Creative Buzz: May 2006

We’re so proud. Philadelphia writer-at-large Jason Fagone weighs in on the world of competitive eating — a topic he’s written about for this magazine — with Horsemen of the Esophagus (Crown; $24). … Wynnewood kids’ book writer and illustrator Gene Barretta hops on the Ben Franklin birthday train with Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin, chronicling such clever creations as a butter-churning rocking chair (Henry Holt; $16.95). … Philly school administrator Salome Thomas-El follows up his memoir, I Choose to Stay, with the inspirational The Immortality of Influence, about making a difference in kids’ lives; the foreword’s by Will Smith (Kensington; $23). … Jane Austen in Boca writer Paula Marantz Cohen, a Drexel English prof, channels Persuasion vis-à-vis the modern college admissions game in Jane Austen in Scarsdale, or Love, Death, and the SATs (St. Martin’s Press; $23.95).