Independent News 2007 Miriam Bass Award Winners AAP announced on February 6 that Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians, Co-Publishers of Melville House Publishing (based in Hoboken, New Jersey), are the recipients of this year’s Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. The award will be presented in New York on March 7, during AAP’s Annual Meeting for Smaller and Independent Publishers. The award, given annually, was created in memory of Miriam Bass to honor her many contributions to the book publishing community, and is co-sponsored by AAP, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, and National Book Network (NBN). It carries a $5,000 cash prize, which is fully funded by Rowman & Littlefield and NBN. For more information: Tina Jordan, tjordan@publishers.org www.mhpbooks.com 2006 Man Booker Prize Mother’s Milk by Edward St. Aubyn, a 2006 Man Booker Prize Finalist and New York Times Notable book, was published Open City Books, an independent New York City-based publisher. The novel is a scathingly brilliant and witty portrait of the Melrose family, the same family featured in St. Aubyn’s trilogy Some Hope (Open City, 2004). Although St. Aubyn is British, this book was edited and published first by a US publisher. Equally notable is that Open City is a two-person operation (Thomas Beller and Joanna Yas) and a nonprofit which publishes 1-2 titles per year. Open City is responsible for bringing St. Aubyn to the US, when they published his trilogy Some Hope in 2004. Widely acclaimed in the UK throughout the nineties, St. Aubyn was not able to find a US publisher and had stopped looking, until 2003, when Open City approached him. Some Hope was met with glowing praise and sales, including selection as a Barnes & Noble Discover title. Mother’s Milk is a sequel to the trilogy Some Hope, though it is self-contained enough that is not necessary to read the trilogy first. www.opencity.org March 2007 Library Journal Los Angeles, CA: February 21, 2007. Two paperbacks by Joan Wai, 100+ Wedding Games and 100+ Baby Shower Games, are among the 10 most requested books from a small press publisher, The Brainstorm Company, in libraries. They appear in the March issue of Library Journal's Small Press Bestsellers list. The prestigious Library Journal is America's oldest independent magazine for librarians. Kiriyama Prize finalists: Winner to be announced March 27. The Haiku Apprentice was named a nonfiction finalist for this important award alongside titles from "major" publishing houses such as Viking and Grove Atlantic. The Haiku Apprentice is Abigail Friedman's insightful memoir about joining a haiku group in Japan while working as a U.S. diplomat there. Friedman is currently the U.S. Consul General in Quebec City. She is a member of the Haiku Society of America and Haiku Canada, and a founding member of the bilingual Quebec Haiku Group in Quebec City. Ferlinghetti in the News and in New York. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights, shows up this month on the cover of Poets & Writers magazine (March/April 2007), which features a 7-page interview with the poet, calling him "Poetry's Godfather." The interview ranges from Ferlinghetti's poetry, and the situation of poetry in America today, to his encounter with Fidel Castro in 1960. Next month brings Ferlinghetti to New York, where he will read on April 16 at the 92nd St. Y, and join Bill Moyers for an interview.