Roy Miller's Blog, page 302

Interview with a Gatekeeper: Archipelago’s Jill Schoolman

Jill Schoolman, founder and publisher of Brooklyn-based Archipelago Books, is pretty fearless despite her petite frame and soft voice, which you’ll never hear on a smartphone because she doesn’t own one, even though I offer to go with her to a nearby cellular phone store. Her priority is simple: find, translate, edit, and publish essential foreign-language texts. The name, Archipelago, expresses how Schoolman sees her book list: as a collection of disparate narratives with individual shapes and ecosystems all swirling about in a landscape of different countries, languages, authors, translators, and voices, but uniting to promote global understanding in the sea that is good literature.

 

Kerri Arsenault: How did you come to editing?

Jill Schoolman: I was working in film, but I had studied literature and film in college. I took a film course in Rockport, Maine, and after that, I worked as a freelance film editor in Paris for a couple of years. I was having a hard time surviving there—I delivered pizzas on mopeds and did all sorts of things to make ends meet. I wound up heading to New York, where I continued doing freelance film work. At some point, I began thinking, How might it be possible to shift gears and get into publishing? At just the right moment I met Dan Simon at Seven Stories Press and asked him for his thoughts. He told me everyone creates his own path, which seems to be true. He offered me a position as an intern, and then, after a few months, he hired me to work as an editor. I was there for about three years. It was a great place to learn about independent publishing and the whole publishing process. It was a very familial group. There was always a lot to get done but we had a good time and the atmosphere was nurturing. I’m still close with so many of the people I worked with at Seven Stories. At the time, I wasn’t really bringing in books, I was mainly learning about editing.

Article continues after advertisement

KA: How does one learn to be an editor?

JS: You have to be a good reader, a good writer, and have a good ear. I think you also need to be a good listener. You have to listen to the writer’s voice and not impose your own voice on a text. Being a good translator is a similar craft: to be able to feel the spirit of the text and see what the writer is trying to do. When you start out editing, there’s a tendency to over-edit, to be a bit heavy-handed. But the more you edit, the more you grow to respect the text. You can also feel very quickly if you are not adept at it. It’s not for everyone.

KA: You say you have to be a good reader: what were you reading at that time?

JS: Part of my love of international literature comes from traveling. I love exploring different parts of the world and living in different places—discovering a culture through its literature and art. I fell in love with the Russians, I loved reading Piñera and Alejo Carpentier when I was in Cuba and reading Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo after spending time in Mexico. A bit later—probably around the time where I started working with Seven Stories—I fell in love with the modernists: Cortázar, Robert Musil, Céline, Pessoa.

KA: Are you fluent in any languages?

JS: I am fairly fluent in French. I can also get by in Spanish. I’ve spoken English since I was a kid, but I still find it challenging.

KA: Tell me more about your connection with traveling and writing.

JS: I used to spend long stretches of time in places. The travel bug got into me after I went to Tanzania. The summer after my freshman year in college, I got into a program called Operation Crossroads Africa. You could choose what sort of work you wanted to do in Africa for a summer: construction, health services—I can’t remember what the other options were. Education wasn’t a choice, but I ended up teaching English and geography in the mornings at a school while I was there, though unofficially. We were really in the middle of the savannah, in a place called Balangdalalu, where a Nilotic group called the Barbaig was living. Anyway, I opted for construction. There were a few Americans, a few Europeans, and about eight Tanzanians working together. We didn’t get much beyond digging the foundation for the school and finding stones in an old riverbed and bringing them to the site in a pick-up truck. I was learning Kiswahili and I met a lot of great people. That was an influential summer for me. I thought, this is how I want to learn: on the job, experientially, with people. A few years later, I spent three months in Italy. I took a year off from university to live in England, where I worked at the National Theater as an usher. What a wonderful job that was.

KA: How did you end up starting Archipelago Books from there?

JS: After about three years of working at Seven Stories, I was getting the itch to move on. I started talking to people. I already knew I wanted to create a press at some point but I thought I should probably get more experience somewhere. I knew I wanted to focus on international literature. I asked peoples’ advice as to whether the press should be a nonprofit or a for-profit. Everyone had their own opinion, but I’m glad we set ourselves up as a nonprofit because it has given us a lot of freedom. While the book sales are important, they are not vital to keep the press going. Being a nonprofit allows us to raise funds in addition to working with what book sales bring in.

KA: How do you do that?

JS: We raise money through the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, through private foundations, ministries of culture, and through individual donors. We have a fundraiser once a year. Many governments—European and Asian—have a cultural arm and cultural attachés based in different countries to promote their literature abroad. They understand the importance of culture and want to share it with the rest of the world. They help publishers with translation costs and promotional expenses. About 45 percent of our income comes from book sales and the other 55 percent from what we raise.

KA: So back to how you started Archipelago…

JS: After Seven Stories, the more I started thinking and talking about it, the more I wanted to make the leap and start a press, which I did in 2003. We started out with four books: Miljenko Jergovic’s Sarajevo Marlboro, translated by Stela Tomasevic, Rilke’s Auguste Rodin, translated by Daniel Slager—William Gass wrote an introduction for us, David Hinton’s translations of the Chinese poet Meng Hao-jan, and Joseph Coulson’s The Vanishing Moon. With only a handful of books lined up, we were very lucky to be able to find a distributor to take us on. Consortium Book Sales and Distribution took us under their wing and was a big part of why we made it onto the map so quickly. We met Consortium thanks to a wonderful consultant we had in the early days, a North Dakotan transplanted to Minnesota who knew an enormous amount about nonprofits. His first question for me was, “Do you really need to start a publishing house? Can I talk you out of it?” When I assured him it was something I needed to do, he proceeded to get down to the nuts and bolts of not-for-profit publishing.

KA: How did Minnesota become such a nonprofit literary zone?

