savior

"Remember, you may be the coolest people in the world, but this year your industry was saved by a 48-year-old Scottish cat lady in sensible shoes."

-- Grammy Awards host Stephen Colbert, referring to Susan Boyle


So, who's going to save publishing?

conservation by font

Writers, what font do you use for manuscripts? Publishing traditionally asks for Times New Roman or Courier, in 12-point, for readability--but what is that doing to the environment? A pair of artists hand-lettered a bunch of fonts to measure their ink usage. Their results are shown below, or see the original here.

In summary, use Garamond to save ink.

writing life

"The truth about writing is that, when you're doing it right, your life is duller than a Presbyterian potluck." --Maud Newton

the book you're not reading

I already told you the best book you're not reading is John Dufresne's "Love Warps the Mind a Little." Have you read it yet? Get on it. All his books are great, including the more recent "Requiem, Mass."

And while you're at the store, pick up a few of Castle Freeman's books. This guy can write. His books are so good, you'll wish you're written them. I sure as hell do. His books are deceptive--the stories are so tight, so compact, the dialogue so natural, the pacing so perfect that Freeman makes it look easy. It's not.

"Go With Me," "All That I Have," "Judgment Hill" and "My Life and Adventures" all are worth reading. More than that, actually--they're must reads.

So, Dufresne and Freeman. Any questions?

present, past

The actor Rip Torn was arrested in Connecticut yesterday.

State police responded to an alarm at the Litchfield Bancorp building in Salisbury, CT, at 9:40 PM last night. Police say they found Torn "with a loaded revolver" and "highly intoxicated." Law enforcement sources tell us Torn gained access through a broken window, which they believe Torn broke himself.

How is this literary news? Well, it's not--not really. But Rip Torn has an awesomely literary name, doesn't he?

And he made literary headlines a couple times. Once when he famously fought Norman Mailer with a hammer. And once when he played the aging logger Noel Lord in the film adaptation of Howard Frank Mosher's phenomenal novella "Where the Rivers Flow North."

I can't speak for Mosher, but being a huge fan of that book, I was thrilled when the movie came out and saw that Torn completely inhabited the character. He played him exactly as I'd imagined him. (Actually, I had a landlord once when my buddy Dan and I lived in Burlington, VT, who more or less was Noel Lord, but Torn came in a close second.) It's among my favorite books, and it's a great film, with Tantoo Cardinal and Michael J. Fox--who is actually quite good in it.

If you haven't read "Where the Rivers Flow North," do. And if you're not familiar with Mosher, you're missing out. I've enjoyed all his books.

As for Rip Torn, well, like I said, it's not really literary news. But who could pass up a chance to post this mugshot (which isn't even from his most recent arrest)?

learn from the dog

I was running with my dog when we came upon something half-frozen to the ground, just a piece of foil flapping in the breeze. A French fry wrapper, or a Doritos bag. The dog tensed up when he saw it twitching. He approached it tentatively, barked at it, batted it with a paw and sniffed it. Then he lifted a leg and peed on it. This whole routine took less than 10 seconds. And with that, he was ready to move on.

It took me a minute to process what he’d done, but as we ran, I realized the genius of it. As soon as he saw it, he challenged it—when he determined it didn’t pose a threat, he swatted it. When it didn’t run away, he sniffed it. It didn’t smell like food.

Just like that, he’d assessed and identified it as something worthless to him. So he marked it and moved on. He didn’t care what it was—only what it wasn’t. And he wasn’t about to waste any more time with it.

Why can’t I recognize opportunities and threats that efficiently? Why can’t I move on from useless encounters just as quickly? I seem to get bogged down in what ifs and regrets, when clearly I should be putting more things behind me.

Or pissing on them.

strongarm amazon

The NY Times is reporting that Amazon has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site.

If you're inclined to buy books this weekend, please do--buy Macmillan, or one of its imprints, including Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martins Press and Henry Holt, from any store other than Amazon.

(While you're there, buy the February/March issue of Gray's Sporting Journal. I'm just saying.)

tribute

The Onion memorializes Salinger as only it can:

CORNISH, NH—In this big dramatic production that didn't do anyone any good (and was pretty embarrassing, really, if you think about it), thousands upon thousands of phonies across the country mourned the death of author J.D. Salinger, who was 91 years old for crying out loud. "He had a real impact on the literary world and on millions of readers," said hot-shot English professor David Clarke, who is just like the rest of them, and even works at one of those crumby schools that rich people send their kids to so they don't have to look at them for four years. "There will never be another voice like his." Which is exactly the lousy kind of goddamn thing that people say, because really it could mean lots of things, or nothing at all even, and it's just a perfect example of why you should never tell anybody anything.

salinger

The New Yorker is making all the Salinger stories it published available online. Of other note is this excerpt from George Plimpton's Paris Review interview with Robert Giroux, talking about nearly publishing Catcher in the Rye:

INTERVIEWER Is it true you had a chance to be the first to publish J. D. Salinger?

GIROUX My experience with Salinger began when he was publishing those wonderful short stories in The New Yorker, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and others. Everyone was talking about them. I wrote a letter to Salinger in care of William Shawn in which I said, “Mr. Salinger, I am sure that every publisher in New York is asking about your first novel. I’d like to publish your stories, which are terrific. There are enough to make a book, and I’d like to publish that book right now.” No answer. Well, many months later I was eating a sandwich at lunchtime—

INTERVIEWER That is a habit of yours, eating a sandwich at lunch.

