In celebration of Sylvia Plath's 75 th birthday, Smith College will host a one-day Symposium on Saturday 26 April 2008 in honor of the poet through both academic study of her work and celebration of her life. The day will feature morning and afternoon panels with each speaker limited to a twenty minute talk followed by questions. In the evening, family and friends of Sylvia Plath will each read a letter from Plath and reflect on it before taking questions. This event will be free and open to the public. Stay tuned for more information...

Sally Bayley will discuss and promote Eye Rhymes at the following festivals and venues. 6 March 2008 - at Keswick Theatre by the Lake at 1545; tickets are £6. Eye Rhymes & Sally Bayley will also appear at the Oxford Literary Festival first week of April, the Charleston Literary Festival in May, to Yorks in July, and the Edinburgh Festival in August. I will post more information when it is available.

It seems to have been a slow week for things relating to Sylvia Plath, though that is not always a bad thing. Sue Hutchison has an obituary for the late Diane Middlebrook in the San Jose Mercury News . That's about it!! On Thursday I visited the art gallery of Pierre Menard at 10 Arrow Street in Cambridge to view the exhibit on The Writer's Brush . Most of the artworks are for sale, including the "self-portrait" of Sylvia Plath. For just $35,000, you can own the image which appears to the left... The portrait used to be for sale via Ken Lopez, a high-end book dealer with quality stock, however I no longer see it listed on his website. If I remember correctly, there was some controversy over this "Self-portrait". It is debatable, for example, that this is actually Plath pictured. I see very little resemblence. The provenance supports that this is Sylvia Plath's artwork, however.

Sylvia Plath is in the midst of a renaissance. Since the publication of her Unabridged Journals in 2000, hardly a week goes by without her name appearing in the news, and the publication of a succession of books continues to re-evaluate the poets status in the literary world. Although Plath proved to be one of the most contentious, interesting, and passionate writers of the 20 th century, the 21st has been much kinder. The books about Plath published in the last seven years each attempt and succeed to change the way we read her works, examine archival material to enrich our readings, and call our attention to lesser-known poems, stories, and other creative products. This is most evident in Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Visual of the Art edited by Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley . In addition to six wonderful essays by leading scholars, Eye Rhymes publishes for the first time more than 70 art works by Plath. The earliest dates from when she was just seven years old, and

The Writer's Brush , a book compiled by Donald Friedman, is on a traveling exhibit; it is currently at the Pierre Menard Gallery , 10 Arrow Street, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sylvia Plath is featured in the book, and her painting "Two Women Reading" is on the cover. I will try to see it this week, as I work across the street from it. The exhibit is on until 27 January, when it will travel to Denenberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles, California.

This is the first of what I hope will be many weekly summaries of news events including links, reviews, and other miscellany in the world of Sylvia Plath. A recent arcticle about a little known Smith College clothing collection, featuring some of Plath's childhood & adolescent clothing. A review of Edge by Paul Alexander I can support. Another review of Edge , from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin . The Sydney Morning Herald reviews The Letters of Ted Hughes . Jeanette Winterson thinks about Birthday Letters ten years on in this article from the Times of London . Writer Gwynne Garfinkle wrote me about an excerpt from an (as yet unpublished) novel called The Posthumous Life of Eleanor Bell which appears in the most recent issue of A Fly in Amber . Garfinkle's novel features a Plath-like poet who, instead of committing suicide, still lives in London as a vampire (unbeknownst to her cult of fans). We wish her luck. Stephanie Hemphill's Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse P

A Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes' Doomed Love by Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren is now available in paperback by Da Capo. Amazon and Barnes and Noble say that the book ships within 24 hours.

In a recent ABEbooks.com search, I looked at all books by Sylvia Plath and sorted the results by highest price. The copy for sale of the Heinemann edition of The Colossus and other poems , for sale by James Jaffe, recently rose from $50,000 to $65,000. A full description of this fine, rare collectible is here . Not only is the first Heinemann edition of The Colossus highly collectible, but this one is signed by Plath and was given to another highly regarded, famous poet, Theodore Roethke. What makes this book even more valuable is the fact that it is an "association copy". According to the Independent Online Booksellers Association ( IOBA ), a association copy is " A book once belonging to the author, or signed or annotated by the author to someone closely associated with the author of the book or the book itself in some way. Also, a book inscribed by its author to a famous person, or owned by someone of interest." The price of a book can go up for any number

A decade has passed since Ted Hughes published Birthday Letters . Jeanette Winterson published a piece in today's Times of London on that earth-shattering poetry collection and the recent selection of letters, The Letters of Ted Hughes .

Calling all Sylvia Plath book covers! On my website, A celebration, this is , the book cover galleries and photographs receive thousands of hits per month. Do you have any Sylvia Plath book covers that I do not feature on my website? If so, please send me a scanned image of it at at least 200 dpi, and every few weeks I will add them to the web site. I am looking for books by Plath and about Plath, in any language. The pages, specifically, I am referring to are: thumbsbooks.html , thumbsother.html , thumbspoetry.html , thumbsbcm.html , and thumbsnonenglish.html

The Calgary Herald reviews a new play Sylvia Plath Must Not Die , concocted by something or someone called One Yellow Rabbit. Aside from needing serious fact-checking, the review seems positive. For the record, Plath died at age 30, not 31. Just because she was born in 1932 and died in 1963, does not make her 31. Simple math does not apply to birthday's. Also, Anne Sexton did not take her life in her Connecticut home. Weston, Massachusetts is not a part of Connecticut. The play is on at the Vertigo Playhouse through January 12, leaving us only two days. In any event, the link to the playhouse is here and the link to the review is online here .

The Sutton edition of Judith Kroll's Chapters in a Mythology: The poetry of Sylvia Plath is now available in bookstores in the US, and through internet sites such as Amazon.com. The book retails for $14.95, but is available through Amazon.com for only $8.97 (price checked 9 January 2008). The new edition features a expanded and updated Foreword by Kroll.

DaCapo Press will publish shortly a paperback edition of A Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes's Doomed Love by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev. While Amazon.com lists the books publication date as 7 January, Barnes & Noble suggests it is the 28th.

Paul Alexander's one woman play Edge, starring Angelica Torn, will be at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles from Saturday 5 January through 2 March. Shows will be Thursday-Saturday at 8 PM. Also, there will be Sunday matinees at 2 PM on January 13, 20, 27 and February 10, 17; March 2. For more information, please visit the Odyssey website .

Chris Ratcliffe announced today that the Sylvia Plath Forum will close to further discussion following the death in October of Elaine Connell, the moderator. The Sylvia Plath Forum celebrates this month, its 10th anniversary. To the benefit of all Plath scholars, the contributions to the Forum will remain online.