For military authors, a summit
The Armed Services Arts Partnership plans a couple events in Williamsburg on Saturday and next Sunday for veterans, service members, military families and caregivers.
First is the group’s annual creative writing summit, this year with a former North Carolina poet laureate, Joseph Bathanti. He also teaches at Appalachian State. Two-day workshops will explore poetry and prose, and are for writers of all skill levels. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. On Sunday: a launch party, readings and community “talk-back” for an ASAP anthology, “A Common Bond I,” 49 pieces of fiction, nonfiction, memoir and poetry. 5 p.m.
Location: College of William & Mary, Miller Hall, 101 Ukrop Way. Apply at AsapAsap.org.
The fourth Little River Poetry Festival is planned for June 7 through 9 in Floyd, in the western part of the state. There’ll be kayaking, hiking, writing, open mics and more. Local writers and musicians on the schedule: Chesapeake poet Jennifer Meyer (C.J. Expression), with a workshop on writer’s block; poets Jill Winkowski of Yorktown, and Serena Fusek and James Bane of Newport News; and Yorktown musician Brian Magill. Details: Jack Callan and Judith Stevens, 757-622-8721; or LittleRiver PoetryFest.com and Facebook.
Also: Devlin Murphy will sign her debut collection of poems, “Thoughts Collected.” 2 p.m.
June 2. William & Mary Bookstore. Merchants Square, 345 Duke of Gloucester St., Williamsburg. 757-221-1651.
You Saw It Coming Dept.: Donald Trump Jr. has a deal for a book “that will focus on politics, current events and the future of the MAGA movement,” a source “close to him” told Politico. Due late in the year.
Also new in the Trump genre: Michael Wolff’s “Siege: Trump Under Fire,” sequel to the million-seller “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” It’s due June 4 and “embargoed” till then (no advance peeks allowed). It was “Fire and Fury” that launched the Trump exposé craze in 2018, notes Publishers Weekly, partly because the president sought to squelch that account by sending a cease-anddesist letter to the publisher.
Nominate your favorite bookseller: James Patterson has pledged $250,000 for this year’s Holiday Bookstore Bonus program, which aims to help indieshop employees. Shoppers and others can nominate by answering one question: “Why does this bookseller deserve a holiday bonus?” The store must be a member of the American Booksellers Association.
The Amazon Literary Partnership has given $1 million to literary nonprofits, plus $120,000 each to the Academy of American Poets and the Community of Literary Presses and Magazines. (Publishers Weekly)
Awards: To Richard Ford, the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. It goes to an American literary writer "whose body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but also for its originality of thought and imagination.” … The 20 winners of the O. Henry Prize, for short fiction, have been named. The winning works will be anthologized, due this fall from Anchor Books. Winners include Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Tessa Hadley and John Edgar Wideman. (See LitHub for five of the stories.)
New and recent
“Cari Mora” is Thomas Harris’ first novel since “Hannibal Rising.” (Grand Central, 311 pp.) It is, says Ron Charles, a trundling tale with little semblance to Harris’ “The Silence of the Lambs.” The title refers to the woman who is the caretaker of a creepy old house once owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar. She runs up against “dopey gangsters” who think a safe in the basement holds a half-ton of gold, and a German who’s intent on the gold — and her. This is accidental comedy more than edge-of-the-seat storytelling, Charles says. (Washington Post)
Also: Jill Biden, “Where the Light Enters,” an autobiography. Erica J. Smith, erica.smith@pilotonline.com