Category / Breaking News

by Edward Champion

Harper Announces New Screw Imprint

harperscrewThis morning, HarperCollins announced a new imprint called HarperScrew. The new imprint will be headed by HarperStudio’s Bob Miller and will set out to screw the writer.

“We’ve been going about this business the wrong way,” said Miller. “Why should we even pay the writers at all when they can all just be screwed over?”

Writers will pay $50,000 a pop to be screwed over by Harper. The authors don’t even have to produce books. They just need to be screwed. The screwing will take on many forms: sodomy, needless editorial tampering, and more pedestrian forms of humiliation. Harper has not yet announced a business model, and publishing experts are still wondering exactly how Miller and his team will profit from the screwing. But they have begun screwing a select elite group of writers and hope to have the screwing down sometime in the fall.

Objections came this morning from a surprising source: the foul-mouthed Al Goldstein, long associated with Screw Magazine.

“Who do these cocksuckers think they are?” barked Goldstein. “Not only do they take my brand name, but they take some of my fucking ideas.”

As a peace offering, Miller has asked Goldstein if he would like to be screwed under the new imprint. Negotiations are still pending, but it is believed that Goldstein will, in all likelihood, be screwed.

by Edward Champion

Literary Twitter Co-Op Announced

ltc2This morning, twenty of the top literary Twitter users announced the formation of the Literary Twitter Co-Op. The group, which included @booksquare, @KatMeyer, and @maudnewton, hoped that the new venture might fill the void left by the now defunct Litblog Co-Op and bring attention to authors and presses that are struggling to be noticed in a flooded marketplace.

“It’s only 140 characters,” said Kassia Kroszer. “I mean, how much of a commitment is that?”

Still, the new venture has attracted controversy. Whereas the LBC resulted in a war between print and online, the LTC has seen an altogether different battle between bloggers and those on Twitter. To cite one example, litblogger Mark Sarvas was seething with rage on Wednesday morning because he was not asked to head this new group and bask in all the media attention.

“You don’t have a Twitter account, Mark. So shut the fuck up,” fired back controversial litblogger Edward Champion. Sarvas and Champion are using the LTC as another excuse to carry out what technology experts commonly identify as “dick wars,” that Internet phenomenon in which two users with oversized egos argue over something extremely pedantic and use this as the basis to hate each other.

But more troubling than this petty skirmish is the side effect of LTC members being flooded with tweets while attempting to draw attention to overlooked titles in a flooded marketplace. A recent discussion of a neglected title published by Two Dollar Radio ended with four of the LTC members getting distracted by interesting links sent by non-LTC Twitter users.

“That would seem to run counter to their interests,” remarked Michael Dirda, who had considered tweeting with Champion after the two had exchanged hostile words over Dirda’s belief that most of the LTC members being based in Terre Haute. Dirda, to his credit, has “at replied” a handful of the LTC members.

by Edward Champion

Salman Rushdie Gives Up Writing, Joins Cast of “Entourage”

rushdie4Salman Rushdie has turned in his last novel and resigned from PEN America to pursue a full-time acting career. He will be joining the cast of Entourage midway through its sixth season as a regular character named “Sal,” a burned out writer in his sixties who desperately tags along with Vince and his young cohorts in an effort to discover a new vitality.

“This came together at the last minute,” said executive producer Doug Ellin. “Salman was telephoning me six times a day, telling me that he had run out of twentysomething honeys who would talk with him. And we were looking for a way to breathe new life into the show. We’re very happy to have him. But we’re still figuring out our working relationship.”

That professional relationship so far has been fraught with hubris. As part of the negotiations, Rushdie demanded four trailers, a 24-hour unlimited buffet only accessible through voice recognition software, and a football stadium-sized vanity mirror to be constructed near San Bernardino, where Rushdie will be permitted to look at himself for long periods of time in an effort to understand the torment of growing older and, in Rushdie’s words, “the difficulties of being Salman.” Sources at several designer clinics have also revealed that Rushdie will be undergoing penile enlargement surgery.

“We didn’t ask for that,” said Ellin. “But apparently he has this idea that ‘Sal’ needs to have a twelve-inch penis. Despite his apparent smarts, he hasn’t heard of Stainslavsky. We’re trying to talk Salman off the ledge and introduce him to the wonders of Viagra. As you can imagine, it isn’t easy because the man does have a bit of a chip on his shoulder.”

Rushdie declined to be interviewed for this story. But he was recently seen at Perez Hilton’s thirtieth birthday party ogling a number of women, referring to several large-sized breasts as Padmas. At least two women threw drinks in Rushdie’s face. One shouted quite loudly, “Grow up!” “Do you know who I am?” replied Rushdie. “Do you know it’s the 21st century?” replied the woman.