No Pulitzer for fiction this year

Some of the most surprising news out of Monday's Pulitzer Prize announcements revolved around what didn't happen. For the first time in 35 years, Pulitzer officials gave no prize for fiction.

The Washington Post reports that judges had considered three finalists -- the late David Foster Wallace's "The Pale King," Karen Russell's "Swamplandia" and Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams." But they couldn't agree on a winner, so no award was given.

Fiction judges have balked at giving an award before, most recently in 1977.

This year's history prize went to the late Manning Marable's "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention."

The Pulitzer for Biography went to John Lewis Gaddis' "George F. Kennan: An American Life."

The Pulitzer for Poetry went to "Life on Mars" by Tracy K. Smith.

Stephen Greenblatt's "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" won the Pulitzer for General Nonfiction.

The New York Times' Julie Bosman reports that book publishers and bookstores are bummed there's no fiction award this year. A Pulitzer can elevate a little-known author and typically guarantees great sales.

One of the books that had mentioned as a leading contender for the Pulitzer fiction prize was Edith Pearlman's "Binocular Vision: New and Collected Stories." It wasn't a finalist, it turns out, but the good news is that you can hear Pearlman at 7:30 p.m. tonight, April 17, at Davidson College. She's giving a free reading and talk in the college's Sloan Music Center, Tyler-Tallman Hall.

Nancy Drew heads to Appalachian State

Beloved girls' book series heroines Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames and Judy Bolton are now a central focus of the Appalachian State University library's children's literature collection, thanks to a donation from Appalachian English Professor Elaine O'Quinn.

O'Quinn recently donated more than 400 titles from her girls' and boys' series collection to ASU's Belk Library. She'll discuss the collection and books in the girls' series at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 19, in room 421 of the Belk Library.

O'Quinn, who has been collecting girls' series books for more than 20 years, has done research on these series and their young female protagonists. Studies of girls' series books, O'Quinn says, illuminate ideologies and societal expectations placed on girls.

Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh to speak at UNCC

How I prepared for my interview with Ben Huh: Surfed his websites, clicked through lots of photos – of tattoos gone wrong, unintentionally amusing Facebook statuses and, of course, cats with funny captions.

Why I’m writing about funny cat captions: They’re what America is reading.

Huh, 34, is chief executive of Cheezburger, a company with more than 60 humor websites, including failblog.org and icanhascheezburger.com.

On Tuesday, he’ll speak at UNC Charlotte, where he’ll explain how, as a bright-eyed journalism graduate, he turned down a Washington Post internship and went on to become an Internet entrepreneur whose sites attract 500 million page views a month.

Huh didn’t hatch the idea of funny-captioned animal photos, but in 2007, he bought the icanhascheezburger.com website.

The rest is Internet history. Today, his Seattle-based company, with nearly 100 employees, keeps expanding. If you’ve seen a funny-captioned cat photo (“Johnson, clear my schedule. There’s yarn on the floor”), you’ve probably encountered his brand.

All content is user-generated. People submit captioned photos or add captions to others’ photos. Only the best show up on the site. Cheezburger gets 20,000 submissions a day. Getting on a homepage might be harder than getting into Harvard.

As you can imagine, many old-school writers equate Cheezburger’s success with civilization’s decline.

Granted, the cuteness of some content will make you gag. But other photos are pretty funny. The best submissions, Huh told me, come from users savvy about language and culture. Writing humor, after all, isn’t easy.

Huh also assures me that Cheezburger isn’t plotting to replace literature or journalism or correct spelling. His mission is a lot simpler: To make the world laugh for five minutes a day.
Because everybody needs a laugh. Even Huh, who told me he spends time on icanhascheezburger.com most afternoons.

“That’s my little piece of heaven,” he says. “It brings a sense of peace and calm at the end of the day.”

Huh's free talk will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, in McKnight Hall of UNC Charlotte’s Cone University Center.

Bargain-basement prices on used books

Buy books for a song and support Habitat for Humanity of Charlotte at this year's Julia's Cafe & Books spring book tent sale.

It'll be in the Habitat ReStore parking lot, 1133 N. Wendover Road 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Friday and Saturday (April 13 and 14.)

Julia's will be selling more than 10,000 used books in all genres. And you can buy them by the bagful -- $25 for as many as you can stuff into a complimentary Julia's shopping bag.

All proceeds from the sale will be used to build more Habitat homes.

'Warriors' author Erin Hunter in Charlotte Saturday

Erin Hunter will sign copies of her newest book in the Warriors: Omen of the Stars series, "The Last Hope," at noon Saturday, April 14, at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

This super-popular series features clans of cats immersed in heart-stopping adventures.

A poem for people who think they don't like poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month, I give you a poem that I dare you not to enjoy.

"One Boy Told Me" by Naomi Shihab Nye is a found poem. It's composed, as she explains when she recites it in this video, of lines uttered by her son when he was 2 and 3 years old.

My favorite line: "Just think -- no one has ever seen inside this peanut before."

If you like the idea of found poetry, Workman Publishing has a new book of it, "The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry," with contributions from artists such Snooki, John Boehner and Kanye West. It's not Emily Dickinson, but it's good for a few laughs.

Used books? Donate, get a chicken sandwich

The Friends of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library is collecting donated books through Saturday, April 7, for its gigantic annual book sale.

If you've got books, CDs, DVDs or other media you'd like to unload, drop them off at the Cotswold Chick-Fil-A, 4431 Randolph Road, today through Saturday between 5 and 8 p.m..

The donations will be sold at at the Friends of the Library's third annual sale, April 26 through May 5 at South Park Towers, 6100 Fairview Road.

All donations are tax deductible. And if you donate at least four gently used books, you'll get a free Chick-Fil-A sandwich.

Proceeds from the sale go to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg library. Last year's event raised $20,000.
Check here for more info.