Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 45
February 8, 2016
An Open Letter to Younger Readers
To my young friends: You’ve posted a lot of memes about how my generation (Boomers) really screwed up things for you, like education, the economy, the environment, and the world in general. And you’re right. My generation, as a group, has screwed things up. We had some help from our elders, but basically, it’s our […]
February 1, 2016
Pulling the Plug: The Reveal
It amazes me how, every time I read something I’ve written, I want to change it. When I finish it I think it’s great, then I put it down for a while, and when I pick it up again, I’m like…bleah…and I’vegot to make changes. This has never been more true than with “The Book […]
January 29, 2016
Pulling the Plug – Follow-up
Dear me. How perspectives change. A quick follow-up on my decision to pull from the market a story I’ve been shopping around. When I started going over it, for no other reason than to reformat it for the web, I found that this story, one that I had edited and re-edited, sent to researchers for […]
January 26, 2016
Just Not Right for Us: Pulling the Plug
Sixteen months ago, in September, 2014, I began shopping my latest story. It had been a long time since my last go-round marketing a short story, and while a lot had changed, a lot had stayed exactly the same. What did change: Most markets accept electronic submissions and wrangle them either via Submittable or throughtheir […]
January 21, 2016
To Market, to Market
I’m not telling you anything new when I say that the publishing industry has changed a great deal in the last twenty years. However, throughout these decades of upheaval, there are two things I’ve observed that have remained pretty damnedconsistent: Writers worrying about how much effort they should put into marketing their books. Writers’ efforts […]
January 13, 2016
Seattle’s Recent Loss: Dick Spady
The year 2016 isn’t even a fortnight old, and already so many losses, so many deaths. Musical legendsLemmy, Natalie, Pierre, and David;actorsPat Harrington and Angus Scrimm; sports legends like Monte Irvin, and many more have left these our shores for kinder places. In Seattle, though, the loss that resonates is the passing of Dick Spady, […]
January 4, 2016
Why I’m Against Star Trek: Axanar
Miss me? Did you even notice I was gone? Hehe…Probably not. Either way, it was an interesting holiday fortnight, writing-wise—a couple of rejections, a friend had his book series canceled, another friend’s newest got some great reviews, and one of my books is going out-of-print—but the one piece of writerly news that really sparked a […]
December 15, 2015
Teaching: Lessons From my Past
This week one of my high school teachers passed away. Reminiscing about our relationshipgot me thinking about the nature of teaching. It’s a very nebulous and squirmy thing, teaching is. Hard to pin down. Hard to define. Hugo Rinaldi taught music at San Rafael High School, leading the orchestra. Where most students only have a […]
December 9, 2015
Seattle’s Cold Shoulder: Explaining the “Seattle Freeze”
It’s a rule I have: Never take food from a guy who talks to himself. Call me crazy, call me cold and unfriendly, I don’t care. If you’re having an animated conversation with people I cannot see, I may have … reservations … about most anything you offer me. Thus the other day when Kevin […]
December 1, 2015
Nothin’ for Sumthin’: Writer Predation
Indie authors, take note: Back in September, I reportedof an unsolicited query I received from a representative of America Star Books (ASB), offering me a spot in their “Hot Indie Authors” brochure. This brochure was to be distributed at the Miami Book Fair, held the weekend of 20 Nov 2015. My response was essentially “Sure, […]
