Happy Public Domain Day 2024, the end of copyright for 1928 works

Posted on January 1, 2024 | Comments Off on Happy Public Domain Day 2024, the end of copyright for 1928 works

My annual reminder that January 1st is Public Domain Day, and this year copyright has ended for books, movies, and music first published in the U.S. in 1928, so you are free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt them without permission or payment.

Notable 1928 literary works now in the public domain include Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner, Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, William Butler Yeats’ The Tower, and Robert Frost’s West-Running Brook, to name just a few. The full texts of the 1928 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives should now be publicly available on their websites.

These 1928 works should have gone into the public domain in 1984, after 56 years, but retroactive copyright extensions changed that date first to 2004 and then to 2024, thanks to the 1998 Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended copyright terms of works published before 1978 from 75 to 95 years and works created on or after that date to the life of the author plus 70 years. For many years the public domain in the U.S. was frozen, including only works published through 1922, but since 2019, thousands of works have been released into the public domain each New Year’s Day.

Visit the Public Domain Day 2024 website created by Jennifer Jenkins from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to read important news and information about copyright and the public domain and to explore some of the 1928 works that you can now use as you like.

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Posted in Authors, Books, Copyright, Cultural treasures, In the news, Public domain

Happy Public Domain Day 2023, the end of copyright for 1927 works

Posted on January 1, 2023 | Comments Off on Happy Public Domain Day 2023, the end of copyright for 1927 works

January 1st is Public Domain Day, my favorite day of the year. Today marks the end of copyright for books, movies, and music first published in the U.S. in 1927. Now that these works are in the public domain, everyone is free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt them without permission or payment.

For many years, only works published in the U.S. through 1922 were in the public domain because of retroactive copyright extensions like the 1998 Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended copyright terms of works published before 1978 from 75 to 95 years and works created on or after that date to the life of the author plus 70 years. Without that extension, these 1927 works would have entered the public domain twenty years ago, in 2003. It wasn’t until January 1, 2019 that copyright protection finally ended for 1923 works, and every New Year’s Day the public domain gains another year’s worth of treasures.

Some notable 1927 literary works now in the public domain include: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (containing the last two original Sherlock Holmes stories), Ernest Hemingway’s Men Without Women, William Faulkner’s Mosquitoes, A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six, Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry, to name just a few.

The full texts of the 1927 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives should soon be publicly available on their websites.

I highly recommend that you visit the Public Domain Day 2023 website created by Jennifer Jenkins from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to read important news and information about copyright and the public domain and to explore some of the 1927 works that you can now use as you like. But as Jenkins notes, the celebration is bittersweet because of what could have been:

“This site celebrates works from 1927 that are in the public domain after a 95-year copyright term. However, under the laws that were in effect until 1978, thousands of works from 1966 would be entering the public domain this year. Under current copyright terms we will have to wait until 2062. In fact, since copyright used to come in renewable terms of 28 years, and 85% of authors did not renew, 85% of the works from 1994 might be entering the public domain! Imagine what the great libraries of the world—or just internet hobbyists—could do: digitizing those holdings, making them available for education and research, for pleasure and for creative reuse.”

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Posted in Authors, Books, Copyright, Digital collections, In the news, Public domain

Public Domain Day 2022, the end of copyright for 1926 works

Posted on January 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Public Domain Day 2022, the end of copyright for 1926 works

Another New Year, another Public Domain Day! January 1, 2022 marks the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1926. For many years, only works published in the U.S. through 1922 were in the public domain because of retroactive copyright term extensions. Most works published between 1923 and 1977 currently have copyright protection for 95 years, so it wasn’t until the first day of 2019 that 1923 works could finally enter the public domain, and each new year brings more treasures.

Here are a few of the notable 1926 works that entered the public domain today:

  • A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh
  • Ernest Hemingway’s novels The Sun Also Rises and The Torrents of Spring
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story collection All the Sad Young Men
  • Langston Hughes’ first book of poetry, The Weary Blues
  • Dorothy Parker’s first book of poetry, Enough Rope
  • William Faulkner’s first novel, Soldiers’ Pay
  • T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom
  • Edna Ferber’s Show Boat
  • Hart Crane’s first book of poetry, White Buildings
  • Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • S.S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case, the first Philo Vance mystery novel
  • Felix Salten’s Bambi
  • Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
  • Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Land of Mist
  • Arthur Rackham’s illustrations for Shakespeare’s The Tempest

The full texts of the 1926 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives should soon be publicly available on their websites.

Visit the Public Domain Day 2022 website from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to explore some of the books, music, and films that are now free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt without permission or payment. Of special note, all pre-1923 sound recordings will finally enter the public domain today as well. The site is a great source of information on copyright and the public domain— don’t miss the legal updates and Jennifer Jenkins’ analysis of the complicated tangle of competing rights when a book like Winnie-the-Pooh enters the public domain but companies like Disney have their own copyrights and trademarks based on the work.

Enjoy these photographs of some of the 1926 first editions now in the public domain, courtesy of Bauman Rare Books:

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Posted in Authors, Books, Copyright, Public domain, Rare books

Happy Public Domain Day 2021, the end of copyright for 1925 works!

