Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, February 8, 2013 Edition

> Can the new retail book site Bookish compete with Amazon?  With backing by founding partners Penguin Group USA, Hachette Book Group, and Simon & Schuster, its odds are perhaps better than most.  Publishers Weekly breaks it down.

> New Conde Nast freelance writer contracts include what the ASJA Word newsletter calls a "nasty surprise" concerning film, TV and other rights.

> Redroom, the popular site where authors interact with other writers and with readers, now has a Classifieds section.

> Why start a new literary journal?  One publisher explains, and asks a few of his journal publisher colleagues to chime in too.

> At Dames of Dialogue, Karen Pullen talks about the challenges (and rewards) of writing a transgendered character.

> Here's a lengthy list of non-contest poetry book publishers.

> Twenty-three outstanding contemporary writers and editors list their 10 favorite essays of all time.  I haven't even gotten to some of the lists yet because I was caught up reading the incisive notes each wrote about how they made their essay choices, like this one from Brenda Miller.

> Finally, if you simply can't get enough of actor Dan Stevens (who plays Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey), check out his essay in the British literary journal Junket, where he's a contributing editor.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: The Almost-Forgot-it-was-Friday Edition

Links to love (or at least like).

• Great advice on the Editor’s Blog at the Guide to Literary Agents site.

• What did former NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni learn about his own new memoir, Born Round, while recording the audiobook narration?

• Are you a woman? Do you write humor, especially the irreverent kind? The Rumpus may want you (or at least your writing).

• Doing a lot of the publicity and marketing for your own children’s book? Good tips here.

• Buying books, CDs, DVDs, and other items via Public Radio Market seems like an excellent way to support public radio.

• A literary experience at an airport? An established British author is the official writer-in-residence at London’s Heathrow for one week, interviewing, observing, musing. The result will be short book, and the text will NOT be subjected to the approval of airport management or its PR folks (who dreamed up the idea).

• Like book sites crammed with lots more than reviews? Do explore The Millions.

• IndieReader has quietly launched, a place for readers to buy, and authors to sell, self-published books (after they pass a vetting process, apparently).

• Ruth Graham lost her job at a print magazine. So what's the next logical thing? A two-month solo road trip. Of course, she’s blogging about it.

Have a great weekend.