Roy Miller's Blog, page 200
May 4, 2017
How to Make Money Writing: What’s the True Value of Your Book?
This content was originally published by Guest Column on 3 May 2017 | 4:00 pm.
Source link
I’ve written several books and published a few of them. I’ve had a great deal of success considering my small status as an independent or self-published author. I’ve blown expectations for average book sale out of the water, and managed to find two distinct ways to make an incredible living attached to my being a published author.
This guest post is by Jaimie Engle. Engle was once sucked into a storybook, where she decided she would become an author. She has modeled, managed a hip-hop band, and run a body shop. She loves coffee, trivia, cosplay, and podcasting on The Write Engle. Basically, if it’s slanted toward the supernatural or nerdy, she’s into it! She lives in Florida with her awesome husband, hilarious children, and the world’s best dog. She also happens to have the world’s best literary agent, Saritza Hernandez. Become a fan at theWRITEengle.com. Follow on social media @theWRITEengle and pick up books at jmebooks.com.
But first, I had to learn the value of my book.
Not only that, but I had to learn how to translate that value to the right audience. And that was way harder than writing or editing any novel. I’ve said it before, but it stands to be said again: as an author, you are not an artist; you are an entrepreneur. A small business owner, who most likely has used their own capital to invest in their new enterprise. And that’s a completely different scenario than being “a writer.”
So how do you measure value?
Let’s start by being honest. Does your book bring a value greater than the list price to the consumer? You can’t answer that by saying, “I worked really hard on this and people should want to buy it,” or even, “It’s a great story, of course it will bring value to the reader.” While all of this might be true, how often have you purchased a product because the store owner appeared to have worked really hard to get their shop going? Probably only if you are personal friends with them. Here are some considerations:
Does your packaging (book cover, logo, book marks, business cards, etc.) bring aesthetic value to the reader?
Are you providing ongoing social media contact with your fans in a way that engages, inspires, and improves their lives?
Do you give back to your community or fans in a unique way through your time, knowledge, or physical books at no or deeply discounted costs?
How much time and effort do you spend on improving your writing skills and marketing know-how?
Is there a platform you are building toward, and is it unique enough to secure your individual spot in a competitive market?
What strategies do you have in place to cultivate new readers, reward loyal customers, and encourage word of mouth viral sharing?
Is your story providing enough of a difference for your readers to become fans?
This should get you thinking and answering some basic questions about you and your small business. When I started out, I was certain I had the next NY Times Bestseller in my hands. Only it was rejected by 98 different agents, who mainly told me they couldn’t connect with my story. Today, this little book is self-published through my JME Books line, where it has done tremendously well in the market. Were these agents wrong? No, of course not. In fact, they were absolutely correct in their deduction. The book has a tight niche market because of its local geographic connection. If it had been picked up by a traditional press, it would have bombed within the first year and been shelved forever. I’d probably never write another word and be working at drugstore somewhere. Instead, after that first year of bombing, I discovered a beautiful message woven within the pages: BULLYING. This is my book’s unique value. A fantasy adventure novel with dwarves and dragons teaches kids about their part in bullying. Once my value was determined, it was easy to supply a demand. I began to contact schools regarding my anti-bullying program. They readily paid for my appearance and offered pre-order book sales to students (or purchased books for the school directly).
Suddenly, the value of my book had grown exponentially.
My book hadn’t changed, only the message I had built in was now a focal point to bring value to readers. I even went a step further with creating more value by:
Creating a teacher’s novel study guide in print and ebook formats
Including standards in both the study guide and my presentation
Providing schools with a pre-visit package to include order forms, posters, and introductory video
Follow up with a thank you card, exit survey, and post-visit video to thank the students
My sales have increased tremendously and I have an income from speaking that I never foresaw in my future. My passion for kids, teaching, and writing have translated to a unique value that only I can provide. So my question to you is: What’s Your Value?
Need an idea for a short story or novel? Look no further than
The Writer’s Idea Thesaurus. Organized by subject, theme and situation categories,
it’s the perfect writing reference to break out out of any writing funk.
Order now from our shop and get a discount!
Thanks for visiting The Writer’s Dig blog. For more great writing advice, click here.
Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.
Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Sign up for Brian’s free Writer’s Digest eNewsletter: WD Newsletter
Listen to Brian on: The Writer’s Market Podcast
You might also like:
The post How to Make Money Writing: What’s the True Value of Your Book? appeared first on Art of Conversation.
