Roy Miller's Blog, page 298
January 16, 2017
“A capsule lesson in courage of conscience”
“A galvanizing account of his coming-of-age in the movement, it’s a capsule lesson in courage of conscience, a story that inspires without moralizing or simplifying in hindsight … more movement blueprint than civil rights monument, avoiding the Old Testament spectacle of good versus evil in favor of the clashing visions and fractious passions of those pledged to the same fight … Vivid and dynamic, yet easily accommodating political nuance, this [graphic novel] form lends itself to depicting the complex confrontations and negotiations of a wide range of individuals … Emphasizing disruption, decentralization and cooperation over the mythic ascent of heroic leaders, this graphic novel’s presentation of civil rights is startlingly contemporary. Lewis may be one of the ‘great men’ of the movement, but his memoir is humble and generous.”
–Julian Lucas, The New York Times Book Review, November 17, 2016
Read more of Julian’s reviews here
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How to Write About Scent
“Write in all five senses,” they say. “Incorporate at least three sensual cues in every scene,” they say. “Don’t forget your sense of smell!” they say. “Scent and psyche are deeply connected,” they say.
Anyone who’s ever taken a writing workshop has heard the advice to weave scent details into writing in order to make it a living, breathing thing, but no one ever says how. So when I set out to write a memoir about being a super sniffer—someone inordinately connected to her sense of smell—I knew I was going to have to draw far and wide to really learn how to make great smelly writing.
The stakes are especially high in scent writing. Do it well, and it’s as if James Joyce and Marcel Proust are patting you fondly from tiny perches on both shoulders. Fail, and you’re suddenly the guy doused in Axe body spray who just stepped into the elevator.
There’s your first lesson about scent and writing. If you’re any good at all, readers might not even know that it’s there. They will absorb it from the page the same way the mind might take in a scent without really being conscious of it.
After I decided to start reading for scent in literature, I focused almost exclusively on books about scent: Tom Robbins’s Jitterbug Perfume, Mandy Aftel’s Fragrant, Chandler Burr’s The Perfect Scent. But while I read every book published in the scent-writing genre, I began to discover a much broader appeal for smelly writing in memoir and fiction—both categories that rely on detail to imply a character’s psychological state.
Take this masterly passage from Nina McLaughlin’s Hammerhead: The Making of a Carpenter, which shows how effectively scent cues speak to the narrator’s transformation from office worker to woodworker: “Sawdust spewed and dusted down onto the pavement, resting in craters in the cement, and the smell of pine moved with it, bright and clean, the smell of Christmas, renewal.”
Some of my favorite recent scent writing comes from Isaac Marion’s YA novel Warm Bodies, quite possibly the smelliest book I’ve ever read. In Warm Bodies (spoiler alert!), the main zombie character, R, is able to discern more scents as he falls in love with a human. The more he can smell, the more R knows that he is changing: “As this happens, my sinuses ignite with a new smell, something similar to the life energy of the Living but also vastly different. It’s coming from Julie, it’s her scent, but it’s also mine. It rushes out from us like an explosion of pheromones, so potent I can almost see it.”
Scent works subtly in Paula Hawkins’s megabestseller The Girl on the Train. You probably remember what Rachel saw from the train, but do you remember what she smelled? The main character often focuses on the scent details, which feels more real to her than her visual memory. “So when I closed my eyes, when I drifted into a half dream and found myself in that underpass, I may have been able to feel the cold and smell the rank, stale air, I may have been able to see a figure walking towards me, spitting rage, fist raised, but it wasn’t true.”
There’s your second lesson about scent writing. Like a memory from childhood, good scent writing sneaks up on you out of nowhere, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, surprising you and providing clues to a character’s psychological state.
Occasionally I’ll even find great nonfiction scent writing in which scent’s purpose is to insert us into a scene, as in Bruce Barcott’s cannabis compendium Weed the People: “The smell of a grow room is the scent of transpiration, of fecund exertion. It’s the trapped sweat of a high school locker room, the funk of a hockey jersey steaming on a radiator.”
The longer I read for scent, the more convinced I become that scent is one of the least used in the dusty grab bag of writers’ tools, and the more committed I become to creating writing that truly stinks. After all, smelly writing is the way we can all rail against the tyranny of the visual in our culture and remember the things books provide us: a world unseen (as well as unsmelled).
Emily Grosvenor is a magazine writer in Oregon and the creator of the Scent in Literature Project. She is writing a memoir of a super sniffer.
A version of this article appeared in the 05/23/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: The Scent of Great Writing
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Bookselling in the Twin Cities
When it comes to bookstores, Minneapolis and Saint Paul's 3.5 million residents are well served. Of the American Booksellers Association's 65 Minnesota members, 37, or more than half, are located in the Twin Cities metro area, which is also home to 13 Barnes & Noble outlets, including one of the retailer's new concept stores, and seven Half Price Books locations.
