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Details are coming soon.

He was 90.

Here is his biography from the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

Salon.com ran this profile in 2000.

We reviewed his recent work with Stephen Baxter, "Firstborn," earlier this year.

(Updated, 4:59 p.m)

Finally, here is Sir Clarke himself, reflecting on his 90th birthday.

Dates have been announced for the 2008 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference: July 18-20.

Among the speakers this year: N. Scott Momaday, 1969 Pulitzer Prize winner for "House Made of Dawn," and Candace Millard, a former writer for National Geographic and author of "River of Doubt."

I'm proud that my newspaper is publishing excerpts from this book, which came to the University of North Texas Press via the Mayborn conference.

I've read many holocaust stories over the years; this excerpt has horrors that I'd never come across before. I found the writing to be gripping as well. I was not involved in the process of bringing it to the newspaper, and I'm looking forward to the second excerpt this Sunday.

For more about how the book came to light, Mayborn writer in residence George Getschow had this to say recently. The story also has a video segment attached.

(Illustration by Michael Hogue/DMN Staff)

Book TV has made Joyce Carol Oates' keynote speech available online.

Unless you are a fan of famous people reading lists of important books aloud, I would suggest skipping directly to the second half, where she talks about her own writing. And that part is quite interesting.

As we wrap up what has become Nan A. Talese week here on the blog, here's one final link -- to all the comments non-blog readers left about the dust-up. (Follow the link and click "view results.")

On the one hand, it seems silly that with all the great books and ideas floating around out there, this is the topic that consumed people for the moment.

On the other hand, it's nice to know that what is at its core a literary debate about the meaning of truth can get people so riled up, a year and a half after most of us thought it had been settled.

I asked George Getschow, the Mayborn's writer in residence, for his thoughts on the conference. This is what he had to say:

Like everyone who attends the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest, I think of myself as a storyteller. And when I tell a story, I’m drawn to images that evoke the deepest meaning – the existential and emotional truth of the story.

For me, if there’s one image that defines what the Mayborn Conference story is about it’s Craig Hanley, seated outside the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, surrounded by our confreres requesting his signature on his debut literary nonfiction book, “William & Rosalie.” Directly across from Craig sat Joyce Carol Oates, a literary legend who had just delivered a keynote speech titled “Turning Nonfiction Into Art.” Joyce was also surrounded by a swarm of our confreres and speakers seeking her signature on “On Boxing” and some of her other widely acclaimed books and novels.

Hearing Craig, once a struggling carpenter, chatting about his new book (published by UNT Press and the Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism) and his new life as a writer, was enough to make a grizzly old journalist like me choke up. I set my copy of “William & Rosalie” on his table, asked him to autograph it, and left without saying another word. I didn’t want the throng gathered around Craig to see that the Mayborn’s writer in residence had become a sniveling, teary-eyed mess. I fled for the nearest exit sign. When I returned, I picked up “William & Rosalie,” opened the cover and read, “George, you changed my life for the better with this break…Thanks Brother.”

As spotted on the Critical Mass blog, The New York Times has a piece about their weekend home.

Where, one would presume, Oprah will not be a guest soon.

The video of Nan A. Talese speaking after Joyce Carol Oates' talk has been widely seen via C-SPAN and YouTube (link available via our original story.).

Now, here's something most of you have not heard: audio of the comments that started it all, during Ms. Talese's session on "Hot topics in literary book publishing" Saturday at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference.

The question was asked by freelance book critic Jerome Weeks, who shared the stage with her. The recording was made from the audience, so it's slighlty scratchy in spots. But it lets you hear the remarks unfiltered.

Nan Talese might have put the Mayborn on the map, gossip-wise, but lest we forget the serious literary business that transpired, here is a list of those who walked away with $12,000 in writing prizes.

In the manuscript category:

1st place (and a provisional publishing contract the University of North Texas Press) -- Donna Johnson of Austin for "Holy Ghost Girl."
2nd place -- Susannah Charleson of Dallas for "Scent of the Missing."
3rd place -- Kathleen Hawkins of Flower Mound for "Six Feet Above."

