April 1996

Haven't heard from your favorite author in a while? Curious to know if another book is on the way? Send us a note (email and snail mail address below) and we'll see what we can find out for you. Each month the BookPage Burning Questions staff goes to the ends of the Earth and back again to find the answers to our readers' most burning questions. The answers are printed each month, both online as well as in our print edition. Go ahead, try to stump us!

Cliff-hanging

Dear Burning Questions:
Greetings! Do you know when Stephen King's next book in his Dark Tower series is due to be released? The last ended with a cliffhanger, and I am getting impatient!

Thanks,
Drew Wiest
via the Internet

Well, we have good news and bad news.
The good news is that Stephen King does have a new serialized novel in six parts, the first book of which is available this month. This first installment is called The Green Mile #1: The Two Dead Girls (Signet, $2.99).

The bad news is that King has not even begun to write the next book in the Dark Tower series, so you will have to wait for at least another year. He hoped to begin writing it last winter.

While you are dangling over the precipice awaiting the next Dark Tower book, why not try The Green Mile? It might be just what you need for a quick fix.

Rollin', rollin', rollin' . . .

Dear Burning Questions:
I was wondering if author Robert Jordan is working on the next book of his Wheel of Time series? If so, when is it going to be released?

Matt Douglas
Mapleton, Utah

The wait is over. Book Seven of The Wheel of Time series, entitled A Crown of Swords, is available this month (Tor, $27.95).

Grassland

Dear Burning Questions:
I have been awaiting word on the release of a translation of Gunther Grass's new work, Ein Weites Feld. I see that his collected poems are scheduled for release in April, but when might this novel become available?

Kevin Crawford
via the Internet

Grass's collection of poetry, Novemberland(Harvest Books, $15 paperback), will be available at the end of April, just in time for National Poetry Month, but his novel, Ein Weites Feld, or A Broad Field, will not be available until the fall.

"A poem should be part of one's sense of life."
--Wallace Stevens

April is the first ever National Poetry Month, established as an annual celebration of poetry and its significance in American culture.

Here is a sampling of poets to whet your appetite for this month's feast of words:

Robert Hass (United States Poet Laureate), Denise Lezertov, Robert Kreely, Linda Pastan, Phillip Levine, Leslie Scalapino, W.S. Merwin, Mary Oliver, Charles Wright, and Nikki Giovanni.

Horace said, "Taught or untaught, we all scribble poetry" (Epistles, bk. II). Now you can decipher the often cryptic scribblings and jottings of some of America's most prominent poets in The Poet's Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets (W.W. Norton, $25, 0-393-03866-1). Poets Stephen Kuusisto, Deborah Tall, and David Weiss have compiled this unique book from the private journals of many of today's most influential writers. From Rita Dove to James Merrill, this book allows you to witness works in progress while giving you passage into the inner sanctum of the poetic mind.

Missing your favorite author? Is something eating you? Write us with your questions, and we'll try to get answers:

Write us with your BQs: Burning Questions, 2501 21st Ave. South, Suite 5, Nashville, TN 37212. Or email us at Burning_Questions@bookpage.com.

Alas, we regret that personal replies are not possible.

©1996, ProMotion, inc.

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