GIROUXOccasionally, and the office was practically empty. The receptionist said, “There’s a Mr. Salinger out here who wants to see you.” I said, “Salinger? Pierre Salinger?” She said, “No, he says it’s Jerome Salinger, Jerry Salinger.” He was six feet two or three, pitch-black hair, very black eyes, looked a little like Hamlet. He was sort of shy. He said, “I can’t publish a book of short stories because I’ve almost finished this novel, and the novel has to come first.” I smiled and said, “You should be sitting here at my desk. You’re a born publisher because it’s true—short stories don’t sell as well as novels.” Then he said, “Bill Shawn has recommended you, and I’d like you to publish my novel.” I said, “What novel?” He said, “Oh, it isn’t finished. It’s about a kid in New York during the Christmas holidays.” I said, “Listen, you’ve made a contract, let’s shake hands.” So we shook hands on it. About a year later, I was in the Oyster Bar eating oyster stew, reading something, and somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and it was Jerry Salinger. He said, “I didn’t want to disturb you, Bob, but I have wonderful news. I just finished the draft of my novel. I’ve just come from Bill Shawn’s. The New Yorker is going to devote an entire issue to it.” After he’d left, I thought, Oh, my God, it’s going to be like the publication of John Hersey’s Hiroshima.
But it never appeared, and the New Yorker thing apparently fell through. A year later a messenger delivered the manuscript of The Catcher in the Rye to the office. It came from the Harold Ober Agency. I read it and, of course, I was absolutely riveted. I thought how lucky I was that this incredible book had come into my hands. I wrote a rave report and I turned it over to Eugene Reynal, my new boss.

INTERVIEWER Could you say something about him?

GIROUXHe lived in Turtle Bay, quite socially prominent. I think he ran the New York Social Register. Terrible snob. He became my boss when Frank Morley went back to England after the war. I had to get on with him and I made sure that I did. He had gone to Harvard, and was at Oxford during the Evelyn Waugh prewar period with brilliant people all around. I thought, This man has had one of the best educations possible, why hasn’t it done something for him? He was tactless; he offended people.
So I left the Catcher in the Rye manuscript with Reynal. No reply for much too long, maybe two weeks. I finally went to see him. I said, “Gene, I’ve told you the story of Salinger visiting this office, and the fact that I shook hands with him. We have a gentleman’s contract at this point.”
He said, “Bob, I’m worried about that manuscript.” I said, “What are you worried about?” He said, “I think the guy’s crazy.”

INTERVIEWER Talking about the kid, Holden Caulfield, or Salinger?

GIROUX Holden Caulfield. Gene said, “The kid is disturbed.” I said, “Well, that’s all right. He is, but it’s a great novel.” He said, “Well, I felt that I had to show it to the textbook department.” “The textbook department?” He said, “Well, it’s about a kid in prep school isn’t it? I’m waiting for their reply.” I said, “It doesn’t matter what their reply is, Gene. We have a contract for the book.” I felt like saying, “You son of a bitch, this is the greatest insult to me that could ever be.” The textbook people’s report came back, and it said, “This book is not for us, try Random House.”
So I went to Mr. Brace. I gave him the whole story. I said, “I feel that I have to resign from the firm.” I hadn’t got in touch with Salinger because I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him.

INTERVIEWER Did Brace ever read the book?

GIROUX He didn’t read the book. Mr. Brace was a wonderful man, but he had hired Reynal and would not overrule him.

INTERVIEWER Are you kidding?

GIROUXI’m afraid that’s true. That’s when I decided to leave Harcourt. Eventually, Jerry Salinger called me up. “Bob, what’s gone wrong?” Just like that. I said, “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that my boss has vetoed the book. I don’t have the power. He has to sign the contract, and he won’t do it, so I have to release it.”
He said, “It’s perfectly all right. You like the book. I’m glad you do. That’s all I wanted to know.” I never had a chance to ask him why his book never appeared in The New Yorker. I suspect it turned out to be impracticable.

INTERVIEWER That’s a sad story.

GIROUX The commercial development of publishing has been so horrible in my opinion. You have editors now who just acquire books; you wonder if they ever read them! The fact is that they often don’t.

rip

And just like that, this week's rule of threes is complete. On the heels of Louis Auchincloss goes first Howard Zinn, then J.D. Salinger.

J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91. (N.Y. Times)

Salinger's short stories thrilled me growing up, and some still do. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is, to me, one of the best of the genre. Though he's not published for years--and it will be interesting to see what happens to his estate--he'll be missed.

Ever see Field of Dreams? In the book on which it was based, "Shoeless Joe," the writer Kinsella kidnaps is actually Salinger, not the imagined Terence Mann. Check it out, it's a fun story, and who wouldn't want to take J.D. Salinger to a game at Fenway? That's a way to spend a day.

revolution

On the heels of yesterday's announcement by Steve "Mom Jeans" Jobs about the Apple iPad, there's much talk about how the eBook reader--in whatever form it takes--may save publishing. That annoys me to no end. What's up, Publishing? Why do you think gadgets are salvation? The problem isn't delivery--people aren't abandoning reading because they don't have a good way to access the material. They already have a great way to access it--you may have heard of it. It's called a "book." The reason people aren't reading is because you're giving them tripe and calling it literature.

Celebrity books? Memoirs by people who haven't done anything? More vampire novels?

OK, I get it--Twilight was huge. You want to chase that success. But really? More vampires? Just yesterday, Publishers Weekly announced a deal for a book about "vampires who move in the bars and streets and subterranean places of New York City's night" for publication in fall 2012. So you're betting that the current trend will still be hot in two and a half years? Maybe you're right. But man, I hope not.

Take a chance on something else. Find the next hot thing. There are a lot of great writers out there whose stories are going unpublished because they're not about vampires. Or re-imagined Jane Austen novels with zombies and androids. Or because they didn't begin as blogs.

literary street fight

Martin Amis throws down with J.M. Coetzee.