JS: It actually makes sense. It’s a philanthropic place in part I think because of the Scandinavian influence.

KA: Was it difficult to launch Archipelago, despite such nonprofit support?

JS: It was tough to raise money at first. My grandmother, who was not a wealthy woman, died right around the time I was trying to get Archipelago off the ground. She was a working-class woman who lived frugally her whole life and managed to tuck away some savings. She left a little chunk of that for my brother and me. I put that money into Archipelago. About enough to acquire, translate, and print two books. It was a lot of work. It still is. It never gets easier.

KA: Can we go back to something you said earlier, about why publishers don’t want to publish translated books?

JS: I think it’s mainly fear and feeling disconnected from the writing itself. Editors may not speak other languages. They can’t read a work from another language in its entirety. Yes, it is possible to ask for a reader’s report from a translator or a professor, but then an editor is removed from direct contact with the text. She or he is responding to another person’s instincts and sensibilities. There is also the issue of translation costs, which many editors are reluctant to invest in, let alone the added royalties for the translator. Of course, those same editors don’t blink when they offer large advances for an English-language work, which in many cases becomes more costly than the combined acquisition and translation advances for an inspired novel from another part of the world.

There’s more interest in translation today, and these fears I’m talking about are less prevalent than they used to be. It seems that in the last eight to ten years, people are hungrier to read writing from around the world, and might even feel a bit nervous not to know what is being published and talked about in other countries. Our president-elect, living in his own imaginary world and doing what he can to drag the country into it, is a circus barker for xenophobia. It is palpable that more and more people are alarmed and feel how utterly necessary it is to listen to voices from other cultures, voices of sanity who perhaps have been through similar moments in history. It is dangerous to shut ourselves off, not only from the realities of today around the globe, but also from the imaginations of others, from the experiences of others, from the wisdom and cries of others.

KA: What would you say to someone who wants to start working in publishing?

JS: Try to talk to a lot of people. Really take some time to look at which publishers and which houses are doing books you are drawn to. It’s important to be working on something you care about. You will learn so much more from authors and thinkers and publicists and editors that you respect. It will be a better experience than being a cog in a wheel at a place where you feel half-hearted about what is being brought into the world.

KA: What about getting into editing specifically?

JS: You have to trust your ear and gut, to sense in what directions a book could conceivably grow. It is important to trust yourself, but maybe it’s even more important to trust the writer and what is on the page in front of you—to see through what’s not working to what is working and what is strong or essential. Editing an English-language text requires different skills than editing a translation because the editor is often shaping a text closely with the author. With a translation, there’s less of that, at least for us. We don’t alter the original text, even if it’s a lengthy or digressive book where there are portions that might not speak as directly to English-language readers as they might have to their original audience. We focus instead on making a text come alive in English. We work closely with translators for the most part rather than with authors.

KA: What do you expect from your translators?

JS: A great translator can capture the spirit and music of the language. It’s almost miraculous when a translator is able to capture what an original piece of writing is doing, both at the level of language and in its tone and atmosphere and rhythm. It comes alive. Richard Sieburth, for example—who translates from both German and French—is able to re-create the rhymes and rhythms and nuances of a poet’s voice in an uncanny way. It takes not only a talented craftsman to do this, it takes a poet. People say it’s impossible to translate poetry, which I don’t believe is true. It is being done, and it’s being done beautifully.

KA: How is translating poetry done?

JS: You have to make choices, leaps. It’s like being a ventriloquist. It’s capturing the soul of someone, of what’s said and what’s not said. The rhythms of the language. One of our books, Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski, translated from Polish by Bill Johnston, is oral and colloquial. It’s a rural epic. In this case the translator is British, which opens up other questions. When he re-creates slang, British slang comes out. We have this joke: would Joe from Kansas know what that expression means?

KA: How do you handle that? The book can’t contain only what Joe from Kansas would understand. It also needs to include Peter from Liverpool, no?

JS: Yes, you’re right. It’s also an intuitive process. Like an editor, a translator has to be a very good writer and have an excellent ear. They also have to have empathy and listen and intuit what the writer wants. They have to be a sensitive reader. If not, they will miss the connections, the references—cultural and literary. That means they also have to have a depth of knowledge in the culture. They have to decide whether or not they want to explain those references. Personally, I never like when a translator tries to explain something within the text. A footnote might be useful about something she thinks a reader will miss if it’s important enough. I believe in trusting the reader and being faithful to the work. If you are a heavy-handed translator, you can kill a work by trying to spell things out that were beautifully ambiguous or layered in the original.

KA: Let’s talk about your translators. Who are they? Are they artists, scholars, writers, or?

JS: We treat translators like writers, because they are writers. We do what we can to find the absolute best translators for our books. We like to continue working with talented translators, so we’ll often move from project to project. It’s not a one-off. We try to involve them with the promotion of their books. We’ll do events with them, schedule interviews for them, or maybe one translator will interview another translator in public. Particularly, if we are publishing a classic, the translator naturally becomes the spokesperson for the book. They usually rise to the occasion. Readers seem eager to hear what translators have to say about their work.

KA: How do you find the absolute best translators?

JS: Sometimes we find them and sometimes they find us. Most translators we have found through reading their work. There may be a project a translator is attached to. Sometimes we’ll ask two translators to translate an excerpt from a book that we are considering. It is amazing to see how different from each other those pages can feel.

KA: Have you done any translations yourself?

JS: Yes, in French. I translated a short work of fiction by the Swiss French writer C.F. Ramuz, called The Circus, which A Public Space published. It was tricky. Harder than I thought. The language was straightforward, sort of spare, and he obviously weighed his words. There were plenty of trouble spots for me, but I enjoyed the process.

KA: What risks are you willing to take in publishing (besides publishing translated works)?

