The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation has a cool new site. I’m a big fan of his books — and so is my two-and-a-half-year-old son. There’s a lot of information about Keats, his books and characters, and the foundation. (No T-shirts for sale, unfortunately.)

Reading Keats’ fascinating life story, it seems all the more amazing that the white son of poor Polish immigrants would grow up to create such memorable black characters in his picture books:

At the age of eight, Ezra won the approval of his father when he was paid twenty-five cents for painting a sign for a local store, providing Benjamin with the hope that his son might be able to earn a living as a sign painter; nevertheless, Ezra was in love with the fine arts. 

I grew up with The Snowy Day and John Henry: An American Legend, and my boys will, too.

(When my son was in the hospital last Christmas Eve, the nurse gave him a tiny stuffed chihuahua, who was soon named John Henry due to the latter’s inspiring bravery. Now, when my son performs feats of strength, like pushing open a heavy door, then he calls himself John Henry, too. Come on, say it with me: awwww….)

Given that I once wrote an essay for the Chicago Tribune decrying the shelfworn condition in which a loaned paperback made its way back to me, I find myself almost gloating at the charges of undue similarity (no one’s saying “plagiarism” but the meaning is clear) levied at New York Times contributor and tome torturer Ben Schott (”Confessions of a Book Abuser“). From the correction:

An essay in the Book Review on March 4, “Confessions of a Book Abuser,” by Ben Schott, defended the ways people physically “mistreat” books. Readers have subsequently pointed out a number of resemblances between Schott’s essay and “Never Do That to a Book,” an essay on the same subject by Anne Fadiman that was part of her 1998 book “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.”

(The readers of Bookninja were on the case on March 5, by the way. And wish I had a link to the Fadiman essay.)

Actually, I secretly envy those who think nothing of using books as notepads, coasters, and shims. I suspect that, somehow, those people are interacting more fully with the books than I am – and not just physically, intellectually. But I find myself treating my own books with kid gloves, whether they’re mass-market paperbacks or dust-jacketed first editions.

Fortunately, I do have an outlet for my secret desire to play rough with books: advance copies. If I’m reviewing a book, the gloves come off. I’ll crack its spine, dog its ears, and transcribe other people’s cell-phone conversations in the endpapers. It’s probably some sort of psychological dysfunction on my part, like a man who wants to keep his wife on a pedestal but act out his fantasies with a lover. Not that I’m European myself.

Warner Books is changing its name to Grand Central Publishing. From Publishers Weekly (”Warner Gets New Moniker,” by Rachel Deahl):

Referring to the new name, senior v-p and publisher Jamie Raab said it more accurately describes what the imprint is and aims to be. Dissecting the name, Raab said: “We are ‘grand’ because we are big, impressive, even magnificent at times. And the word ‘central’ reflects the fact that we recognize the huge audience of readers between New York City and the West Coast who are looking for books across a wide range of tastes." 

I love how Raab spins this: yes, it’s named for a very specific place in New York City, but really, we named it after you, oh vast-unnamed-area-that-I-fly-over-sometimes! The fact that he doesn’t actually identify any locations between New York City and the West Coast is, I’m sure, reassuring to the folks in Tulsa.

Still, while the name “Grand Central” may possibly represent the multitudes that Raab feels Warner Books contains, it feels a bit bland and predictable. If anything, they should have consulted some scruffy young advertising people, who might have told them that the new name should “skew edgy.” Using an anagram generator, I came up with these alternates, should anyone have second thoughts:

• Bar Worsen OK
• Snake Borrow
• Earn Sob Work
• Koran Browse
• An Sober Work
• Arson Be Work

I know what you’re saying: why on earth would a huge publishing concern change its name to “An Sober Work”? Well, it wouldn’t. But it would sure be more memorable than “Grand Central.”

One year ago today, I started writing this blog. It was just a lark, really — who knew that in such a short span of time Likely Stories would grow to become one of the publishing industry’s must-reads?

(Well, I wish it were one of the publishing industry’s must-reads, but now that that statement is in print, I guess I can quote it: Likely Stories is “one of the publishing industry’s must-reads”!)

I had hoped to write a long piece today, reflecting on everything I’ve learned over the past 12 months. But I spent a lot of time testing and in meetings and here we are. Has it really been 12 months? It only feels like 11.

One thing I had vowed to do before the year was out was to update — or, really, write for the first time – my bio. And, as of five minutes ago, I have done just that. (Who is Keir Graff? Wouldn’t I like to know.) I’d like to tinker with it (maybe make it less about me? how does that work?), and I will, but there’s no time today. I’ve got to get out of here and I’m taking tomorrow off.

So, thanks for reading. I promise fewer parentheticals in the coming year.

(Yeah, right.)

