The Morning News (online magazine)
Encyclopedia
The Morning News is a U.S.-based daily online magazine founded in 1999 by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack. It began as an email newsletter and in the fall of 2000 evolved into a news-oriented weblog with a New York focus. In October 2002, Baldwin and Womack launched The Morning News as a daily-published online magazine.
The Morning News publishes short pieces of humor, commentary, and personal essays. Other featured sections include Headlines, a twice-daily column of links to interesting, relevant, and obscure news stories and websites; Galleries, which highlights the work of contemporary artists and authors; and the Non-Expert, a satirical advice column. TMN also features a variety of themed blogs, including an interview series called TMN Talks and a book blog, Our Man in Boston, by Robert Birnbaum.
Time
listed the magazine in the 2006 edition of its "50 Coolest Websites" and the Utne Reader
called the site "more nourishing than the newsprint diet that has previously dominated your breakfast."
When the collected Gary Benchley series was published by Plume in September 2005, it was revealed that Gary Benchley was really TMN contributor and Harper's Magazine
webmaster Paul Ford. However, many were fooled by Ford's charade, including the New York Times, which called his book "a sort of Dickens-esque flourish for the digital age."
On the day of the novel's publication, The Morning News published an essay by Ford explaining the story of Gary Benchley, from inspiration to publication.
, who was living in Rome
for a year after winning the Rome Prize
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Doerr's essays addressed his and his wife's challenges living abroad with their infant sons; his many perspectives on Rome; and the funeral of Pope John Paul II
. In June 2007, Doerr published a book, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World, based on the Letters From Rome series.
. The Tournament culminates in the Rooster prize—named in honor of writer David Sedaris
's brother in the short story "You Can't Kill the Rooster." The inspiration for the Tournament of Books came from the idea that while "arbitrariness is inherent in book awards," the Rooster could at least be transparent.
Sixteen books published in the previous year are chosen and matched against each other, with a different judge for each match. Judges read their two assigned books and select one to advance to the next round in written decisions that are published daily on the site. Past judges include Monica Ali
, Helen DeWitt
, Junot Díaz
, Sasha Frere-Jones
, Amanda Hesser
, John Hodgman
, Nick Hornby
, Karl Iagnemma
, Sam Lipsyte
, Colin Meloy
, Dale Peck
, David Rees
, Mary Roach
, and Gary Shteyngart
.
During the 2009 event, Baldwin and Womack were interviewed on NPR's
All Things Considered
. In the interview, Baldwin described Tournament contenders as: "books that have received a lot of hype… books that we've had recommended to us by readers, by friends, by family; books that have won awards, books that maybe got unrecognized or are coming from the independent publishing world."
The Tournament has two rounds, followed by semifinals, followed by a "Zombie Round" in which two books that were eliminated in the first round are re-matched against the two winners of the semifinals. In the final round, there is a head judge, but all the Tournament's judges vote for the winner. Throughout the Tournament, authors Kevin Guilfoile
and John Warner provide commentary on each decision.
Past Rooster Winners in the Tournament of Books
's debut novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, in 2006 The Morning News developed a contest to find a writer who could formulate a "coherent and original piece of fiction completely made from the works of others." Contestants were prompted to plagiarize from at least five works of others and were warned that no single-word lifting was allowed — only direct plagiarism of passages and sentences.
Out of 54 entrants, Bonnie Furlong was chosen the winner of the contest for her story The Parlourmaid's Tale, or, MS in a Dustbin, which, according to Gawker.com
, "served Kaavya her weak ass on a plate."
, a summer-long reading expedition of David Foster Wallace
's Infinite Jest
. The freeform read-along is guided via blog by Morning News contributing writer Matthew Baldwin; participants are urged to read about 75 pages per week and discuss their progress in online forums. The goal of the event, as Womack stated in an interview with the Associated Press, is to put the book "back in the hands of real readers: thousands of them, in fact, on the same page at the same time."
The Morning News publishes short pieces of humor, commentary, and personal essays. Other featured sections include Headlines, a twice-daily column of links to interesting, relevant, and obscure news stories and websites; Galleries, which highlights the work of contemporary artists and authors; and the Non-Expert, a satirical advice column. TMN also features a variety of themed blogs, including an interview series called TMN Talks and a book blog, Our Man in Boston, by Robert Birnbaum.
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
listed the magazine in the 2006 edition of its "50 Coolest Websites" and the Utne Reader
Utne Reader
Utne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs...
called the site "more nourishing than the newsprint diet that has previously dominated your breakfast."
