Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 58

My Residency at Ragdale

I take it as a good sign that I haven’t posted on the blog recently. I’m currently in residence at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, and I am spending my days working on a new novel.

After a wonderful weekend in Indiana for the Indiana Author Awards, I came up to Chicago and got settled into my room/studio in the Ragdale House, pictured here. The house is one of two main buildings on the property–the other being the Barn House. My studio is on the second floor and has a great view looking out toward the Shaw Prairie, which extends all the way out to the Skokie River and nature preserve. It’s a beautiful spot.

There are eight other residents at the moment, about half writers and half visual artists. Several are from the Chicago area, but others are from New Hampshire, London, and Minnesota. One more, from Florida, is due in a few days.

The residency works a little differently from others I’ve been to. For one thing, the writers live and work in the same space. It’s a large room, though, so that’s okay. We’re also on our own for breakfast and lunch, although we have access to well-stocked kitchens, so we don’t have to buy food. The culinary highlight, though, is that we are served fabulous meals 5 nights a week. We gather at 6:30 and enjoy delicious food prepared by Chef Linda.

I’m making progress on my new novel. I hope to finish a draft of the book by the time I leave here. That’s ambitious and I might not make it, but my word count currently is 56,000 words and I’m thinking that the book will be short. So . . . maybe. In any case I hope to establish a good rhythm with the book so I can finish soon after returning home. I’ve got two weeks left here, though, so  . . . we’ll see.

New Issue of Prime Number Magazine

I’m excited to say that a new issue of Prime Number Magazine has just gone live. This one has been a long time in the making–it’s our contest issue, including the winners and runners up in all five categories. We opened for submissions at the beginning of the year and got the finalists to the judges over the summer so we’d be able to announce the winners in September.

We had an excellent team of judges: Jacob Appel (short story); Ned Stuckey-French (creative nonfiction); Kathy Fish (flash fiction); Dinty Moore (flash nonfiction); and Erica Dawson (poetry). Thanks to all the judges!

There’s some excellent work in these pages, so please take a look: Prime Number Magazine Issue #61–the contest issue.

Indiana Authors Awards — October 25

I spent this past weekend in Richmond, Virginia, where I attended part of the James River Writers’ Conference and also the Literary Awards Luncheon and the Awards Dinner.

The Luncheon was made special by the live interview with Barbara Kingsolver, recipient of this year’s lifetime achievement award. At the gala that evening I got to speak with her, which was exciting. (I also got to chat with such notables as Senator Time Kaine.) This year’s award for fiction went to Lee Smith (a previous lifetime achievement award winner), which makes my award from last year even more special.

It was a great weekend, but now we move on to the Indiana Authors Awards, which will be given out this coming weekend. As a finalist for the Emerging Writer Award, I’m looking forward to participating in various events at the Indianapolis Central Library throughout the day next Saturday, culminating in the awards dinner. I’m very excited about this, and am thrilled to have been named a finalist along with Kelsey Timmerman and Jessica Brockmole.

Read more about the award and the event: Indiana Authors Award.

Library of Virginia Awards 2014 — this weekend

Last year at this time, just a few days before the annual Library of Virginia Awards Dinner, I was nervous. Really I had nothing to be nervous about–I had already learned that I was the winner. Still, though, I was afraid that a mistake had been made. Sure, my book, What the Zhang Boys Know, is pretty good, and I believed in it, but by then I had read the two other finalists: The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers and The Right-Hand Shore by Chris Tilghman. These are fine novels, so I suspected that there had been some mistake. Did I misunderstand when the Library called me?

I went down to Richmond the night before the Awards Dinner–I didn’t want a last minute problem to derail my attendance–and went to the James River Writers Conference kickoff party for speakers and volunteers. Then on the day of the big event, I floated through the preliminaries–registering for the Conference, attending the luncheon where all the finalists were recognized, sitting next to the Kevin Powers at the book-signing table (he drew a lot more attention than I did because his book was much better known), participating in the panel of fiction finalists, and then, finally, heading back to my room at the hotel to relax a little and get ready. The dinner itself was kind of a blur, but the climax for me was when my award was confirmed. There had been no mistake! Lee Smith presented me with the check and the trophy and I could finally relax.