Booksellers attribute the vibrance of the area's indie scene to much more than a national trend that has seen the channel become revitalized in recent years. Booksellers see local indies' vitality rather as an outgrowth of the area's long-held tradition of philanthropy and civic engagement. Together with the state's 96% adult literacy rate—among the highest in the nation—the Twin Cities has created a culture in which government, foundations, and citizens don't just value books and reading. They also support literary nonprofit organizations with their dollars.
"There's just a lot happening here that brings attention to books and authors. We're fortunate to live in a community where literacy is a priority," says Holly Weinkauf, owner of Saint Paul's 32-year-old Red Balloon Bookshop. At the 2016 Minnesota Book Awards gala, the bookstore sold $10,000 worth of books.
"There are all these organizations being successful promoting books, literacy, and reading. All that together makes for a healthy book community," says David Enyeart, events manager of Saint Paul's Common Good Books, which Garrison Keillor opened in 2006. Since moving five years ago from an 1,800-sq.-ft. basement on affluent Cathedral Hill into a 3,000-sq.-ft. storefront across the street from Macalester College, sales at Common Good have risen a total of 20%. The bookstore recently sold $13,000 worth of books at the Opus & Olives annual library fund-raiser, plus another $13,000 in presales. "There are a lot of people here who understand what books will do for them, the importance in their lives. It helps us sell them books," Enyeart says.
The Twin Cities' vibrant literary culture attracts some of the country's biggest authors, and bookstore calendars are always packed. Twenty-year-old Excelsior Bay Books in Excelsior, Minn., takes full advantage of the opportunity to book touring authors. Since the summer of 2015, the bookstore has held a monthly Literature Lovers' Night Out to give readers a chance to interact with nationally and internationally well-known writers. September's event, which included William Kent Krueger (Manitou Canyon) and Michael Perry (Roughneck Grace) drew a record 140 people and had to be moved to a nearby church. "Tickets sold out in 20 minutes. It was overwhelming," says Excelsior Bay's events coordinator Pamela Klinger-Horn. "We always sell a couple thousand dollars worth of books at these events, [and] there is a trickle effect even after the programs."
A map created by Minneapolis's Moon Palace Books for National Bookstore Day 2015 showcases the sheer number of indies in the area. The map features 20 new and used indie bookstores inside the Minneapolis city limits and another eight in Saint Paul. In the intervening year and a half since the map was created, new bookstores have continued to open and grow. In July, Moon Palace moved from the back of its building into the front area, doubling in size to 1,700 sq. ft. Despite ongoing construction outside the store, co-owner Angela Schwesnedl reports that sales have risen 30% since the expansion.
In September, Milkweed Books opened in Minneapolis's Open Book building complex, which is dedicated to the literary arts. Affiliated with Milkweed Editions, the 750-sq.-ft. bookstore's curated inventory of 1,200 titles consists of literary
fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from small presses that don't typically receive prime placement in chain stores.
Later this spring, new bookseller Zsamé Morgan is planning a soft opening for Babycake's Book Stack in Saint Paul's Lowertown. Babycake's will focus on multicultural and international children's books. With the addition of Babycake's, the Twin Cities will arguably become the nation's hub for children's bookselling. In addition to the Red Balloon and Minneapolis's Wild Rumpus, the area also has eight Creative Kidstuff stores, which sell children's books and educational toys and games. Saint Paul also boasts the only bookstore that specializes in young adult literature, Addendum. The bookstore opened five years ago inside a larger bookstore, Subtext. After moving into a standalone storefront in 2015, Addendum added crossover adult books, which further pumped up sales.
Travelers flying into the Twin Cities don't even have to leave the airport to shop at a local bookstore. Of five new bookstores scheduled to open later this year in Minnesota, two will be located inside the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport's main terminal: Words and Open Book.
Bookstore Diversity
Milkweed Books manager Hans Weyandt, who began his bookselling career at Saint Paul's now closed the Hungry Mind (later known as Ruminator Books) and who was a co-owner of Micawber's, says that the health of the local indie bookstore scene can be attributed in large part to its diversity. Although uptown Minneapolis boasts a large general bookstore, 18,000-sq.-ft. Magers and Quinn, which stocks 120,000 new and used titles, the area also contains a number of smaller specialized bookstores.
Small bookstores fill underserved niches. Among these bookstores is one founded by bestselling author Louise Erdrich that Weyandt describes as "truly singular." Founded more than 15 years ago, Birchbark Books & Native Arts is an 800-sq.-ft. general bookstore that features an outsize collection of literature by Native American authors for both children and adults, published in English as well as in Native languages.
On the other side of a chain of lakes from Birchbark, another 800-sq.-ft. store, Once Upon a Crime, has specialized in mysteries for three decades. It was purchased by Dennis Abraham and Meg King-Abraham on April 1 last year, the bookstore's 29th anniversary.
In Saint Paul, Hmong ABC, which bills itself as the first and only Hmong bookstore in the world, has operated for more than two decades. And Daybreak Press Global Bookshop, which specializes in books from around the world on faith, social justice, and feminism, has moved across the river to the University of Minnesota area a year after launching in Saint Paul in 2014. Not only are Saint Paulites still crossing the river to visit the store, but owner Tamara Gray reports that heavier foot traffic at the new location is pushing up sales.
