Category Archives: writing/blogging/publishing related

writing, blogging, publishing

Nobody Knows Anything (About Publishing)

May 9, 2010Politics and Culture, Things that Piss Me off from The NY Times, writing/blogging/publishing relatedebooks, media, publishing, publishing industry, self-publishing, state of publishingMarion

The title phrase was of course coined by screenwriter William Goldman and refers to the entertainment industry. It is most applicable now to publishing though I thought of calling this blog, There’s Something Happening Here, but then got afraid that ASCAP would come after me.

I’m just an interested bystander, and my theories aren’t worth the paper they aren’t printed on, but I’ve been doing some reading and have listed below some interesting pieces. What’s it mean? Draw your own conclusions and by all means, feel free to drop by and spout off your opinion and relevant links.

Here goes:

Publish or Perish from The New Yorker in which Ken Auletta explains how big publishing is hoping the IPad will break Kindle’s hold on the ebook market and allow publishers to charge print prices for ebooks because of course we all know that that will save the book business. (If you go to The New Yorker’s website you’ll also see lots of blogs, letters and articles on related topics.)

The Rise of Self-Publishing in which The New York Times not only discovers self-publishing, but declares it respectable! (which means that it’s now officially over.)

Man Bites Dog, no that’s not the name of it, but here’s an article from Publisher’s Weekly explaining why award winning writer John Edgar Wideman decided to publish a story collection on Lulu.

There’s More to Publishing Than Meets the Screen by Jonathan Galassi. The head of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux makes a not so subtle case for why publishers should hold digital rights FOREVER. This was as the youts say a pretty lulz-worthy piece of work and led to many responses including one of my own, though my favorite was by Heather Michon in Open Salon who boiled Galassi’s point down to “There is no “I” in book.”

You could also do worse than check out The Militant Writer blog in which Mary Walters takes a hard look at the industry. One of my favorites from that site is a piece where she blames literary agents for the mess. Some of the more blogactive agents posted replies making the discussion uh spirited.

Happy reading!

(Update: Not too many comments at this obscure website, but there is an ongoing discussion over on a thread on Authonomy. Anyone can “listen” in, though you’d need to register on the site to participate.)

Proud Independents — Five Books You Won’t Find in Chains

April 8, 2010book reviews, Politics and Culture, Uncategorized, writing/blogging/publishing relatedBabylon, Dorkismo, ebooks, Glimpses of a Floating World, Harbour, independent-publishing, Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, Year 0Marion

A trip to any indistinguishable chain bookstore will tell you what you need to know about the current crisis in publishing — glossy-covered bestsellers by the usual suspects, characters from classics transformed into “vampyres” and zombie-killers, second-rate celebrities eager to tell all. But where are the fresh new writers? Where are the strong stories and original voices?

Sadly, the big publishing houses are taking fewer chances and more emerging authors are self-publishing. It’s easy to create your own micro-imprint, and on-line nobody knows you’re a POD (print-on-demand). While getting onto store shelves is difficult, the web has made it simple for authors to market themselves, and e-books offer a great way to break in. For a writer, uploading a book on Kindle is as easy as sending an e-mail, and companies like Smashwords offer free e-publishing in ALL digital formats.

While this creates opportunities for writers, it creates confusion for readers. With so many books, what’s to read? Without the traditional gatekeepers — agents and publishers — how do you find books that are high quality, original and well-written?

Fortunately, e-books can usually be “sampled” before purchase, and most online booksellers allow you to “browse” print versions electronically. If you are an e-book aficionado or ready to take the plunge into print-on-demand, here are five great picks.

1) Dorkismo — The Macho of the Dork , by Maria Bustillos (2009) — available in paperback and on Kindle.

In a series of brilliant, accessible and funny essays, LA-based cultural critique, Maria Bustillos posits that the dorks are saving civilization. Her revolutionary manifesto celebrates true self-expression. In a world where hipness has become a commodity signified by the proper attire and technology, a world of branding, where children refuse to go to school without designer clothing, Dorkismo is the antidote. All the important creative thinkers and innovators are dorks, she tells us. They/we/us are the true iconoclasts. This is more than simple cultural critique. It’s self-help that’s nothing short of inspirational.

