News: Submission Calls, The Gent Returns, And We're Still Here

It's been quite a year, what with this one being the end of a 5,000-year Mayan long-count cycle. So yes, we're all still here, because.

Metaphorically though, the world did end for some people, so let's not have too much fun with the failed Mayapocalypse.

On the books front: Amir Muhammad's Fixi now has an imprint for English language books. Fixi Novo has issued a call for submissions on its Facebook page for pulp fiction in "American English". Why can't they use text?

Also, Ianslip Books, a boutique publisher affiliated with Sang Freud Press, is calling for submissions of short story or poetry collections. E-mail them at Ianslip[dot]books[at]gmail[dot]com for more information.

Imran Ahmad, author of The Perfect Gentleman (also known as Unimagined: A Muslim Boy Meets The West) gave an interview in the NST about his book and the coming sequel(s), and his upcoming appearance at MPH, 1Utama on 19 January, from 3pm to 4pm. More details at www.perfect-gent.com.


Elsewhere:

• Research finds that one in 7 kids in the UK has never been to a bookstore.
• Forbes's three predictions for book publishing. Smashwords founder Mark Coker has twenty-one.
• 2012 in publishing, according to publishers: books that made their year, books that should've done better, and books they wish they had published.
• Because these are fun: Eater's most scathing restaurant reviews for 2012.
• Jeet Thayil's (Narcopolis) reflections of Singapore.
• Huh, writers. Sharing caffeine habits in style.
• A writer with a pseudonym-sounding name defends romance in a piece with a whiff of Mills & Boon. Hmm.
• The cloud-sourced novel The Dragon Lords has 13,000 collaborators? Negotiations for royalties should be exciting.
• China is investigating Amazon's e-book business? I wonder what they'll find?
• "'Here be dragons'? Nein!" How technology killed the tall (travel) tale.
• Free books about death and grief might not be such a good idea after Sandy Hook.