Gary Benchley, Rock Star
In September 2003, The Morning News published the first of 27 installments of a serial titled Gary Benchley, Rock Star, written from the perspective of "a Williamsburg wannabe-indie-rocker" named Gary Benchley.When the collected Gary Benchley series was published by Plume in September 2005, it was revealed that Gary Benchley was really TMN contributor and Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
webmaster Paul Ford. However, many were fooled by Ford's charade, including the New York Times, which called his book "a sort of Dickens-esque flourish for the digital age."
On the day of the novel's publication, The Morning News published an essay by Ford explaining the story of Gary Benchley, from inspiration to publication.
Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World
Between February and August 2005, The Morning News published five essays by Anthony DoerrAnthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr is an American fiction writer. Raised in nearby Novelty, Ohio, he majored in history at Bowdoin College and earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University....
, who was living in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
for a year after winning the Rome Prize
Rome Prize
The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Doerr's essays addressed his and his wife's challenges living abroad with their infant sons; his many perspectives on Rome; and the funeral of Pope John Paul II
Funeral of Pope John Paul II
The funeral of Pope John Paul II was held on 8 April 2005, six days after his death on 2 April. The funeral was followed by the novemdiales devotional in which the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches observe nine days of mourning....
. In June 2007, Doerr published a book, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World, based on the Letters From Rome series.
The Morning News Annual
In 2008, The Morning News began publishing a yearly book of new content and selected online material called The Morning News Annual.The Tournament of Books
In 2005, The Morning News launched the Tournament of Books, an annual literary contest structured like and coinciding with the NCAA basketball tournamentNCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
. The Tournament culminates in the Rooster prize—named in honor of writer David Sedaris
David Sedaris
David Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor....
's brother in the short story "You Can't Kill the Rooster." The inspiration for the Tournament of Books came from the idea that while "arbitrariness is inherent in book awards," the Rooster could at least be transparent.
Sixteen books published in the previous year are chosen and matched against each other, with a different judge for each match. Judges read their two assigned books and select one to advance to the next round in written decisions that are published daily on the site. Past judges include Monica Ali
Monica Ali
Monica Ali is a British writer of Bangladeshi origin. She is the author of Brick Lane, her debut novel, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003...
, Helen DeWitt
Helen DeWitt
Helen DeWitt is a novelist.DeWitt grew up primarily in South America , as her parents worked in the United States diplomatic service...
, Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
, Sasha Frere-Jones
Sasha Frere-Jones
Sasha Frere-Jones is an American writer, music critic, and musician. He has written for Pretty Decorating, ego trip, Hit It And Quit It, Mean, Slant, The New York Post, The Wire, The Village Voice, Slate, Spin, and The New York Times...
, Amanda Hesser
Amanda Hesser
Amanda Hesser is an American food writer, editor and cookbook author. She was the food editor of The New York Times Magazine and the editor of T Living, a quarterly publication of The New York Times.-Life and career:...
, John Hodgman
John Hodgman
John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
, Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is an English novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.-Life and career:Hornby was...
, Karl Iagnemma
Karl Iagnemma
Karl Iagnemma is an American writer and research scientist. The author of several scientific publications in the field of robotics, Iagnemma is also known through his short stories on human-robotic relationships....
, Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte
Sam Lipsyte is an American novelist and short story writer.The son of the sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, Sam Lipsyte was born in New York City and raised in Closter, New Jersey...
, Colin Meloy
Colin Meloy
Colin Patrick Henry Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland, Oregon, folk-rock band The Decemberists. In addition to vocals, he performs with an acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, harmonica, percussion and interpretive hand gestures.-Early life...
, Dale Peck
Dale Peck
Dale Peck is an American novelist, critic, and columnist. His 2009 novel, Sprout, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Children's/Young Adult literature, and was a finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in the Children's and Young Adult Literature category.-Biography:Peck was raised in Kansas,...
, David Rees
David Rees (cartoonist)
David Thomas Rees is a left-wing cartoonist and humorist whose best-known work combines bland clip art with outrageous "trash talk" to incongruous effect...
, Mary Roach
Mary Roach
Mary Roach is a columnist and popular science writer. Raised in Etna, New Hampshire, she holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wesleyan University and currently resides in Oakland, California...
, and Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.-Life:...
.
During the 2009 event, Baldwin and Womack were interviewed on NPR's
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
. In the interview, Baldwin described Tournament contenders as: "books that have received a lot of hype… books that we've had recommended to us by readers, by friends, by family; books that have won awards, books that maybe got unrecognized or are coming from the independent publishing world."