JS: You never know what people are going to notice or read, even when you publish a great book. So much depends on the art of the translation, the art of the original book, the literary quality. But a lot depends on luck and timing. Reviewers are so swamped, so overwhelmed, that they’re often looking for a hook. For example, we published Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun, translated from Arabic by Humphries Davies. Khoury is a Lebanese writer and it so happened that Palestine and Israel were in the news at that moment, so critics were willing to give his book more space. Everything lined up in the right direction. Once a book gets a good review somewhere, other people want to review it. It’s a domino effect. Then again, sometimes the books I think are going to do well are quiet books.

KA: Many other editors agree; there doesn’t seem a way to determine a bestseller or a critical success.

JS: The whole enterprise is a risk.

KA: How does being a nonprofit lessen that risk?

JS: It allows us to raise money for all our expenses, advances, promotional costs, and printing costs, which is still the largest cost we have. 

KA: But for-profit presses have those same expenses, no?

JS: They have investors, so then you owe them part of the profits. Anything that we make from book sales and what we raise goes back into running the press, into all the expenses. When I spoke with people from the very beginning, before I started, a lot of people feared nonprofits.

KA: Why?

JS: They thought if we had funders, they might want to have a say in what kind of books we publish. But we haven’t encountered that. We have a board that’s very generous and hands-off on the editorial side. Our supporters, both foundations and individuals seem to believe in what we are doing and trust our instincts.

KA: What exactly is your mission?

JS: Our mission is to publish innovative and essential literature from different parts of the world in outstanding translations.

KA: I love that you consider them essential.

JS: I’m drawn to original voices, to writers that care deeply about language and have something vital to say.

KA: Is an original voice harder to translate?

JS: Translating—or recreating—a voice that doesn’t sound like anyone else’s may be harder, but I think that in a way they jump out at you. Bruno Schultz or Cortázar or Sebald or Coetzee (who of course writes in English) have such distinctive voices that we are able to recognize them after reading just a couple paragraphs. A great translator knows how to convey a distinctive voice, rather than flatten or disguise it.

KA: Are there any specific languages that you hope to translate from?

I’d like to publish more books from smaller languages, from Indian, Indonesian, and African languages. There are more than 80 languages in Indonesia alone. There are a huge number of African languages, too, but often writers from the continent of Africa chose to write in the language of their colonizers either because they feel their work will reach more people or because it’s the language they were educated in.

KA: What have you published, at this point, from smaller languages?

JS: We’ve published books from Hungarian, Bengali, and Icelandic. We just published our second Halldór Laxness novel, Wayward Heroes. It’s a marvelous book beautifully translated by Philip Roughton.

KA: Iceland’s geography is so unusual. Do you think landscape affects writing?

JS: Yes. I think it must affect music too. If you listen to mountain music from different parts of the world, you can feel similarities. It would be interesting to take a closer look at how geography influences the creative impulse.

KA: You are also starting a new imprint.

JS: That’s right, we’re starting a children’s book collection, picture books from around the world. Elsewhere Editions. We launch this spring with three books: Claude Ponti from France, Roger Mello from Brazil, and Jostein Gaarder from Norway.

KA: That’s smart. Get them reading translated books as children and that may transfer to their adult reading habits where you will have books waiting for them.

JS: And vice-versa. Some of our adult subscribers have kids. I also want people to hand the kids’ books to their adult friends too. We were looking for books where the author has created a universe you can step into and lose yourself in.

 

KA: Do you have an audience in mind when you choose which books to publish?

JS: Not really, although perhaps that would be a good idea. I tend to focus on the writing itself, but there are other considerations. Sometimes I will think: is this an author that has written other books that we might want to bring out? We want to get behind authors rather than single books. I feel like an audience will find its way if it’s is a profound book and the translation reveals that. Sometimes I will ask myself—is this story or predicament relevant? Is there a sense of urgency, both for the writer and the reader? Is this a book that feels tied to our current moment—even it’s a classic—that talks about conflicts and questions that we are struggling with today. This month we’re publishing a truly great Haitian writer, Marie Vieux-Chauvet. Her novel, Dance on the Volcano, translated by Kaiama L. Glover, sheds light on racial conflict and the Haitian Revolution. She has great insight into human behavior and into questions of race and power. It’s hard to ignore how those racial tensions and complexities relate to what is happening here in America now.

KA: Small, independent presses seem to be having a moment, as are lesser-known writers like Vieux-Chauvet.

JS: It may be that the bigger houses are more and more focused on the bottom line. This obsession with profit leads to ignoring a lot of worthwhile books. There are a lot of great books quietly waiting to be snatched up by independent presses that can say, This is a great book and we are going to publish it as best we can without anyone breathing over our shoulder. Indie presses are freer.

 

KA: Tell me how you work with translators.

JS: It varies. Some translators do five or six drafts before we see it. They turn in something that’s polished, alive, and works well in English. It’s a gift. I feel like I’m proofreading rather than I’m editing. Some turn in drafts that are much rougher. If I can read the original language, then I’ll have that next to me as I go. I can follow more closely the choices a translator has made.

KA: You must be doing something right. You were awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Embassy. Tell me what that meant to you?

JS: It was a great honor. I was shocked. It was astonishing that the French government recognized our efforts in such a formal way. It also has been a motivation for us to continue our commitment to French and Francophone literature.

KA: How has publishing Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series changed Archipelago? Or has it?

JS: It’s made us more visible in the press, but it hasn’t really changed things that much for us financially. What comes in after everyone takes their share is actually fairly small. We also published his second novel, A Time for Everything, a few years before My Struggle came out.

We invited him to New York then when he was virtually unknown here. It was amazing to watch how readers and critics responded to My Struggle. His following grew with the release of each new book in the series.

KA: Was there a reason My Struggle connected with English audiences?