Posted on January 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Happy Public Domain Day 2021, the end of copyright for 1925 works!

Today is Public Domain Day 2021, the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1925. Yes, this means that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has finally entered the public domain (nearly 96 years after its first publication), though you’ll still have to wait another 9 years for Tender is the Night.

Other works entering the public domain in the U.S. today include Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith, and Alain Locke’s important Harlem Renaissance anthology The New Negro, as well as 25 Dorothy Parker poems. The full texts of the 1925 books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, Google Books, and other digital archives will soon be made publicly available on their websites.

Visit the Public Domain Day 2021 website from Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain to explore some of the books, music, and films that are now free to use, reprint, quote, remix, and adapt without permission or payment. For background and further reading about copyright and the public domain, see my earlier posts on Public Domain Day 2019 and The Great Gatsby.

I’ll leave you with a few of Maxfield Parrish’s beautiful illustrations from the 1925 first edition of The Knave of Hearts, now in the public domain. (Photographs courtesy of Bauman Rare Books. Click on an image to make it larger.)

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Authors, Books, Copyright, In the news, Public domain

Lovecraft Country HBO series, based on the novel by Matt Ruff, begins Sunday, August 16th

Posted on August 12, 2020 | Comments Off on Lovecraft Country HBO series, based on the novel by Matt Ruff, begins Sunday, August 16th

I’m thrilled to announce that the Lovecraft Country tv show, based on the 2016 novel by my husband Matt Ruff, will begin airing on HBO and HBO Max on Sunday, August 16th.

The 10-episode first season was produced by showrunner Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams, and the amazing cast includes Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, Courtney B. Vance, Michael K. Williams, Aunjanue Ellis, Wunmi Mosaku, and Abbey Lee.

Watch the HBO trailer:

See reviews of the show on Rotten Tomatoes (100% fresh!). Rolling Stone called it “one of the best shows HBO has made in a long, long time.”

Read about Matt’s novel.

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Posted in Authors, Books, In the news, Matt Ruff, Science fiction & Fantasy

Happy Public Domain Day 2019!

Posted on January 1, 2019 | 1 comment

Today is Public Domain Day 2019, which means (finally!) the end of copyright for works first published in the U.S. in 1923. You are now free to use, reprint, quote, remix, or create your own derivative works from 1923 works without permission from or payment to the copyright holders, who would be the descendants or estates of the long-dead creators.

Specific works from a wide range of authors entered the public domain today, including Robert Frost, Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kahlil Gibran, Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence, Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Rudyard Kipling, e.e. cummings, E.M. Forster, Zane Grey, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many others.

The full texts of the 1923 books that have already been scanned by the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, and Google Books will be made publicly available on their websites, and I’m sure many more 1923 works will soon be scanned by these and other institutions. And every January 1st the public domain will gain another year’s treasures, which will be especially important to authors, scholars, artists, and researchers.

For decades, only works published in the U.S. through 1922 have been in the public domain, as Congress repeatedly and retroactively extended the length of copyright terms. Most works published between 1923 and 1977 currently have copyright protection for 95 years, so 1923 works enter the public domain on the first day of 2019, 1924 works on the first day of 2020, and so on. (So F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, first published in 1925, won’t enter the public domain for another two years.)  However, books published today don’t enter the public domain until 70 years after the death of the author. It’s all ridiculously complicated, so see this chart of Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States from Cornell University for details and exceptions.

Here are some recommended links for more information and lists of some of the 1923 works that entered the public domain today:

1 Comment

Posted in Authors, Books, Copyright, Digital collections, ebooks, In the news, Public domain

I’m teaching a fact-checking workshop in Seattle on November 4th

Posted on August 20, 2017 | Comments Off on I’m teaching a fact-checking workshop in Seattle on November 4th

I’ll be teaching a fact-checking workshop in Seattle on Saturday, November 4th for the Northwest Editors Guild. This will be a practical how-to workshop for anyone interested in accuracy–editors, writers, or readers–and registration is open to all. I hope you can join me! Here are the details:

Don’t Assume Anything: Practical Fact-Checking

Fact-checking is an important and useful skill for editors, writers, and
readers. But how can you tell whether a piece of writing or a source is
accurate, fair, and credible?

Join researcher Lisa Gold for a how-to workshop guiding you through the
steps of fact-checking—reading skeptically, asking questions, deciding what
to check, assessing the accuracy of different types of facts, finding and
evaluating sources, working with authors, and making corrections. Lisa will
answer questions and share tips, examples, and resources. This practical,
hands-on workshop will take us beyond the introduction to fact-checking
that Lisa gave at the November 2016 Northwest Editors Guild
meeting [watch it here: https://lisagoldresearch.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/my-talk-about-fact-checking/].

Join us Saturday, November 4, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Phinney
Neighborhood Center Community Hall (Brick Building, Lower Level) for this workshop. The cost will be $45 for Editors Guild members, $50 for nonmembers.