In the personal essay category:

1st place ($3,000 cash prize) -- Julianne McCullagh from Flower Mound for her essay, "Slainte."
2nd place ($2,000 cash prize) -- Joan Donaldson of Fennville, Mich., for "St. George and the Dragon."
3rd place ($1,000 cash prize) -- Jere Pfister of Houston for "The Mystery of the Black Book."

In the research-and-reporting-based essay category:

1st place ($3,000) -- Gary Borders of the Lufkin Daily News for "Tobacco Queen of Texas."
2nd place ($2,000) -- Spencer Campbell of Garland, for "A Troubled Heart."
3rd place ($1,000) -- Erin Burdette of Dallas for "Borrowed from God."

C-SPAN made video of Nan Talese's end-of-the-evening comments available. The link is posted with our original story about the event.

James Frey's embellishments would never have been exposed if Oprah hadn’t sponsored his book. Then, notoriety, zoom. Sales, zoom. Fortune, zoom. Scrutiny, zoom. Scandal, zoom. Because there was money involved, an Internet company specializing in exposing misbehaving celebrities showed him to be a nice guy who had not in fact done these trashy things. On Larry King Live he was reduced to insisting that he was, too, a jailbird and he was, too, a drug addict and alcoholic and the scumbag he said he was. And people ought to stop slandering him by saying he didn't do these scummy things.

This whole strange episode, once again, demonstrates loud and clear how education has failed. The vast multitudes are literalists and believe something is factual or it is untrue. Despite being greatly moved and even changed for the better by this book, they were distraught to learn that they hadn’t been moved or changed at all—because Mr. Frey was not literally as wretched in reality as he had implied in his book. Humanity expect artists to do their agonizing for them. Mr. Frey was supposed to be their scapegoat, and guess what? He didn’t suffer as much as he said he did, maybe not all. He didn't live up to the artist's job description.

So there was but one thing to do. Bring him back onto the show and make him suffer anyway, in public, according to the Puritan Code. Oprah, indignant, had assembled a panel of Grand Inquisitors, and when they were done torturing this Ignacious Reilly of a man, he was probably thinking about how sweet the gas pipe would be about then.

And there was another motive at work. People were angry about lots of things they couldn't control, not the least of which being lying politicians. Was John Kerry a war hero or a cowardly traitor? Did President Bush serve honorably and punctually in the Texas National Guard or was he AWOL? Did he abuse drugs or just alcohol? Were the reasons he gave for invading Iraq true or were they lies?

Did he embellish his story of why he took America to war and if so how is he different from Mr. Frey except in scale? But Oprah couldn't haul President Bush onto her show and give him a colonoscopy with a red-hot poker.

Oh, well. If James Frey didn't really do our agonizing for us, at least he was a good victim.

Here's a story about her comments appearing in tomorrow's paper.

Another quick post to say that the conference overall was earning raves from participants. To a person, speakers from around the country were impressed with the quality of the discussion and the way the conference's focus on nonfiction gives a clarity of purpose to the event.

Joyce Carol Oates, the brightest of the literary lights on the program, delivered a keynote that was, for the first half, worthy of a slightly confused college professor, as she sifted through piles of notes and gave a halting history lesson of the modern narrative.

Then, she opened up and discussed her own writing, focusing on how she came to write "On Boxing." And she sounded like the literary superstar she is.

Her history lesson did contain an exhaustive reading list. We'll be sorting our own pile of notes and attempting to post that later.

There was excitement at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest tonight as Nan Talese, publisher and editorial director of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, gave a passionate defense of "A Million Little Pieces," by James Frey.

Specifically, she criticized Oprah Winfrey and her fans. She says the book remains essentially true and that readers need to trust their own intelligence when reading such material.

We'll have more later, both on her remarks and on the rest of the conference.