JS: There is a hypnotic quality and a sense of urgency to the books that seems to come from what he’s searching for. Something beyond his words. The larger knots he’s untangling and the questions that burn through his writing are felt but not seen. It’s as is he’s afraid of slowing down, of what he might discover if he actually lets himself think about what he’s running toward and away from. His raw honesty is addictive and in his hands it becomes something new, but I feel that it’s the undertow of what he is looking for just out of reach that keeps readers involved and wanting more.

KA: Did his success turn on people to translated literature in a more commercial way?

JS: Over the years there have been quite a few writers from various parts of the world who have created a sensation, who have found wide audiences. I think that each time it happens, it might inspire some people to read other authors from beyond our borders. And it might also inspire editors to publish more translations. It’s hard to say.

KA: What have you published recently?

JS: We just released a beautiful memoir by the Rwandan writer Scholastique Mukasonga called Cockroaches—which is what the Hutu called the Tutsi. She lost 30 members of her family in the genocide. Writing is her way of dealing with the horror, by making sure no one forgets what took place.

Jordan Stump did a stunning job with the translation. He’s someone who, before he takes on a book, will translate ten pages just to see what it feels like, to get a visceral sense of the language and rhythm and tone. He will say no to a book he likes if he doesn’t feel that he’s the right translator for it. An honorable thing to do.

KA: Speaking of honorable, The French Embassy said this about you; you give the public what they don’t even know they are looking for.

JS: Wow, that’s a really nice thing to say. I didn’t know they said that.

KA: What do you think your translators would say about you?

JS: You should ask them! But I hope they feel they are part of a community.

Source link

The post Interview with a Gatekeeper: Archipelago’s Jill Schoolman appeared first on Art of Conversation.

Why Having My Book Go Out of Print Was a Pretty Great Thing, After All

Several years back I wrote a novel about a witch who, though 150 years of age, can make herself young and foxy for Friday-night manhunting over whiskey cocktails in Manhattan bars. I’ve written three novels since, and Petty Magic is still my favorite. But when my publisher told me the book wouldn’t be issued in paperback, and it subsequently went out of print, I couldn’t have felt any less like my brash and clever heroine. I was broke, past 30, and back living at home with my mother. I kept writing, but in my darker moments I felt like a total failure.

I am aware, of course, that many writers would love the opportunity to complain about how their Big Five publishers have let them down. At the time, going out of print felt like the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to me, and yet it was, in a very real sense, a privilege. I began to face my sense of entitlement: the idea that because I’d put in the work I deserved to be rewarded for it. So had many other writers over the past few hundred years, not to mention untold numbers who could have grown into full creative lives had they enjoyed my comfortable middle-class upbringing. That what-I-deserve line of thinking could lead only to emotionally reactive ping-ponging between wild hope and self-inflicted misery. If I wanted to feel satisfied with my work and life again, I was going to have to change my attitude.

I filled journal after journal. I meditated. I got fresh air and quality time in nature and took art classes when I could afford them. I unabashedly tore through New Age and self-help books and trained myself to notice when my ego was chewing me out and making me feel small. I took note of my tendency to “otherize” anyone I perceived as being more successful than I was, as if these writers were somehow charmed, whereas I was destined to labor in obscurity. I recognized this narrative for the steaming pile it is, and when I stopped believing it—what do you know?—my circumstances magically rearranged themselves. A friend helped me move to Boston in exchange for the price of gas, and a week and a half later I got a two-book deal with a new publisher.

It’s only natural to feel a tainted sort of pleasure—or no pleasure at all—when our colleagues garner accolades we haven’t received (and may never receive). But for the sake of our emotional well-being, we continually have to ask ourselves, what is the need underneath this feeling of envy? We all need to feel seen and valued. We all want to surround ourselves with kind and loving friends who champion our creative efforts.

As Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird, “Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic—jealousy especially so—but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned.” When we speak candidly about our feelings of envy and inadequacy—perhaps even with neurotic good humor, as Lamott does—we give everyone around us permission to relax. That’s why, with a couple years’ hindsight, I wrote a little book called Life Without Envy: Ego Management for Creative People. I want to start that conversation, for all our sakes.

When we define success on our own terms—using markers we actually have control over, such as “finish NaNoWriMo” or “illustrate my own children’s book”—we find creative fulfillment regardless of what is (or isn’t) happening in our careers. As the famously cantankerous playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote when he declined England’s Order of Merit in 1946, “It would be superfluous, as I have already conferred this order on myself.”

Disconnecting your self-worth from external recognition isn’t an overnight process, but as you evolve you’ll free up that energy to funnel back into your imagination. You have no idea what you’re capable of, and there’s a world of delight in that.

Camille DeAngelis is the author of Life Without Envy: Ego Management for Creative People, to be published by St. Martin’s Griffin on September 27.

A version of this article appeared in the 07/25/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Attitude Adjustment

Source link

The post Why Having My Book Go Out of Print Was a Pretty Great Thing, After All appeared first on Art of Conversation.

NBCC Launches Fellowship for Emerging Book Critics

The National Book Critics Circle recently announced a new initiative to support the development of aspiring young book critics, the NBCC Emerging Critics Fellowship.

There will be five inaugural fellows for the one-year fellowship, which will emphasize training and guidance. The fellows will engage in both pragmatic and philosophical discussions on book reviewing, from identifying reviewing opportunities to the ethics of reviewing, while being mentored by the eight members of the NBCC’s Emerging Critic Initiative Committee and other NBCC board members. The fellowships will include a year’s membership in the NBCC, admission to all of the organization’s events, and an invitation to its annual reception in New York City.

Applications for the 2017 fellowships are due on January 27, and the first class will be announced by March 5. Each applicant must submit a resume, three writing samples, a 300-500 word statement of purpose, and two references.