May 3, 2017
It’s Complicated: The Path of an Israeli-Palestinian Love Story
This content was originally published by IAN FISHER on 3 May 2017 | 9:00 am.
Source link
“All the Rivers,” the new English title of the book, was published last week in the United States by Random House, and Ms. Rabinyan, 44, seemed a little nervous. She wanted Americans to read the book for what she said it is — a story of a specific love and its boundaries — and not because of the free-speech controversy here or the backdrop of a conflict that will not heal, now 50 years since Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Continue reading the main story
The book’s main character, Liat, a dutiful young Israeli translator, falls for Hilmi, a Palestinian painter. Liat must decide how far to take a love she knows her family and friends will disapprove of, seeing her as a traitor to her upbringing, her Jewishness.
“She takes him out of the multitude and acknowledges his humanity, her humanity,” Ms. Rabinyan said. “He’s not the Palestinian people. He’s one person.”
Still, the book is tightly woven around the conflict. “This is what we call ‘the situation.’” she said. “It’s like the climate. Another season of the year, a fifth one.”
Continue reading the main story
The book opens with Liat, who, like Ms. Rabinyan, is of Iranian Jewish descent, being questioned by terror investigators. To them, Liat looked Middle Eastern, not necessarily Jewish. Soon after, she meets Hilmi. He is from Hebron and Ramallah, the Palestinians’ de facto capital; she is from Tel Aviv, its own bubble of sea and secularism in Israel.
Continue reading the main story
Hilmi tells her three things about himself, all of which end up mattering: He can’t drive. He never shot a gun. He can’t swim, partly because the West Bank, unlike Israel, does not have the sea Liat loves so much. (The book is dedicated to Ms. Rabinyan’s former lover, the artist Hassan Hourani, who drowned in 2003. She wrote a poignant farewell to him a year later in The Guardian.)
Continue reading the main story
The romance intensifies quickly, though Liat is concerned from beginning to end, less about him, but that her relationship goes against all she was taught.
“Cut this off quickly,” Liat tells herself after their first night together. “Decide with a heavy but determined heart that it’s better this way, better for both of us. And never see him again.”
Needless to say, she does.
“In New York they became more like each other, same land, same experiences,” Ms. Rabinyan said of her characters. “They went into this bubble.”
Photo
Ms. Rabinyan’s novel was published last week in the United States by Random House.
Credit
Random House
The couple find that their similarities and differences are very complicated. Liat, a high-minded, educated woman of the left, sees the only solution as two states, fair but in the end separate. Hilmi thinks there is no dividing the two people on the same land. (This argument, of course, has only intensified.)
Continue reading the main story
The book is too finely drawn for easy symbolism, but at one point Liat sums up what nearly all Israelis have thought, knowingly or not, of their Palestinian neighbors — sometimes not so much antagonism as the wish it simply was not an endlessly prodding problem.
“Only 10 minutes,” she scolds. “Just disappear from my life for 10 minutes.”
The book is also very much of a place and time: People called each other primarily on landlines, without the distracting screens of smartphones. There was no Facebook, Twitter or Tinder. When Liat returns to Tel Aviv, she is disturbed that she has no photograph with Hilmi.
“It seems impossible now,” Ms. Rabinyan said. “Everyone is taking selfies, couple selfies, selfies after sex. If you said ‘hashtag’ in 2002, people would have thought it was a breed of dog.”
Continue reading the main story
Ms. Rabinyan, in person both fierce and pleasant, found success at an early age. Her first novel, “Persian Brides,” based on two days of her Iranian grandmother’s memories, brought her acclaim at 22. Her wishes, she said, “came true even before I had the chance to ask for them.”
Her second novel, “Strand of a Thousand Pearls,” also did well. In 2002, Ms. Rabinyan attended the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which she summed up, in quite American terms, as “awesome, quite beautiful, encouraging.”
Continue reading the main story
She worked on a third novel, which she shelved after six years. It took six more years to write “All the Rivers.”
Though love stories between Israelis and Palestinians are not uncommon, this one drew the ire of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud government. Popular among younger readers, the book was recommended as high school reading, then suddenly and publicly pulled for possibly encouraging intermarriage.
