Jennifer Weiner's Blog, page 3
March 31, 2012
In which two New York Times Book Review editors discuss t...
In which two New York Times Book Review editors discuss their female trouble....
Editor One: So, you're not going to like this, but I really think we need to talk about the sexism situation.
Editor Two (whining): Didn't we talk about some lady book last week?
One: No, last week we talked about Mark Leyner.
Two: Oh. (Happily). I like Mark Leyner.
One: So do we all. But here's the deal: there's this evidence, and it's pretty overwhelming, that women's literary work is perceived, reviewed, purchased and read much differently than similar work by men.
Two: And this is our problem because….?
One: Because people are talking. And noticing. And counting how many women's books the Times reviews and how many women reviewers we hire. It's making us look bad. It might even be making people not read us. So the next time we write about Chad Harbach, or Mark Leyner's sugar-frosted nut sack, or one of the Jonathans….
Two: Please. We're the only game in town. People are going to read what we say, no matter what. (Excited). Let's write about Chad Harbach again!
One: You do this, or I'm telling everyone how long you spent in the bathroom with that Wall Street Journal piece about James Patterson's Palm Beach estate.
Two (shocked): You wouldn't!
One: I would. And this won't be so bad. Here's my plan: we find some Times-approved woman writer and let her write an essay about the problem.
Two: Not one of those icky commercial writers? The ones who were making all that fuss about Franzen?
One: No, no, no. Don't be silly. You know we don't mention those ladies except on the bestseller list. We'll find an acceptable lady writer. Someone who's sophisticated. Genteel. Someone who writes about families and marriages and relationships and motherhood, preferably as experienced by wealthy New Yorkers.
Two: I don't know. That still kind of sounds like chick lit. Or women's fiction.
One: Can't be chick lit if it's written by a critically-respected midlist author whose books the Times reviews.
Two: Ah! Gotcha. Okay, so Elinor Lipman? Kathryn Harrison? Cathleen Schine?
One: I was thinking Meg Wolitzer.
Two: Huh. Didn't she once write an essay about reading a Sophie Kinsella book and not finding it completely odious?
One: That was a long time ago. Probably no one remembers.
Two: I don't know. She had a scene in THE TEN YEAR NAP where a lady breast-fed another woman's baby. (Shudders). I don't like breast-feeding. Or babies. Or books about mothers who breast-feed their babies. That would never happen in a Jonathan Franzen book.
One: I know.
Two: In a Jonathan Franzen book, the character would have to dig through a turd to find a wedding ring. That's literature.
One: The piece really isn't that bad. She uses the word "relegated" twice in the first sentence. Then she announces that she's not going to be discussing about popular women's fiction, but "literature that happens to be written by women."
Two: So "popular" can't be "literature." I like where this is going.
One: Then she quotes Jane Smiley, who complains about not making Jodi Picoult-style coin or getting Franzen-style respect.
Two (fondly): Ladies. Always with the claws out.
One: She does mention the VIDA stats. Says women get "shockingly short shrift as reviewers and reviewees in most prestigious publications."
Two: She called us prestigious? I like her better and better.
One: And she bitches about lady book jackets. "Laundry hanging on a line. A little girl in a field of wildflowers. A pair of shoes on a beach."
Two: Well, girls do like their pretty things.
One: She does make one point that concerns me. She says that in the seventies and eighties, things were better. "There was Atwood, there was Morrison. Stories, long and short, and often about women's lives, suddenly mattered to the cultural conversation. Men were actively interested in reading about the inner lives of women (or maybe some just pretended they were) and received moral kudos for doing so. Whereas before that a lone woman might be allowed on the so-called men's team, literary women began achieving critical mass and becoming more than anomalies. But though this wave of prominent authors helped the women who followed, as time passed it seemed harder for literary women to go the distance.
Two: But she doesn't say that maybe the shift has something to do with the way literary women treat their best-selling commercial sisters? Like Jennifer Egan winning the Pulitzer and dissing women she saw as writing lesser books? Or Maureen Dowd printing a conversation with Leon Wieseltier about how those books with pink covers are ruining literature, and complaining about log-rolling, which never, ever happens anywhere else in the literary world?
One: Nope. She also doesn't seem to think that women in her position have an obligation to help the next generation of young literary writers, with blurbs, or giveaways, or joint readings, or supporting one another in public or on social media the way commercial women writers do.
Two: Well, as long as she's not throwing the New York Times under the bus, I don't care who she blames, or doesn't blame. You go on with your bad self. I'm going to be in the bathroom for the next ten minutes or so.