Martin Amis, the novelist known for his outspoken comments, has dismissed the Nobel Prize-winning author JM Coetzee as "having no talent."

Or, as Jessa Crispin more brilliantly puts it over at over at BookSlut,

One day, Richard Powers will write a novel based on the neurological disorder that is afflicting Martin Amis, a rare form of aphasia: the intellectual writer, a little past his prime, yes, but whose mind is alert and all too aware that when he opens his mouth to say brilliant, thoughtful things, his words come out as brittle scandalmongering. Oh, to be a great man trapped in the body of a dick! The pain of never getting your true words across, no matter how you try. If it's any consolation, Mr. Amis, they will probably name this terrible disorder after you. One day there may even be a cure, and your reputation will be restored. Way, way after your death.

rip

Last week's rule of three completed, this week's begins--novelist Louis Auchincloss died yesterday.

Louis Auchincloss, a Wall Street lawyer from a prominent New York family who became a widely read author of dozens of books that plumbed the world of Manhattan’s old-money elite, died Tuesday night in Manhattan. He was 92. (NY Times)

In only tangentially related news, Roger Hodge, the Harper's editor, was let go this week for flagging sales. Hodge once sent me a kind and thoughtful rejection letter that stood out from the slew of other rejections clogging my mailbox at the time. I think he's done a hell of a job at Harper's, and this seems a loss. I'm sorry to see him go. No doubt he'll land on his feet.

(Roger, when you do, drop me a line, I've got a good story for you...)

rejection

The always wonderful Literary Rejections on Display shares this rejection letter.

Hi: Thank you for your query. Don’t worry – it’s not you; the industry is collapsing and it’s becoming more and more difficult to work in it. That said, I’m not going to be the right agent for you, either, because my future is uncertain. Best of luck to you in finding someone who can stick around and help you get published! Kind regards, Agent in Small Downsizing Boutique Agency

Portrays itself as the death rattle of the entire publishing world, don't you think? I don't think things are quite that bad, yet. At least, I hope not. There's a tickle in the throat, maybe a phlegmy cough, but not a death rattle. Not yet.

Right?

grants

The Rumpus points us to the online application for Goldman Sachs' Arts Grants.

"After announcing our intention to donate millions to charity this week, Goldman offices were immediately besieged by requests from bohemian types for somewhat sad sums for “projects.” Since we are deeply concerned about the welfare of America’s artistic communities, we are giving $500 million (more than three times the NEA's annual budget, or the price of about 70 executive shower curtains) to artists and writers. Please stop calling our secretaries admin assistants and use the application below."

Questions include "I am aware that corporations rule the world," "Personal Statement (Please grovel and disclose personal financial matters)," and "I know what Goldman Sachs is," plus the following:

"Now please disclose your real reasons:
__ I am dizzy after Googling France’s arts and culture budget.
__ Corporations thwart democracy at every turn. (That’s not a reason. I just wanted to say that.)
__ In the words of Senator Charles Schumer, you, dear Goldman, have “a gusher of cash.”
_X_ I am totally serious about this application and secretly hoping someone from Goldman reads it and gives me money in any amount. Really. Please. Really."

Note that while there's some truth to the story that GS plans to give to the arts, the rest of it is satire--please don't bother applying. Thank you.

hype

Today Apple is set to announce the long-anticipated iPad, or whatever they're calling the tablet. Me? Unless I can use it to pilot my jet pack, I'm not interested.

story

I'm pleased to announce that Gray's Sporting Journal has published my short story, "Buckets," in the February/March issue, available on newsstands now. Described by Writers Market as "The New Yorker meets Field and Stream," GSJ is one of the remaining markets to treat short fiction with respect. It's a beautifully photographed and illustrated magazine that's not afraid of white space. I appreciate that.

(Not the current issue)

Over the years GSJ has published a number of my favorite writers. I'm honored to be included in their company.

In an interview with the Paris Review, Annie Proulx talks about how GSJ published her first stories:

So when Gray’s came along everybody who was even faintly literate and involved in outdoor stuff was thrilled. It was beautifully produced, the illustrations were top-notch, and there was good writing in it. After the magazine first appeared I bought an issue or two and finally subscribed to it. One of the writers that I knew suggested that this was something I could do. I wrote something, sent it to them, and they published it.

For the late eighties they paid magnificent sums of money. They paid a thousand dollars for a short story, which was big bucks then. But there was a group of us who wrote for them and hardly ever got paid because they kept running out of money. I swapped a story for a canoe at one point. It was a three-way deal where Gray’s ran an ad for Mad River Canoes, I got a canoe, and they erased the cost of one story. It worked out pretty well—I think the canoe was eleven hundred dollars. I named it Stone City after one of the stories Gray’s published.

Please pick up the February/March issue to show your support for fiction, and let me know what you think of "Buckets."

spell

On the road in Naples, Florida, for a few days. Saw this sign out on the pier, reminding me how much the world needs editors.

stoned

From The Onion:

CHICAGO—Ninth-grade Collins High School English teacher Melissa Hamlin told coworkers Monday that the one moment she looks forward to all year, watching her students reach the end of Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery, is rapidly approaching. "Oh, my God, the looks on their faces when they realize the villagers are actually going to stone Mrs. Hutchinson to death right then and there!" said Hamlin, who added that she never allows students to read the story as a take-home assignment. "I'm almost too excited to sleep. Oh, it's so great! They're never gonna see it coming!" According to Hamlin, the rest of the academic year is a slow but predictably horrifying downward spiral of disillusionment and unending scholastic disappointments. (Via BookNinja)

no books for you

From CNN:

On January 16, Barnes & Noble, which owns B. Dalton, closed the store inside Laredo's Mall del Norte. That leaves Laredo, Texas, population of 250,000, one of the largest cities in the United States without a bookstore. The closest bookstore is now 150 miles away, in San Antonio, Texas.

rip

The bad week for novelists continues--and the rule of threes is complete. Segal, Parker, and now Canadian author Paul Quarrington.