Register for the workshop online here: https://edsguild.org/dont-assume-anything-practical-fact-checking/

Speaker Bio: Lisa Gold is a freelance researcher, fact-checker, and writer. She has fact-checked many kinds of writing, including magazine articles, reported features, essays, book reviews, historical novels, and nonfiction books. She does creative research for authors of fiction and nonfiction, and she teaches research workshops. You’ll find Lisa online at www.lisagold.com and on Twitter at @bylisagold.

 

 

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Posted in Accuracy, Advice, Editing, Errors, Evaluating sources, Fact checking, Information literacy, My research classes, Research, Searching, Seattle, Writing

My talk about fact-checking

Posted on November 15, 2016 | Comments Off on My talk about fact-checking

The Editors Guild recorded my talk about fact-checking last night and posted it to their YouTube channel, so you can watch it here:

Here’s a link to the PDF handout I prepared and refer to in my talk, with links to selected resources and information about fact-checking:
lisa-gold-fact-checking-eds-guild-handout

As I noted in the meeting description, fact-checking is about ensuring that a piece of writing and its sources are accurate, fair, and credible, and protecting writers and publications from errors, criticism, fraud, and lawsuits. I talked about the skills it requires (an obsession with accuracy, skepticism, critical thinking, the ability to do research and find and evaluate sources, and a willingness to ask questions), who does it, why it’s so rare these days and what types of publications/media generally do or don’t do it. I described the fact-checking process for a major magazine feature, what kinds of things you check and particular trouble spots, discussed some cautionary tales, gave fact-checking tips, and answered questions from the audience.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions. I’d also like to know if there’s any interest in me writing about or teaching classes on fact-checking, research, information literacy, or other topics.

For further reading on these and other subjects, browse my website/blog and my Twitter feed.

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Posted in Accuracy, Advice, Editing, Errors, Evaluating sources, Fact checking, Information literacy, Journalism, My research classes, Publishing, Research, Seattle

I’ll be speaking about fact-checking on November 14th

Posted on October 24, 2016 | Comments Off on I’ll be speaking about fact-checking on November 14th

I’ll be speaking about fact-checking at the November 14th meeting of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild in Seattle:

Fact-Checking: Don’t Assume Anything

Whether editing fiction, nonfiction, corporate documents, or magazine articles, some responsibility falls upon the editor to verify the facts. Fact-checking is about ensuring that a piece of writing and its sources are accurate, fair, and credible in order to protect authors and publishers from errors, criticism, fraud, and lawsuits. Lisa Gold, a fact-checker and researcher, will discuss various aspects of fact-checking, offer tips and resources, and explain why you should be skeptical about everything you read.

Speaker Bio: Lisa Gold is a freelance researcher, fact-checker, and writer. She has fact-checked magazine articles, reported features, narrative essays, book reviews, historical novels, nonfiction books, and other types of writing. She’s been a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild since 2005. You’ll find Lisa online at www.lisagold.com and on Twitter at @bylisagold.

The meeting is open to all–you don’t have to be an Editors Guild member to attend–and begins at 6:30pm in the Wallingford neighborhood. Details are on the Editors Guild website (click on the November 14th meeting to see the info and map). If you can’t attend, my talk and Q&A may be recorded and posted on the Editors Guild YouTube page.

If you’re interested in learning more about fact-checking, I recommend two excellent books on the subject, both available in print or ebook:

I’ve added links to some additional resources to my sidebar (with more to come), and here are some of my earlier blog posts on fact-checking.

Update, November 12th:

I went on a tweetstorm today about fact-checking, a summary of which I’ve posted here:

I’ve been thinking a lot about fact-checking this week because of the election and Monday’s Editors Guild meeting. In the meeting description, I wrote that fact-checking is about ensuring that a piece of writing and its sources are accurate, fair, and credible, and protecting writers and publications from errors, criticism, fraud, and lawsuits. But it’s bigger than that.

As writers, editors, or readers, we should care about the facts and loudly call out errors and falsehoods when we see them. So don’t share links without reading and evaluating the content and the source. When you see lies or fake news, call it out, correct it. Critical thinking, information literacy, fact-checking, crap detection, awareness of cognitive biases—these are more important than ever. This kind of work can be hard, lonely, and thankless, and often feels futile, but we should do it anyway, and keep doing it. Though people can choose to ignore or deny facts, eventually everyone has to deal with the consequences.

Update, November 25th: You can watch the video of my talk and download my handout here: https://lisagoldresearch.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/my-talk-about-fact-checking/

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Posted in Advice, Errors, Fact checking, Journalism, My research classes, Reference books, Research, Seattle

Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country

Posted on February 16, 2016 | Comments Off on Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country

Today is publication day for Lovecraft Country, the new novel by my husband, Matt Ruff.

You can learn more about the book and read reviews and an excerpt here.

lc

If you’d like to attend one of Matt’s book events in Seattle, Portland, or Vancouver, you’ll find the details here. The launch event is tonight, February 16th, at 7pm at Elliott Bay Books, where Matt will be in conversation with Paul Constant from the Seattle Review of Books.