One: Tell James Patterson's loggia I say 'hi.'
Editor One: So, you're not going to like this, but I really think we need to talk about the sexism situation.
Editor Two (whining): Didn't we talk about some lady book last week?
One: No, last week we talked about Mark Leyner.
Two: Oh. (Happily). I like Mark Leyner.
One: So do we all. But here's the deal: there's this evidence, and it's pretty overwhelming, that women's literary work is perceived, reviewed, purchased and read much differently than similar work by men.
Two: And this is our problem because….?
One: Because people are talking. And noticing. And counting how many women's books the Times reviews and how many women reviewers we hire. It's making us look bad. It might even be making people not read us. So the next time we write about Chad Harbach, or Mark Leyner's sugar-frosted nut sack, or one of the Jonathans….
Two: Please. We're the only game in town. People are going to read what we say, no matter what. (Excited). Let's write about Chad Harbach again!
One: You do this, or I'm telling everyone how long you spent in the bathroom with that Wall Street Journal piece about James Patterson's Palm Beach estate.
Two (shocked): You wouldn't!
One: I would. And this won't be so bad. Here's my plan: we find some Times-approved woman writer and let her write an essay about the problem.
Two: Not one of those icky commercial writers? The ones who were making all that fuss about Franzen?
One: No, no, no. Don't be silly. You know we don't mention those ladies except on the bestseller list. We'll find an acceptable lady writer. Someone who's sophisticated. Genteel. Someone who writes about families and marriages and relationships and motherhood, preferably as experienced by wealthy New Yorkers.
Two: I don't know. That still kind of sounds like chick lit. Or women's fiction.
One: Can't be chick lit if it's written by a critically-respected midlist author whose books the Times reviews.
Two: Ah! Gotcha. Okay, so Elinor Lipman? Kathryn Harrison? Cathleen Schine?
One: I was thinking Meg Wolitzer.
Two: Huh. Didn't she once write an essay about reading a Sophie Kinsella book and not finding it completely odious?
One: That was a long time ago. Probably no one remembers.
Two: I don't know. She had a scene in THE TEN YEAR NAP where a lady breast-fed another woman's baby. (Shudders). I don't like breast-feeding. Or babies. Or books about mothers who breast-feed their babies. That would never happen in a Jonathan Franzen book.
One: I know.
Two: In a Jonathan Franzen book, the character would have to dig through a turd to find a wedding ring. That's literature.
One: The piece really isn't that bad. She uses the word "relegated" twice in the first sentence. Then she announces that she's not going to be discussing about popular women's fiction, but "literature that happens to be written by women."
Two: So "popular" can't be "literature." I like where this is going.
One: Then she quotes Jane Smiley, who complains about not making Jodi Picoult-style coin or getting Franzen-style respect.
Two (fondly): Ladies. Always with the claws out.
One: She does mention the VIDA stats. Says women get "shockingly short shrift as reviewers and reviewees in most prestigious publications."
Two: She called us prestigious? I like her better and better.
One: And she bitches about lady book jackets. "Laundry hanging on a line. A little girl in a field of wildflowers. A pair of shoes on a beach."
Two: Well, girls do like their pretty things.
One: She does make one point that concerns me. She says that in the seventies and eighties, things were better. "There was Atwood, there was Morrison. Stories, long and short, and often about women's lives, suddenly mattered to the cultural conversation. Men were actively interested in reading about the inner lives of women (or maybe some just pretended they were) and received moral kudos for doing so. Whereas before that a lone woman might be allowed on the so-called men's team, literary women began achieving critical mass and becoming more than anomalies. But though this wave of prominent authors helped the women who followed, as time passed it seemed harder for literary women to go the distance.
Two: But she doesn't say that maybe the shift has something to do with the way literary women treat their best-selling commercial sisters? Like Jennifer Egan winning the Pulitzer and dissing women she saw as writing lesser books? Or Maureen Dowd printing a conversation with Leon Wieseltier about how those books with pink covers are ruining literature, and complaining about log-rolling, which never, ever happens anywhere else in the literary world?
One: Nope. She also doesn't seem to think that women in her position have an obligation to help the next generation of young literary writers, with blurbs, or giveaways, or joint readings, or supporting one another in public or on social media the way commercial women writers do.
Two: Well, as long as she's not throwing the New York Times under the bus, I don't care who she blames, or doesn't blame. You go on with your bad self. I'm going to be in the bathroom for the next ten minutes or so.