So this year won’t be quite as exciting. I am moderating that Saturday afternoon panel with the fiction finalists, so there’s still a little performing to be done. But otherwise all I have to do is attend the kickoff party and the awards dinner (assuming I can tie my bow tie — it’s been a whole year since I did it the last time). Nothing to be nervous about, and I’m looking forward to it. This year’s finalists are Lee Smith, for Guests on Earth, Carrie Brown for The Last First Day, and Virginia Pye for River of Dust. Also on the panel will be Mary Miley, author of The Impersonator, a finalist for the People’s Choice Award. I’ve read all four of the books, and it will be fun to discuss them on the panel.

Should be fun!

Book Launch Party at Black Swan

Last night at Black Swan Books & Music in Staunton we launched Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, my new anthology from Press 53. About 30 people were in attendance on a rainy Friday night. And it was great to have four of the book’s 20 contributors. Teresa Hudson, from Powhatan, Virginia, read from “The Art of Living,” her story set in St. Petersburg, Russia. Jay Kauffmann, from Crozet, Virginia, read from “In the German Garden,” his story set in Berlin, Germany. Joseph Cavano, from Charlotte, North Carolina, read from “The Widow’s Tale,” his story set in Italy. And Holly Painter, from Singapore, read from “Jean,” her story set in New Zealand.

To learn more about the book and buying options, visit Everywhere Stories.

Everyone Pay Attention to Me!

From PRNewser
http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/6...

Wednesday was a busy day. I got no writing done, but it still felt productive, mostly because I spent the day as if I was wearing this T-shirt. Everyone Pay Attention to Me!

You see, it was the official publication day for Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, my new book, an anthology of 20 stories by 20 different writers set in 20 countries. I think it’s a terrific book, so my goal is to get it in front of as many people as possible. Yesterday was a big part of that. Here’s some of what occupied my time:

responding to questions directed to me in a Goodreads discussion focused on the short story
spreading the word (and the podcast) about a radio interview I did with Rudy Maxa’s World, a well-known travel program
spreading the word about an interview with me that appeared today on a blog
letting people know about two guest blog posts that I did last week
sending out a newsletter (via Mailchimp) to remind my subscribers that today would be an excellent day to order the book
corresponding about a meeting with a publisher
responding to an invitation to moderate a panel
talking to a non-profit about joining a committee (see, it wasn’t all related to the book)
informing the contributors to the anthology what was going on, this being publication day
planning for the launch party scheduled for this Friday, at which 4 of my contributors will read
exploring other venues for readings

As I said, it was a busy day. Who knows if this effort will pay off, but I’ve seen other anthologies disappear without a trace because the editors did little or nothing to promote them. I owe it to the contributors, and to myself, to try to do better.

It’s Publication Day for Everywhere Stories!

Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet

Today, October 1, is Publication Day for the new anthology. Click on the link above NOW to order the book from Amazon.com. Please.

It’s a terrific book if I do say so myself, and I can say that because I didn’t write it. I did, however, curate and edit the book. I put out a call for submissions and then sifted through 650 short stories set in about 100 countries. Somehow, I narrowed my choices down to these 20 stories set in 20 countries by 20 well-traveled writers. Learn more about the book here.

Please read the book. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Order from Amazon.com

Order from Barnes & Noble

Order from Press 53.

My Indiana Influences

The folks at the Indianapolis Library Foundation asked each of the finalists for the Emerging Author Award to write a blog post about how Indiana has influenced their writing. I struggled with that a bit, because I can’t say that my work is directly influenced by Indiana or Indiana writers. But as I thought about it more, I realized that much of my consciousness of books and writers developed when I was a kid in Indy, so this post is the result. See: My Indiana Influences on the Indiana Authors Award website.

