Lauren Baratz-Logsted's Blog, page 4
December 1, 2009
Writers Writing Back
Two weeks ago I did a post about an author who admits to answering very little email. Today I'm going to write about those authors who do write back. Sometime between the years 1994 and 2002, which is the length of time between when I started writing seriously and first got offered a publishing contract, I got it into my head that one way to get agents/editors to pay more attention to my work ...
November 24, 2009
"The Disrespectful Interviewer" + The Sisters 8 giveaway (link)
Over at BiblioBuffet, where I have an every-other-week gig as Writer-in-Residence, I've begun a new semi-regular feature called "The Disrespectful Interviewer" in which I ask bizarre questions of prominent writers of the day. My first victim is Jon Clinch, author of the acclaimed literary novel FINN. You can read it all here: Dissing Jon Clinch. And if you scroll down to the bottom, ...
November 23, 2009
Book of the Week: The Crying Tree
THE CRYING TREE, Naseem Rakha. This accomplished literary debut deals with one of my hot-button issues: capital punishment. In 1985, 15-year-old Shep Stanley is killed during a home invasion. The 19-year-old boy convicted of the crime, Daniel Robbin, is sentenced to death. Justice grinds just as slowly in fiction as it does in real life and 19 years pass in the novel before Robbin is given an ...
November 17, 2009
She Ain't No Hollaback Girl
People who regularly read my blogs know I make it a habit never to write bad things about other writers' books. Not trying to dictate what others should do - it's just a personal philosophy. But every now and then a writer says or does something that, well, gets on my nerves. And since this little squib I ripped out of the New York Times Book Review has been sitting on my desk since October 18 ...
November 10, 2009
"People Are Dying In There" + The Sisters 8 contest
Over at BiblioBuffet I've got a new piece up called "People are Dying in There" about school violence in fiction and nonfiction, focusing on the novels The Hate List, Nineteen Minutes, and We Need to Talk about Kevin, and the nonfiction Columbine. If you scroll down to the bottom there's also a way you can enter to win the first four books in The Sisters 8 series.How about you? Read ...
November 9, 2009
Book of the Week: Best Intentions
BEST INTENTIONS, Emily Listfield.From the flap copy:After tossing and turning all night, thirty-nine-year-old Lisa Barkley wakes up well before her alarm sounds. With two daughters about to start another year at their elite Upper East Side private school and her own career hitting a wall, the effort of trying to stay afloat in that privileged world of six-story town houses and European jaunts has ...
November 3, 2009
Writing v. Publishing
A question I've been known to ask people who want to write is: What kind of writer do you want to be? A companion question, and one I think equally important is: Why do you write - because you love to write or because you want to be published?It's only natural to want, having written, your words to reach a wider audience. And it would be downright nimrodic, given that I've had several books ...
November 2, 2009
Book of the Week: King of the Screwups
KING OF THE SCREWUPS, K.L. Going. From the flap copy:Liam Geller is Mr. Popularity. Everybody loves him. He excels at sports; he knows exactly what clothes to wear; he always ends up with the most beautiful girls in school. But he's got an uncanny ability to screw up in the very ways that tick off his father the most.When his father finally throws him out of the house, his father's brother - ...
October 27, 2009
"All My Friends Are Writers" on BiblioBuffet + The Sisters 8 contest
Read "All My Friends Are Writers" on BiblioBuffet and scroll down for chance to win first four books in The Sisters 8 series: here.How about you? Are all your friends writers?Be well. Don't forget to write.
October 26, 2009
Book of the Week: The Family Man
THE FAMILY MAN, Elinor Lipman. The flap copy:A hysterical phone call from his ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend Henry Archer's well-ordered life. They bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old-fashioned man, gay, successful, lonely. Thalia is now twenty-nine, an actress-hopeful, ...