One of the few remaining black bookstores in the country, Ancestry Books specializes in literature by and about indigenous peoples and people of color. The bookstore closed in August 2015 after a little over a year in business. But founder Chaun Webster reopened it last winter as a recurring weekend pop-up outlet at Juxtaposition Arts, a local arts organization.
With so many different types of bookstores catering to readers, Moon Palace's Schwesnedl says that the metro area's indie scene has reached "a critical mass," which means that physical bookstores should continue to do well. "Minnesotans are cranky and independent," Schwesnedl adds. "They'll shop at a local store over Amazon any day. There's a reason that the Twin Cities never make it onto Amazon's annual list of the 20 most-well-read cities in the U.S."
A version of this article appeared in the 01/16/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
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Meet the Agent: Helen Adams, Zimmermann Literary
Helen Adams (formerly Zimmermann) got her start in publishing more than 20 years ago: first at Random House—where she became Director of Advertising and Promotion—then as Author Events Director for an independent bookseller, where aspiring writers would often ask her how to get published. “I would always say, ‘You need to find an agent,’” Adams says. “After I said that a dozen times, a light went off and I thought, ‘Hey, why don’t I become an agent?’” So she did: In 2003, Zimmermann Literary was born.
“For nonfiction, my dream project is one that has a clear market, is fresh, informative and entertaining, and has an author with a large platform,” she says. “For fiction, my dream project [is one that] makes me miss a meal.”
Find her online at zimmermannliterary.com and projectpublish.com. You can find her on Twitter at @AgentZimmy. Below, discover writing tips, what Helen is currently seeking, tips on pitching, how to query her agency, and more.
No matter what you’re writing—fiction or nonfiction, books for adults or children—you need a literary agent to get the best book deal possible from a traditional publisher.
Guide to Literary Agents 2017
is your essential resource for finding that literary agent and getting a contract with one of the country’s top publishers. Along with listing information for more than 1,000 agents who represent writers and their books, this updated edition of GLA includes:
A one-year subscription to the literary agent content on WritersMarket.com.
The secrets of query-writing success: Learn 5 common mistakes that make an agent stop reading—and how to avoid them.
“New Agent Spotlights”: Get targeted profiles of literary reps who are actively building their client lists right now.
Informative articles on writing a synopsis, pitching your work online, utilizing writing peers, and much more.
Seeking
“Wellness/fitness/sports, relationships, popular culture, women’s issues, music, memoir, reading group fiction.”
Writing Tips
“Never forget that publishing is a business: It’s not going to happen overnight, and numbers matter.”
“Content is king. If your material falls apart a few chapters in, agents will notice.”
“For fiction writers, writers’ groups are invaluable.”
“For nonfiction writers, being completely passionate about your subject matter is great; obsessed with your subject matter is even better.”
Pitch Tips
“Make sure your query letter focuses on your strengths. You want to start strong.”
“Do your research.”
“Your biography should pertain [only] to your work.”
HOW TO QUERY:
“Queries are preferred via email. Please no attachments until I express interest. For non-fiction queries, initial contact should just be a pitch letter. For fiction queries, I prefer a summary, your bio, and the first chapter as text in the email (not as an attachment). If I express interest I will need to see a full proposal for non-fiction and the remainder of the manuscript for fiction. I receive many submissions and regretfully can’t reply to each one, so please understand that if you don’t hear from me in two weeks it is most likely because the project isn’t right for my agency.”
ClientsKent Hartman, author of The Wrecking Crew (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012)
Jim Afremow, author of The Champions Mind (Rodale Books, 2014)
Susan Richards, author of Chosen by a Horse (Mariner Books, 2007)
Upcoming Conferences
Books Alive!, Washington D.C., April 2017
ASJA Writers Conference, New York City, May 2017
Life in a Nutshell
“Grew up in Westchester County, N.Y.; was a Girl Scout way longer than most; played field hockey in college; am the proud mother of two college students; and when I’m not working I’m almost always in the woods.”
Fun Facts
“I was a volunteer EMT for 10 years, two of them as captain of the rescue squad—totally badass.”
“I love to cook without a recipe.”
“I am painfully neat. I can’t work unless my space is tidy.”
The February 2017 issue is on newsstands now!
Favorite
Drink: Chardonnay
Blog: yurts.com/blog
Living author: Ian McEwan
Dead author: Anne LaBastille
Poem: “My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.” —Edna St. Vincent Millay
Quote: “Solvitur ambulando.” (“It is solved through walking.”)
Place: Adirondack Mountains
Most Proud Of
“Hiking all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks, making me ADK 46er #8058.”
Why She Does What She Does
“Making writers’ dreams come true is pretty darn fun.”