“But you love these stories!” Atticus said. “You love them as much as I do!”

“I do love them, George agreed. “But stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn’t make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though.”

“But you don’t get mad. Not like Pop does.”

“No, that’s true, I don’t get mad. Not at stories. They do disappoint me sometimes.” He looked at the shelves. “Sometimes, they stab me in the heart.”

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Posted in Authors, Books, Matt Ruff, Science fiction & Fantasy

Lying to children about the past

Posted on January 19, 2016 | Comments Off on Lying to children about the past

I reviewed A Birthday Cake for George Washington, the controversial children’s picture book about slavery, for the Seattle Review of Books— read it here: http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/reviews/the-idea-of-freedom-might-be-too-great-a-temptation-for-them-to-resist/

In my review I tell the real story of Hercules, George Washington’s slave-cook, a story far different from the happy fictional one in the book, which was promoted as “based on real events.” SPOILER ALERT: On Washington’s 65th birthday, Hercules didn’t bake a cake– he escaped.

The book was withdrawn by the publisher over the MLK holiday weekend, but the issues it raises are larger than this particular book. We should tell the complicated truths about America’s founders and founding and stop lying to our children about the past.

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Posted in America, Authors, Book reviews, Books, Controversy, Crimes against literature, Fact checking, Historical fiction, History, In the news, Publishing, Research, Writing

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story”

Posted on December 10, 2015 | Comments Off on “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story”

Apologies for my long blog silence, but it has been a crazy, busy year.

I am still on Twitter daily, and I often tweet links to information and reference sources as well as articles on a wide range of subjects, so follow me @bylisagold if you are interested.

I did write two posts last month for the Bauman Rare Books blog, on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and on Rare Books as Gifts. You’ll find links to all of my BRB blog posts in the sidebar to the right.

I do have some exciting news about my husband, Matt Ruff. His new book will be published in February 2016– Lovecraft Country, a historical novel that explores the real-life terrors of Jim Crow racism through the prism of Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. Matt’s website has a description of the novel, blurbs from Christopher Moore, Cory Doctorow, Neal Stephenson, and John Crowley, and advance reviews. He also posted a list of his readings/signings/appearances for the book, with more to come as they are scheduled.

lovecraftcov

And finally, as you likely guessed from the title of this post, I have fallen hard for Lin-Manual Miranda’s Hamilton musical. I haven’t seen the show (*sob*), but I’m completely obsessed with the extraordinary Broadway cast album. Excuse me while I go listen to it again…

hamilton

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Posted in Books, Matt Ruff, Rare books

My new Books the Founders Read post on Blackstone

Posted on April 22, 2015 | Comments Off on My new Books the Founders Read post on Blackstone

“In America the law is king.”
–Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

My new Books the Founders Read post on the Bauman Rare Books blog is about William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, the most important and widely-read law book in 18th-century America.

Blackstone-tp

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Dickinson, John Jay, John Marshall, and other Founders read the work and cited it frequently in their writings.

Blackstone-first-American

You can read my Blackstone post here. If you’re interested in reading my other blog posts for Bauman Rare Books, there are links in the sidebar to the right.

“In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study… I have been told by an eminent bookseller that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone’s Commentaries in America as in England… This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.”
–Edmund Burke’s 1775 speech on conciliation with the American colonies

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Posted in America, Authors, Books, Cultural treasures, History, Rare books, Research

Books the Founders Read, my new series for the Bauman Rare Books blog

Posted on April 7, 2015 | Comments Off on Books the Founders Read, my new series for the Bauman Rare Books blog

I’ve started a new series, Books the Founders Read, on the Bauman Rare Books blog. I’ll be highlighting books that the Founding Fathers read, owned, wrote about, and were influenced by. My first post is about Algernon Sidney’s 1698 Discourses Concerning Government, a work that was particularly significant to Thomas Jefferson, who cited it as an important influence on the Declaration of Independence and praised it in his letters.

sidney

Sidney was executed for treason in 1683, accused of involvement in the Rye House Plot against Charles II. Two witnesses were needed to convict someone of treason, but there was only a single witness, so the prosecution used Sidney’s unpublished manuscript of Discourses as the second witness, and the judge famously ruled “scribere est agere”—to write is to act.

You can read the entire post here.

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Posted in America, Authors, Books, Cultural treasures, History, Rare books, Research

My new posts on the Bauman Rare Books blog

Posted on December 13, 2014 | Comments Off on My new posts on the Bauman Rare Books blog

I haven’t been blogging here because I’ve been busy writing holiday season posts for the Bauman Rare Books blog:

Giving and Collecting Rare Books on Economics, featuring books by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman, as well as books on finance and the stock market.

Wealth of Nations

Giving and Collecting Rare Books by 20th-Century Leaders, featuring books and autographs by civil and human rights leaders (Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Eleanor Roosevelt), World War II leaders (Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower), and modern leaders (John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Barack Obama).