Continue reading the main story
“Intimate relations, and certainly the available option of institutionalizing them by marriage and starting a family — even if that does not happen in the story — between Jews and non-Jews, are seen by large portions of society as a threat on the separate identities,” Dalia Fenig, an Education Ministry official, told Ynet a leading Israeli news site, in December 2015.
Continue reading the main story
The backlash came quickly, at a time when many of the nation’s leading, if leftist, literary idols — including Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua and David Grossman — were under attack by a right-wing group for being “moles in culture,” not sufficiently dedicated to the Israeli cause.
The ministry backed off slightly, allowing some teachers to use the novel in classrooms. What Ms. Rabinyan found disturbed her: It was the students, amid the nation’s palpable drift to the right, who did not want to read the book, which had generally been popular.
Continue reading the main story
“Nowadays kids in Israel and in Palestine are so swept up with this wave of nationalism, exploitative of their instincts,” she said. “The kids themselves rejected the book. They said: ‘It’s a lefty book. I don’t want to read it.’”
Continue reading the main story
Prospects for peace look as bleak as ever, though President Trump has, to the surprise of some, been pushing early in his administration for what he called the “ultimate deal.” He is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, in the White House.
Ms. Rabinyan said she would not give up hope, no matter how remote a deal might seem now (which, spoiler alert, are about as remote as the chances were that Liat could ever give in to Hilmi completely).
“I refuse to let go of my instinct of being in contact with others’ pain,” she said. “This is turning your back. I refuse.”
Continue reading the main story
The post It’s Complicated: The Path of an Israeli-Palestinian Love Story appeared first on Art of Conversation.
How I Got My Literary Agent: Romance Author Janna MacGregor
This content was originally published by Guest Column on 3 May 2017 | 8:30 pm.
Source link
In late spring of 2013, I wrote my very first romance novel—the bones of which still remain in my debut novel, The Bad Luck Bride, to be released by St. Martin’s Press. Not knowing any better, I pitched the original manuscript to a wonderful agent at my first Romance Writers of America Conference in July 2013. I was confident that I had written a sparkling, witty novel. Cool, calm, and collected, I recounted the plot, explained why this book was so unique, and why this agent should sign me. She was and still is one of the most gracious people I have ever met in the publishing industry.
This guest post is by Janna MacGregor. MacGregor was born and raised in the bootheel of Missouri. She credits her darling mom for introducing her to the happily-ever-after world of romance novels. Janna writes stories where compelling and powerful heroines meet and fall in love with their equally matched heroes. She is the mother of triplets and lives in Kansas City with her very own dashing rogue, and two smug, but not surprisingly, perfect pugs. Her debut novel THE BAD LUCK BRIDE was published by St. Martin’s Press in May 2017. You can follower her on Twitter @JannaMacGregor, on Facebook, or sign up for her newsletter.
A year later, I heard back from her via email. She thanked me for my submission, but at this time she didn’t think we’d be a good fit. My writing simply didn’t speak to her—agent lingo for your manuscript needs a lot of work. I didn’t get upset, angry, or even depressed. She was telling me something that I needed to hear. If I wanted to be published, I had to work hard for it.
Meanwhile, I had written a second novel. Instead of turning my attention to that novel, I concentrated back on my first. As I started diving into revisions, I began to realize how little I knew about writing a romance—developing a mesmerizing plot, intriguing characters, and a love story that would make people swoon was not as easy as I first thought. So I rolled up my sleeves and dug in. I learned the craft of writing and the nuts and bolts of plot structure, character arcs, dialogue, and everything required for a good story.
But I really didn’t know if I was any good or not, so I started entering writing contests. The scores and judges’ feedback were abysmal. However, I didn’t give up hope—this was another learning opportunity. So, I polished and polished. Within six months, I was a finalist in the Missouri Romance Writers of America chapter’s Gateway to the West contest. In another three months, I won my first contest, the Great Expectations Contest from the Ft. Worth chapter of the RWA. The feedback was incredible, and I kept honing the manuscript.
[Click here for more articles on How To Find A Literary Agent]
During that year, I was a finalist in thirty contests and won eleven. I quickly learned it really didn’t matter whether you won, as the real prize was getting your work in front of acquiring editors and agents. I received requests from the majority of these contests. But nothing happened. It was like sending the manuscript into a black hole.