TORONTO — Award-winning author, filmmaker, playwright and musician Paul Quarrington, a Toronto arts fixture who gained national acclaim with his rock 'n' roll novel "Whale Music," has died of lung cancer. He was 56.

same old

We're told as writers to avoid cliche--to think new, to tell new stories. When we lapse into stereotype we're told to start over. Be creative. Break new ground. And then we open Publishers Weekly and see deals like this:

(NAME AND TITLE REDACTED) in which a sheltered college girl's life is forever altered by the motorcycle-riding stranger who blows into town followed by a trail of secrets, to (EDITOR AND PUBLISHER REDACTED).

Really? A motorcycle-riding stranger? Who blows into town followed by a trail of secrets? Unheard of!

tour

Rock stars tour one way, authors tour another. And in this day and age, apparently, unless your publisher's marketing budget is significant, that means doing it yourself, according to this interesting essay by Stephen Elliot.

momentum

Interesting story on James Patterson in the Times Magazine.

"There are many different ways to catalog Patterson’s staggering success. Here are just a few: Since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson. He is listed in the latest edition of “Guinness World Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1."

The guy's not so much a writer as he is a business. It's an entirely different publishing model, created and adapted just for him--and his team of "co-authors." Seems so different than what I do, waking up early and laboring in obscurity in the dark, cold mornings of my leaky Maine house existence.

segal

Bad week for novelists. Yale classics professor Erich Segal, whose first novel, “Love Story,” published in 1970, became an enormous popular success despite being bullet-riddled by critics, died Sunday at 72.

Robert Parker died this week as well.

Coincidentally, the wonderful Kate McGarrigle, also died. Ex-wife of Loudon Wainwright, mother of Rufus, and sister of Anna McGarrigle, the Canadian folksinger will be missed.

bookcases

Someone's opinion of the 11 coolest bookcases, including this one, the Infinity:

discipline

The excellent Maud Newton offers a friend's advice on pushing through the wall you inevitably hit when writing:

A friend who just finished writing a(n excellent) book in a short period of time says you have to ignore your brain when it tells you it’s done for the day. You may think you can’t keep going, but if you push on, what comes out will be even better. The next day, do the same. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Also, no socializing. Apart from whatever job pays the bills, do nothing but sleep, eat, procrastinate, and write.

(And then, if you're Robert B. Parker, you're done just a few weeks later...)

duty

If you've ever said "Think Snow" or anything remotely similar, romanticizing the Devil's Dandruff that falls onto the shoulders of the civilized world, report to my driveway for duty at five a.m. tomorrow, and bring your own shovel.


Seriously. Other writers apply for grants to fund living expenses, studio space, childcare, research. I'm going to apply for a grant to hire a snowplow. Between my sick, older neighbors' driveway and walk and my own, I could have finished the novel were it not for the time I've spent shoveling since I moved to this wintry hell.

Does the NEA award snowblowers?

More than fourteen inches yesterday. Seven today. Seven called for tomorrow. This is the time when you're forced to make decisions about where you throw the shoveled snow, because it's there until June, and if you don't carry it far enough, your driveway and walkway grow a little narrower with each storm until one day you can't get out of your truck.

Snow.

fiction is dead, long live fiction

VQR editor Ted Genoways wrote "The Death of Fiction?" for Mother Jones, and it's an interesting piece--whether you agree with him or not. Based on the cage-match beatdown taking place in the comments section, not everyone does.

"Louisiana State University cut more than 20 percent of Southern Review's budget. Middlebury College has given New England Review two years to break even or face elimination. Most catastrophic thus far, Northwestern University is moving TriQuarterly online and terminating the current editors—including poet Susan Hahn, who has been with the magazine for 30 of its 45 years. The TriQuarterly has consistently published seminal writers in almost every genre, yet that track record was not enough to save it from the ax."

Genoways is right that markets are diminishing quickly and tragically. He also talks about the preponderance of MFA programs in the country, and how they're fast becoming like puppy mills for writers.

"Back in the 1930s, magazines like the Yale Review or VQR saw maybe 500 submissions in a year; today, we receive more like 15,000. This is due partly to a shift in our culture from a society that believed in hierarchy to one that believes in a level playing field. This is good—to a point. The reality is that not everyone can be a doctor, not everyone can be a professional athlete, and not everyone can be a writer. You may be a precious snowflake, but if you can't express your individuality in sterling prose, I don't want to read about it."

Check out the article, then check out the comments. Then close your browser and go back to writing.

parker

Robert Parker, author of the Spenser for Hire novels, died yesterday. The books were set in the Boston area, and overlapped the towns in which I grew up. A friend passes along the following excerpt from a 2006 story about Parker that ran in New Hampshire's Union Leader newspaper, which reveals a startling bit of information about Parker's work habits:

Several audience members, including English high school teachers Selma Naccah-Hoff, of Central, and Frank Sullivan, of Memorial, audibly gasped when Parker disclosed that he completes a novel in six to eight weeks -- and never rewrites.

"I was never a good student. I could never be taught, and I could never be coached. Besides, it doesn't get any better if I revise it," said Parker .