One: Tell James Patterson's loggia I say 'hi.'
March 20, 2012
I have no idea how the New York Times editors decide what...
I have no idea how the New York Times editors decide what to cover in the INSIDE THE LIST column...but I like to imagine the discussion going something like this.
Editor one: Looks like Jodi Picoult's new book is going to debut at number one.
Editor two: (Blank look): Jodi Who?
One: You know. Jodi Picoult. The lady who writes books about real people facing ethical dilemmas?
Two: Real what?
One: Never mind. Look, it's a huge best-seller, and we really should say something. I mean, her readers, Times readers…lots of overlap there.
Two: Didn't we just write about some lady-book bestseller? That mommy-porn thing? Shouldn't that buy us, like, a month? And at least two more profiles of Nicholson Baker?
One: (Placating). Look, it's not like I'm saying we have to review the book or anything crazy. But this column's called Inside the List. Which means that maybe we should actually mention the books that are on the bestseller list. Every once in a while.
Two (Sulking): I don't like writing about popular fiction, unless I get to make fun of it. That's why I'm an editor at a mainstream newspaper with a diverse readership which nevertheless permits – nay, encourages – its publishing reporters to ignore most of the books people actually enjoy, especially if they're written and enjoyed by women.
One: Shh!
Two: Oops. Sorry. (Whispering) Forgot I'm not supposed to talk about that in public. (Then) Look, can't we just write about Chad Harbach some more? He was on the list!
One: He doesn't have a book on the bestseller list right now.
Two: Yeah, but he did. Remember?
One: I do. But, given that it took him nine years to write the first one, we might not get to talk about him for a bit. Now, this Picoult book. It deals with organ donation, end-of-life decisions, complex family dramas. Oh, and it's got a protagonist who lived with a wolf pack. She did a lot of research. Maybe we can talk about that?
Two (brightening): Hey, wait a minute! Wasn't she one of those lady writers who hates Jonathan Franzen?
One: Well, technically, those lady writers weren't complaining about Franzen, per se, but, rather, the disparate amounts of attention given to men versus women, and literary versus commercial fiction in mainstream...
Two: Yeah, yeah. Probably Josie was just jealous of Franzen. Can we write about Franzen?
One (Slowly): So, instead of writing about Jodi Picoult and her number-one bestselling book, you want to write about Jonathan Franzen.
Two: Well, we can mention Joanie's book. Throw her a bone. And then we can talk about she doesn't like Franzen, and then we can talk about Franzen! (Happily). I like talking about Franzen. You know he hates Twitter, right?
One: Okay, but given the number of people who read Jodi's…
Two: Franzen.
One: Yes, but did you happen to see those VIDA statistics about how the Times has been reviewing more books by men than by...
Two: Franzen!
One: Look, it's getting a little embarrassing with all of the…
Two: FRANZEN FRANZEN FRANZEN!
In non-Franzen news, Liz Moore, author of HEFT, and I are going to be reading and talking on Thursday night at Headhouse Books in Philadelphia at 7 p.m.. Join us for lively conversation and dessert!
March 6, 2012
Last week Vida, an organization for women in the arts, re...
Last week Vida, an organization for women in the arts, released its second annual survey of highbrow publications and how many women they're publishing and reviewing.
The news, predictably, was not good: The Atlantic reviewed 12 books by women, 24 by men. Harper's reviewed 19 women, 53 men. The New Yorker published work by 242 women, 613 men.
The typical hand-wringing, apologizing, defensiveness and search for solutions quickly began.
I wrote a piece for the Guardian's blog, arguing that, for anything to change, women are going to have to speak up for ourselves, and one another.
And then, with my work done, I downloaded the latest popular piece of erotica that everyone's talking about and settled in for what I hoped would be a fun read.
I love a good, fast-paced sexy book. I read Judith Krantz when I was just a lass, and kept the A.N. Roquelaure books under my mattress, and can still recite more of Shirley Conran's LACE than you'd believe. I'm not looking for prose on the level of James or Proust every time I start a novel. Sometimes, I just want entertainment.
This book -- for a variety of reasons -- did not deliver.
On Sunday night, I dashed off a few snarky tweets, rolled my eyes, bit my lip, recommended a few other books, and went off to innocent slumber.
And woke up to a bit of a kerfuffle
I wanted to write back, You know who I am? I am a reader, who paid $6.99 for this book, and has a right to an opinion about it.
But other, more thoughtful responses kept coming. You threw another woman under the bus. You're being a bitch. You, with all your talk of equality and fairness. How could you!