Then, something magical happened. I received an email from a publisher requesting the full manuscript. I emailed it, as I had previously. The acquiring editor acknowledged receipt of the manuscript and informed me she would contact me within six to eight months with a decision. Friends told me that this was a typical response time, so I put a note in my calendar to check back in six months.
I had just returned from the 2015 Romance Writers of America conference in New York City where I had pitched this book to eight agents, including the elusive elevator pitch that everyone warns might occur when you attend such a large conference.
Now, you may ask how I got so many requests. Normally at these conferences, there is a day or two scheduled for pitch sessions to agents and editors. Romance writers schedule their appointments months ahead of time. On the day of the pitches, I would wait to see if there were any additional openings. Inevitably, people didn’t show or cancelled. I’d volunteer to take the pitch session whether the agent was in my genre or not. It was an opportunity to network and get my name out there.
The most amazing thing happened when I returned home from New York and the RWA conference. Within a week, I got a call from the editor asking to acquire my manuscript for publication as an e-book. After I finished the obligatory happy dance, I started to ask questions. What kind of editing could I expect? I explained that my story was the first in a series. How many books would she be willing to offer in this first contract? What would be the expected publication date? What kind of promotion could I expect from the publication house?
The editor answered my questions professionally and thoroughly. She explained that this would be a contract for one book, but she was certain they would buy more. As regards to editing, she believed that the manuscript only needed minor edits before being published.
Immediately, I became a little suspect. Even though I thought my romance might rival Hemingway (*cough*), I knew deep down, it could always be improved. In spite of my gut reaction, I realized this opportunity to publish meant I needed representation. Even though I’m an attorney, I didn’t have the expertise to understand the details and clauses of a complex literary contract.
Fortunately for me, every agent I spoke with in NYC during the RWA conference asked me to send a partial or the full manuscript with a synopsis. I quickly sent my submissions, listed my contests finals, and informed the agents of my pending offer.
Within forty-eight hours, two agents contacted me. One offered immediate representation. During a phone call to discuss the details, I asked the agent how much editing she thought the manuscript required. She responded the manuscript was perfect as is. With a heavy heart, I passed. I knew that under the right direction, my story could be improved.
The second agent, Ms. Pamela Ahearn, responded by email. She praised my writing and congratulated me on all my contest wins, but she wasn’t bashful about listing all the things wrong with the manuscript. It wasn’t one or two items, but a whole page full of major and minor problems. She closed by saying she didn’t know how hard I wanted to work, but if I was willing to revise the manuscript per her suggestions, she’d look at it again.
In Get a Literary Agent you’ll find:
— Tips for a successful agent query and book proposal
— Proven strategies for how to get a literary agent to represent you
— And much, much more!
Click here to order GET A LITERARY AGENT now!
Pam Ahearn represents Sabrina Jeffries, one of the biggest names in historical romance and a New York Times bestselling author. For me, this was a dream come true to work with such a respected professional in my industry. I didn’t think twice, immediately working on revisions. In two months, I’d revised the manuscript as Ms. Ahearn had requested and resubmitted it. She quickly got back to me with her. Since the winter holidays were upon us, she suggested we wait until January to submit my manuscript to publishers. She’d submit it to the “Big Five” and see what would happen. It could take up to six months before we received any response.
Ten days later, Ms. Ahearn called me. When I saw the number, I knew it was her and quickly assumed that she needed something else as part of the submission process. When I answered, she asked me if I was sitting down. The laughter in her voice was unmistakable. I replied that I was, but immediately jumped out of my chair and started to pace the hallway. My two pugs followed my every step, sensing my excitement.
Ms. Ahearn told me that St. Martin’s Press had offered me a three-book contract in mass-market print and e-book. After a joyful scream and a jig or two, I could finally talk. I will never, ever forget that day.
Every person’s path to publication will follow a different road. Our writing journeys are as unique as our fingerprints. But I hope you learn from my experience and take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves. It’s a marvelous journey filled with hills and dips in the road, but perseverance is your true friend. Relish your triumphs, whether it’s completing a chapter, finishing an entire book, or becoming a finalist in a contest. Wherever you are on this incredible journey, may you enjoy every minute of it.
The biggest literary agent database anywhere
is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the
most recent updated edition online at a discount.
If you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at cris.freese@fwmedia.com.