The Tournament has two rounds, followed by semifinals, followed by a "Zombie Round" in which two books that were eliminated in the first round are re-matched against the two winners of the semifinals. In the final round, there is a head judge, but all the Tournament's judges vote for the winner. Throughout the Tournament, authors Kevin Guilfoile
Kevin Guilfoile
-Biography:Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, Guilfoile was raised in Cooperstown, New York, where his father was an executive at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Guilfoile graduated from The University of Notre Dame in 1990, and worked briefly in media relations for the Houston Astros baseball club...
and John Warner provide commentary on each decision.
Past Rooster Winners in the Tournament of Books
- 2005: Cloud Atlas by David MitchellDavid Mitchell (author)David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist. He has written five novels, two of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize.- Biography :...
- 2006: The AccidentalThe AccidentalThe Accidental is a 2005 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. It follows a middle-class English family who are visited by an uninvited guest, Amber, while they are on holiday in a small village in Norfolk. Amber's arrival has a profound impact on all the family members. Eventually she is cast out...
by Ali SmithAli SmithAli Smith is a British writer.She was born to working-class parents, raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at the University of Aberdeen and then at Newnham College, Cambridge, for a PhD that was never finished. She worked as a lecturer at University of... - 2007: The RoadThe RoadThe Road is a 2006 novel by the American author Cormac McCarthy.The Road may also refer to:* The Road , a 2001 Kazakhstani film* The Road , a 2009 film adaptation of the McCarthy novel...
by Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road... - 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a best-selling novel written by Dominican author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised and deals explicitly with his ancestral homeland's experience under dictator Rafael Trujillo...
by Junot DíazJunot DíazJunot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience... - 2009: A MercyA MercyA Mercy is Toni Morrison's 9th novel. It was first published in 2008. A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery in early America. It is both the story of mothers and daughters and the story of a primitive America. It made the New York Times Book Review list of "10 Best Books of 2008"...
by Toni MorrisonToni MorrisonToni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved... - 2010: Wolf HallWolf HallWolf Hall is a multi-award winning historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a fictionalized biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex in the court of Henry VIII of...
by Hilary MantelHilary MantelHilary Mary Mantel CBE , née Thompson, is an English novelist, short story writer and critic. Her work, ranging in subject from personal memoir to historical fiction, has been short-listed for major literary awards... - 2011: A Visit From the Goon SquadA Visit From the Goon SquadA Visit From the Goon Squad is a work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. It won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
by Jennifer EganJennifer EganJennifer Egan is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction....
The "Sloppy Seconds With Opal Mehta" Contest
In light of the plagiarism controversy that surrounded novice author Kaavya ViswanathanKaavya Viswanathan
How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is a young adult novel by Kaavya Viswanathan, an Indian-American woman who wrote it just after she graduated from high school. Its 2006 debut was highly publicized, but the book was withdrawn after allegations that portions had been plagiarized...
's debut novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, in 2006 The Morning News developed a contest to find a writer who could formulate a "coherent and original piece of fiction completely made from the works of others." Contestants were prompted to plagiarize from at least five works of others and were warned that no single-word lifting was allowed — only direct plagiarism of passages and sentences.
Out of 54 entrants, Bonnie Furlong was chosen the winner of the contest for her story The Parlourmaid's Tale, or, MS in a Dustbin, which, according to Gawker.com
Gawker.com
Gawker is a newsmagazine/blog based in New York City that bills itself as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip" and focuses on celebrities and the media industry....
, "served Kaavya her weak ass on a plate."
Infinite Summer
Starting in June 2009, The Morning News sponsored Infinite SummerInfinite Summer
Infinite Summer was an online book club-style project started by writer Matthew Baldwin. Sponsored by The Morning News, participants were challenged to read and complete David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest at a rate of about 75 pages a week from June 21 to September 22, 2009.Baldwin and...
, a summer-long reading expedition of David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
's Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest is a 1996 novel by David Foster Wallace. The lengthy and complex work takes place in a semi-parodic future version of North America, and touches on tennis, substance addiction and recovery programs, depression, child abuse, family relationships, advertising and popular entertainment,...
. The freeform read-along is guided via blog by Morning News contributing writer Matthew Baldwin; participants are urged to read about 75 pages per week and discuss their progress in online forums. The goal of the event, as Womack stated in an interview with the Associated Press, is to put the book "back in the hands of real readers: thousands of them, in fact, on the same page at the same time."