Giorgio Bassani

Postcard SG-171940 from Singapore shows a portrait of Giorgio Bassani by artist L. Lee. Giorgio Bassani (March 4, 1916 – April 13, 2000) was an Italian writer, poet, and editor. He was best known for the Oscar Award winning movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis in 1970, based on his 1962 novel Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini exploring the city of Ferrara with its Christian and Jewish elements of life.

Camp NaNoWriMo Starts Today

Postcard PL-766352 from Poland shows a stack of books. Many aspiring and experienced writers are familiar with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), if have not actually participated one themselves. Organized every year in November, the 30-day-deadline-imposed event attracted more than 500,000 authors in 2014 and had produced a number of best selling books both traditionally and self-published.

To accommodate the participants' requests of flexibility in timing and the word counts, Camp NaNoWriMo, offered in April and July, is a month-long virtual writer’s retreat with a camping theme. Writers can choose to join a virtual cabin that consists of 11 other cabin mates from around the world. Unlike the typical high pressured NaNoWriMo, camp participants can write other type of projects, including poetry, screenplays, short stories, in addition to novels. Rather than the NaNoWriMo's mandatory 50,000 word counts, camp writers can also set their own targets.

National Novel Writing Month

The Dream Merchant by Isabel Hoving

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an annual novel writing project that, running its 15th year from November 1 to November 30, 2013, brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world.

If you are not writing a book this month, please at least try to read one. Postcard NL-2096226 from the Netherlands shows an illustration for the book "De gevleugelde kat" by Isabel Hoving. The book is the winner of the Netherlands’ most prestigious children’s book award. Its English version "The Dream Merchant" was translated by Hester Velmans and published by Candlewick Press, Cambridge, MA in 2005. You can find a copy from Amazon.