At the heart of his success is his passion for life -- and writing, said Parker . "I do write what I know. But writing what you know is a standard cliche. You also have to write what you can imagine."

monday

There are calendar Mondays, and days that just feel like a Monday. Today, unfortunately, is both.

diabetes sucks

Close friend Haidee Merritt, a phenomenal artist, recently self-published a book of comic strips about living with diabetes. It's a sharply funny book with a dark sense of humor--much like Haidee herself. That's what you'd expect, since she gathered her material over a lifetime living with Type 1 diabetes, including the year in her twenties she spent blind.

Stop for a minute and think about that--how terrifying it must have been for an artist to lose her vision. Rather than complain, Haidee developed a sense of perspective--and a sense of humor--both of which are wonderfully and refreshingly evident on every page of her book.


She's not always happy about it, and it shows. And that's only fair. But when she writes about them, her displeasure with diabetes--which ranges from its small annoyances to the more significant miseries with which it has inflicted her--will make you laugh. She doesn't want your pity. She wants you to laugh, and more importantly, she wants other diabetics to remember they're not alone.

If you're diabetic, if you know someone who's diabetic, or if you're just looking for a life-based laugh, please check out "One Lump or Two: Things that Suck about Being Diabetic." And check out the wonderful Haidee Merritt in this video clip from a New Hampshire TV news program (skip the article--it's a poorly written rehash of what's in the video clip, and you get to hear it in Haidee's own words).

qwerty

Thanks to the New Yorker's "The Book Bench" blog for pointing this out--remember learning to type using the pangram "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog"?

stone

Robert Stone's new book is out. I can't wait to read it. If you're not familiar with him, brace yourself--he's not light reading, nor is he the upbeat type. His characters redefine "flawed," and starting from there find ways to make relentlessly bad decisions that worsen their situations (and often the situation of those around them).

The short story collection "Bear and his Daughter" was brutal. I couldn't read it straight through and after the first few stories needed to take a break and read something else. My bruised soul needed time to heal. The book has the emotional impact of repeated kicks to the groin. I recommend it heartily. But if you're at a low point in your life, take note--while there's a chance it could improve your mood by giving you perspective and showing you just how low bottom can be, it may also give you something to aim for.

His novel, "Bay of Souls," is a similar journey that begins with a man whose life is poised to topple in one direction, and ends with it toppling in another direction entirely. See? We even have options for failure, endless possibilities for toxicity.


The first chapter of "Bay of Souls" ran as the short story "Dominon" in The New Yorker in 2000, and earned Stone a National Magazine Award. It's among my favorite pieces of short fiction of all time. He won the National Book Award for 1974's "Dog Soldiers," and the PEN/Faulkner for 1981's "A Flag for Sunrise."

No less than Ken Kesey said Stone, according to a Salon interview, was "a professional paranoid, someone who sees sinister forces behind every Oreo cookie." That's an accolade, a divine knighting.

"Fun With Problems," his newest, sounds every bit as good. I'm traveling next week with Book Widow and hope to pick up a copy for the flight.

slush

From the Wall Street Journal, another disheartening story about publishing today: "The Death of the Slush Pile: Even in the Web era, getting in the door is tougher than ever."

light bulb

Fiction's a tough market. Books in general are struggling to compete with TV, movies, iPods, videogames and the like. Chain book outlets threaten small and independent bookstores.

But you don't have to settle for the fate others decide for you. Take it into your own hands. Like this Australian bookstore:

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian bibliophiles have been offered a chance to combine their love of literature with their fondness for a quiet drink, with a boutique bookchain in Sydney adding wine to its shelves.

Berkelouw Books, in Sydney's trendy inner-city suburb Leichhardt, has created a combined wine bar/reading room featuring a range of Australian wines and cheeses. Customers can curl up on a couch with a tasting plate, surrounded by shelves of antique or new books. Polished wooden floors, soaring windows and wine barrel tables complete the space.

Australia's book industry has recently been looking to drown its sorrows amid increasing competitive pressure from online bookstores like Amazon, often based overseas.Berkelouw owners Colin Cappelleri and Gary Mullins said they had chosen a selection of season wines that were a perfect match with friends or fiction, with the store to also offer live jazz.

"Now that people are getting to know about us, we've had great success with our boutique wines and lots of positive feedback," Cappelleri told Reuters.

Now this is a good idea. And I wish like hell I lived in Sydney. Or that my favorite local bookstores, Nonesuch Books and Longfellow Books, would do the same. (To its credit, Longfellow does offer wine and beer, and occasionally hot dogs, at readings and signings, which is just plain great.)

point, counterpoint

Point
"It's difficult to get through failure, but in some ways, it's more difficult to cope with success."
--New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman

Counterpoint
"Given the choice, I'll try my hand at the latter."
--The rest of the world

spell check

A designer of considerable talents, and an odd sense of humor, is selling a poster of the "10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling."

An example? Effect vs. Affect. "Most of the time effect is a noun and affect is a verb. If you're unsure, try substituting a different verb and see if it works. 'As a child, he was affected/eaten by his parents.' A verb works here so you should use affect."

Another? "Alot is not a word. You don't write alittle, abunch, acantaloupe, aporkchop, so don't write alot."

The poster is available on his Web site, www.theoatmeal.com, along with the similarly grammatical "How to Use an Apostrophe," and such other items as "Five Reasons Pigs Are More Awesome Than You," "The Nine Types of Crappy Handshakes," and "Why We Should be Eating Horses Rather than Riding Them."