King Stride

Giving and Collecting Rare Children’s Books–19th Century, featuring books by Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Carlo Collodi, and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Huck new

Giving and Collecting Rare Children’s Books–20th Century,
featuring books by L. Frank Baum, Beatrix Potter, Kenneth Grahame, A.A. Milne, E.B. White, C.S. Lewis, Crockett Johnson, Dr. Seuss, Kay Thompson, Michael Bond, Roald Dahl, and Maurice Sendak.

charlotte's web

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Posted in Authors, Books, Cultural treasures, History, Rare books

William Blake was a visionary– literally

Posted on October 21, 2014 | Comments Off on William Blake was a visionary– literally

My latest post for the Bauman Rare Books blog is on William Blake’s “Visionary Heads” drawing of Wat Tyler, leader of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt.

Blake_WatTyler_h_102625

Throughout his life Blake claimed to see visions that inspired his art, as in the case of his “Visionary Heads” series. Blake biographer Alexander Gilchrist described them as portraits “of historical, nay, fabulous and even typical personages, summoned from the vast deep of time, and ‘seen in vision by Mr. Blake.’”

You can read my blog post here: http://www.baumanrarebooks.com/blog/spotlight-blakes-visionary-heads-drawing-wat-tyler-2/

“You can see what I do if you choose. Work up imagination to the state of vision, and the thing is done.” — William Blake

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Posted in Authors, Cultural treasures, History, Rare books

My Banned Books Week post for the Bauman Rare Books blog

Posted on September 22, 2014 | Comments Off on My Banned Books Week post for the Bauman Rare Books blog

We Read Banned Books is my latest post for the Bauman Rare Books blog, featuring the stories of six important books: Joyce’s Ulysses, Galileo’s Dialogo, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Nabokov’s Lolita.

Read it here: http://www.baumanrarebooks.com/blog/read-banned-books/

Ulysses

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Authors, Books, Censorship, Controversy, Crimes against literature, Rare books

Free access to Oxford online resources the week of April 13th

Posted on April 8, 2014 | Comments Off on Free access to Oxford online resources the week of April 13th

To celebrate National Library Week, Oxford University Press is providing free access to their online resources from April 13th through 19th:

Username: libraryweek
Password: libraryweek

Go here to see the full list (with links) of online resources you can access. A few highlights:

  • Oxford English Dictionary
  • Oxford Bibliographies Online
  • Oxford Reference
  • Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online
  • American National Biography Online
  • Grove Art Online
  • Grove Music Online
  • Berg Fashion Library
  • Oxford African American Studies Online
  • Electronic Enlightenment

 

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Posted in Dictionary, Digital collections, History, In the news, Reference books, Reference websites, Research

I’ll be teaching a research workshop for Clarion West in May

Posted on February 27, 2014 | Comments Off on I’ll be teaching a research workshop for Clarion West in May

I’ll be teaching a one-day Clarion West workshop with Louise Marley on Sunday, May 4th from 10am to 4pm in Seattle’s University District:

Fiction R&D: From Research to Ideas to Stories
Research is a creative process that can help writers with inspiration, storytelling, and worldbuilding. Lisa Gold will share practical advice on doing research and finding useful and unusual sources, and she’ll provide an annotated list of resources. Louise Marley will explore generating, refining, and developing ideas into stories. They’ll use a combination of lecture, discussion, brainstorming, and writing exercises.

Check out these other Clarion West one-day workshops:

  • Rachel Swirsky, Telling Old Stories in New Ways, April 6
  • Nicola Griffith, The Magic of Immersive Fiction, April 13

For more information or to register: http://www.clarionwest.org/workshops/oneday/fiction-rd-from-research-to-ideas-to-stories/

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Posted in Advice, In the news, My research classes, Research, Science fiction & Fantasy, Seattle, Worldbuilding, Writing

My posts on Thomas Paine on the Bauman Rare Books blog

Posted on January 23, 2014 | Comments Off on My posts on Thomas Paine on the Bauman Rare Books blog

I’ve started a new series of posts on Thomas Paine on the Bauman Rare Books blog. You can read my earlier Forgotten Founders posts on George Mason (Parts 1 and 2) and John Dickinson (Parts 1, 2, and 3) here.

I’ll add links as each post goes live:

Paine-220x300“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
–Thomas Paine, Common Sense

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Posted in America, Cultural treasures, History, Rare books, Research, Writing

An update to my post about self-employed health insurance in Washington

Posted on November 2, 2013 | Comments Off on An update to my post about self-employed health insurance in Washington

Important new update, October 2016: “Group of one” small group health insurance may no longer be an option for self-employed individuals in Washington state because of federal ACA law, though you can still purchase individual insurance either inside or outside our state’s health insurance exchange. I recently spoke with an analyst at the Washington State Insurance Commissioner’s office, who confirmed that though Washington’s “group of one” law is still on the books, it has been preempted by federal law (ACA and ERISA) and a legal challenge from an insurance company. Now you must have at least one employee on payroll to qualify as a group (and business owners are no longer counted as employees), so self-employed individuals or sole proprietors without employees don’t qualify for small group health insurance and must purchase insurance through the individual market.