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A 1958 review of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Stride Toward Freedom
“The story of Montgomery, Alabama, has in the last few years, been more or less familiar to anyone who casually scanned the headlines. Seat of anti Negro hostility, it was a natural battleground on which Negroes and sympathetic whites would stage a battle for non-discrimination. In his autobiography, Dr. Martin Luther King, a Negro pastor and leader of the Montgomery non-violence campaign, describes in vivid and moving terms the incidents which turned this campaign from an academic protest into a passionate battle for integrity. Long victimized by the indignities of segregation, the Negroes in Montgomery could finally endure no more. Forced to stand while white passengers sat, abused, insulted and mutilated them, the Negro community under Dr. King’s leadership organized a general boycott of Montgomery buses. Incidents of violence followed, but only on the part of the whites. Determined to maintain a passive calm, the Negroes persisted in their stand, and finally, segregation of public vehicles was declared illegal by the United States Supreme Court. Dr. King’s compassionate account of his people not only indicates possible future action, but makes it impossible for any reader to regard the problems of the Southern Negro as an obscure and impersonal issue.”
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Why Unpaid Interships Are a Raw Deal For Everyone
Thirty-five hours a week. Unpaid. I wish I were surprised when I see offers like this.
As a Mainer who attended a state university, now living in the big (to me) city of Boston, I feel that a graduate program is necessary for me to overcome a skill and status gap resulting from my background. But unpaid-internship offers frequently come by way of mass emails from my publishing graduate program, boasting of opportunities to make something of myself.
As I sign my life away on ever more student loans, working as much as I can to defray them, it’s disconcerting to face an industry that won’t pay me for my work. I am intimidated by an industry that says my work will only earn experience and connections. Every intern knows the ephemeral value of these earnings. Whereas money directly translates to heat, food, transportation, stability, and legitimacy, gaining experience and making connections are vague goals that don’t necessarily result in careers.
No industry is above politics, and as politicians debate unemployment, unpaid internships emerge as a strange stepchild. An entry appears on our résumés, but are we employed? We work, but is that labor enough to earn a wage? The answers are as uncomfortable as they are clear. There is no wage gap wider than the one between nothing and something; there is no unemployment starker than working without compensation.
As students fall ever further into debt, as wages depress and dissipate entirely, young people need an ever-higher amount of wealth to vault past this pit of unpaid labor. Without family money, without living in an area with good jobs and good schools, the opportunity to accrue enough capital to be able to skip the need for paychecks becomes almost impossible.
The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division requires that workers be paid at least minimum wage, as long as they are not trainees in programs that do not displace jobs and do not benefit the employer. Currently, it seems, most unpaid internships should be illegal, and yet, in the past few decades, they have become the model for entering many major industries. Unpaid internships have thrived in this legal twilight between outdated laws and unfunded enforcement.
School approval does not redeem unpaid internships—if anything, it makes them worse. Course credit does nothing to obviate the illegality of unpaid internships and only casts a sheen of legitimacy. Credit, after all, is never given, but paid for. If we were to see interns as workers as well as students and adults, we would see them paying to work, not once but twice: once to live, and a second time for credit.
As court cases are waged for back pay, the discussion of the rights of interns is delayed and the likelihood of using unpaid interns becomes higher, but even as the law churns in various courts, the moral, political, and economic consequences of unpaid internships, for the interns and the industries that use them, remain.
I want to work in publishing because it’s the business of articulating and distributing ideas—sometimes groundbreaking, sometimes disruptive, and sometimes clarifying. All I propose is a moment of clarity: please, step back and reconsider what unpaid internships mean. They cheapen the work of publishing: figuratively, in that a hard day’s work no longer means a day’s pay, and literally, in that a wage of zero forces a race to the bottom that excludes all but the wealthiest and the luckiest.
When the entrance to working in publishing is based on affordability rather than talent, passion, creativity, or perspective, the field inevitably shrinks. Until the publishing industry can collectively decide, both financially and in principle, to support its future, I fear the stubborn homogeneity of its workforce will leave it unprepared for a world of ever-changing markets, technologies, and people.
As a young worker in a precarious economy, passionate but anxious, ambitious but scared, all I ask for is mutuality. The internship paradigm has reoriented us to thinking that I alone must invest in myself, that I alone, or my family, must have money before I can be sellable, worthwhile. Demands such as these, especially from someone in the millennial generation, tend to come across as entitled. All I want, however, is what generations before the internship craze have received: a fair shake. I want to work for you. Welcome me, train me, pay me, and I promise that if you give me—if you give us—a chance, the investment will pay off. The bottom line, quite literally, is that if our work is worthwhile, we deserve to be paid for it.
Nicholas Moore is a publishing graduate student in Boston aiming to work in acquisitions.
A version of this article appeared in the 05/30/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Unpaid Internships
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January 15, 2017
Harvard Press Director Sisler to Retire
After almost 27 years as director at Harvard University Press, William Sisler will retire on June 30. The search for his replacement will begin shortly.
Sisler began his career in publishing as senior acquisitions editor for Johns Hopkins University Press during the 1980’s. He later worked as executive editor and v-p at Oxford University Press (U.S.A.) before joining HUP in 1990.