Bustillos, by offering her examples of authentic coolness, urges readers to be proud of who they are and their intellectual pursuits and obsessions — even if they involve fluency in one or more fictional languages. Her motto, “to thine own self be cool,” redefines hip making it clear that creativity, art and even happiness come from following your own path, enjoying yourself, and learning to embrace your dork-nature.

2) Babylon, Daisy Anne Gree (2009) — available in paperback and as a FREE e-book in all digital formats.

Gree published this novel in association with Year Zero a writers’ collective dedicated to “restoring the direct conversation between reader and writer.” Babylon, barely more than novella length, is a stunning debut.

Fired from a restaurant job in San Francisco, schizophrenic Daniel attempts suicide and winds up back in his parent’s old house in his small Texas hometown of Babylon. Voice is everything in fiction and Gree has it. Daniel’s head is not a comfortable or pleasant place to be, but Gree brings us there in a way that’s true and sharp. She teaches us more about the mind of a schizophrenic than anyone is likely to get from a medical or psychiatric textbook. Gree goes beyond the writing workshop adage, “Show don’t tell.” Her descriptions are simple yet visceral, and they hit like a shot of mescaline straight to the heart.

Chapter one begins in the restaurant where Daniel is working:

“I counted my breath in and out, rough and ragged. A fractious rhythm among the others, the slamming oven doors and the clanking plates, that surrounded me. The air inside was so thick and heavy that breathing felt like drowning. As the seconds wore on, one noise began to swell and smother the rest: the slow and steady buzzing of the fluorescent bulb above my head. It was feverish and nauseating, as jarring as a jackhammer on asphalt.”

By the time Daniel comes home and slashes his wrist, we’ve seen the shadows jumping from the walls and heard the voices calling his name. We understand the desperation that drives his actions.

While this all sounds bleak, and it is, there’s also a deadpan humor that shows itself in snatches of dialogue and imagery that is achingly beautiful throughout.

3) Harbour, by Paul House (2009) — available in hardcover, paperback and coming to Kindle.

Harbour, a historical novel set against the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, was initially published by the author through Lulu as a POD. It was recently picked up by Dragon International Arts, a small publisher in the UK.

At over 400 pages and with several story-lines, Harbour, is better suited to print than digital. Its characters include an elderly drug-lord, his beautiful young wife, a mixed-race girl, a British doctor, a Japanese barber with a secret, an embittered invalid and assorted others. None are especially heroic which is both the novel’s strength and probably the reason it wasn’t picked up by a major publisher. If you’re a fan of formulaic historical fiction — the Michener model, this isn’t for you. It’s character-driven even as history unfolds. Which is not to say, that there isn’t plenty of attention to historical detail.

As we read, patterns begin to emerge within the tapestry before us. We understand more of the connections between characters and the focus shifts to two couples — Tung Nien, the drug-lord’s wife and her lover Dr. Laughton — a married, British ex-pat, and Molly a mixed-race girl taken in by Tung Nien and Molly’s friend, Wu.

Laughton and Tung Nien are in an impossible situation. They’ve gone from having an affair to being truly, deeply, passionately in love with each other. Their story of longing and compromise becomes one with which any reader can identify. Molly, our young heroine, has ideals and innocence. She’s probably the most heroic of the bunch — the least cynical and sullied, while her beau, Wu on the precipice of manhood, may make the wrong choice. When the chaos of the invasion finally arrives, these are the four we hope will emerge not only alive but somehow, against the odds, with each other.

Without giving anything away, one can report that the ending was deeply satisfying.

4) Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, by Dan Holloway — available in paperwork and FREE in all e-book formats.