Original post:

I’ve updated my 2010 health insurance post, “If you are self-employed and live in Washington state, read this,” with some new information and links because of a recent increase in views.

My original post was about Washington’s “group of one” law, which allows self-employed individuals or sole proprietors to apply for small group health insurance if they meet certain criteria. These plans offered better coverage, without health screenings, and you could cover your family as dependents.

That information is still accurate, but you now have more options to buy health insurance for 2014:

  1. You can buy individual health insurance on the Washington state exchange (Washington HealthPlanFinder). If your family income (modified adjusted gross income) is below 400% of the federal poverty level, you may qualify for subsidies (tax credits) to help you pay for health insurance purchased through the exchange.
  2. You can buy “group of one” small group health insurance outside of the exchange, if you qualify.
  3. You can buy individual health insurance outside of the exchange.

If your income qualifies you for a subsidy, you’ll have to buy insurance inside the exchange to get it. Whether you apply for insurance inside or outside of the exchange, you can’t be denied because of pre-existing conditions, and specific “essential health benefits” (including hospitalization, maternity care, and prescription drugs) must be covered. You should do your research and carefully compare plans and provider networks. Many of the individual plans in the exchange have limited doctor and hospital networks, so depending on your circumstances, you might be better off in a small group plan or individual plan outside of the exchange.

See my original post for more information.

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Posted in In the news, Seattle, Self-employed

My posts on Forgotten Founders on the Bauman Rare Books blog

Posted on October 4, 2013 | Comments Off on My posts on Forgotten Founders on the Bauman Rare Books blog

I’ve started a new series of Americana posts on the writings of the “Forgotten Founders” for the Bauman Rare Books blog. My first two posts are on George Mason of Virginia, who Jefferson called “the wisest man of his generation.” Mason was the principle author of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution, which had an extraordinary influence on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I’ll add links as each post goes live:

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Posted in America, Cultural treasures, History, Rare books, Research, Writing

My posts on American Ephemera on the Bauman Rare Books blog

Posted on August 1, 2013 | Comments Off on My posts on American Ephemera on the Bauman Rare Books blog

I wrote a series of posts on late 18th-century American ephemera– pamphlets, broadsides, and newspapers of the American Revolution– for the new Bauman Rare Books blog.

My first post, American Ephemera: History as it Happened, is now up. Here’s a preview:

The United States of America was the first nation created though revolutionary acts of writing. Many of our most significant and influential founding works—Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers—were first printed not in book form, but as ephemera, printed material not meant to be preserved.

There are many types of ephemera, but in this series I’ll be discussing late 18th-century American pamphlets, broadsides, and newspapers. They were usually printed for a particular time-sensitive purpose and then discarded, so relatively little from this period has survived.

Ephemera captured history as it happened and quickly spread it on both sides of the Atlantic—breaking news, public reaction to current events, government declarations and documents, speeches, letters, sermons, essays, and furious debates about the political, economic, and philosophical issues of the day. These invaluable primary sources are like time travel, allowing us to witness key events, gain insight into everyday life, and understand how Americans evolved from loyalty to rebellion to self-government….

The other posts in the series will appear every other week. I’ll add links to the titles below as they are posted on the BRB blog.

If you’re interested in rare books, you should check out the rest of the blog, which includes posts on Rare Books 101, Stories About Books, Modern American Literature, Legends of Photography, The Best Illustrated Books You’ve Never Heard Of, and Sex, Drugs & Books.

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Posted in America, Cultural treasures, History, Newspapers, Rare books, Research, Writing

Edward de Grazia, the lawyer who fought book censorship & wrote Girls Lean Back Everywhere

Posted on April 24, 2013 | Comments Off on Edward de Grazia, the lawyer who fought book censorship & wrote Girls Lean Back Everywhere

In a 2008 post about Banned Books Week, I recommended an excellent 1992 book about literary censorship and obscenity prosecutions in the United States, Edward de Grazia’s Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius. He was a lawyer who fought the censorship of books in a number of prominent cases in the 1960s.

Girls Lean Back Everywhere

This morning I learned that Edward de Grazia has died at the age of 86. Here’s his obituary from the New York Times.

Here’s an excerpt from my original post about his book:

The title is taken from a quote by Jane Heap, who (with Margaret Anderson) was prosecuted in 1920 for publishing episodes from James Joyce’s Ulysses in their magazine, The Little Review:

Mr. Joyce was not teaching early Egyptian perversions nor inventing new ones. Girls lean back everywhere, showing lace and silk stockings; wear low-cut sleeveless blouses, breathless bathing suits; men think thoughts and have emotions about these things everywhere–seldom as delicately and imaginatively as Mr. Bloom–and no one is corrupted.

This work describes in detail the publishing histories and obscenity trials of the most controversial books of the 20th century, including Joyce’s Ulysses, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, and Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, as well as later trials involving the monologues of Lenny Bruce, the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, and the lyrics of 2 Live Crew.