Under Sisler’s leadership, HUP has published books by winners of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award, as well as books from a long line of renowned scholars. Among Sisler’s crowning accomplishments was the publication of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, a historical analysis of the distribution of wealth in Europe and the U.S., which became the press’s bestselling book of all time.
Among his accomplishments, Sisler expanded HUP’s footprint in the U.K. and Europe, establishing an independent U.K. office and growing sales and content acquisition for a global audience. Also during his tenure, HUP and its partners launched digital libraries and electronic collections such as the Loeb Classical Library, the Emily Dickinson Archive, and the Dictionary of American Regional English.
“It’s been an honor and a pleasure to have worked at Harvard University Press for so long with so many distinguished publishing colleagues, authors, Board of Syndics members, and faculty at Harvard and around the globe, and to extend the presence and influence of Harvard University Press in the international environment,” said Sisler.
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When Truth Is Stranger Than (Children’s) Fiction
BY JOY LANZENDORFER
Some children’s books are so original they seem to have sprung from the author’s imagination alone. But no matter the genre, writers use personal experiences in their work. It may surprise you to learn these beloved children’s stories are actually inspired by real life. All are vital reminders that you never know what will spark a story.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl: As a child, Dahl was a chocolate taster for Cadbury. The candy company sent his school boxes of experimental chocolate bars for the boys to sample and grade. Dahl fantasized about working in the chocolate factory, surrounded by pots of bubbling candy. The memory revisited him more than 30 years later when pondering plots for his next book.
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White: White’s farm in Maine was the setting for Charlotte’s Web. One day he saw a spider making an egg sack in his barn. He cut the sack down, put it in a box, and brought it to his New York apartment. Soon the eggs hatched and spiders emerged, stringing lines all over—much to his delight. “We all lived together happily for a couple of weeks, and then somebody whose duty it was to dust my dresser balked, and I broke up the show,” White wrote. He immortalized the experience by creating Charlotte, and by letting her offspring live in his barn cellar.
Horton Hears A Who! by Dr. Seuss: During World War II, Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel, drew anti-Japanese cartoons as American propaganda. In the 1950s, Seuss went to Japan to write about the effects of post-war efforts on children there. He visited many schools and began to regret his previous views. He wrote Horton Hears a Who!, with its memorable refrain, “A person’s a person no matter how small,” as an apology, of sorts, for his prejudice.
Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary: Cleary grew up near Klickitat Street in Portland, Ore., where she set most of her books. One day she saw a little girl walk by with a stick of butter. “She had been sent to the neighborhood store for a pound of butter,” Cleary said in an interview. “In those days, it was all in one piece, not in cubes. And she had opened the butter and was eating it.” From this memory, Cleary created Ramona, her most popular character.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak: This story about a boy who travels to a land of strange beasts is based on Sendak’s childhood. His Jewish aunts and uncles would visit his home and say things to the children like, “You look so good, we could eat you up.” Sendak and his siblings poked fun at their relatives’ nose hair, moles and other physical defects—details that he revisited years later when creating the lovable, memorable wild things.
Joy Lanzendorfer has been published in The Atlantic, Mental Floss, Salon and others. Follow her on Twitter @JoyLanzendorfer. This article originally appeared in the March/April 2016 Writer’s Digest.
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Classic Literary Obituaries, From Virginia Woolf to Marcel Proust
In case you hadn’t noticed when you tripped over your shoelaces this morning (right after waking up with your healthcare in jeopardy), it’s Friday the 13th, Western culture’s unluckiest of days. I recently learned that Friday the 13th is just another charming function of the patriarchy, but that didn’t stop me from taking advantage of the spooky vibes to look up the death notices of some famous literary figures. Many of the obituaries are flattering, some are reserving judgement (the person writing about Fitzgerald’s death takes a definite “wait and see” approach), some, particularly the older ones, go so deep into detail of the moments of death that I gasped, and some, like Sylvia Plath’s, are essentially nonexistent. So whether you’re contemplating your inevitable death or trying to avoid it by reading articles on the internet on this luckiest of days, I present to you this collection of literary obituaries.
Jane Austen’s obituary in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, July 28, 1817:
On Friday the 18th inst. died, in this city, Miss Jane Austen, youngest daughter of the late Rev. George Austen, Rector of Steventon, in this county, and the Authoress of Emma, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility. Her manners were most gentle, her affections ardent, her candor was not to be surpassed, and she lived and died as became a humble Christian. [via]
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times, 24 December 1940:
Almost as if he were typifying his uncertain and groping generation even in his early death, F. Scott Fitzgerald has passed from a world gripped again by the same kind of war hysteria that first made him famous. The author of “Taps at Reveille” has indeed left a troubled life before his time. His articulateness was that of a turbulent age. By the time he died he still must not have found the answers to the queries that he was asking all his life: Whither youth, whither the nations of the earth?
