcester, played by the incomparable John Harrell. But there are many more fine performances in this show, as well: Chris Johnston as both the Earl of Douglas and Poins, one of Hal’s buddies; Chris Seiler as Walter Blunt and also the mysterious Owen Glendower, a Welshman who claims he can call spirits forth; Daniel Rigney as Mortimer and also as Bardolph, a companion of Falstaff; and Allison Glenzer, who seems made for the part of Mistress Quickly (no offense intended, Allison!).

But the real reason to see this play, and the reason I’ll see it again, is the relationship between Falstaff and Hal, which Keegan and Eddy make a thing of beauty. The genuine fondness of Hal and Falstaff for each other, and the blustery way they show it, makes for great comedy, but it also provides the starkest contrast to the serious side of the play and its discourse on honor and counterfeit. Falstaff knows who he is and he knows who Hal is and what he embodies, even if Hal is not yet ready to take on that role. Hal, for his part, knows that Falstaff cannot be coddled forever, and yet the sight of his old friend apparently slain on the battlefield is overwhelming to him. It’s a love story, and one that I want to think about at length.

And even if the serious side of the play doesn’t interest you, go just to see James Keegan as Falstaff. Brilliant.

Appearances: October 17

I've got a busy day on Saturday, October 17, with two separate book-signings scheduled for In an Uncharted Country.

First, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm I'll be at Bookworks on Beverley Street in Staunton. The signing is scheduled to coincide with the launch of Staunton's Red Brick District, our new arts and culture promotion encompassing the Downtown and New Town neighborhoods.

Then, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm I'll be at Books & Co., 29 W. Nelson, in Lexington, VA.

If you're nearby those stores, please stop in and say hello!

Marketing

The Shouts & Murmurs column in the New Yorker this week is particularly funny: Subject: Our Marketing Plan. Funny, but painful. "We can send you a list of bookstores in your area once you fill out the My Local Bookstores list on your Author's Questionnaire."

The New Yorker: "Complicity" by Julian Barnes

Our bodies, this story seems to be saying, are in complicity with our emotions. Young love gave the narrator a skin condition; divorce gave him hives. Now, having met a mysterious young doctor, he is intent on her skin, and her own body’s complicity with her emotions. They take things slowly, they let their emotions make contact first, getting to know each other, getting comfortable with each other. It is only in the last line, when their emotions are ready, that their bodies are allowed to touch.

I like this story, and I think I’ll like it more on a second reading—I want to think more about why we hear twice of the narrator as a “hiccupping boy;” why he is so interested in the gloves that the woman wears, why the blindfolded feeling games he mentions seem so important; and why the presence of her mother when the narrator meets her is deemed significant. All of these things seem to contribute to the complicity, but in ways I’m not quite ready to articulate. Also, he goes on at some length about what parents warn their children about. “We were never warned about heartbreak,” he says, and I’m not sure if that refers to his experience with young love, or his divorce, or possibly his fear/expectation about what will happen with his new relationship.

Many stories this year in the New Yorker have not given me any reason to think about them once I’ve finished reading. This one is different. I applaud you, Mr. Barnes. Fine story.

October 19, 2009: “Complicity” by Julian Barnes

National Book Award Finalists

Congratulations to the finalists for the National Book Award:

Fiction
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Nonfiction
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)
T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf)

Poetry
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Viking Penguin)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press)

Young People’s Literature
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
David Small, Stitches (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)

Literary Salon at WriterHouse

Last night, I had the honor and pleasure of participating in a Literary Salon at the wonderful WriterHouse in Charlottesville. If you don't know about WriterHouse you should definitely check it out. Not only does the organization provide work space for its members, which is a valuable service for many, it also provides an impressive variety of programs, including classes, readings, and talks, some just for members and some that are open to the public.

For last night's salon, I was introduced to members by Charlie Katz. I then read from In an Uncharted Country (I chose to read from the story, "William & Frederick") and then the discussion began. Charlie asked the first question, but I was thrilled that everybody got in on the act. Our focus was on linked story collections (also known as story cycles or novels in stories), but we also touched on process, writing conferences, the business of finding an agent and a publisher, and more. There wasn't a lull the whole evening, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Thanks, WriterHouse!

Red Brick District -- Staunton VA

Big news here in Staunton. Everyone who lives here knows that we are a vibrant arts community -- theater, art galleries, crafts, and music are all a major part of who we are (with, I like to think, a growing writer presence, as well). But visitors may not know this, and so the Arts Council has developed the concept of an Arts and Culture District, to be called the Red Brick District. Check out the brochure.

As part of the launch for the Red Brick District, numerous events are planned for the Arts and Culture Week that begins this Saturday, October 17. It's a very exciting development for Staunton. Thanks to the Arts and Culture Council (especially chair Erik Curren) for all the effort they've put into this!

Review of In an Uncharted Country

Mark Brazaitis, a writer I've read and admired for many years, reviews my book, In an Uncharted Country at Peace Corps Worldwide's Peace Corps Writers.

Book Launch 2.0

I posted this awhile ago, but it has new meaning now . . .