I'm not endorsing his site per se. But I do think the misspelled words poster would be a good gift for a college dorm room, the copy desk at my local newspaper, or anywhere else such mistakes are perpetrated with frequency. I'm just saying.

purpose

The real benefit of a cast-iron skillet over lightweight non-stick or aluminum cookware is that you can use it as a weapon in an "I Am Legend" or similar zombie situation.

reach

Interesting piece by the formidable Ben Yagoda over at the Times about authors now being more accessible to readers, thanks to e-mail and the Web. The best part are the excerpts of "fan" mail quoted writers received, like this one:

“Almost every message from readers reads like a signal from a weird planet these days,” the poet and essayist Andrei Codrescu said. “I’d be hard put to choose between Christian Mississippi missionaries who fall in love with multilingual Romanian trollops and try to figure them out by reading ‘The Hole in the Flag’ ” — his 1991 memoir about returning to his native Romania — “or rare-book librarians who want to know if the defaced volume of poetry overwritten with obscene verses in 1970 was my work.”

Have you ever written to an author? As a kid, firing off, say, a handwritten note to Franklin W. Dixon only to find out he was not a man but an industry? To Salinger to ask what happens to the ducks when the lagoon freezes over? To Pynchon to ask if he's hideously deformed, antisocial, or just unexpectedly normal?

white

By the way, here's a good E.B. White story--when he lived on the saltwater farm in Brooklin, Maine, he raised chickens, among other animals. He says he used to greet his hens in the morning with the following plea for more eggs:

"White here. Cubism is dead."

lowered expectations

This morning my alarm went off ridiculously early, as usual, and I got up to write. A few hours later, when Book Widow got up, she asked me how I was.

"Exhausted," I said.

"You say that every day."

"Well, I'm exhausted every day."

She asked me why I got up so early then. It's a good question, but one for which there's no good answer. I work for myself. I don't have to be anywhere at any given time. Most days I don't even put pants on until after lunch. So why rise when it's still dark and cold and quiet?

That's when I write best. Before the rest of the world is awake. I have to make that time for myself, I think, because if I try to steal it during the day--from other obligations--I'll come up short, distracted at best, or make excuses to not do it at all.

And then my agent posted this E.B. White quote today: "A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without ever putting a word on paper."

So, there you go. Barring ideal conditions, which White says are not forthcoming, I lower my expectations and set my alarm to meet them head-on.

Of course, the downside to that is that I wake up at an ungodly hour and spent most days exhausted. But hey.

sarcasm

Sarcasm is a tool best used judiciously--now with its own punctuation mark. The video's cute, but not as funny as one would hope.

the books you're not reading

• "Love Warps the Mind a Little Bit," by John DuFresne
• "Daughters of the North," by Sarah Hall
• "How All This Started," by Pete Fromm
• "Death and the Penguin," by Andrey Kurkov

So, what's your excuse? Get cracking. And I want a report on my desk by Monday.

rejection

Back when I started out, still young and dewy-eyed--now I'm old and jaded as hell--I used to send stories off in the U.S. Mail with a stamp and all the optimism I could muster. Boundless hope. Hope was the horse I rode. Every day I'd check the mailbox--sometimes two, three times a day, even after the mail had already come--until that SASE boomeranged back to me.

There was something to the ritual, something comforting in the heft of the printed pages and the way the text lined up on them. The officialness of the manilla envelope. Something about seeing the name of the magazine written on it in my block letters.

The SASE stopped my heart every time. I'd hold my breath and lift it from the mailbox like a bomb jockey field-checking an IED. Most of the time, of course, it was a rejection--I could tell right away because the envelope was heavy enough to contain my manuscript, returned. But even then, the printed rejection with the magazine's letterhead seemed a totem of sorts. Something tangible, collectible. I still have all of them, great heaving folders of them. I could wallpaper an airplane hangar.

Sometimes they brought good news. If they didn't, why would I still send them out? Hope is a living animal. You feed it with possibility. You feed it with occasional success. The editor might call to tell me she wanted to buy my story. Or I might get a letter with the good news, and I could tell immediately because my manuscript wasn't in the envelope.

Editors' responses still come, of course. But now they come they way they go out--by email.

Sure, it's convenient. But let me tell you, there's even less pleasure to be had in a plain text, computer-generated email rejection than there was in those typed-and-signed notes. What I've lost is the sense of closure--no circle completing. No pomp, no circumstance. Just rejection.

cliche spreads like the plague

Oh, no--it's everywhere. One of my favorite magazines, albeit one about cycling, made this startling double transgression:

"Winter weather has again swept through Europe, blanketing much of the northern parts of the continent in a blanket of snow just in time for the National Championships taking place in most of the countries there this weekend."

(Italics mine.)

universal truths

No matter how many people try to convince me it's just as good in the oven or the microwave, I will never cook bacon any way other than in a cast-iron skillet, slowly. Maybe it's as much ritual as result, sort of a guys' equivalent of the Japanese tea ceremony. Siphon off the grease into a can for the freezer. Keep it next to the one filled with duck fat. Cook with it at every opportunity. Celebrate life.

no comment

“A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it."

— The Economist, forwarded along by my agent.

really

Much talk these days about the future of publishing--sometimes referred to as "the death of publishing"--and what it will be. The industry scrambles to rearrange itself, reconfigure itself. Two trends rise out of the chaos.

The first is celebrity publishing. It's not really new, although, the advances houses are paying for these books seem to be breaking new ground. I'm not talking about books about celebrities--I'm talking about books by celebrities. Or at least nominally by celebrities, since I think most of them are ghostwritten.

The second, and by far the more infuriating, is blog publishing. Not blogging, but paying significant book deals to turn blogs into print. LOLcats, Hot Girls with Douchebags, Stuff White People Like--the list is endless, because every day brings a new one. Just today, GalleyCat announced that "My Parents were Awesome" earned a book deal.

The reason these things succeeded in the first place is because they were on the interwebs. No one had to buy them, no one had to pay to see them. Are they really going to reach a significantly new audience by being brought to print? I'm guessing--and I'm no industry expert--that they've already saturated their potential market. But that's just me.