Fitzgerald had an importance only time will tell whether it was ephemeral because he made himself the voice of youth crying in the wilderness of political and social and moral muddling. The youth he knew was dissolute, but it was also courageous. It was unstable, but it was also questing. It was a phenomenon of the postwar, Turbulent Twenties, a hangover from Versailles. Youth sensed that security had not been secured, but it did not know what to do about it. Neither did Fitzgerald. But he made people think. And that was something.
He was a brilliant, sometimes profound, writer. That his work seemed to lack a definite objective was not his fault, but the fault of the world in which he found himself. He has left us a legacy of pertinent questions which he did not pretend to be able to answer. That was not the smallest part of his greatness. [Read more Fitzgerald obits here]
Emily Dickinson’s obituary in the Springfield Republican, May 18, 1886:
The death of Miss Emily E. Dickinson, daughter of the late Edward Dickinson, at Amherst on Saturday, makes another sad inroad on the small circle so long occupying the old family mansion. It was for a long generation overlooked by death, and one passing in and out there thought of old-fashioned times, when parents and children grew up and passed maturity together, in lives of singular uneventfulness unmarked by sad or joyous crises. Very few in the village, excepting among the older inhabitants, knew Miss Emily personally, although the facts of her seclusion and her intellectual brilliancy were familiar Amherst traditions. There are many houses among all classes into which her treasures of fruit and flowers and ambrosial dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent, that will forever miss those evidences of her unselfish consideration, and mourn afresh that she screened herself from close acquaintance. As she passed on in life, her sensitive nature shrank from much personal contact with the world, and more and more turned to her own large wealth of individual resources for companionship, sitting thenceforth, as some one said of her, “In the light of ‘her own fire.” … [Read more]
Ernest Hemingway’s obituary in the New York Times, July 3, 1961:
Ernest Hemingway was found dead of a shotgun wound in the head at his home here today.
His wife, Mary, said that he had killed himself accidentally while cleaning the weapon.
Mr. Hemingway, whose writings won him a Nobel Prize and a Pulitzer Prize, would have been 62 years old July 21.
Frank Hewitt, the Blaine County Sheriff, said after a preliminary investigation that the death “looks like an accident.” He said, “There is no evidence of foul play.”
The body of the bearded, barrel-chested writer, clad in a robe and pajamas, was found by his wife in the foyer of their modern concrete house.
A double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun lay beside him with one chamber discharged. [Read more]
Charlotte Brontë’s obituary in the Leeds Mercury, April 7, 1855:
“Currer Bell” is dead!The early death of the large family of whom she was the sole survivor, prepared all who knew the circumstances to expect the loss of this gifted creature at any time: but not the less deep will be the grief of society that her genius will yield us nothing more. We have three works from her which will hold their place in the literature of our century; and, but for her frail health, there might have been three times three; for she was under forthy; and her genius was not of an exhaustible kind…. [Read more]
Langston’s Hughes’s obituary in the New York Times, May 23, 1967:
Langston Hughes, the noted writer of novels, stories, poems and plays about Negro life, died last night in Polyclinic Hospital at the age of 65.
Mr. Hughes was sometimes characterized as the “O. Henry of Harlem.” He was an extremely versatile and productive author who was particularly well known for his folksy humor.
In a description of himself written for “Twentieth Century Authors,” a biographical dictionary, Mr. Hughes wrote:
“My chief literary influences have been Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman. My favorite public figures include Jimmy Durante, Marlene Dietrich, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marian Anderson and Henry Armstrong.”
“I live in Harlem, New York City,” his autobiographical sketch continued. “I am unmarried. I like ‘Tristan,’ goat’s milk, short novels, lyric poems, heat, simple folk, boats and bullfights; I dislike ‘Aida,’ parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, buses and bridges.”
It was said that whenever Mr. Hughes had a pencil and paper in his hands, he would scribble poetry. He recalled an anecdote about how he was “discovered” by the poet Vachel Lindsay.
Lindsay was dining at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington when a busboy summoned his courage and slipped several sheets of paper beside the poet’s plate. Lindsay was obviously annoyed, but he picked up the papers and read a poem titled “The Weary Blues.”
As Lindsay read, his interest grew. He called for the busboy and asked, “Who wrote this?”
“I did,” replied Langston Hughes. [Read more]
James Joyce’s obituary in the New York Times, January 13, 1941:
James Joyce, Irish author whose “Ulysses” was the center of one of the most bitter literary controversies of modern times, died in a hospital here early today despite the efforts of doctors to save him by blood transfusions. He would have been 59 years old Feb. 2.
Joyce underwent an intestinal operation Saturday afternoon at the Schwesternhaus von Rotenkreuz Hospital. For a time he appeared to be recovering. Only yesterday his son reported him to have been cheerful and apparently out of danger.
During the afternoon, however, the writer suffered a sudden relapse and sank rapidly. He died at 2:15 A.M. (8:15 P.M., Eastern standard time).
