About Contemporary Literary Criticism Select

Introduction

Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC) is the world's leading resource for information on modern literature. Since the appearance of the first volume of CLC in 1973, students, teachers, librarians, and other researchers have grown to depend on this RASD Award-winning reference work for timely critical analysis of key literary works.

Now, CLC Select offers not only the benefits of online access to this information but also, for the first time, provides subject-term accessibility and an overall index that extends to every volume in this extensive series.

Scope of CLC Select

CLC Select presents significant published criticism on the works of novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers, and other creative writers now living or who died after January 1, 2000. A strong emphasis is placed on including criticism of works by established authors who frequently appear on syllabuses of high school and college literature courses.

Each entry contains the following: a biographical essay that discusses the author's life, works, and critical importance; critical essays or excerpts taken from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers, and scholarly journals; and, where available, interviews with featured authors. A complete bibliographical citation prefaces each critical essay and most essays are introduced by a brief annotation that establishes a context and purpose for the criticism. Entries also provide suggestions for further reading.

About Contemporary Authors

Introduction

For more than 30 years, Contemporary Authors (CA) has been the primary resource for information on modern authors, including those who were active prior to 1960 and whose works continue to influence contemporary literature.

Scope of CA

A bio-bibliographical guide, CA covers more than 124,000 current writers in a wide range of media, including:

• current writers of fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, and drama whose works have been issued by commercial publishers, risk publishers, or university presses (authors whose works have been published only by known vanity or author-subsidized firms are usually not included)
• prominent print and broadcast journalists, editors, photojournalists, syndicated cartoonists, screenwriters, television scriptwriters, and other media people
• authors who write in languages other than English, provided their works have been published in the United States or translated into English; and
• literary greats of the early twentieth century whose works are popular in today's high school and college curriculums and continue to elicit critical attention.

A CA listing entails no charge or obligation. Authors are included on the basis of the above criteria and their interest to CA users. Sources of potential listees include trade periodicals, publishers' catalogs, librarians, and other users.

As of May, 2006, CA contains the most recent, complete author entries from the following products:

• Contemporary Authors, Volumes 1-240
• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Volumes 1-148
• Contemporary Authors Permanent Series, Volumes 1-2
• Contemporary Canadian Authors
• Plus, additional entry updates loaded on a biweekly basis