This is a book truly made for the digital age — hip, sensuous, smart and very up to date. Holloway is the founder of the Year 0 collective and believes that making books available for free digitally is one way to grow readership. Songs has become the number one most downloaded literary novel on the e-book publishing site, Smashwords.

Szandrine was born in Hungary shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. Abandoned by her British mother, she was raised by her father on a family-owned vineyard. Szandrine is part of the Budapest art scene and lives with her girlfriend, Yang — a sculptor.

Set in 2006-2007, besides it’s exotic setting, what sets this novel apart is the invention of a truly contemporary character. Szandrine, at seventeen, is post-Wall Europe, at ease with the non-issue of her sexuality, and more at home in certain corners of the Internet than anywhere else.

New Year’s Eve 2006, Szandi witnesses a tragedy during riots in Budapest. What she sees impels her to explore her past and brings her to an understanding of her future. The story unfolds in real time, flashbacks, letters and in chat-rooms.

It’s a complicated tale involving the recall of an online friendship with a dead man, a mysterious letter, and an unsatisfactory reunion between Szandrine and her mother. Holloway, never loses control and the strands are woven together with the connections becoming clear. As Szandrine explores her recent and more distant history, she comes into her own with knowledge and wisdom.

With flashbacks, and switches in time and location, this may not be the easiest narrative to follow, but it captures the rhythms and nuisance of how we live now in a way that has rarely been done better.

5) Glimpses of a Floating World, by Larry Harrison, (2009) — available in paperbook and FREE in all e-book formats.

Larry Harrison’s dark and dazzling first novel, Glimpses-of-a-Floating-World takes its title from the phrase used to describe the red-light district of 18th century Edo, now known as Tokyo. Edo’s floating world was a haven of pleasure and illusion, filled with kabuki actors, geishas and courtesans. Harrison’s work is set in London’s Soho, 1963, its denizens — anarchists, mods, rockers, beats, and others, among them our protagonist, seventeen year-old, heroin addict, Ronnie “Fizz” Jarvis who loves feeling that he is part of “the scene.”

Harrison skillfully allows the reader to identify with Ronnie despite the character’s being vain, selfish and occasionally cowardly. He is, after all, an adolescent trying to understand the world and his place in it. Ronnie reminds us of other young, unreliable characters reaching adulthood in an imperfect world. The reader is immediately aware that no matter what else happens, Ronnie will either grow and change, or he will not. We root for Ronnie’s potential, hoping he will live to tell the tale.

Glimpses is well-plotted, taut and suspenseful. Ronnie becomes a reluctant police informant and tensions rise as we head towards a likely bloody conclusion.

Harrison who has written nonfiction books on alcohol and drug issues, seamlessly weaves in the growing panic over narcotics. Britain — influenced by the US — was changing its policies, moving from treating addiction as a public health issue to criminalizing addicts. Ronnie is as much a victim of these changes as he is of his abusive father and his own romanticized self-destruction.

Glimpses of a Floating World is described on its back cover as “a lyrical and triumphant elegy to a seedy, vice-ridden London of the 1960’s. ” It is that, but also a tale of familial tragedy, a history lesson, a novel that offers much more than simple glimpses. It reads like a lost classic.

(This posting originally appeared as a guest blog at can also be found as a guest blog at LA Books Examiner.)

Missed all the movies? This Oscars Live-Blog is For You!

March 7, 2010Politics and Culture, writing/blogging/publishing relatedAcademy Awards, awful woman at the Oscars, entertainment, funny Oscar blogs, humour, liveblogging, liveblogging Oscars, movies, Oprah at the OscarsMarion

8:35: Enjoyed the cheezy opening number with Neil Patrick Harris. It was retro and funny while being awkward and amateurish. It reminded me of why I used to like the movies.

8:41: Martin and Baldwin. Now it’s just non sequitiers and in-jokes. Par for the course. But Steve and Alec seem to be having fun.

It all reminds me of being a kid and watching Bob Hope and old Hollywood and now Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are old Hollywood.

8:44: Penolope Cruz presenting supporting actor. My better half just started to pay attention.

