Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

Today's edition of Saturday Sharing will take you to a site addressing all things Iranian; show you around artist Trong G. Nguyen's library, where all the "books" are made with rice grains; introduce you to Britain's first Children's Laureate Quentin Blake, who is the subject of a new iTunes app; spotlight an online literary magazine for writers who are women; celebrate Charles Dickens with Cambridge University Press, which recently published a facsimile edition of Great Expectations; and leave you moved by an animation of a Charles Bukowski poem.

✦ If you're a writer, you'll want to take stock of Women Writers, Women Books, an online literary magazine launched in 2011 for, by, and about contemporary writers who are women. The reviews, writing advice, publishing how-to, and marketing and promotion tips come from women around the world who write in English. The magazine welcomes guest blog posts; submission guidelines are here.

Women Writers on Facebook and Twitter

✦ Though ad-heavy, the site Payvand carries some interesting and informative features related to art, books, dance, fashion, film, music, photography, and poetry by Iranians and Iranian-Americans. Self-described as "a window into Iran through which we can promote understanding, dialogue, and peace", Payvand also addresses human rights, the environment, technology, and other subjects of importance.

✦ Known for his wonderful illustrations for Roald Dahl stories, Britain's first Children's Laureate Quentin Blake is the subject of a recently released iTunes app: Quentin Blake: As Large as Life. Included are a gallery of high-resolutions images of work that Blake created for hospitals in the United Kingdom and France, an artist interview in which Blake talks about his work methods, and information about two limited-edition prints available for purchase. The material derives from an exhibition in London at The Foundling Museum on view through April 15.

✦ Celebrating the great writer's 200th birthday, Cambridge University Press has published a fascimile edition of Charles Dicken's Great Expectations titled The Manuscript of Great Expectations (December 2011), complete with corrections and alterations in the author's hand. (Some close-ups of pages from the manuscript at here.) Dickens gave the manuscript to a close friend, Chauncy Hare Townshend, who bequeathed it to the Wisbech and Fenland Museum in 1868. For the facsimile, CUP newly photographed the manuscript and reproduced it at size in color. 

✦ Vietnamese-born and New York-based artist and curator Trong G. Nguyen has created an unusual library. Each of his "books" is made of rice kernels, each grain of which carries a single word in ink, all combined comprising either the complete text or an individual "chapter"; the title of the book, which carries due dates stamped in black or red, is written on gold-painted rice grains. Among  Nguyen's re-creations in rice are all of Roland Barthes's La chambre claire (Camera Lucida), a collection of 48 mylar packets of rice kernels; Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper; and Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, all shown here. Additional projects are described here.

✦ Today's feature video is the gorgeous "Bluebird" animation by Monika Umba of a Charles Bukowski poem published in the 1992 anthology The Last Night of the Earth Poems. The animation does not include the poem's text. To hear Bukowski (1920-1994) read his own poem, go here (the text is provided with the audio).

My thanks to Moving Poems, Brain Pickings, and The Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog, where the video has been highlighted. 

A selection of poems by Bukowski can be found here and here.