The King of his domain or is even $9 too much for his books?

Another widespread killing of trees has hit North America with the pending arrival of Stephen King’s latest, the 1,008 page novel, “Under the Dome.”
Mr. Supersize finds himself part of double-edged news burst as well. “Under the Dome” is at the center of a contested price war between Amazon,Wal-Mart and Target while at the same time, the novel’s transfer to digital for readers like Amazon’s Kindle will be delayed until the weighty tome floods stores.
Publisher Scribner said the digital version will be available Dec. 24 unlike Dan Brown’s hyped best-seller, “The Lost Symbol,” which was available simultaneously in both paper and on-line in September. The delay strategy is also followed by Sarah Palin’s ghostwritten campaign autobiography, “Going Rogue,” to be officially released Nov. 17 after she plays nice with Oprah.
The other side of the story are the plans of those discounters to sell surefire sellers for $9. King, Palin, James Patterson, Dean Koontz and JD Robb will also get the low-ball treatment.
Unhappy is the American Booksellers Association, trade rep for independent bookstores. It asked the U.S. Justice Department Oct. 22 to investigate trade war.
The booksellers association fears that such prices are “devaluing the very concept of the book” and make it impossible for smaller stores to compete, reported the Associated Press.

A night for Cave Canem poets at Wilson Center

The spanking new August Wilson Center is bringing a lot to Downtown including a comfortable space for literary readings. Three poets, shown above from left, Terrance Hayes, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon and Afaa Michael Weaver, all members of Cave Canem, the national forum for African-American poets, filled the second-floor space overlooking Liberty Avenue Oct. 14 with a lively display of styles and voices before a crowd of nearly 100.

First up was the new standard-bearer for the University of Pittsburgh Press, Van Clief-Stefanon, whose Pitt Poetry Series title, "Open Interval," was nominated for a National Book Award in poetry. She called her new book "a meditation on identity, freedom and space."

Her selections from that book were spare and lean like the poet, who teaches at Cornell University as well as the notorious Auburn State Prison in her Upstate New York neighborhood. Auburn is famed as the first jail with the electric chair, and is still a forboding place:

"At the prison at Auburn I corss the yard. Inmates whet tongues against my body: cement--sculpted--; poised for hate" is her description from the opening poem of the collection, "Bop: The North Star."

Pittsburgh audiences know Hayes, the Carnegie Mellon creative writing professor and author of several well-received poetry collections. He read from two of them "Wind in the Box" and "Lighthead."

The final reader was Weaver, a Baltimore poet and playwright who worked with the late Rob Penny, the Pittsburgh playwright, and is one of the "Elders" of Cave Canem. Co-founder Toi Derricotte, poet and Pitt professor, introduced the reading.

National Book Award finalist here Oct. 14

Poet Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, who read Oct. 14 at the August Wilson Center for African-American Culture, was nominated that same day for a National Book Award in Poetry for her collection, “Open Interval.” She's a professor of English at Cornell University and was joined in the reading by  poets Terrance Hayes of Carnegie Mellon University and Afaa Michael Weaver, director of the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center in Boston.

Five nominees in fiction, nonfiction, children's literature and poetry were announced by National Book Foundation in New York. The winners will be announced Nov. 18.

Oh, the horror, the horror!

A recent post on the PBC blog -- the one about the Pirates -- identifies Stewart O'Nan, recently returned Pittsburgh native, as a "horror" novelist, which is like describing the latest edition of the Buccos as a Major League team. O'Nan only pals around with horror novelists, most frequently Stephen King, who shared box seats with him at Fenway Park. Stew is a serious literary novelist whose last book, "Songs for the Missing," was published last year. Apologies to Mr.O'Nan.