You might also like:
The post How I Got My Literary Agent: Romance Author Janna MacGregor appeared first on Art of Conversation.
America First? No, Says Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
This content was originally published by WALTER RUSSELL MEAD on 3 May 2017 | 11:00 am.
Source link
This early in the Trump administration, we cannot predict whether or how the president will convert his campaign rhetoric about “America First” into a foreign policy that challenges or reshapes America’s post-Cold War foreign policy. What we do know, however, is that the ambitious, wide-ranging goals of the world-order project have never been as popular with voters as they were with the foreign policy and journalistic elites. Since 1992, when voters rejected George H. W. Bush for Clinton, who was critical of Nafta and free trade with China on the stump, through 2016, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, the less globalist candidate has won the key presidential elections. George W. Bush ran in favor of a “humbler” foreign policy and attacked “nation-building” against the global agenda of Vice President Al Gore. Obama was seen as promoting a less assertive and less expensive foreign policy in 2008 than John McCain, and in 2012, the Obama team mocked Mitt Romney’s warnings that Vladimir Putin was America’s leading geopolitical foe.
Photo
The results of the 2016 election make democracy promotion perhaps the most endangered element of the “new world order” agenda. Free trade has powerful defenders in the corporate world; democracy promotion is strongly supported by nongovernmental organizations — some of which, like the National Endowment for Democracy, receive government funds that could be at risk. “Democracy” is Rice’s attempt to hammer home the idea of democracy promotion as a key goal for American foreign policy. This heartfelt and at times very moving book shows why democracy proponents are so committed to their work, but also indicates why so many others are skeptical.
Rice is above all an honest and sincere writer; she does not gild the lilies or tweak her data. She is candid about times that democracy promotion has led to costly mistakes, singling out the 2006 elections that she and her team pushed the Palestinians to conduct and the Israelis to support, confident that Hamas would lose. Hamas won, and the subsequent deadlock and war among Palestinians continues to complicate the task of Middle East peacemaking to this day. She is forthright about mistakes made in Iraq, and notes that disasters like the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and American stumbles in postinvasion Iraq complicated the Bush administration’s goals of promoting democracy elsewhere. She is also honest about the failures of the much ballyhooed Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and about the infighting and corruption that would ultimately lead to yet another Ukrainian revolution in 2014. Setbacks in Egypt and Turkey, and the failure in Libya to build any kind of government after the overthrow of Qaddafi, also get mentioned.
Continue reading the main story
Yet for Rice, the point of these failures is that democracy promotion is “hard — really, really hard,” not that it is unimportant or impossible. It remains, she insists, both an inescapable moral responsibility for the United States and the only policy that, long-term, has the potential to safeguard American security. And the agenda, she points out, has had successes as well as setbacks. “Elections,” she reminds us, “still attract long lines of first-time voters, even among the poorest and least-educated populations in Africa.” She balances her reports on places where democracy, at least for now, has failed to take root, with stories of the difficult, often partial, but historically important victories that democracy continues to win. In Colombia, Kenya, Tunisia and Ghana she finds signs of hope.
The strength of local institutions can, Rice argues, make the difference in building democracy. The police, the judiciary, a free press, political parties: When these institutions are strong, young democracies can put down roots and grow.
Continue reading the main story
But foreign support can also help. Rice cites the Millennium Challenge Corporation compacts that the second Bush administration introduced, providing substantial support for countries that commit to clear governance reforms. In Liberia, where M.C.C. compacts helped the democratic government of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf introduce significant improvements, the new capacity proved instrumental in the fight against the Ebola outbreak of 2014.
Rice’s description of progress, often against considerable odds and usually only partial, is inspiring, but a political question remains: Is there enough support in American politics for a democracy-building agenda to keep the Trump administration and its successors in the fight?
Continue reading the main story
The answer must be mixed. There are areas where democracy-promotion efforts touch directly on important American interests so that even the most hard-nosed practitioners of “America First” realpolitik are likely to see an advantage. In Nigeria, for example, the state’s capacity to fight terrorism is closely linked to its overall capacity to govern. But where such a clear and direct connection to an obvious national security challenge is lacking, these policies may be harder to defend as American voters reassess their commitment to the global agenda that the first President Bush laid out so many years ago. One must hope that those who engage in the debates about to take place will think carefully about the ideas and the examples Rice describes. Both supporters and skeptics of democracy promotion will come away from this book wiser and better informed.
