Literary Features Syndicate: The Short Story

Nicholas Andrew Basbanes (born May 25, 1943, in Lowell, Massachusetts) is an American author who writes and lectures widely about books and book culture. In 1978, he was appointed books editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram, a full-time position that included writing a weekly column for which he would interview more than a thousand authors over the next twenty-one years. When Basbanes left the newspaper in 1991 to complete his first book, he continued writing the column and distributed it through Literary Features Syndicate, an agency that he formed that placed it in more than thirty publications nationwide.

Nicholas A. Basbanes is the author of nine works of cultural history, with a particular emphasis on various aspects of books, book history, and book culture. His first, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, was a finalist in 1995 for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His most recent, On Paper: The Everything of Its Two Thousand Year History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities research fellowship in 2008, and was selected as one of three finalists for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for 2014. It was also named a notable book of the year by the American Library Association, one of the best books of the year by Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Mother Jones,and Bloomberg News, and a “favourite” book of 2013 by the National Post (Canada). A paperback edition was issued by Vintage Press in 2014. He is now working on a new book for Alfred A. Knopf, a dual biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his wife, Frances Appleton Longfellow.

Today, with the relentless demise of print newspapers, Literary Features Syndicate is squarely in the domain of the world wide web, and under the aegis of Barbara Basbanes Richter continues the tradition of author profiles and book reviews.

Barbara also interviews authors, illustrators and others in the book world for Fine Books and Collections Magazine (FB&C). She’s written about spy libraries, Emily Dickinson for the 21st century, book arts programs for children, Alice in Wonderland‘s 150th birthday (cover story FB&C Fall 2015), Shakespeare on Letterpress, even bibliotherapy and how ISIS funds its terror programs by selling antiquarian books. An essay about danger in children’s literature appeared in the Spring 2015 issue of The Sewanee Review. Other publications include reviews and profiles for High Country News, Ravishly.com, FACES Magazine, and FSR Magazine.

Barbara is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle.

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