“We are seeking a broad range of applicants,” the NBCC stated in a release, “[and] will be selecting those who have demonstrated a genuine interest and commitment to engaging in critical conversation about books.”

Source link

The post NBCC Launches Fellowship for Emerging Book Critics appeared first on Art of Conversation.

Smart Ways to Get Organized and Be Productive

Take it from me: The moment it dawns on you that you’re failing at something is not a good time to start keeping track of your efforts. And the moment it sinks in that you’re succeeding? Well, that’s not a great time to get your act together either.

Bad form though it may be to admit it, I can speak to both from personal experience.

The Best Time to Get Organized

When my first novel was out on submission, I knew enough to save every email from my agent regarding where he was sending it or what response had come in. But I didn’t deem it necessary to log all this information in a single document—until the day we parted ways.

There’s nothing like wading through your mess of an inbox rereading the sordid details of every rejection you’ve received—just so you have what you need to approach new agents and likely log even more rejections—to make you wish you’d saved yourself the trouble.

Likewise, I can attest that your seat on cloud nine loses a bit of its fluff when you proudly take your first book advance to a tax professional, needing help filing for the first time ever, only to have her ask what related expenses you’ve incurred and realize you have to dig through a year’s worth of receipts for that laptop, the association membership, the cell phone bill, the workshop mileage …

Simple Steps to a More Productive Writing Life

The small steps that can save us from big headaches later are so easy to take—and too easy to forgo.

You can look for new ways to map out writing time—or learn to live on less sleep.
You can work through a plan for finishing your manuscript—or get caught in a muddle in the middle.
You can mine your day job for inspiration—or waste your days wishing you were writing.
You can submit smarter—or miss out on opportunities.
You can research conferences that match your needs—or end up wasting your money.

The choice is yours.

Thanks to the February 2017 Writer’s Digest, designed to help you Get Organized & Be Productive, the choice has never been easier.

Start your new year with a clean slate, a cleaner desktop, a fresh frame of mind and a clear path forward. The February 2017 Writer’s Digest will walk you through it, starting from wherever you are, to help you get to where you want to go. Inside:

“Blueprints for a Better Book,” by historical novelist and experienced researcher Heather Webb, will teach you how to use timelines and other tools to keep your story and characters on track.


“Map Your Writing Time,” by The Productive Writer author Sage Cohen, shows you how to find more precious minutes and hours for your writing—without losing sleep.


“Rebuild Your Desktop,” compiled with you in mind, is full of free and easy downloadable spreadsheets you can customize to help you submit smarter, follow up faster and make tax time a breeze.


“Put Your Workday to Work” offers up inspiration from fellow writers about how their day jobs actually help their writing—and how you can use your own non-writing hours to your advantage.


“Story Structure, Simplified,” by popular writing coach Deb Norton, teaches an intuitive approach to help you give your story a strong foundation that isn’t formulaic.


“Know Before You Go,” by award-winning novelist and workshop director Sharon Short, helps you make the most of your investment in any conference or workshop on your calendar this year.

 

Pick up a copy of the issue at your favorite newsstand, or download the February 2017 Writer’s Digest now. You’ll thank yourself later.

Yours in writing,
Jessica Strawser
Editorial Director, Writer’s Digest magazine
Subscribe today in any format you like, so you never miss an issue.

Follow me on Twitter.
Connect with me on Facebook.

Learn more about my debut novel   ALMOST MISSED YOU , now available to  add to your Goodreads shelf  or preorder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or   your favorite online book retailer!

You might also like:

Source link

The post Smart Ways to Get Organized and Be Productive appeared first on Art of Conversation.

Writing’s A Career, Just Not According to My Family

I have a large extended family, and only three of its members have read all 19 of my books. The others claim to be “too busy” or “not into reading,” but they demand free copies of my books anyway.

Growing up in rural Alabama in the late ’50s, I loved the written word. I read everything from the Bible to the ads in the Sears and Roebuck catalogues. Such creative nourishment inspired me to make up my own stories. I told everybody I wanted to be a writer, and everybody told me I was crazy. I was advised to forget about writing because it was a hobby, not a real job—especially for a black girl.

My playmates loved my stories. By the time I was 12, my head was so big, I wrote my own version of Genesis in which Satan didn’t exist. There was no sin and the world was one big, happy paradise. I sent my masterpiece to Reader’s Digest in late September and told the editor to send the payment ASAP so I’d have time to purchase a cool Halloween costume. A week later, I received my first rejection. Over the next three decades, more than 2,000 would follow. Despite the Reader’s Digest snub (I had convinced myself that the editors rejected my piece because they were racist and jealous) and the naysayers, I wrote more stories.

I moved with my family to a small city in Ohio, where we lived in a large shabby house with numerous relatives. I shared a bedroom with five people. I hid in a deserted boxcar on the train tracks behind our house so I could write in peace. In high school, I was confident that I could write stories just as juicy as the ones I read in the magazines True Confessions and True Story. I was 15 when I submitted “I Married a Hairy Old Beast”—and received a check for $200! I sent more stories with titles such as “I Married My Rapist” and “My Husband and His Mistress Tried to Kill Me with Voodoo,” and more payments followed. My grandfather didn’t think I was using my God-given talent wisely. “Gal,” he said, “you grew up in the church, so you need to write stories with a Christian theme.” To appease him, I wrote “A Homosexual Preacher Stole My Husband.”

After high school, my dream was to write novels for a living, but the dream became a nightmare when I stumbled into a marriage with an older man I hardly knew, tempted by the idea of sharing a house with only one person for the first time. I left Ohio with my two toddlers and moved to the Bay Area, still determined to write for a living.

Then in 1984, a director read one of my plays. I shared this information with my older sister, whose only comment was, “If that director is cute and single, give him my phone number.” The following year I published my first novel, The Upper Room. The AP brought me to New York for an interview. I received favorable reviews in PW, the New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, and other major publications.