What makes this work particularly entertaining are the extensive quotes from the authors and publishers involved. As de Grazia notes in his introduction:

I wanted to find out, and describe, how the persons who were most immediately affected by literary censorship–authors and publishers–responded to and felt about it, and to present their reactions as much as possible in words of their own. I also wanted to say what I could about the nature of the legal and constitutional process that has framed the struggle against censorship in our country….

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Posted in Authors, Books, Censorship, Controversy, In the news

Tweet Salad

Posted on April 23, 2013 | Comments Off on Tweet Salad

I often tweet (or retweet) links to interesting articles, resources, and websites instead of blogging about them, especially when I’m busy.  I’ve decided to periodically archive selected links that may be of interest to my blog readers on this new page on the menu bar: Tweets. (For all of my tweets, follow me on Twitter @bylisagold.)

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Posted in Link collections

Free access this week to the Oxford English Dictionary & Historical Thesaurus

Posted on April 14, 2013 | Comments Off on Free access this week to the Oxford English Dictionary & Historical Thesaurus

Oxford University Press is celebrating National Library Week with free access through April 20th to two of their best online resources:

Both sites can be accessed this week by using the same username and password: libraryweek

See OUP’s post for more information. If your local public library system subscribes to these resources, you may already have free access to them from home through your library website with your library card number and PIN.

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Posted in Dictionary, Digital collections, In the news, Reference websites, Thesaurus

The Great Gatsby was published 88 years ago today but won’t enter the public domain until 2021

Posted on April 10, 2013 | 1 comment

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published 88 years ago today, on April 10, 1925.

Gatsby

However, this work won’t enter the public domain in the U.S. until January 1, 2021. That’s because the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the copyright term to 95 years after publication for books published between 1923 and 1962 (if published with a copyright notice and if the copyright was renewed). Copyright law is ridiculously complicated, so right now the only works you can be sure are in the public domain in the U.S. are those published before 1923. So This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned are in the public domain, but The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night are not. This 2011 Duke University Libraries post summarizes the Fitzgerald copyright situation.

Books published today enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the author. Here are some links for more information about our crazy and complicated copyright system:

Update, January 1, 2019: My new blog post about Public Domain Day 2019— works first published in the U.S. in 1923 are now free of copyright, but we still have to wait another two years for The Great Gatsby to enter the public domain.

New update, January 1, 2021: Gatsby and other 1925 works are now in the public domain! See my blog post about Public Domain Day 2021.

1 Comment

Posted in Authors, Books, Copyright, Public domain, Rare books

News about The Mirage paperback, the Queen Anne Book Company, and Clarion West

Posted on February 5, 2013 | Comments Off on News about The Mirage paperback, the Queen Anne Book Company, and Clarion West
  • Matt Ruff‘s latest novel, The Mirage, will be published in trade paperback on February 12, 2013. (The hardcover and ebook editions were published in February 2012.) Matt will be doing some readings/signings in Seattle and Portland over the next few weeks.

mirageps

  • Queen Anne Books, the beloved independent bookstore that closed on Halloween, will soon be reincarnated in the same location as the Queen Anne Book Company. The new store, with new owner/managers and some of the booksellers from the old store, will hold its grand opening on March 1st. You can follow the Queen Anne Book Company on Twitter @queenannebookco or on Facebook.
  • March 1st is the deadline to apply to the Clarion and Clarion West writers workshops for science fiction and fantasy. The instructors this year include Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Samuel R. Delany, Joe Hill, Nalo Hopkinson, and Karen Joy Fowler (see my previous blog post for the complete list and more information). Clarion West has just announced that Margo Lanagan will be teaching instead of Justina Robson.
  • Clarion West is offering a series of special one-day workshops in Seattle from February to May, taught by Molly Gloss, John Crowley, Mary Rosenblum, and Daryl Gregory. Each workshop is limited to only 14 students, so don’t wait to sign up.

UPDATE, 2/26/13: For more information about the Queen Anne Book Company’s grand-opening weekend (March 1st to 3rd) and their “Authors in the House” events, see this article from the Queen Anne View blog.

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Posted in Books, Bookstores, In the news, Matt Ruff, Science fiction & Fantasy, Seattle

Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Hand, Samuel R. Delany, Kelly Link, Joe Hill, Karen Joy Fowler…

Posted on December 31, 2012 | Comments Off on Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Hand, Samuel R. Delany, Kelly Link, Joe Hill, Karen Joy Fowler…

Two fantastic groups of writers will be teaching at the 2013 Clarion and Clarion West Writers Workshops for science fiction and fantasy.

Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow, and Samuel R. Delany will be teaching at Clarion West in Seattle from June 23 through August 2, 2013.

Andy Duncan, Nalo Hopkinson, Cory Doctorow, Robert Crais, Karen Joy Fowler, and Kelly Link will be teaching at Clarion at UC San Diego from June 23 through August 3, 2013.

The two workshops are each accepting applications through March 1, 2013. See their websites for instructions and more information.

Update, 2/5/13: Margo Lanagan will be teaching at Clarion West instead of Justina Robson.