No hard feelings against the bloggers. And sure, I get it. Publishers don't like risk--these blogs are already somewhat proven. They've already got an audience.

But come on, publishers.

No, I mean it. Seriously. Knock it off.

glacial

It's no secret that the publishing world moves slowly. But this, posted on Literary Rejections on Display, must be a record:

"A guy I know who gave up on his writing career about 5 years ago got a call the other day from a small press; they found his short-story manuscript in the office, read it, and want to publish it. (Sorry for the five year delay.) He'd forgotten he'd ever sent the damn thing there. How about that?"

brave

The writer Marian Keyes posted a letter to her readers recently. This takes guts and remarkable honesty--both with the world at large, and with yourself, the latter of which is perhaps the more difficult. It's heartbreaking.

An excerpt:

"My dear amigos, happy new year to you all and I hope your festive season was not too unpleasant. I’m very sorry but this is going to be a very short piece because I am laid low with crippling depression. Regular readers know that I’ve been prone to depression on and off over the years but this is in a totally different league. This is much much worse. ...

"All I will say is that I’m aware that these are terrible times and that there are people out there who have been so ruined by the current economic climate that they’ve lost the roof over their heads and every day is a battle for basic survival and I wish I could make their pain go away. But although I’m blessed enough to have a roof over my head, I still feel like I’m living in hell. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t write, I can’t read, I can’t talk to people. The worst thing is that I feel it will never end. I know lots of people don’t believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike say, a broken leg, you don’t know when it’ll get better. ...

"So amigos, I’m sorry to abandon you for the moment. Full service will be restored at some stage, I hope. Thank you in advance for your kindness because you’ve always been so lovely to me and once again Happy New Year. I hope it’s a nice one for you."

I'm not familiar with her or her work, but I hope she finds some peace.

emerging

Ever check out the Emerging Writers Network? The group's own copy says it was "created to develop a community of emerging writers, established writers deserving of wider recognition, and readers of literary writing, in order to develop as large an audience as possible for those writers."

Dan Wickett began the group a decade ago. He's a good guy doing good things for the world. If you ever have the opportunity to tell him so, please do.

Also, visit the site--here's a good link to start. It's an incomplete list of members with recent and upcoming publications. For readers looking to expand their horizons a bit, this is a fantastic opportunity to explore some of the links and discover new writers.

Full disclosure: I'm in there. So is Anthony Doerr, whose novel "About Grace" is among my all-time favorites. Seriously, if you haven't read "About Grace," I want you to log off right now and go buy a copy.

There are a lot of other great writers in there, too. But the one most worth pointing out? Someone named Ashley Owens. No idea who she is, but according to EWN, she's "been published for the very first time. A single poem in a book titled Inspired."

Way to go, Ashley. That's worth celebrating. Tonight I'll raise a glass to you and hope many more publications come your way.

pay

Got an email today from a magazine editor for whom I've been writing lately. Three stories over the last four months. The email was, nominally, to let me know a check would be mailed for one of them, but he also had a few kind words:

"I want to tell you how much I like the work you have done for us."

I thanked him for the check and for the comments. Told him I may value one over the other on any given day, but in the long run I appreciate them both. Maybe I should ask him to send the kind words directly to my landlord next month so I can use the check for more frivolous things than rent.

I joke. But the fact is, he didn't have to write that, and in my experience, in fact, most editors don't. They should, though--writers are a tender breed. Good editors understand that.

the free in freelance

This is an excellent article that just depressed the crap out of me.

Freelance writing's unfortunate new model - latimes.com

Line up behind me, fellow wrters. Those using the noose and chair, head left; the gun, to the right; the sleeping pills, straight ahead. Thank you very much.

literary gladiators

The Morning News' 2010 "Tournament of Books " is queued up. For the first time, check out the longlist here. It's a good list. I'm excited. Yep, this kind of thing excites me. I was real popular growing up.

jetsons

Seen this yet?It's an 11.5-inch flexible Skiff Reader that uses "the next-generation of e-paper display – one based on a thin, flexible sheet of stainless-steel foil," according to a company statement. It comes with 4GB of memory, a full touchscreen display and connectivity via 3G and Wi-Fi.

My feelings on eReaders are mixed, and still very much nascent. I've never tried one, but I'm theoretically opposed to them--at least as a replacement for books. I can think of uses for them as a supplement to paper-bound books, but I'd never give books up for one of these.

Still, it's pretty cool. I want one.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/108483-skiff-launches-115inch-flexible-reader.html

thrill

Just received a magazine contract for a short story. Signed it, mailed it back. They'll cut me a check and mail it to me. Pretty simple stuff, really.

It just feels momentous. And no matter how many times I do it, it never gets old.

dominion

There's a held theory that giving a name to something also gives you power over it. That's why bullies coin nicknames. It's why some people troubled by their relationship with their parents change their names legally as soon as they're able. The proper thing to do when someone introduces themselves as James, for example, is to call him James--not Jim, not Jimmy, and not Jimbo.

Currently, there's some debate about what to call this new year. Is it "twenty-ten?" Or maybe "two-thousand ten?" Well, I'm hell-bent on making this year better than the last. I'm making this year mine, dammit. I want to own this year. If the theory's right, I need to name it.

Which is why from here on out, I'll be referring to it as "two-hundred-and-one zero." Bring it on, two-hundred-and-one zero. Let's see what you've got.





(Seriously, though, bravado aside--2010, please show us some mercy, hey?)

tomorrow's monday

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." -- H.L. Mencken

80 percent chance of cliches

Cliches continue to abound in the media--or at least one in particular. Is this the price we pay for the wholesale newsroom staff reductions forced upon the industry? Forwarded by my friend Scott:

"Winter storm blankets area, at least 6 inches possible. I expect we'll be 'digging out' by Sunday's paper."

rejection

(Swiped from Literary Rejections on Display)

what i'm reading

Old John LeCarre (Little Drummer Girl). Needed some mindless page-turning entertainment, but forgot how smart LeCarrre's writing can actually be.