On Sarah Weinman’s blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, I found a link to Stephen Allan’s Noir Writer and his interview with Jenny Siler. I went to grade school and high school with Siler in Missoula, Montana, and although we haven’t spoken since then (in different grades, we were never more than acquaintances, although I loved the fact that she had the guts to sport a mohawk), I’ve followed her career with interest.

She seems awfully sharp and like a nice person to boot. I’m biased, but I think Montana produces a lot of folks like that. (Bear in mind that this guy wasn’t a local.) As a person with an interest in pseudonyms, I was doubly interested to learn that Siler is publishing her new book, An Accidental American, under the name Alex Carr.

Anyway, read the interview.

The other day, for instance, my local bookseller introduced me to someone as “the next Patricia Cornwell.” It was an unfortunate comparison (I can’t think of an author whose work is more different from mine), but a good illustration of the point I’m trying to make here. The bookseller was looking for some way to sum me up to a potential customer, and the only thing she could think of was to compare me to another female author, when a male author like Le Carre or Furst would have been a much more accurate match.

A bit of background: the Booklist offices are on the east end of the third floor of American Library Association headquarters. The American Libraries offices are on the west end of the third floor. We pass the AL folks in the hall every day and sometimes even engage in idle chit-chat as we wait for the elevator. (We have separate water coolers, however — the camaraderie only goes so far.) And yet the following came as a great surprise to me:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=o0f_iAYWKlI

I guess we all have our secrets.

Publishing legend John Calder is calling it a day. From The Scotsman (”Scots literary lion who didn’t wait for Beckett“):

HE HAS published some of the most avant-garde writers in literary history, scandalised the establishment and escaped brushes with the law. But now John Calder, Scotland’s greatest publisher and an enfant terrible of the Swinging Sixties, is retiring and cashing in copyrights that could earn him millions.

Interestingly, most of the places that are picking up this story are also focusing on the cash that Calder can earn with his copyrights. Also, perhaps, ironically:

He also speaks of modern publishing with some contempt: “When I was young, publishing companies were run by people with editorial knowledge and experience, who could read things and make up their minds on what was good or otherwise.

“But now, it’s the accountants and marketing people who make the decisions, caring for nothing but money.”

I’m through with paying lip service to the threadbare struggle of poets’ lives, darn it. They may ride three-speed bicycles to work (their sack lunches ostentatiously perched in the front basket), but when they get home to their McMansions, they lounge in front of 102-inch plasma TVs while eating foie gras with ladles. First the Kingsley Tufts, then the Bollingen, now the Jackson.

NEW YORK, March 16, 2007 - Poets & Writers, Inc. is pleased to announce that Elizabeth Alexander is the inaugural recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize. The $50,000 prize honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim.

Maybe she hasn’t received major national acclaim, but at least one national publication — Booklist — has seen fit to review two of her books of poetry, American Sublime (2005) and Antebellum Dream Book (2001).

Anyway, I’ve decided to stop buying lottery tickets. I’m going to start writing more poetry.

The longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction, now the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, has been announced. For those unfamiliar with the Orange Prize:

The prize is open to any full length novel, written in English by a woman of any nationality, provided that the novel is published for the first time in the United Kingdom between 1 April of the year before the prize is awarded and 31 March of the year in which the prize is awarded.

Noteworthy nominees include Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, which won the NBCC; Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves, which won the Costa, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, which was a finalist for the NBCC; Jane Smiley’s Ten Days in the Hills, which was written by Jane Smiley; and Anne Tyler’s Digging to America.

The shortlist will be announced on April 17 and the winner will be announced at a ceremony on June 6.

Someone could really turn this into a great thriller — but it would definitely help if that someone had some first-hand experience with a scenario like this. From The Guardian (”Militant turned crime writer caught in Brazil“):

An Italian former terrorist turned bestselling crime writer who fled France in 2004 to avoid extradition home has been arrested in Brazil.

Cesare Battisti, wanted in Italy for two 1970s murders, was arrested yesterday near Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro after a long surveillance operation.

“Brazilian police had been following him for several months after receiving information from Interpol in Paris and Rome,” a police spokesman, Bruno Ramos, said.

Brazil’s supreme court will now consider a request for his extradition, most likely to Italy.

If you read the full story, there’s even a prison escape! (The group Battisti belonged to was the Armed Proletarians for Communism — not to be confused with the Armed Communists for Proletarianism, and certainly not to be confused with the Proletarian Communists for Armaments.)

And, perhaps predictably:

Left-leaning artists, writers, filmmakers and intellectuals in France mounted a campaign to stop Battisti’s extradition.

My lack of knowledge about the political climate in 1970s Italy should probably keep me from offering an opinion (I suppose it’s possible he didn’t get a fair trial), but never mind that: I guess a successful writing career and a comfy seat in a sidewalk cafe counts as time served. Really, the man’s paid his debt to society!