 

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Posted in Authors, Science fiction & Fantasy, Seattle, Writing

Seattle’s Queen Anne Books is up for sale again

Posted on October 21, 2012 | Comments Off on Seattle’s Queen Anne Books is up for sale again

Queen Anne Books, the independent bookstore at the top of Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, is up for sale again. The store was sold only six months ago, but on Friday the owner posted this announcement on the bookstore’s website:

To the Queen Anne Book Store community:

I am writing today to let you know that I will be leaving Queen Anne Books as of the end of November. This has not been an easy or hastily made decision, and I thank all of you for your loyalty and your commitment to Queen Anne Books during the period of time that I have been a part of the store.

I would like to find a buyer for the store from among the wonderful community of people who have supported Queen Anne Books over the years. I encourage anyone who is interested to contact the store in person, by phone, or via e-mail at queenannebooks@queenannebooks.com.

I will keep you posted as more information emerges regarding the future of the store.

~ Katharine Hershey

Queen Anne Books is a great neighborhood bookstore, full of helpful, enthusiastic, and well-read booksellers. Queen Anne Books has always been very supportive of Matt and other local authors, and event coordinator Tegan Tigani makes every book event memorable and fun.

I do hope the store finds a buyer, as I’d really hate to see Queen Anne Books close.

UPDATE, 10/22/12:  A new announcement from the staff of Queen Anne Books:

Last week owner Katharine Hershey sent a notice announcing her intention to leave Queen Anne Books at the end of November. We want to provide you with some helpful information to assist you in the coming weeks.

Officially, the store will be closing Wednesday, October 31. However, our owner is actively seeking a buyer for the store. We remain hopeful that Queen Anne Books will be purchased and continue serving our wonderful community.

In the meantime, we want you to know:

  • Queen Anne Books will operate as usual through Oct. 31.
  • As has been our long-standing tradition, we will participate in Queen Anne’s neighborhood Trick or Treat festival from 3-6 on October 31.. Be sure to bring the kids to our store.
  • We are no longer issuing gift certificates. If you have gift certificates, we encourage you to bring them in before our closing on Oct. 31.
  • We will continue to add purchases to your Book Saver plan, and issue rewards.
  • We will no longer be placing special orders as we cannot guarantee arrival before our anticipated closure. If you have special orders in the pipeline, we will do our best to get those to you. Not yet released books dated after Oct. 31 may not arrive in time, and we apologize for that.
  • Though our website will remain functional, we are no longer offering online web ordering. Please call or come in the store for all your book needs. The website will be a good source of information regarding the future of the store, so please check in there.

Thank you for your many years of loyal commitment to Queen Anne Books. We have the best customers in the world, and we hope to have positive news for you in the coming weeks regarding the store’s future. If you know of interested parties, please have them contact us at our email queenannebooks@queenannebooks.com.

UPDATE, 10/30/12:  According to a new message on the website, Queen Anne Books will be closing its doors on October 31st at 7pm.

FINAL UPDATE:  Queen Anne Books is gone.

UPDATE, 2/5/13: Queen Anne Books is being reincarnated in the same location as the Queen Anne Book Company, with new owner/managers and some of the booksellers from the old store. Their grand opening is March 1st. See my blog post for more information.

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Posted in Bookstores, In the news, Seattle

Fool on the Hill, Matt Ruff’s first novel, now an ebook

Posted on August 13, 2012 | Comments Off on Fool on the Hill, Matt Ruff’s first novel, now an ebook

Fool on the Hill, Matt‘s beloved first novel, is finally available as an ebook. You can now buy it for Kindle or Nook, and it should soon be available for iTunes and Google Books as well.

UPDATE, 9/24/12: It’s now available on iTunes and Kobo.

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Posted in ebooks, Matt Ruff

The Mirage is here!

Posted on February 7, 2012 | Comments Off on The Mirage is here!

Today is publication day for The Mirage, Matt Ruff’s new novel, which is available as a gorgeous hardcover and as an ebook.

You can read a PDF excerpt on The Mirage page of Matt’s website.

The book is on the February Indie Next list, and Matt has been posting the early reviews on his blog. This morning Cory Doctorow posted his review on BoingBoing:

I’m a huge fan of Matt Ruff’s novels, so when friends in the know started to spontaneously tell me about how fantastic the advance manuscript they’d just read for his next novel, The Mirage, was, I just assumed, yeah, it’d be more great Matt Ruff.

But this isn’t just more Matt Ruff. This is Matt Ruff with the awesome turned up to 11. To 12. To 100….

This is one of those books that you read while walking down the street and long after your bedtime, a book you stop strangers to tell about.

You can read his full review here. (Thanks, Cory!)

Over the next few weeks, Matt will be doing readings/signings at independent bookstores all over the Seattle area, as well as in San Francisco, Bellingham, Portland (Oregon), and Vancouver (Canada). The first event is Thursday, February 9th, at Elliott Bay Book Company, where Matt will be in conversation with Paul Constant, The Stranger’s book editor. If you’d like a signed book but can’t attend a reading, you can order a signed copy from one of the bookstores he’ll be visiting, as most will ship books upon request.

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Posted in Books, ebooks, Matt Ruff, Seattle