I have not seen anything this year! But from what I heard Waltz deserved it.

8:50: Ryan Reynolds? Brian Reynolds? WTF. Who is this person? Boy, do I not want to see The Blind Side! Was it written by randomly putting together cliches?

8:56: Animation…. Oh crap — Waltzing with Bashir was how many years ago?

9:02 — Why does Miley Cyrus need a bustier? She’s a teenager. Her breasts should be able to hold themselves up. I like Randy Newmann. I’m really old.

9:05 — Chris Pine? Chris Hine? What am I Emily Latella? (My better half also said, “Who?”) District 9 looks worth seeing.

Commercial break: Let’s talk about me. When we do go to the movies we go to what we refer to as the “Lincoln Center Home for Adults” it’s where they show foreign films to New Yorkers. I don’t think anyone under 45 is allowed in. The whitest crowd in NY except for Elvis Mitchell. Or we go to the multiplex in Edgewater NJ — the little city across the river. It’s kind of like going to Florida to see my in-laws except for the weather. In the dark, nobody knows you’re in NJ.

9:12 — I think Robert Downey Jr. is high and Tina Fey is having a nervous breakdown about it. Live! Anything can happen. Oh, that’s the bit!

9:14 — Damn, just checked Facebook. David Rees is live blogging the Oscars. He’s famous. I’m not. I hate you facebook friend David Rees.

9:15 — The Hurt Locker, another film I kinds wanna see, maybe. Oh shit. Doesn’t anyone even ask wtf all those troops are doing over there?

9:17 — John Hughes memorial thingy: Molly Ringwald really does look like a deer in the headlights. Matthew Broderick has that weird look of a never aging elf.

9:22 — Now they’ve sprung a bunch of 80’s has beens out of rehab. It’s like a high school teacher’s memorial. I’m finding this whole thing iccky. Was he a GREAT filmmaker? Are they giving him a posthumous award? WTF?

9:24 — Audience shot of Ed Asner. Anyone for a pool of who’s next to go from the MTM show?

9:27 — Zoe Saldana’s dress: First, it looks like it weighs a ton. Second, I’m trying to figure out how you use a toilet in a dress like that? Third, the slit goes up to the crotch?

9:30 — We’ve hit some horrible dead zone in the descriptions of short films. Don’t they have a pre-Oscar show for this?

Animated shorts: now I’m having some flashback to being a teenager and Sunday night after Monty Python, channel 13 followed with a half-hour animation show. If this wasn’t a special hour for stoned adolescents, then what was it?

The short docs actually look interesting…

The winning is making a speech and OH MY GOD who is this awful woman! And now the music. Do they take them off stage and yell at them for going past 45 seconds.

Short feature — This is sad. The first guy makes his speech. Then they start the music before the second guy makes his. This is a terribly ungracious way to give an award.

9:38 — Ben Stiller bombing in the Avatar bit. (Haven’t seen it, but my friend Maria Bustillos wrote a scathing review for The Awl — no time to link — live blogging) I hope Star Trek doesn’t get it. I did see that one and thought the kabuki Romulans were just silly.

Oh crap! They won! Well, maybe it was better than the other guys.

9:43 — Jeff Bridges. Oh Jeff I remember your perfect behind from Starman.

We are SO netflixing A Serious Man!

Commercial: Why no comments? Is it because all my friends are also blogging? Or asleep? Or don’t own television machines?

9:48 — Adapted screemplay: Haven’t read the books. Haven’t seen the movies. I’m glad Precious won. I used to teach high school in NYC and for lots of girls Push meant everything. They loved that book and found it hugely inspiring.

9:52 — Queen Latifah! Yay! I love that now allow large lesbians to be Cover Girls! What a thankless task she’s got having to basically present highlights from the Governor’s Award. Are those the awards they don’t do on TV anymore? That sucks! I wanna see Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman live! Oh good, they are bringing them out! Oh no, they’re not letting them speak. This sucks!