The inside cover has a two-page spread of an artist's rendition of what some of the characters and scenes might look like, and though the book was published in 1983, the illustrations have a decidedly 1970's feel to them--there are swarthy bad guys with gold chains, car-bombing terrorists that look like they stepped out of Castro's closet, and a military leader who looks like Christopher Plummer. All the women wear their hair feathered. Despite the novel being set in Germany and Israel, and the characters being decidedly Middle Eastern and Arab, the illustrations look like the story board for a telenovela. Awesome.

Recently read Elizabeth McCracken's "The Giant's House," which I found to be exquisitely written but sort of boring--I got to the end, and was still sort of waiting for something to happen. I liked it though.

Just finished Pete Fromm's "How This All Started," which I liked quite a bit. It's not a baseball novel, but it's got baseball in it. Fromm tells the story of a brother's love for his bipolar sister, and the way her illness ravages the family as well as her own ability to live the life she wants to live, with such tender, simple grace that he makes it look easy. It's not. The brother and sister are both pitchers, fireballers, and the dad's an ex-ballplayer, and baseball serves both as metaphor and as a sort of means of communication, a shorthand, a dialog, among family members. Beautiful.

(From the department of self-promotion, Pete Fromm writes regularly for Gray's Sporting Journal--my story, "Buckets," will run in the February/March issue. I'm thrilled at the idea of being in the same issue of a magazine as him.)

Why do I read so many older books when so many new ones are coming out every day? Good question. I'm trying to catch up, believe me. I hate to admit it, but I'm financially motivated, too--new books are expensive. Especially hardcover. I wish I could buy every one that way, both for my own collection and for the authors' sake, but I can't. I'm a writer, and get paid like one.

What are you reading these days? What should I read next?

could be my biography

“[A] writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.” -- Junot Diaz

vic chestnutt

Just learned that Vic Chestnutt died Christmas day at age 45. How did I miss that news? He'd been in a coma from an apparent muscle relaxer overdose. A suicide attempt? Maybe. Kristin Hersh, late of Throwing Muses and a brilliant musician herself, says it was.

Just a month or two ago, Terry Gross had him on Fresh Air, and talking about his new song "Flirted With You All My Life," he said he'd attempted before, but it "didn't take." The L.A. Times quotes him as saying, "I've been a suicidal person all my life, and that song is me finally being 'Screw you, death.'"

His most recent album, "At the Cut," with Guy Piccioto of FUGAZI fame, is excellent. Pick it up if you haven't yet.

Wheelchair-bound since a car accident at 18, Chestnutt released 17 albums in 27 years. That's an impressive track record. He was a hell of a songwriter, and a hell of a musician. He'll be missed.

applied symbolism

A decade ago the world cringed as Y2K approached. Remember the panic, the fear? It’s difficult to grasp, in retrospect, just how fully people braced against such unlikely possibility. Global computer network failure. I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

I spent New Years Y2K on the Monkeyfist, my boat at the time, anchored somewhere dark, cold and remote in the Gulf of Alaska. My buddy Mike brought tracer rounds. We drank too much and fired them off into the sky at midnight. It would be nice to think that those brilliant, fiery trails were leading me to something—that they marked the way forward to a better, happier path. The truth is, they seemed the physical manifestations of something leaving me, some part of myself that I’d spend the next few years trying to recover.

Later that night, with Mike passed out uselessly in the main cabin bunks, the shallow water alarm on my depthfinder woke me. In just the few hours we’d been asleep, a fierce storm kicked up and the wind pushed us with enough force to drag anchor. We were in real danger of running aground.

I’ll never forget the panic, the sheer and complete chaos. I stood exposed on the narrow bow pulpit in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts during a freezing cold Alaska winter storm, pulling anchor chain—backbreaking work—while the shrill and unrelenting alarm bleated into the wind and sleet whipping around me. I could barely see the shore through the night, through the weather, but it loomed like a threatening presence. The trick was to pull the anchor so we could run, but the anchor—even as it dragged—was the only thing keeping us off the rocks. Clearly a two man job, that was about the time Mike started vomiting. Hey, he brought the whiskey. He’d put a lot of it back while we played cribbage earlier that night.

I don’t need to tell you that we made it. I felt, after that moment, like a capable man. Turning up the diesel stove for more heat. Drying myself off and dropping anchor again in a more secure location. Curling safely up back in the fo’c’sle in my sleeping bag to weather the storm safely, although I didn’t go back to sleep that night. A capable man. An Alaskan. I’d saved us. Of course, a capable man wouldn’t have put us in jeopardy like that.

And a hell of a metaphor for your life when you kick off the first few hours of a new year, a new decade, a new millennium that way.

A few years later I’d spend a New Years alone in my back yard on a frigid Alaska night, burning a gasoline-doused Christmas tree beneath the northern lights, half drunk, half mad, and completely unhappy. I’d hoped the act might be symbolic of a new start for me.

Well, hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which makes the garden grow faster.

More recently I’ve passed a few genuinely enjoyable New Years Eves in Montreal, in Portsmouth, NH, and in Portland—both Oregon and Maine. Book Widow attaches the weight of significance to the night, and I suppose in my own way I always have too. Together we try to find a way to mark them so they begin with us surrounded by the things we’d like to see more of in the coming year.

Last night we passed it quietly, alone together, with a good meal. Content. Not a bad way to ring in a decade. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.