Thoughts on Book Promotion: Everywhere Stories

Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet

Thoughts on Book Promotion

My new book, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, is officially published this week, on October 1. On October 3, we celebrate with a launch reading and party, including several of the contributors to the book. It’s really a good book and I’m proud of it, but getting the word out is exhausting.

I’ve been down this road before. When my first book came out in 2009, In an Uncharted Country, I had a small gathering at a local café. People came, had a drink, ate some food, bought the book and had me sign it, and went home. I tried to arrange some readings and asked people to review it, but there honestly wasn’t much activity around it. I hired a publicist—rather late in the game—and while she got me a few more readings, there still was little buzz. It’s very hard for a small press author to get noticed, and for a short story collection it is even harder.

The second book came out in 2012, What the Zhang Boys Know. I felt even stronger about this book—I had managed to get an agent for it, although she wasn’t able to sell it to big presses—but the story was pretty much the same. I arranged some readings and tried to get some reviews. I hired a “book blog tour” service that got the book mentioned on a lot of websites—most of them very unprofessional reviewers. (“I don’t think I’m smart enough for this book,” said one of the bloggers. Um, yeah, maybe.) I engaged a book club service to get the book in front of book clubs. Neither of these two expensive moves did any good, as far as I can tell. I ended up giving away a lot of books, and selling few. No mainstream book review outlets wrote about the book, and neither did the big-name book blogs. I did get some interviews, mostly in pretty obscure places. The book is set in Washington DC and we tried to get all the Washington magazines and papers interested, but no one paid any attention.

I thought things might change in 2013 when What the Zhang Boys Know won the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Fiction, but they didn’t really. There were a couple of articles about the award in Virginia papers, and my local paper ran a feature, but that was it. Zero reviews.

But this new book is different, and that changes both my approach and my expectations. First, I’m the editor, so I’m not keen to set up readings, which don’t sell a lot of books anyway. After all, it’s not my fiction, so it would be weird for me to read from it. If I can set them up and get contributors to participate, that might work, and we’ve got a few of those in the works. Second, because the concept is different, though, I think the book is attracting more interest from reviewers. I’ve already done several guest posts on blogs, including short interviews. I just did an interview on a radio program, Rudy Maxa’s World, that should have given us a lot of exposure. And we’ve heard from several magazines that reviews are in the works. Third, I think this would be a really good classroom book. It’s not exactly “World Lit,” because almost all the authors are Americans, but it does give the reader good insights into the cultures of 20 countries, and I think that’s big.

We’ll see. I don’t think promotion is any writer’s favorite part of the publication process, but right now it’s taking up a lot of my time and energy.

2014 Reading: The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

This book was the September selection for my book club, the local chapter of Reading Liberally. Unfortunately, the member who proposed the book wasn’t able to come to our discussion, so we weren’t very lively, but I found the book fascinating.

Kolbert writes for The New Yorker and I gather that many of the chapters had previously appeared as essays in that magazine, which is why, perhaps, the book doesn’t quite hang together as a single argument. Still, the individual pieces–about mass die-offs of amphibians in the tripics and bats in New England, the extinction of ancient species as well as modern species, and the rapid changes that are occurring in biodiversity and the environment–are startling. She tells a compelling story about some frightening things that are happening right now and along the way draws parallels with the mass extinctions that have taken place in the past.

One of the members of our group complained that the book didn’t, in the end, make a case for anything, or didn’t tie this large body of evidence together in order to draw a conclusion about what’s happening on our planet. That’s a fair criticism, I think. In the hands of another writer, perhaps, an argument for taking action might have been made, or we might have seen predictions about the future if nothing is done. Instead, the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions. Kolbert shows what happened in the previous mass extinctions and presents evidence that suggests the current extinction, which has been going accelerating since the appearance of humans is even worse.

My own expectation is that the human species is not threatened with extinction because we will find a way to survive and adapt even while we kill off everything else. That’s not a particularly cheery thought, though. Maybe we should start over on another planet and get it right this time.