9:55 — Supporting actress — Penelope Cruz. Penelope Cruz with glasses. My better half is drooling. Vera Famiga — I’ve never actually seen her in anything. Maggie Gylenhall –I don’t want to see her being Jeff Bridges girlfriend. It’s icky! What’s her name, not Vera from, Up in the Air, — gotta netflix that. Monique — They’ll give it to her maybe. They like comedienne’s playing serious parts.

Called it!

Monique — great way of addressing the “controversy”. Smart speech. I’m now a fan.

10:05 — Sigourny Weaver — Is that a dress or did she just grab a bedspread? She’s doing the award for set decoration. Do we care? Oh, it’s Avatar so this could be a portent. There’s a theme here: James Cameron is god or the king of the world or something.

10:09 — Steve Martin made a joke. Sarah Jessica Parker has something weird growing out of her skull! Costumes: Is the winner the one who had that credit card dress a few years ago? Yes, I think she is.

10:11 — Charlize Theron — She is fierce! And she does a great American accent. She introduces Precious. Is this because she once said on TV that she was an African-American because she’s born in South Africa? My better half and I discuss Precious which we haven’t seen but we both agree that Helen Mirren would have been terrible in Mariah Carrey’s part which she was initially slated for.

10:17 — Back from the commercial. Martin and Baldwin in a bit. Strangely funny.

10:18 — Two more people I haven’t heard of. I am ANCIENT. Are these The Twilight kids? That would be the logical guess. They are presenting something about “horror films.” I don’t consider movies about vampires who have to wait until marriage, horror films.

Jaws — That was when Spielberg was good. Psycho by the master! Poltergiest — scary. The Shining — great! Rosemary’s Baby! I’ve seen most of these! Movies used to be fun. I miss movies. Shit now they showed the twins from The Shining. I won’t sleep for a week!

10:23 — Oh, they’re making the poor girl who just lost to Monique present an award. She’s presenting Morgan Freeman doing one of those “educational” videos explaining what a sound editing and mixing means. Can’t they just give these at the show that’s not on the TV?

Yayyy! Sound editing. Let’s applaud like we know these guys. Hmmm. It’s the Hurt Locker. Does that mean something?

It also won for sound mixing. Now I’m thinking there’s a pattern — a CONSOLATION pattern. It’s not going to get best picture. Or will it?

10:28 — Sci Tech awards! Elizabeth Banks. Has she been in any movies? Did they make her speak? Now John Travolta, Mr. Scientology himself, is talking about Quentin Tarrantino and introducing Inglorious Bastards.

Commerical break. Are these commercials national? Geoffrey Canada, I love you!

10:34 — Martin introduces Sandra Bullock who looks pretty in her dress. It’s cinematography. Sandra seems to like pronouncing the Italian name of the winner. It’s another Avatar win and Cameron again gets thanked.

10:37 — Demi Moore presenting this year’s dead. No, she’s presenting James Taylor who will sing a song about this year’s dead. Will this be a medley of dead people names? No, it’s an old Beatle’s song. Ironically, one played at my sister’s wedding, so not one I associate with dead people.

They are now showing pictures of dead people while James Taylor sings.

I do not forgive Ron Silver for speaking at the Republican Convention. Yeah, it’s personal. I don’t care if he could see the Towers burning from his house in New Jersey. I was less than a mile away, could smell the smoke and feel the earth shake as the Towers fell. I didn’t suddenly lose my mind. Maybe he already had the cancer and it was interferon or something messing with his brain. If that turns out to be the case, I will forgive him.

Commercial.

10:45 — Jennifer Lopez and Sam Worthington. Best score. So they are playing all the scores, while having dancers running around the stage? I think? I’m watching the dancers. This looks like a combination of old West Side Story choreography, jogging on stage and some break dance moves leftover from teh eighties. The music changes, but the basic dance moves and whatever “story” the dance is trying to tell doesn’t. They are getting more acrobatic at points, more frantic, but there’s really a desperation and clulessness to the choreography. It’s showy, but meaningless and distracts from the scores rather than enhancing them. If dance moves are letters, isn’t choreography supposed to form them into words or sentences?

