TCR Forgotten Pulitzer Series: His Family (1918) by Ernest Poole

First edition, 1917

The Committee Room continues its TCR Forgotten Pulitzer Series with His Family by Ernest Poole, winner of the first Pulitzer Prize in the best novel category. Published in 1917 and given the award in 1918, His Family tells the story of Roger Gale, an aging widower coping with life and trying to keep his family together in rapidly changing Manhattan of the early twentieth century. A New Hampshire Yankee who moved to New York as a young man in the Gilded Age, Roger -- the owner of a news clipping agency -- now finds his single-family, gaslit home surrounded by massive apartment buildings wired with electricity. Motor cars are replacing horse-drawn wagons. Most importantly, the city teems with Catholic and Jewish immigrants and their children. Roger comes to terms with the idea that these newcomers will soon dominate New York, a new kind of New York, and perhaps a better one.

His Family was originally published by Macmillan. The dust jacket of the first edition, depicting the New York skyline dwarfing smaller older homes, was by E.C. Caswell, a leading illustrator. Larry James Gianakos, writing in PPrize.com says the His Family wrapper "may well have been Caswell's masterpiece...a work of great art in and of itself."

TCR Literary Journals Series: The Journal (Ohio State University)

The Committee Room is excited about continuing its Literary Journals Series with a look at The Journal, Ohio State University's venerable literary magazine. Founded as The Ohio Journal in 1973 by the Ohio State English department, The Journal, a quarterly which publishes its Winter and Summer issues in print and its Spring and Fall issues online, specializes in longer stories, excerpts from novels, and writing not easily classified by genre. Robert Duffer of New Pages says that "the patience The Journal provides its writers - and readers - gives it a traditional sense of authority, one that endures."

The Journal was edited from 1985 to1990 by poet David Citino and was then co-edited for many years by novelist and essayist Michelle Herman and poet Kathy Fagan.  In recent years it has become a student-run publication with editorial positions changing hands annually.

TCR Literary Journals Series

The Committee Room's Literary Journals Series offers interviews with editors of some of today's top literary journals.  The editors discuss the challenges they face in putting together a literary publication in a period of economic crisis and rapidly changing technology. They also comment on what they like to see in the submissions pile.    

To read our interview with Nathan Grant of the African-American Review click here

To read our interview with Brenda Miller of the Bellingham Review click here

To read our interview with Chris Fink of the Beloit Fiction Journal click here

To read our interview with Diana May-Waldman and Mitchell Waldman of the Blue Lake Review click here

To read our interview with William O'Rourke of the Notre Dame Review click here










Get informed, not overwhelmed. Read The Committee Room. 

Update on TCR Story of the Month Writer Jean Ryan

Jean Ryan

Jean Ryan, whose story "Paradise" was TCR Story of the Month for March 2012, has a new story, "Waiting for Annie" -- the emotional journey of a woman and a teenage boy brought together by a loved one's medical crisis -- in the Blue Lake Review (June 2012).

To read "Waiting for Annie" click here.


The Committee Room offers links to some of the best new fiction published online.

The Committee Room.  Interesting articles for interested people.

TCR Bookselling Series

The Committee Room's Bookselling Series goes to the source -- booksellers themselves -- to report on the current state of bookselling.  So far, this popular series has profiled --

One More Page Books (Arlington, Virginia)
To read TCR's profile click here

Blue Bicycle Books (Charleston, South Carolina)    
To read TCR's profile click here












Look for more profiles in this timely series.  Coming soon.

The Committee Room.  Interesting articles for interested people.

TCR Story of the Month for July: Something Like Culture Shock by Dennis Vanvick

Dennis Vanvick

The Committee Room is proud to present "Something Like Culture Shock" by Dennis Vanvick as TCR Story of the Month for July.

A well-told tale of an infatuated youth challenged by reality during a "meet the parents" visit to Colombia, "Something Like Culture Shock" is a witty and observant take on cultural differences.

Dennis Vanvick is a retired, self-employed technical consultant. He winters among the eight-million inhabitants of Bogota, Colombia and summers amongst the flora and fauna of northwest Wisconsin. His fiction has appeared in Rosebud, NOÖ Journal, Boston Literary Magazine, The Humanist, Flashquake, Clockwise Cat, Gold Dust, Birmingham Arts Journal, and Wilderness House Literary Review.

Bestsellers List Revisited -- 1962: Katherine Anne Porter Knocks Out J.D. Salinger

First U.S. edition

Fifty years ago, in 1962, Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools spent six months at the top of the New York Times bestsellers list and went on the become the bestselling novel of  the year.  

Released on April Fool's Day, Ship of Fools received mostly positive, sometimes glowing reviews. It quickly moved to the top of the Times list, knocking J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey from the top position. Other books on the Times list that spring were The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone's fictionalized life of Michelanglo, and Harper Lee's now classic To Kill a Mockingbird, which had been on the list for nearly two years.