Terry Pratchett fans celebrated the fantasy novelist’s birthday yesterday. According to Tor.com, the beloved author of Discworld is also “the most shoplifted author in Britain.”

If you want to celebrate, check out the finalists for the first ever Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Award. The winning novelists gets a £20,000 prize as an advance on a publishing contract. Here’s more about the contest:

These six books will be discussed by the judging panel which includes Sir Terry Pratchett, Rob Wilkins, Editorial Director Simon Taylor, Publicist Lynsey Dalladay and Alex Veasey from The Forbidden Planet. A winner will be announced on the 31st May. Thank you to everyone who took part and sent in your novels, the standard was remarkably high and we had over 500 entries. Apologies for keeping you on tenterhooks, the sixth spot was hotly contested as the standard was so high.

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Do you have a good idea that you dream of turning into a novel? In a long and practical interview at AV Club, novelist Joe Hill reminded aspiring writers that the idea is only the beginning.

You should read the entire interview, it includes thoughts about his new horror-fantasy novel NOS4A2, Hill’s comic book work, his literary relationship to his father, Stephen King.

I think the execution is more important than the ideas. An idea is just an adhesive that you use to stick a reader to a character. But the adhesive doesn’t last for very long. And then if the reader hangs in, they’re only hanging in because they care about that character. It’s almost like—the best and worst bubblegum is Juicy Fruit. Because it tastes so good when you first chew into it, but the flavor goes out of it after about 30 seconds, and then you’re just chewing this nasty lump of concrete. And a good concept can be a little bit more interesting than a stick of Juicy Fruit, it can have a little bit more flavor to it. But I do think all the nutrients are in characters. The satisfying meal is who these people are.

How did an 18-year-old college student in Maryland gain the trust of and get access to TV executives and anchors in New York? “By posting 10 or 15 posts a day meant that the industry knew it was a reliable consistent source,” says Brian Stelter, creator of our sister site TVNewser and now a media reporter for the New York Times and author of the just released book “Top of the Morning.”

As he neared graduation, Stelter had to make a choice: work in TV news, or cover it.

• Part I: Stelter on Being Matt Lauer’s “nemesis”

Essayist David Sedaris will serve as a special guest host on the Selected Shorts radio show from April 28th to May 26th.

The organizers behind Sedaris’ segments plan to broadcast a tribute to David Rakoff, a celebration of Dorothy Parker, and one show focusing on the theme of “Family Values.” For New York listeners, the show airs on WNYC every Sunday on AM 820 at 1pm and on FM 93.9 at 10pm.

Here’s more about the radio show: “There is a theme to each Selected Shorts episode and performance. Several stories are presented around each theme. The stories are always fiction, sometimes classic, sometimes new, always performed by great actors from stage, screen and television who bring these short stories to life.”

Philadelphia Weekly has mounted a petition to put up a historical marker plaque for Isaac Asimov‘s former home in Philadelphia.

They have already collected more than 750 signatures, petitioning the Pennsylvania Historical Marker Commission to celebrate the great science fiction writer’s time in The City of Brotherly Love. Follow this link to sign the petition:

Though he’s often thought of as a New Yorker, he spent three very important landmark years in Philadelphia. From 1942 to 1945, while living and working here during WWII as a chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Isaac Asimov wrote half a dozen of the key stories that comprise his two most influential cultural masterpieces: the Foundation series, which introduced the idea of “psychohistory,” the mathematical modeling of the future; and the Robot series, which introduced the famous Three Laws of Robotics governing how artificial intelligences should behave.

(Via Harflax)

Happy National Poetry Month! All throughout April, we will interview poets about working in this digital age. Recently, we spoke with poet Jonathan Galassi.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux publisher Galassi has written three poetry collections including the 2012 title, Left-Handed. In the past, he served as the poetry editor at The Paris Review.

Check out the highlights from our interview below…

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Brian Stelter, who launched TVNewser almost 10 years ago, is now a published author. “Top of the Morning,” out today, lays bare a tumultuous year for network morning news shows which saw one anchor pack her bags, another face a serious health issue, a ratings leader fall — and lose a quarter of its audience — and an entirely new show launch.

In his first interview for the book, Stelter tells us about the secrecy behind “Top of the Morning,” the access he got, and what he thinks about being called Matt Lauer‘s nemesis.

• Part II, tomorrow: What happens when Brian Stelter Tweets something he shouldn’t?

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

Goodreads has created a massive William Shakespeare flowchart to celebrate the famous author’s birthday today.

We’ve embedded the complete chart below–visit AppNewser to download free copies of all these plays.

If you want all these poems and plays in a single place, you can download a free copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. If you don’t feel like reading a whole play, try Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

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Do you feel like you have failed to reach readers with your writing? Never give up.

Fight Club and Choke novelist Chuck Palahniuk answered reader questions on Reddit this week. When one reader wrote “It’s rare for a writer’s first book to be as successful as Fight Club was,” Palahniuk clarified and shared some inspiring insight into his career:

Please let me address a misperception. ‘Fight Club’ was a huge failure. Most of the hardcovers were going to be pulped. They were unsold when the movie opened… and then the movie was a flop. It has taken years ( decades ) for the story to build an audience. What’s amazing is that it still resonates for young readers; it’s never become dated. ( he shakes his head in disbelief )

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Have you ever wanted to share your life story in a memoir? To get some tips, we caught up with Jon Reiner–the author who teaches Mediabistro’s upcoming Memoir Writing course.

Reiner discussed the back story behind his award-winning memoir, The Man Who Couldn’t Eat, along with advice for writing a great memoir. Check out the highlights from our interview below…

Q: What advice do you have for others who want to write their own memoir?
A: Figure out the story first and test it with a trusted, critical reader or editor. Is the story compelling enough to keep a reader interested? That’s the first test and you can’t fudge it. If you believe the story can work, begin to write in a scene structure to avoid falling into the confessional diary pattern. If you find that it’s moving and scenes are begetting scenes, keep going.

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