The New Yorker: "The Godchildren" by Tessa Hadley

Chris, Amanda, and Susan, three adults who had been the godchildren of childless Vivien, visit her house for the first time since her death a year before. Chris, an academic, claims not to remember the house or even Vivien herself. Amanda, who has organized this visit so the three can claim items in the house for themselves before a planned estate sale, has the most vivid, although selective, memory, because she kept a journal back in those days. And Susan, a lawyer, remembers, but is disdainful. They wander around the house, bringing up old memories, in particular one memory of spying on Vivien. Eventually, Susan leaves and Mandy reveals to Chris that Susan had had a crush on him when they were kids, which Chris didn’t realize. He understands that it’s too late to do anything about it, but he and Mandy now feel some “vibration of passion” between them—and a sudden memory returns to Chris of a makeout session he’d had with Mandy back then. The ending of the story spins out to Susan’s consciousness, in her taxi on the way to the station, fingering a small item she’s taken from the house: a pair of carved ivory masks.

Yawn. Seriously. Yawn.

October 12, 2009: “The Godchildren” by Tessa Hadley

ASC: The Rehearsal

Last night I saw the opening performance of the American Shakespeare Center's production of The Rehearsal, a bit of meta-farce by George Villiers (and collaborators) that you've probably never seen, at least not in North America.

It's ridiculous and hilarious, and I don't think "brilliant" is going too far. Not that the play is special--it's a silly lampooning of the English theater of the 17th Century--but the staging here and the performances will have you completely in stitches.

Here's the deal: Mr. Bayes, a playwright played by Christopher Seiler, is shwoing off his new play, now in dress rehearsal, to Messrs. Johnson and Smith, played by Allison Glenzer and Luke Eddy. Seiler is fantastic as the pompous and arrogant writer, too proud of his own clumsy work and crazy plot, and Glenzer and Eddy make fine foils for Seiler's comedy. The play within the play employs the rest of the ASC company in multiple roles both celestial and terrestial--Thunder, Lightning, a pair of kings, a pair of usurpers, various lovers and soldiers, and, toward the end, the Sun, Moon, and Earth. The company works so well together that this mish-mash is a joy to watch. Eventually, Smith and Johnson give up on the horrible play, and head off to lunch. Bayes races after them, but returns, dejected, only to find that most of the actors have gone off to have their lunch, also. Whereupon he storms out of the theater, leaving the remaining actors with nothing to do . . . but go to lunch.

The copy of the play that I found online, here, also includes an Epilogue that the ASC production did not use:

EPILOGUE.
The Play is at an end, but where’s the Plot?
That circumstance our Poet Bayes forgot,
And we can boast, though ’tis a plotting Age,
No place is freer from it than the Stage.
The Ancients Plotted, though, and strove to please
With sence that might be understood with ease;
They every Scene with so much wit did store
That who brought any in, went out with more:
But this new way of wit does so surprise,
Men lose their wits in wond’ring where it lyes.
If it be true, that Monstrous births presage
The following mischiefs that afflicts the Age,
And sad disasters to the State proclaim;
Plays, without head or tail, may do the same.
Wherefore, for ours, and for the Kingdoms peace,
May this prodigious way of writing cease.
Let’s have, at least, once in our lives, a time
When we may hear some Reason, not all Rhyme:
We have these ten years felt its Influence;
Pray let this prove a year of Prose and Sence.

The Epilogue might not make sense to modern audiences, and its omission is not great loss. The production, as it stands, is wonderful, and not to be missed.

5 Under 35

Here's some cool news. The National Book Foundation has named its 5 Under 35 for 2009, and it's a stellar group that includes my friend Josh Weil with whom I read in Charlottesville a couple of weeks ago. Way to go, Josh!

In an Uncharted Country in India

If you happen to be in India, you can order my book from Flipkart.com, for a mere Rs. 738 (about $15.80), which seems like a pretty good deal considering that shipping within India is free, I gather.

Nobel Prize Goes to Müller

The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded this morning to German Herta Müller, of whom I know zero, except what I'm reading about her today. Never heard of her. I actually like this about the Nobel Prize for Literature -- I know all about the great American writers and many Canadian and English writers also. But my knowledge of world literature is sorely lacking. Now I have someone new to discover.

Man Booker Prize Winner Announced

And the winner is . . . Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, which surprised no one, apparently.

The The Impotence of Proofreading

FTC Craziness

There's considerable buzz today about an FTC decision that could have implications for bloggers who review books, as I do from time to time. Check out Ed Champion's interview with the FTC's Richard Cleland about the new rules.

As I read this, if an author or publisher sends me a book for review, I must disclose this fact at the time my review appears or dispose of the book. If I don't, that's deemed compensation in violation of the rule and I could be subjected to a fine. Or not? They're still working out the kinks, apparently. What I want to know, though, is if there is a loop-hole. It seems to me that if books for review are received by me on behalf of my publication, Perpetual Folly, and if title is retained in the book while it is on loan to me for the purposes of the review, then I as a blogger should not be subject to the rule. Hey, it's not my book! It belongs to the blog!

Craziness.

New Issue: The Short Review

The October issue of The Short Review is now up and includes reviews of work by Stephanie Johnson, Stephen Shieber, Sean Lovelace, Simon Van Booy, David Gardiner, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Samuel Ligon, Adam Marek, Rebecca Miller, and an anthology edited by Peter Wild. That's a lot of short stories!

Nobel Prize

It's Nobel Prize season again. This year's Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced on Thursday, October 8. (There's a live webcast of the announcement at 11:00 GMT, which is 7 AM EDT.)

Anyone guesses on the winner?