Continue reading the main story
The post America First? No, Says Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Maine’s Great Fires Kindle a Second Chance at Love
This content was originally published by MARY POLS on 3 May 2017 | 2:18 pm.
Source link
Photo
THE STARS ARE FIRE
By Anita Shreve
241 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95.
In October 1947 more than 200,000 acres of Maine burned, including half of Acadia National Park. Nine towns were destroyed. The disaster was a myth in the making, a series of events sufficiently violent to feed anyone’s dark imagination, where it could emerge as one giant, terrifying fireball, with Maine as the unfortunate target. In truth, though, these were fires plural, 200 of them, erupting almost as if timed but fed by what can only be considered bad timing: drought, unusually high winds, random carelessness. Maine was a birthday cake, lit everywhere. Forest fires became town fires, even coastal fires, with some people forced to the ocean’s edge. In Bar Harbor, they were evacuated by fishing boats. The historical record of their travails is a literary opportunist’s delight; it’s surprising it took a novelist this long to pounce.
Anita Shreve’s “The Stars Are Fire” is the swiftly paced if occasionally soppy saga of a young mother, Grace Holland, who loses her home and nearly her life that October. The so-called Great Fires are a good fit for Shreve, who has repurposed Maine history before to best-selling effect in “The Weight of Water,” where she gave a fictional spin (and twist) to an 1873 double homicide on Smuttynose Island. (Kathryn Bigelow directed an adaptation, a mystifying stinker of a film.)
Photo
Credit
Andrew Bannecker
When “The Stars Are Fire” begins in a rainy spring, Grace is only 23 and already has two children with her husband, Gene, a surveyor working on the new Maine Turnpike. They live in a place Shreve calls Hunts Beach, which from all the geographic clues sounds very close to Fortune’s Rocks, the setting for four of her previous novels. The emotional territory is familiar as well. Grace doesn’t have an ideal marriage. As she reminds herself, Gene is handsome, a good provider and “enthralled” with their son and daughter. But he’s either a clumsy, rough lover or, as his wife suspects, “deeply troubled.” Neither Grace nor Shreve seems to have decided which that might be; he’s a boogeyman trotted out for convenience.
Shreve wastes little time getting to the fire itself, which arrives as a reddish glow on the western horizon before the end of the book’s first quarter. It’s a dynamic, vivid scene. While Grace rushes to the beach to take cover with her best friend and their children, Gene is last seen walking into a wall of flames. The question of his fate remains open for much of the book, which says little for his wife’s desire to find him, or the investigative talents of the fictional Maine police force.
Grace is rendered homeless, as were 2,500 Mainers after that October, but arguably she gains from the fire as well — the freedom to pursue a career and new romantic prospects. This is how Shreve, reliably a romantically inclined writer, rolls. A heel of a man is barely out of the picture when a better man shows up, first to help and then to woo. In “The Pilot’s Wife,” a woman learns of her treacherous husband’s death from the man who becomes her next lover. In “The Stars Are Fire,” Grace is rescued, post-fire, by a highly eligible doctor. Then she encounters a soulful pianist, a man she finds squatting at her recently deceased mother-in-law’s still-standing, palatial shorefront house. Hearing him play for the first time, Grace muses, “Is it from musical notes that true longing is born?” How much you enjoy this book may depend on whether you can answer that question in the affirmative. If life were anything like a Shreve novel, Match.com would be a website selling the wooden sticks to light fires with.
But how the pages turn, even the ones padded with Grace’s not entirely believable ambivalence over matters large and small. She’s an enterprising woman, sensible, a true Yankee. (Of her laundry, she observes, “A soft towel is a coddle, doesn’t get the dead skin off.”) Would she really be reluctant, in this crisis, to help herself to her deceased mother-in-law’s possessions? Gene is (or was) the woman’s only son! Every reluctant dip into the dead lady’s closet feels like an achievement in independence. Shreve has a gift for making the mundane engaging; Grace’s excursion to Biddeford to look for a used car is nearly as interesting as her romantic life. Long before Liane Moriarty was spinning her “Big Little Lies,” Shreve was spicing up domestic doings in beachfront settings with terrible husbands and third-act twists. She still is, as effectively as ever, this time with a narrative literally lit from within.