His wife and son were at the hospital when he died. [Read more]
Virginia Woolf’s obituary in the New York Times, April 3, 1941:
Mrs. Virginia Woolf, novelist and essayist, who has been missing from her home since last Friday, is believed to have been drowned at Rodwell, near Lewes, where she and her husband, Leonard Sidney Woolf, had a country residence.
Mr. Woolf said tonight:
“Mrs. Woolf is presumed to be dead. She went for a walk last Friday, leaving a letter behind, and it is thought she has been drowned. Her body, however, has not been recovered.”
The circumstances surrounding the novelist’s disappearance were not revealed. The authorities at Lewes said they had no report of Mrs. Woolf’s supposed death.
It was reported her hat and cane had been found on the bank of the Ouse River. Mrs. Woolf had been ill for some time. [Read more]
Jack London’s obituary in the New York Times, November 23, 1916:
Jack London, the author, died at his Glen Ellen, Cal., ranch near here at 7:45 o’clock tonight, a victim of uremic poisoning. London was taken ill last night and was found unconscious early today by a servant who went to his room to awaken him.
His sister, Mrs. Eliza Shepard, summoned physicians from this city. It was at first believed that the author was a victim of ptomaine poisoning, but later it developed he was suffering from a servere form of uremia. Dr. J. Wilson Shiels of San Francisco, a close friend of the writer, was summoned during the day.
From the time London was found this morning he did not regain consciousness. About midday he seemed to rally, but later suffered a relapse and sank rapidly until the end came. [Read more]
Oscar Wilde’s obituary in the New York Times, November 30, 1900:
Oscar Wilde died at 3 o’clock this afternoon in the Maison du Perier, Due des Beaux Arts, in the Latin Quarter. It is a small, obscure hotel, at which Wilde had been living for several months under the name of Manmoth.
According to the accounts obtainable Wilde was operated upon six weeks ago for meningitis, caused by an abcess in the ear, which the doctors were unable to locate. He is said to have been unconscious for two days, and before that time to have been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Lord Alfred Douglas was with him when he died.
Le Journal says, however, that it is rumored that Wilde committed suicide.
Wilde will be buried in this city on Monday. [Read more]
Anne Sexton’s obituary in the New York Times, October 6, 1974:
Anne Sexton, the poet who won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for her volume “Live or Die,” was found dead yesterday inside an idling car, parked in her garage.
“It was either suicide or natural causes,” Lieut. Lawrence Cugini, a police detective, said.
The poet, who was 45 years old, had recently been divorced from her husband, Alfred. Survivors include two daughters, Linda and Joyce. [Read more]
Leo Tolstoy’s obituary in the New York Times, November 20, 1910:
Count Tolstoy died at 6:05 this morning.
The Countess Tolstoy was admitted to the sickroom at 5:50. Tolstoy did not recognize her.
The family assembled in an adjoining room, awaiting the final event.
Tolstoy has suffered several severe attacks of heart failure during the night. During the early morning hours they followed each other in rapid succession, but were quickly relieved. Between the first and second attack the members of the family were admitted to the bedside.
The novelist’s condition after each attack was what the attending physicians called “deceptively encouraging.” The patient slept for a little, seeming to breathe more comfortably than usual. Drs. Thechurovsky and Usoff, nevertheless, in a statement to Tolstoy’s son Michel, held out but slight hope, and did not hesitate to predict a quick end under ordinary mortal circumstances. Tolstoy, they said, was a splendid patient in mind and body, except for his heart.
When one of the heart attacks seized him Tolstoy was alone with his eldest daughter, Tatina. He suddenly clutched her hand and drew her to him. He seemed to be choking, but was able to whisper:
“Now the end has come; that is all.”
Tatina was greatly frightened and tried to free herself so she might run for the doctor, but her father would not release his grasp. She called loudly from where she sat. The physicians came and injected camphor, which had an almost immediate effect in relieving the pressure. Tolstoy soon raised his head and drew himself up to a sitting position. When he had recovered his breath he said:
“There are millions of people and many sufferers in the world. Why are you so anxious about me?” [Read more]
Herman Melville’s obituary in the New York Times, September 29, 1891 (note the misspelling):
Herman Melville died yesterday at his residence, 104 East Twenty-sixth Street, this city, of heart failure, aged seventy-two. He was the author of “Typee,” “Omoo,” “Mobie Dick,” and other seafaring tales, written in earlier years. He leaves a wife and two daughters, Mrs. M. B. Thomas and Miss Melville. [via]
Anais Nin’s obituary in The Washington Post, January 16, 1977:
Anais Nin, a brilliant and innovative author who probed the inner landscapes of the mind in a series of sensitively written diaries she kept up over decades, died late Friday in a los Angeles hospital. She was 73.
Although her surrealist explorations of the subsconscious had often proved too obscure for the general public, she seemed to be gaining acceptance in recent years among the young, and among those who valued her vivid expressions of a woman’s point of view.
The author of works of rare delicacy and fragile beauty, she was also a woman of great determination, who overcame the lack of a publisher in the 1940s by buying a foot-powered press and printing her own work.