Despite my accomplishments, my family still insisted that writing was not a real job. When I sent a copy of my novel to my older sister, she looked at the photograph on the book jacket and asked, “Didn’t you get that blouse in Hawaii?”

In September 2006, my sixth novel, God Don’t Play, landed on the New York Times bestseller list. When I told my uncle James, all he did was blink. I never mentioned it to the rest of my folks. On June 1, 2016, my 19th novel, Every Woman’s Dream, was released, and on the same day a cousin told me I should still get a real job.

I recently eavesdropped on a conversation between Aunt Lucille and Cousin Florence. (Names have been changed to protect the “privacy” of certain individuals, and because they are itching to sue me if I ever reveal their true identities.) They were praising the accomplishments of June, my younger sister. “June Bug is doing so well! She got off them drugs, ain’t been arrested this year, and she just got a job managing a drug store!” Aunt Lucille squealed.

After a sigh, Cousin Florence brought up my name: “What is poor Mary up to?”

“Still crazy!” Aunt Lucille replied. “She don’t do nothing but write books.”

Every Woman’s Dream, the first book in Mary Monroe’s new series, Lonely Heart, Deadly Heart, was published by Dafina in May.

A version of this article appeared in the 08/01/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Family Business

Source link

The post Writing’s A Career, Just Not According to My Family appeared first on Art of Conversation.

Four Books for the Broken-Hearted

Religion publishers aim to mend broken hearts this season with new books that inject spirituality into the healing process.


Source link

The post Four Books for the Broken-Hearted appeared first on Art of Conversation.

WD Poetic Form Challenge: Landay Winner

Here are the results of the Writer’s Digest Poetic Form Challenge for the landay. There were a lot of great landays, but only 10 can be finalists and just one can win.

Read all the landays here.

Here is the winner:

Georgia Meets Frida, by Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming

Braids intertwine in the courtyard hot
sleeping dog twitches dreaming of hard-as-rock dry bone

Desert antlers vine like lush jungle
tendrils wrapping around a woman lying in death

Blush of pink in blue music series
the evening star Venus winks above sunset golden

Spines untangle into two ladders
mothers climbing up to the moon over Pedernal

Two feminist artists paint their lives
open doors green and black for their daughters to pass through

*****

Build an Audience for Your Poetry!

Learn how to find more readers for your poetry with the Build an Audience for Your Poetry tutorial! In this 60-minute tutorial, poets will learn how to connect with more readers online, in person, and via publication.

Poets will learn the basic definition of a platform (and why it’s important), tools for cultivating a readership, how to define goals and set priorities, how to find readers without distracting from your writing, and more!

Click to continue.

*****

Congratulations again, Lelawattee! I enjoyed the juxtaposition of painters (Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo) and images in your landay.

Here’s a complete look at my Top 10 list:

Georgia Meets Frida, by Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
Song to the Brother, by Jane Shlensky
The Dance of Words, by Nurit Israeli
Cost of Scarves at the Shelter, by Anthony94
Deep Regret, by Ken Bentz
The Poet Rejects Pop Psychology, by Nancy Posey
On Quartz Hill, by Taylor Graham
“Across the ocean there stands a tree,” by Sasha A. Palmer
Waiting Out a White-out, by William Preston
Wasting, by Tracy Davidson

Congratulations to everyone in the Top 10! And to everyone who wrote a landay!

*****

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community, which means he maintains this blog, edits a couple Market Books (Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market), writes a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine, leads online education, speaks around the country on publishing and poetry, and a lot of other fun writing-related stuff.

He loves learning new (to him) poetic forms and trying out new poetic challenges. He is also the author of Solving the World’s Problems.

Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.

*****

Find more poetic posts here:

You might also like:

Source link

The post WD Poetic Form Challenge: Landay Winner appeared first on Art of Conversation.

There’s More Than One Way to Publish. I Know. I Tried Many of Them

Here is what I love about being an author: spinning a story from nothing, losing myself to a scene, connecting with readers who become friends, planning my life schedule around my writing schedule, wearing yoga pants as a uniform.

Here is what I love less about being an author: marketing and selling my book. If it were up to me, I’d never have to encourage, tweet, nudge, implore, or beg readers to pick up my books. It’s excruciatingly awkward, so very “look at me, please like me, please pick me!” that one is left feeling like a third grader on the playground waiting to be chosen for red rover.

My first novel was published nearly a decade ago, before the onslaught of social media, before the burden to sell a book fell so heavily on an author. As we all joined Twitter (and Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat), we were told that our social media feeds could determine the fates of our books. Perhaps not in those words explicitly, but we were told that all the same—we authors who really just wanted to get lost behind the veil of our characters.

As I approached the completion of my sixth novel, I knew that I didn’t have that in me, to retweet every single blogger review on the hopes that it would boost my Amazon rating. I had run that race before, and mostly, I felt like I had lost that race before, too. I had been at three different publishing houses, primarily due to editorial shifts, imprint closures (Shaye Areheart Books was a true dream before it closed), and a whole host of changing winds. I had been touched with good fortune and less-good fortune; I’d befriended brilliant editors and also been left to twist in those changing winds.

In an attempt to regain control of my career (and to be honest, my sanity), I chose to self-publish my fifth book, and I loved it, every single aspect of it: the control, yes, but also the freedom that that control brought me. Every decision was my own, including whom I hired, when I published, and how much I charged for the novel. It was exhilarating—the sales were substantial—and I came back from the brink of leaving publishing.

When I wrapped my sixth book, In Twenty Years, I wanted to self-publish again, but my agent suggested Lake Union, an imprint at Amazon. I was admittedly hesitant about both traditional and Amazon, but ultimately, I realized that Amazon was offering me what I was looking for all along: an unparalleled marketing platform, smart price points, fast release dates.

