FICTION & CNF

Declan Burke on Indie Publishing

March 14, 2010

On authors, editors, and the state of the Publishing Union, author Declan Burke (Crime Always Pays and The Big O) says it better than most in a recent guest column in Irish Publishing News:

…like-minded writers should get together and set up a co-op, akin to the United Artists studio of early Hollywood lore. In theory, it can be done: e-publishing and print-on-demand are just two elements of contemporary technology that allow writers to circumvent the publishing circus and go straight to readers.

He also quotes author Henry Porter from a related post on the Guardian Book Blog:

What worries me is the loss of income for writers in what is a pretty healthy market, the loss of good editors from publishing houses and the disdain for writers by retailers – people who depend on them. If they are not careful the core talent of the book trade may well combine in new types of ventures – collectives and transparent relationships where writers and editors go into business together on a 50:50 basis and are enabled by web platforms, ebooks and print on demand… disintermediation of a more radical sort.

Hey, that’s a great idea.

“So You Say You Want A Revolution?” in Irish Publishing News (with links to the original post on his blog)
“As I start to write my latest book, I fear for the future of publishing: Retailing pressure and the emergence of the ebook are threatening the future of authors and their work” by Henry Porter at The Guardian Blog (observer.guardian.co.uk)

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/79u7ocy

The Modern Library’s 100 Best

February 15, 2010

This may not exactly be news to the avid reader but it’s worthy of stating again, if not only for picking a nasty fight (as are all “Top Whatever” lists, no?) Here are the “100 Best Novels” and “100 Best Nonfiction” books as listed by The Modern Library, a division of Random House. Note the literati smackdown already in play between “The Board” and “The Readers”. Fun!

If you haven’t read ‘em, what are you waiting for and, if you have, which are your faves?

THE BOARD’S TOP FIVE NOVELS

  1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
  2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
  4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
  5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
 THE BOARD’S TOP FIVE NONFICTION BOOKS

  1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
  2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
  3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
  4. A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN by Virginia Woolf
  5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson

The Modern Library’s “100 Best Novels” and the “100 Best Nonfiction” books

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/7dmwjm7

Susan Salter Reynolds on Fiction: The Antidote

December 22, 2009

A recent piece in the Los Angeles Times by staff writer Susan Salter Reynolds offers writers and readers a reminder of the transcendence of the written word in the Age of Distraction.

A few choice quotes:

[L]iterature has a big head start when it comes to helping us live our lives. On the world map literature would be Europe and the Internet, America. Escaping is one thing — science fiction, romance novels and nonfiction make excellent magic carpets — but for turning and facing, there’s nothing like good old literary fiction.

In order to be truly useful, fiction has to have a certain psychological density and depth. And as much as authors like to deny it, much of that depth comes from the autobiographical component of all fiction.

[A]uthors have to be particularly conscious. And so do readers… If we become too depleted by, say, the pace of life, the bombarding of information or our disconnection from the natural world; too emptied out, too dependent on external stimuli, we run the risk of being lousy writers and lousy readers.

Discuss.

“Cutting through the din of the dotcom age: The real battle was waged with the Internet.” by Susan Salter Reynolds via the Los Angeles Times online edition, December 20, 2009.

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/726rbdo

Diane J. Wright reads at Rhapsodomancy Hollywood

December 10, 2009

I am honoured to have been asked to be a part of Wendy C. Ortiz and Andrea Quaid’s five-year literary triumph, the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series. If you happen to be in Los Angeles in December, come relax to some original contemporary fiction, a few inventive cocktails, and good company.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, December 13th, 2009:

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK
STEVE ABEE
DIANE J. WRIGHT
MEEHAN RASCH

Sunday, December 13, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 – Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
Proceeds will benefit The Bridge Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

The Rhapsodomancy Reading Series at The Good Luck Bar, Hollywood

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/7cgmnax