Winner is…. Michael Giachino (?) for Up. Another movie I will never see.

Ladies and gentleman: Gerod Butler and Bradley Cooper — or was it the other way around. Presenting Special Effects. They just showed a clip from Avatar and better half says: “It doesn’t look that outstanding.” But then, he doesn’t have the special glasses and we still don’t even have a flat screen. Avatar wins. James Cameron gets thanked again.

10:56 — Jason Bateman, introduces Up in the Air. We like Jason Bateman.

11:02 — Matt Damon — best documentary. Oh my god there’s a documentary, The Cove about people killing dolphins for food. And another about food and bad meat. Do I sense a theme here you Hollywood radical vegans? Now a documentary about Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers. And another about Mexican kids trying to get over to see their illegal parents.

The dolphin film wins. Wow. Documentarians are heros! Could we have an all documentary academy awards next year?

11:06 — Tyler Perry explaining “editing”. The Academy Awards, it’s kind of like going to school and being left back and having different teachers explain the same shit to you year after year. Hurt Locker wins again.

11:08– Keannu Reeves presenting Hurt Locker. He is a very pretty, is Keannu Reeves.

Commercial. If it were just me, I would have changed the channel at the score/dance fiasco, but having started this I’m going to see it through.

Pedro Almodavar and Quentin Tarrantino! — Yeeah! Best Foreign Language Film. Did I miss something or is the actual name of the Peruvian film: The Frightened Tit? Argentina wins. Given that we live in New York and are snooty intellectuals, we may even see it at the movies.

Back to Martin and Baldwin.

Commercial break. Toilet paper commercial. My better half is now actually arguing with me about “over” being the only correct way.

11:25 — The woman who used to be Michelle Pfeiffer is talking about what a swell guy Jeff Bridges is. Like Sigourny Weaver, she is wearing a red dress made out of a bedspread. It must be the look for “older’ women in Hollywood.

11:27 — Vera what’s her name is talking about Mr. George Clooney, but they keep cutting to him and he is just soooooo hot.

11:31 — Kate Winslett announcing best actor. Jeff Bridges wins. Jeff Bridges is talking about his parents, and thanking a lot of people. I dare them to start the music. I guess the biggies get more than 45 seconds. I love when he keeps saying “man”. He is, after all, the dude.

11:39 — It’s a commercial break, but I predict that the jokes about going over will now be starting.

11:40 — Best actress. They’re doing the presentation thing. Why is Moon River playing? Haven’t seen any of them, but if Helen Mirren doesn’t win, then I hope the young woman from Precious does. I want a tee-shirt that says: What would Jane Tennyson do? Helen Mirren should get the lifetime achievement award for fierceness.

11:44 — Oprah introduces Gabaney. Oprah’s introduction sounds like a lawyer making her case. If I am ever indicted for murder, I want Oprah defending me.

11:47 — Sean Penn to present. Man, he was great in Milk. Winner is: Sandra Bullock! I don’t think so. WTF? I’m moving to Canada.

11:52 — Babs. That is one ugly tux or whatever it is. What’s that around her neck? Did she borrow Rachel Ray’s keffiyah?

Winner: Kathyrn Bigelow! I am SOOO happy that Avatar didn’t win! Amazing though she gives her speech about the military, but no one this evening ever questions the mission.

Tom Hanks: Explaining the 10 nominee thing and then boom. He just reads the winner without going through the other stuff. I guess they really have to be done by midnight! It’s Hurt Locker.

Now the writer who was embedded is speaking. Will he address the occupation in any meaningful way? Nah.

It’s midnight. Bigelow is speaking again and I’m expecting the music. She thanks the military one more time. “They’re there for us.” Ok, I know there’s a time and a place, but ….

Cheesy joke by Martin about going over time “Avatar now takes place in the past”. A thank you to our sponsors. And we’re out….