I signed my contracts, and the differences were clear pretty immediately: I was paid my advance within weeks; I was shown multiple cover options; I was emailed a survey asking how Amazon could make me happier. I suggested an audio narrator, who was hired; I was sent a new Kindle as part of a congratulatory package.

Now, with the book out in the world, I see my sales daily; I see the balance between earnings and advance payments, and I get paid monthly when the difference between the former outweighs the latter. But most critically, in its first month, despite its limited bookstore availability, I have sold more copies of In Twenty Years than I did of my third and fourth novels combined. In Twenty Years has been well reviewed, but I have not madly tap-danced on social media, and I have not slowly spiraled into crazy worrying about promotion.

I understand that there are those out there who are not fans of the behemoth in Seattle. I love my local indie bookstore, where I launched this book, and I am happy to spend an afternoon getting lost in Barnes & Noble. I understand, also, why someone might disagree with my choices. But just as publishers choose what’s best for their bottom lines (and often that means letting authors and their works sail quietly into the night), so too did I choose what was best for my bottom line, for my books, for my readers, for my peace of mind.

Authors want to write. We want to create works that resonate with whomever they reach. I didn’t want to be another author paddling upstream with another book. Lake Union worked for me. What author wouldn’t want that?

Allison Winn Scotch is the bestselling author of six novels. Her latest is In Twenty Years (Lake Union). She lives in Los Angeles with her family and their dogs.

A version of this article appeared in the 08/08/2016 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: How to Publish? Let Me Count the Ways

Source link

The post There’s More Than One Way to Publish. I Know. I Tried Many of Them appeared first on Art of Conversation.

Memphis Bookstore Not Likely to Be Saved, Says Owner

When news broke last week that owner Neil Van Uum was going to close Memphis’s venerable independent bookstore Booksellers at Laurelwood, Emmett Miscall was shaken. A senior at nearby White Station High School, Miscall said he’d been shopping at that store since he was a four-year-old. “It was a real ‘third’ place for me,” he told PW. “I probably spend two or three days a week there, and finding out that it was going to close hit me pretty hard.”

In response, Miscall launched a Change.org petition as a rallying cry to keep the store open; as of Tuesday morning, it had garnered 2,175 signatures. The petition is to be delivered to Van Uum, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, as well as those responsible for the store’s lease.

Miscall also launched a GoFundMe campaign in an attempt to raise $50,000, but was asked to suspend the campaign by Booksellers, as it is unclear what the store would do with any money raised should it still have to close.

“This is all fine and well,” Van Uum told PW, “but the fact of the matter is that we looked at this situation for the last two years and the business reality is that we are losing sales steadily and the rent is too high. The landlords are unwilling to work with me to find a solution and there are obviously business realities.”

At approximately 20,000 sq.-ft., the store—which was originally part of the David-Kidd chain and later a Joseph Beth outlet—generates some $5 million in sales annually, but it has been losing money at a rate of $50,000 a year. "With all the other ways to get books, sales were slowing," said Van Uum, who has been a bookseller for more than 30 years, and also runs Booksellers stores in Cincinnati and Dayton. "We expanded heavily into all kinds of sidelines, particularly in children's education, but a sideline sale can't replace a book sale in terms of velocity or relevance."

Ultimately, “it all comes down to metrics,” said Van Uum. “Since we don’t set our prices and with margins the way they are, you have to set your rent at 8% of income—ideally—and 10% at most. Our Memphis rent has crept up to 12%. Now, if could have raised my book prices 4%—something I know the customers wouldn’t have complained about—we could have stayed open. But the metrics are the metrics.”

Van Uum noted that his Cincinnati store, which is 9,500 sq.-ft., is growing year-on-year. “I think with all the pressures we face, the age of the big independent bookstore is over. With a smaller store, you reduced the risk of shoplifting—which was a big challenge for us in Memphis—you reduce the need for staff, as well as the risk of filling up the store with non-book items. You can keep it as a proper bookstore.”

While Van Uum says that “something might happen” to keep the store open, he’s not banking on it. “When the news hit and was on the front page of the newspaper here two days in a row, I ended up meeting with two groups of potential investors. I showed them the numbers and told them I have $940,000 in inventory…then I asked them if they had a million dollars to put into the store. They all replied, ‘Oh, I didn’t think it would take that kind of money….’” At present, Van Uum has no timetable when the store will be closed.

The closing of the store will be lamented not only by local book buyers, but by many of the booksellers who have committed decades to working in the store. The store’s general manager, Eddie Burton, told PW last Thursday: "It has been an emotional [time]. We are a strong presence here in this town and community, I have been here for 32 years myself and we have catered to three generations of Memphis book buyers. Many booksellers have had long careers here—most have an average tenure of ten years at the store. It’s a real community feel here, and the customers and the booksellers get to know each other really well. People are expressing a lot of goodwill and sympathy and hoping and praying that we can reincarnate.”

Source link

The post Memphis Bookstore Not Likely to Be Saved, Says Owner appeared first on Art of Conversation.

Why Do Authors Cross Out Name When Signing Book?

When I attended my first book signing (for the Market Book series), a fellow editor advised me to cross out my name when signing copies. It’s a practice I’ve kept up since, and I’ve seen other authors do it as well, but I still wonder, “Why do authors cross out name when signing book?”

Of course, like any well-connected editor, I knew how to get feedback on my question. I took to Facebook with the following query: “Authors! When you sign books, do you cross out the printed name in the book before signing your own? If so, why?”

And then, the replies started piling in. Below are a few of the more interesting answers I received.

*****

Order the New Poet’s Market!

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.

Order your copy today!

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.

Click to continue.