In addition to the six volumes of “The Diary of Anais Nin,” the last of which was published last year – by a commercial publisher – she was also known for a series of other works, including several novels. [Read more]
Marcel Proust’s obituary in The Guardian, November 19, 1922:
Marcel Proust, foremost of “young novelists” of France, died yesterday. He was fifty years old and had been in poor health from childhood. It is probable that he was as well known abroad, especially in Holland and England, where Marcel Proust Societies have recently been formed, as in Paris, where his work was enjoyed by a select minority. His style was difficult and obscure, and his intricate, exquisitely delicate meditations and analysis of emotions could never have appealed to the mass of readers. Outwardly and in his habits he was a strange being. Very pale, with burning black eyes, frail and short in stature, he lived like a hermit in his home, which was open to a few privileged friends, amongst precious furniture. Yet by fits and starts he loved to re-enter the fashionable “night-life” of Paris. His apartment was lined throughout with cork in an ineffectual attempt to keep out the uproar of the noisiest city in the world. Most of his best-known work was done after he reached the age of forty-five years. Of all idols and masters of present-day literature in France he is most likely to have won a place which time will not take away. [via]
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My Very Rough Two Weeks Working for Barnes & Noble
Following a death in my family last year, I temporarily withdrew from the world to grieve. When it was time to return, a part-time job seemed a good way to rejoin the living. “Why not work in a bookstore?” someone asked.
My first job in our industry was as a bookseller at Pickwick Bookshop in Hollywood. Throughout my long career as publishers’ sales rep, freelance editor, and West Coast correspondent for this magazine, I’d never stopped missing the quirky energy of bookselling, the spontaneous conversations between customer and bookseller, and recommending favorite reads to people whose lives sometimes seemed to depend on them.
I called my local bookstores, but they weren’t hiring. I considered my neighborhood Barnes & Noble, even though I questioned working for the corporate Man. But B&N had now taken up the same anti-Amazon cry as the independents, and therein lay my justification. I emailed my résumé to B&N at the Grove in L.A., just three miles from home and waited—but not for long. I was called for an interview the next day.
The manager recognized that I was a book professional. “I wish more of our applicants had your background,” she said. Five days later I was hired. The pay was $10.50 an hour, but the job would get me out of the house and around book people again.
The night before my first day, I imagined helping erudite customers on the sales floor, expertly running the fiction and mystery sections, and bonding with my fellow booksellers over coffee, as we’d share witty, ironic stories about the bookstore’s clientele and the current bestselling books. I was excited about bringing my career full circle. I was delusional.
My book expertise was solid, but the B&N systems were a mystery to me. Along with my fellow trainees, who were both 21 years old, I focused on how to detect and deter shoplifters, use a handheld scanner for stock checks, punch in and out of a computerized time clock, and interpret B&N’s complex inventory codes. The store didn’t appear overstocked, yet there was a mad rush to return thousands of books. Scanner in hand, I cruised the aisles aiming the red light at barcodes, waiting for the irritating sounds that meant one of three things: leave as is (R2-D2 chime), pull for return (three-note foghorn blast), or move to correct section (emergency-system burrrp, burrrp, burrrp).
There were no category specialists at B&N. Booksellers acquired a general knowledge about every section. This seemed counterintuitive, but for once I kept my mouth shut. Decisions were made in the chain’s New York office, and store staff had little say in matters of policy. There was no room for creativity.
Every display and endcap in the store was formulized, clearly marked on the printed examples that arrived frequently from corporate. Everything was precisely copied; nothing was left to chance in the book, music, and gift departments. Booksellers didn’t have to think about merchandising—it was thought out for us, and all we had to do was match titles with the designated spaces on shelves and tables.
Besides going mental from the scanner alerts, reaching the bottom two shelves of a bookcase meant twisting into positions that defied gravity. Reaching up, I fell off the step stool and onto my behind twice. And then there were the metal book carts I had to haul from receiving to the category section I was scanning. After filling them with books pulled for returns, I steered the heavy carts back, with great effort, to be placed in the publishers’ designated shelves along the wall. They were scanned yet again to determine which imprints belonged where (publisher or distributor), and finally I pulled out the mass market books for strip-cover returns. Once the cart was empty, I dragged it out to the floor again to start all over. Like a shark, I was constantly moving, my legs and back in agony.
Breaks lasted 15 minutes, so no one had time to chat, fixated as we were on slamming food down and reading texts. On average, my coworkers were 35 years younger than me. Patty Duke died, and no one knew who she was. I missed the days of a more motley, mutinous crew of booksellers than the nice young staff at B&N.
After two weeks, sciatica took me out and I had to resign. I’ve no regrets. The book business continues to change; it’s not possible to come full circle. But there remains one thing that’s eluded me that I’m looking forward to: the pleasure of simply browsing, unhurried, through bookstore shelves, with the luxury of being a customer rather than having to get a job done, with books on all sides of me waiting for my affection.
A version of this article appeared in the 06/06/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Bookstore Blues
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