Continue reading the main story
The post Maine’s Great Fires Kindle a Second Chance at Love appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Making Sense of the Philippines
This content was originally published by CONCEPCIÓN DE LEÓN on 3 May 2017 | 6:57 pm.
Source link
Photo
The Philippines was the United States’ first experiment in colonization, and though the Asian archipelago became a fully independent nation in 1946, the two countries have continued to share strong diplomatic ties. Though criticism of the Philippines’ current president, Rodrigo Duterte, by the Obama administration caused a temporary rift in relations, tides may be turning. President Donald Trump has reached out to Mr. Duterte, even extending an invitation for him to visit the White House. Many human rights advocates view the move as an endorsement of Mr. Duterte’s violent crusade in the Philippines, where over 7,000 people suspected of using or dealing drugs have been killed by the police and citizen vigilantes since Mr. Duterte took office in June 2016.
This would not be the first time the United States has supported an authoritarian leader in the Philippines. In WALTZING WITH A DICTATOR: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy (1987), Raymond Bonner draws on dozens of interviews and thousands of previously classified United States government documents to investigate why not one but several American presidents — from Lyndon B. Johnson to Ronald Reagan — supported Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator who ruled in the Philippines from 1965 until 1986, even as his regime grew increasingly reprehensible. The book, which reveals that the United States knew Mr. Marcos would declare martial law in 1972 and even offered its support, is not devoid of opinion; there is a tenor of outrage as Mr. Bonner attempts to decipher the administrations’ decisions. It makes worthwhile reading for its thorough account of those years.
For a more contemporary look at Philippine politics, one might turn to ILUSTRADO (2010) by Miguel Syjuco. Ostensibly about a fictional Syjuco’s quest to investigate the death of his invented mentor, Crispin Salvador, who is found dead in New York’s Hudson River, “Ilustrado” incorporates commentary on the political climate in the Philippines during the early aughts. As the fictional Syjuco sets out to find Salvador’s final and lost work, an amalgamation of 20 years of research that unravels the “cronyism” and “corruption” of the Filipino elite, news clippings are woven in — including a fictional interview with the Paris Review in which Salvador says, quite plainly, that politicians in the Philippines “should be presumed guilty until proven innocent,” implying that even the most saintly politicians may be hiding a corrupt streak.
American influence in the Philippines was not limited to politics. Mia Alvar’s collection of short stories, IN THE COUNTRY (2015), sees the two countries further entwined by giving voice to a cast of characters both in the Philippines and here in the United States. In “The Kontrabida,” Ms. Alvar introduces Steve, who returns to his native Manila after 10 years in New York to see his dying father, only to realize he has become an outsider. In another story, a young nurse named Milagros leads a strike at Manila’s City Hospital after learning that American nurses make more than native ones. Throughout, Alvar gives Filipinos from “Manilachusetts” — a Filipino community in Boston — to Manila a strong voice.
Continue reading the main story
The post Making Sense of the Philippines appeared first on Art of Conversation.
LSU: Elsevier Is Blocking Campus IP Addresses, Dodging Lawsuit
This content was originally published by on 3 May 2017 | 4:00 am.
Source link
LSU has filed a lawsuit against Elsevier, charging it is wrongly blocking students in its veterinary school from accessing the library’s subscriptions. Elsevier, however, say that the matter is a contract dispute, and hopes to settle it through negotiations.
Source link
The post LSU: Elsevier Is Blocking Campus IP Addresses, Dodging Lawsuit appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Four Spiritual Books on Thriving at Midlife
This content was originally published by on 3 May 2017 | 4:00 am.
Source link
New titles draw on a variety of ideologies to help readers handle the physical and emotional changes that come with middle age.
Source link
The post Four Spiritual Books on Thriving at Midlife appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Penny Candy Books: Poetry Publisher Interview
This content was originally published by Robert Lee Brewer on 3 May 2017 | 3:51 am.
Source link
Trying something new this week. Instead of interviewing a poet, I’ve interviewed the founders of Penny Candy Books, which publishes children’s books, including poetry. Specifically, this interview features Alexis Orgera and Chad Reynolds.
*****
Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process!
In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.
*****
What are you currently up to?
Alexis Orgera: Well, today I’ve been making a production schedule for upcoming books. We have three or four coming out in the fall and four more next spring. There’s a lot of calendar action over here today.
