Jim Nelson's Blog, page 15

From Chimpan-A to Chimpanzee: The Swiftian genius of Planet of the Apes

A guilty pleasure of mine is Planet of the Apes. I’m speaking of the original movie, not the 1970s sequels, not the remakes, not the one with the Golden Gate Bridge and not the one with Mark Wahlberg. I am a fan of the 1968 film that launched them all, the Charlton Heston vehicle spawning over fifty years of sequels, reboots, “re-imaginings,” TV shows, and comic books. The others have little draw for me. It’s the original I return to time and again.

The first Planet of the Apes is campy, rive...

Help raise money for victims of the Paradise Camp Fire

Paradise Stories by Dustin Heron

My friend Dustin Heron and his family lost much in Paradise, California due to the recent fires. He’s selling copies of his book Paradise Stories to raise money for himself and victims of the Camp Fire.

It’s a fantastic collection of short stories and your money goes toward an urgent cause.

For more information and to purchase your copy, visit Dustin’s home page.

Facebook 0 Twitter 0 Email
Published 16 November 2018 by Jim Nelson.

Nicolas Gattig reviews Murakami’s “Underground”

Haruki Murakami

Nicolas Gattig of The Japan Times reviews Murakami’s Underground, a collection of interviews with victims of the Tokyo subway sarin attacks as well as members of the cult who perpetrated it:

In an attack that killed 13 and sickened and traumatized thousands, the supposedly peace-seeking cult had turned violently against Japanese society.

Murakami was shocked by the news. About to return permanently to Japan after years of living abroad, he felt the attacks could not be explain...

Reading one’s own obituary: P. T. Barnum

P. T. Barnum

I’ve written in the past about the profession of obituary writing. My interest is rather simple: I wrote a story years ago about an obituarist (kindly published by North American Review) and I’ve remain interested in the vocation since. It strikes me as a unique field of work to compress a person of note’s life down to six or seven informative paragraphs without simply being encyclopedic.

More interesting to me is that most obituaries are written while the subject is still alive....

Kurt Vonnegut on story shapes, writing with style, and running experiments

Recently I picked up Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, part of the Literary Conversations Series from University Press of Mississippi. The collection offers interviews and profiles of Vonnegut published between 1969 and 1999. The first comes shortly after the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five. The subsequent rocket ride of literary stardom Vonnegut enjoyed—or endured—follows.

The collection seems rather complete, culling all manner of sources, right down to a softball Q&A with Harry Reasoner...

Kindle Scout in Memoriam

Originally published at Hidden Gems Books.

At the end of May Amazon’s e-publishing venture Kindle Scout was put to rest after a run of three-plus years. Amazon announced the winding down in an email sent to all of Kindle Scout’s registered users (“Scouts” in their parlance) on April 2. The email was cool and understated considering the subject matter: “[W]e wanted to let you know of some upcoming changes being made to the Kindle Scout program” followed by businesslike details of the program’s...

Ray Bradbury on getting stories published

When I was a younger writer, one question that monopolized far too much of my time was how to get published. Early on I recognized publishing was a numbers game for the starting writer. Any naive notions I held about the quality of my short stories leading to quick publication were dashed. Publication would only come by getting my work out there, far and wide.

Although short story writers are admonished to “study the market” and zero in on magazines suitable for their work, I honestly can’t s...

“Kindle Scout in Memoriam” at Hidden Gems Books

My retrospective on Kindle Scout and its passing is up today at Hidden Gems Books blog. A sample:

Kindle Scout’s semi-open approach to publication was bolder than it sounds. An unspoken belief in the traditional publishing world is that book editors have reached their position because they’re fit to judge a novel on its artistic merits and profit possibilities—editors are the professionals, the gatekeepers, the tastemakers, the adults in the room. Granting Scouts that responsibility and power...

Kindle Scout in Memoriam

My retrospective on Kindle Scout and its passing is up today at Hidden Gems Books blog. A sample:

Kindle Scout’s semi-open approach to publication was bolder than it sounds. An unspoken belief in the traditional publishing world is that book editors have reached their position because they’re fit to judge a novel on its artistic merits and profit possibilities—editors are the professionals, the gatekeepers, the tastemakers, the adults in the room. Granting Scouts that responsibility and power...

New covers for Bridge Daughter and Hagar’s Mother

I’m pleased to announce new covers for Bridge Daughter and Hagar’s Mother! As much as I liked the old covers, these better reflect the concerns and characters of the books and the series overall. They also point to the aesthetic direction I want to take for the next book—or books!—in the Bridge Daughter Cycle.

Kindle editions with these covers should be available shortly at Amazon. Paperback versions are on the way. (Go here to download a sample of Bridge Daughter and here for Hagar’s Mothe...