*****

Tom C. Hunley

Tom C. Hunley

“In 2001 or 2002, I asked Rodney Jones why he did that in my book. He told me that it makes it more valuable for collectors. Also that if it has a date and location, it makes it even more valuable. So I’ve been crossing out my name and writing in a date and location pretty much ever since.”

Amy Holman

“I always put the date and location and a drawing. It’s a message in a bottle, a signed and inscribed book.”

Beth Saunders

“I’m a used/collectible bookseller and I don’t recall having seen this before. Janet Evanovich, for example, doesn’t cross out her name. It certainly does not make it more valuable. A date might help, and having the signature with no dedication (book owner’s name) is more valuable.”

Sally Evans

“Wouldn’t necessarily agree. A good dedication (to another author) makes it better still.”

Cliff Garstang

“I do a horizontal ‘s’ through my printed name and then sign (although my signature isn’t my full name). To me, this is how you personalize the thing–never mind this cold black type, here is my real self.”

Nicholas Belardes

“Sometimes I cross my name out and sign. I do it out of respect for myself, for the idea of accomplishment, for the idea that writers are real people, that we can touch our manuscripts in ways that transcend the printed objects they’ve become. Our works become even more personal this way, because our signatures are more physically attributed to us in the world than even fingerprints.”

Mark Weiss

“I never do. I design books. It seems like vandalism to deface a title page. Instead, I sign on the flyleaf, or, if there is none, on the half-title page.”

Dinty W. Moore

“Refuse to do it. It feels like self-violation.”

Karen Craigo

“I do it. I think it makes it friendlier, more personal.”

Sandra Beasley (credit: Matthew Worden)

Sandra Beasley

“I do it. My understanding is that it dates to the historical tradition of small press runs, where the author would hand-sign each copy as an authentication of the text.”

Aaron Belz

“I cross out the printed name only when I autograph a book written by a poet other than myself.”

Christopher P. Locke

“Yep. Always. I feel I am replacing the mechanical me with the actual me. And I always date in the top right.”

Bruce Niedt

“I’ve done only because I’ve seen others do it, but usually I just sign my name (first only for good friends and relatives, full for everyone else). I will put date and place if it’s at a special event.”

Adrian Rice

“I do. When I used to browse second hand stores, I found that it was a quick way to identify if the book was signed by the author or the owner. So when I started publishing, that was what I did.

“…and I’m going to keep doing it now because some folk think we shouldn’t.”

Sherrie Flick

“I do. I also include a little doodle of either a tea cup or a martini glass.”

Lawrence Schimel

“I always sign in a color pen that’s not black, so it is obvious that it wasn’t printed as part of the black text.”

Shaindel Beers

Shaindel Beers

“I do. I also usually sign with a

Georgia Ann Banks-Martin

“No, but I do try to sign in colorful inks, draw something, or actually say something, so that it is special.”

Karen DeGroot Carter

“I don’t and am always a little puzzled when authors do!”

Michael T. Young

“I have always done it because somewhere in the ancient past I read it was done but I can’t remember why now. I believe it may be only a kind of etiquette which, if it had some substance in the past is now lost.”

Annette Marie Hyder

“I don’t and not only do I hate the thought of defacing the book but also, crossing my name out when I worked so hard to get it there? No. I would rather underline it and put hearts around it.”

Kelly Davio

“No. I find it bizarre.”

Timothy Green

“I hate signing books, but I do it when I’m forced to as a small and desperate protest. Also the same reason I put two spaces after a period.”

Amorak Huey

Amorak Huey

“I didn’t, because I didn’t know why people did it. Then I read about why here (in the comments thread mostly), and now I do, because it feels cool and old-fashioned in an Edith Wharton kind of way. Like something Newland Archer would do.”

Lisa Chavez

“I don’t. I didn’t know why people did it either for a long time, just knew they did. But I still don’t do it. Hadn’t really thought of why I don’t, but perhaps I also don’t like the idea of crossing out my own name after so much hard work to get it there on the book.”

Christina Katz

“Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

Kendall A. Bell

“I’ve never done that and never will. I usually sign on the title page in a blank space and that’s it.”

Collin Kelley

“I always do. It’s a throwback, but I also think it personalizes the signature and message you are leaving in the book.”

Amy King

Amy King

“Because I’m the real deal.”

Michael Dylan Welch

“I’ve never understood why some authors cross out their names when they sign a book. I never do. Where did this practice begin, and whatever on earth for? It’s just messy, and feels like an affront to the designer who carefully designed the title page–and if the designers know what they’re doing they usually leave space for a signing too.”

Zac Petit

“I sometimes draw an arrow to it and write ‘That dude.'”

Tom Lombardo

“Here’s my input: May we all succeed to the point where we face such a decision.”

Pris Campbell

“I sign my name, usually with a short note under the printed name. I’m odd man out on this. I’ve never heard of the crossing out.”

Helen Losse

“Yes, because that’s the way we do it!”

Deborah Hauser (photo by Tony Iovino)

Deborah Hauser

“Yes. I don’t know why except my publisher told me to.”

Joe Mills

“In the late 80s, when I was working as a secretary, my boss would have me print letters with his full formal name. He would then strike that out with a pen and put in his nickname. When I once printed a letter with his nickname (thinking I was being efficient), he made me redo it. It was his way of making a personal gesture, a ‘This formality isn’t our relationship.’ But, do I do that signing my own book? No.”

*****

So at the end of the day (or blog post), I guess there’s no “right” way of signing the book. There are personal reasons to cross out the name and valid reasons to leave the text alone.

That said, I’m going to continue crossing out my name when I sign. For no other reason than, it’s what feels right to me.

*****

Robert Lee Brewer is the editor of Poet’s Market and author of Solving the World’s Problems. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.

*****

Check out these other poetic posts:

Save

You might also like:

The post appeared first on Art of Conversation.