Cambridge poet wins fellowship

Josh Bell, a Cambridge-based poet and Briggs-Copeland lecturer in English at Harvard, was awarded a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, one of 37 poets this year awarded $25,000 to put toward “time and space to create, revise, conduct research, and connect with readers.’’

Bell is the author of two collections, “No Planets Strike’’ (University of Nebraska) and “Alamo Theory’’ (Copper Canyon), which includes poems in the voice of Mötley Crüe’s former front man Vince Neil. (“Sometimes I myself/ wonder what I was thinking then, but those words/ went on to live forever, didn’t they, radioed out/ into the giant midwestern backseat’’). Bell’s poems are dark, strange, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, often cinematic, in a “Paris, Texas’’ meets “Army of Darkness’’ sort of way. As poet Jorie Graham writes of his work, Bell “reminds us of all that is untranslatably American in our experience, as well as our language.’’

NEA grants were also awarded to a number of New England literary organizations, including the Alice James Poetry Cooperative in Farmington, Maine; Zephyr Press, in Brookline; the Boston Review; Boston University’s AGNI Magazine; Emerson College’s Ploughshares; the Massachusetts Review, based in Amherst; Orion Magazine, based in Great Barrington; Tupelo Press in North Adams; and Wesleyan University Press in Middletown, Conn.

Author in the giving spirit

In Forbes Magazine annual rankings of the highest paid authors, James Patterson, who’s sold over 350 million books, took first place for the third year running, having earned a cool $95 million this past year. (Poor Jeff Kinney of Plainville, author of the “Diary of Wimpy Kid’’ series, came in a distant second, netting a mere $19.5 million.) Patterson’s been a benevolent force on the literary scene, donating money to a number of organizations, institutions, and individuals that boost literacy, access to books, and the celebration of reading. For the second year, he’s allotted $250,000 toward his Holiday Bonus Program, which awards $1,000 to $5,000 to employees of independent book stores around the country. Patterson selected 149 booksellers based on nominations from customers, store owners, managers, fellow booksellers, and publishing professionals. A number of local booksellers were honored with a bonus, including Katie Eelman at Papercuts J.P. in Jamaica Plain; Brad Lennon, Serena Longo, and Benjamin Newcomer at Harvard Book Store; Sarah Rettger at Porter Square Books in Cambridge; Valerie Arroyo from the Brewster Book Store on the Cape; and William Carl from Wellesley Books.

Coming out

“The Strays’’ by Emily Bitto (Twelve)

“Heritage of Smoke’’ by Josip Novakovich (Dzanc)

“Her Every Fear’’ by Peter Swanson (William Morrow)

Pick of the week

Betty Sudarsky of Wellesley Books in Wellesley recommends “Mercury’’ by Margot Livesey (Harper): “Does a marriage implode slowly or does it happen in an instant? A family copes with the dangerous obsession a wife develops for a horse stabled where she works. The story is told by both the husband and the wife utilizing alternating viewpoints and beautifully integrates a Scotsman’s reticence and an American woman’s gusto and ambition. Rich supporting characters enhance this morality tale.’’

Nina MacLaughlin is the author of “Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter’’ and can be reached at nmaclaughlin@gmail.com.