Chad Reynolds: We are working on securing illustrators for an exciting book we’re doing with Tony Medina in Spring 2018. We’re always reading submissions that have come in. We are preparing for BookExpo America in NYC at the end of May and ALA Conference in Chicago in June. We’re thinking about how we can grow aggressively but sustainably.
How is Penny Candy Books unique compared to other publishers?
AO: I’d say that, first and foremost, Chad and I each have a poet’s aesthetic. This translates into unexpected books for children, both language-wise and illustration-wise. We like stories that tell it slant, and that seems to be how our list is coming into the world. Not all of our books are poem based…but many are. Next year alone, we have haiku, tanka, couplets, and free verse books coming out.
In addition, we set out to make sure our authors, illustrators, collaborators, and audience are a diverse group of people and that we put diverse stories into the world. We’re definitely not unique here, but we’re proud to be actually making it happen.
A Gift From Greensboro
A Gift from Greensboro, a poem by Quraysh Ali Lansana, was your first title. How did that book come about?
CR: I’ve admired Q’s work since we had poems come out in the same issue of a local lit mag in 2010, but I didn’t meet him in person until a few years later, when he was an instructor at Oklahoma City University’s low-residency MFA program, and I attended a reading where he brought the house down. At that point, I had started Short Order Poems with another local poet, so we invited Q to join us for an event. This was the fall of 2014. A year later, when Alexis and I started Penny Candy, I knew Q would be someone we’d want to solicit for a manuscript. He responded by sending us his “Woolworth’s Poem,” which became A Gift from Greensboro.
What are you looking for in submissions from poets and other writers?
AO: We’re looking for stories that pay attention to language, aren’t full of stage direction, say something true and authentic rather than simply trying to teach a lesson.
You and Chad are poets yourselves. Does this make you more open to poetry submissions?
AO: I think so. We get pretty jazzed when we see a good poetry submission. Even more jazzed when a poet we admire expresses interest in what we’re doing. In essence, all good kids’ books are poems, even when they’re written in prose, so there’s that.
If you could pass on only one tip for other poets, what would it be?
AO: Language matters. Poetry is an antidote to carelessness and mindlessness. Poetry, like mindfulness, when practiced diligently centers both writer and reader. Also, make sure you derive joy from writing poems. The act itself. Otherwise, you’ll burn out and get discouraged.
*****
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He loves hearing from poets, publishers, and others interested in poetry.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
*****
Find more poetic posts here:
You might also like:
The post Penny Candy Books: Poetry Publisher Interview appeared first on Art of Conversation.
Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 391 | WritersDigest.com
This content was originally published by Robert Lee Brewer on 3 May 2017 | 1:02 pm.
Source link
No matter how many times we do it, I still have a bit of an adjustment period after going from a poem-a-day to a poem-a-week.
For today’s prompt, write a reconnect poem. Throughout history, people have gone through the process of reconnecting–from soldiers coming back from war to former students having reunions. Plus, there are connections of estranged family members, friends who’ve drifted apart, and former lovers. Or even poets, who were used to meeting each morning, reconnecting after a few days off.
*****
The 2017 Poet’s Market, edited by Robert Lee Brewer, includes hundreds of poetry markets, including listings for poetry publications, publishers, contests, and more! With names, contact information, and submission tips, poets can find the right markets for their poetry and achieve more publication success than ever before.
In addition to the listings, there are articles on the craft, business, and promotion of poetry–so that poets can learn the ins and outs of writing poetry and seeking publication. Plus, it includes a one-year subscription to the poetry-related information on WritersMarket.com. All in all, it’s the best resource for poets looking to secure publication.
*****
Here’s my attempt at a Reconnect Poem:
“would you”
would you please take a second look
at everything there is to see
even if only on Facebook
& maybe then you’ll see i took
the right steps to bring you to me
would you please take a second look
perhaps wander across the brook
that feeds a stream that feeds a sea
even if only on Facebook
your words somehow still turned & shook
filling me both with dread & glee
so would you take a second look
& pull me off this lover’s hook
that holds me like a rooted tree
even if only on Facebook
i trust the recipes you cook
& everything you could feed me
my open mouth your second look
even if only on Facebook
*****
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He’s happy to reconnect with the villanelle this morning.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
*****
Find more poetic posts here:
You might also like:
The post Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 391 | WritersDigest.com appeared first on Art of Conversation.
