LOCAL

LOCAL

Book signing

BOARDMAN — Youngstown author Sam Moffie will be signing copies of his book, “Swap,” from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble in the Shops at Boardman Park, 381 Boardman-Canfield Road. He also will discuss his second novel, “The Organ Grinder and the Monkey,” to be released in 2008.

Open poetry readings

YOUNGSTOWN — Pig Iron Literary & Art Works, 26 N. Phelps St., will hold its Second Tuesday Open Poetry Reading on Tuesday at Tomasino’s Pizza & More, 103 Federal Plaza West. Participants may sign up at the door until 7:45 p.m. Readings will begin at 8. For more about the organization and its activities, call (330) 747-6932.

NATIONAL

Prof.’s speech to be book

NEW YORK — A dying professor’s inspirational speech, an Internet sensation this fall, will be published next spring by Hyperion Books. Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, gave a lecture in September in which he spoke of suffering from pancreatic cancer and likely having just months to live. A video of the speech soon began spreading online, attracting millions of viewers, and the 47-year-old Pausch eventually gave television interviews to Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric and others.

The book will be called “The Last Lecture” and will be written with the Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Zaslow. Financial terms were not disclosed, although the deal has been widely reported to be worth more than $6 million.

Critics choices

NEW YORK — John Updike, Anne Tyler and Walter Isaacson were among the more than 100 authors who participated in a poll initiated by the nation’s book critics on the year’s best releases. Novels by Philip Roth and Michael Chabon and a memoir by Edwidge Danticat were among those cited.

Authors and critics chose five works in each of three categories: fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The winners were novelist Junot Diaz’s “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Danticat’s “Brother, I’m Dying” and, in a three-way tie for poetry, Robert Hass’ “Time and Materials,” the late Zbigniew Herbert’s “Collected Poems” and Robert Pinsky’s “Gulf Music.”

Also mentioned were Roth’s “Exit Ghost,” Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” and two recent winners of the National Book Award: Denis Johnson’s Vietnam War novel, “Tree of Smoke,” and Tim Weiner’s CIA history, “Legacy of Ashes.”

Starting in 2008, the critics circle will issue a monthly list of recommended picks.

AWARDS

Moonbeam (new)

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Publishing and book marketing service provider Jenkins Group Inc., and Independent Publisher Online Magazine, held the first Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards to honor the year’s best children’s books, authors and illustrators and support childhood literacy and life-long reading. .

The awards presentation was held last month at the Harold Washington Public Library in Chicago in conjunction with the 2007 Children’s Humanities Festival. The Moonbeam Awards announcement kicked off a special literacy event — “Bookstalk: A Celebration of Reading and Storytelling” — where the winning books were on display and their authors read to children and families in attendance.

A total of 862 entries in 25 categories — from alphabet books to young adult novels — were received from authors and publishers in 45 U.S. states, six Canadian provinces, and seven other countries and judged by expert panels of youth educators, librarians, booksellers and book reviewers. Award recipients received gold, silver and bronze medals depicting a mother and child reading and silhouetted by a full moon.

Special awards recognized books dealing with three childhood causes: the Peacemaker Award inspired by Mattie J.T. Stepanek (1990-2004); the Kids for Saving Earth Award inspired by Clinton Hill (1978-1989); and the Childhood Wellness Award. For a complete list of winners, visit www.independentpublisher.com.

Cervantes Prize

MADRID, Spain — Argentine poet Juan Gelman, who wrote about the pain of loss under his country’s military juntas, has won the $133,000 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s top literary award. Gelman, 77, has published more than 20 books since 1956, including “The Game We’re Playing” and “Under Someone Else’s Rain, and is widely considered to be Argentina’s leading contemporary poet. His poems address his Jewish heritage, family, Argentina and his painful experience as a political activist during his country’s 1976-83 “dirty war,” an ordeal that led him to flee to Europe. His son and daughter-in-law vanished as part of the crackdown during Argentina’s military dictatorship, but in 2001, he managed to track down a granddaughter who was born in captivity and adopted by a military family from Uruguay.

AAP Honors

NEW YORK — The nation’s weary and worried book critics, who have endured cutbacks in newspapers around the country, are getting a pat on the back from the industry they cover.

The Association of American Publishers announced last week that it will give its annual AAP Honors prize, for “significant achievements in promoting American books and authors,” to the National Book Critics Circle.

“As newspapers across the country slashed book review space and fired experienced book editors in the name of belt-tightening, the NBCC decided to fight back,” the AAP said in a statement, noting the NBCC’s “Campaign to Save Book Reviews,” which has included panel discussions, blogs and interviews with book editors “in the trenches.”

The NBCC was founded in 1974 and has around 800 members.

Previous winners of the award, to be presented next March at the AAP’s annual meeting, include Oprah Winfrey, Dolly Parton and USA Today.

Combined dispatches