My first reaction was to get defensive. There is, I pointed out, a difference between calling a book an unreadable piece of trash that should never have been published and taking issue with specific pieces of a story -- a story that I've paid for, and taken time to read and think about.
I never said it shouldn't have seen the light of day, or that readers don't have a right to enjoy it. I certainly didn't hunt the author down on Twitter and make sure she knew exactly how I felt about her book.
Did that make me a mean girl? Did that mean I was chucking another female author – and a first-time one, at that – under the bus?
Does standing up for women's equality, for our right to be treated fairly in the book-review sections of big newspapers and magazines means that I can never say an uncomplimentary word about a woman's book ever again?
I thought about it all day long…and I think that the answer is yes.
The problem is social media in general, Twitter specifically. It's a new land that we're still figuring out how to navigate, and none of the rules are clear.
To me, Twitter feels like a rollicking cocktail party, a series of overlapping conversations with friends and new acquaintances. But you arrive with an established identity.
In my case, that means I don't get to take off the "crusader for women's equality" cape and put on my "just a reader" hat.
I don't get to talk about a book the way I would to my friends, if we were at lunch and the discussion turned to what we were reading...at least, not in public.
Last spring, Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal right after she'd gotten the good news, she did something that I found hard to understand.
With the eyes of the literary world on her, with the spotlight hers to command, she could have celebrated her peers. She could have said, "here are five great women authors you might not have heard of." She could have used the occasion to give other women a boost.
Instead, she used the occasion to trash women writers she didn't like. "There was that scandal with the Harvard student who was found to have plagiarized. But she had plagiarized very derivative, banal stuff. This is your big first move? These are your models? I'm not saying you should say you've never done anything good, but I don't go around saying I've written the book of the century. My advice for young female writers would be to shoot high and not cower."
It was a weird, Tourettes-y moment. My friends and I wondered (and have lots of theories) about why Egan's mind went, almost automatically, to a five-year-old instance of plagiarism, in response to a fairly broad and innocent question (and, to be fair, Egan apologized for her gaffe, both in public and in private, to the authors she'd slammed).
But the dismaying part – in exhorting women to 'shoot high and not cower," she said, essentially, "be the kind of writer I approve of, not like those bad writers who I think are derivative and banal."
She had a chance to do some good, and she did harm instead.
I made the same mistake on Sunday night.
I could have tweeted about a book I loved, instead of one I didn't.
I could have, as they say, used my powers for good, instead of evil.
I'm sorry I didn't.
So, in the future, I'll be reserving my Twitter snark for safer targets, including but not limited to reality TV stars, opponents of contraception and myself, for taking my daughter's word for it when she says she "just wants to hold" the bottle of sparkly nail polish.
Wish me luck.
February 20, 2012
The first thing you must know about me is that I am colos...
The first thing you must know about me is that I am colossally fat," Arthur Opp confesses in the story's very first line. Arthur estimates his weight as somewhere between five and six hundred pounds, and confesses that he eats "whatever and whenever he wants," feasts of "Chinese food, the greased and glowing kind, unnaturally orange chicken with sesame seeds nestled in its crevices, white rice in buttery clumps that come apart wonderfully in the mouth; potstickers, ridged and hard at the seam and soft at the belly; crab rangoons, a crunch followed by lush bland creaminess; chocolate cake – nothing Chinese about it, but the best dessert for a meal of this kind, the sweet bitterness an antidote & a compliment to all that salt.".
When we meet him, Arthur hasn't been out of the house in a decade -- not since 9-11. The lovely Brooklyn brownstone he inherited was once "very lovely inside and out, decorated very nicely, O this when I was a small boy. But now I fear I have allowed it to fall into a sort of haunted disrepair." He's a disgraced former professor, hopelessly longing for a former student whom he dated a handful of times decades ago. His word is confined to the first floor of his house, his television set, and the deliverymen who bring him whatever he needs from the outside world. "I made sure to choose the after 5 p.m option when I joined, which pleases me I like to think the deliveryman might believe I work all day and am just getting home. I'm very silly in this way!"
Arthur's carefully-constructed life starts to crack open when he makes his first human connections in years. He meets Yolanda, the housekeeper he hires to get his house in order in the belief that Charlene might come back, and, eventually, the reader meets a teenage baseball prodigy Kel Keller, Charlene's son. Kel, handsome and athletically gifted, is also a misfit, also trapped, imprisoned by poverty, by place and circumstance and the burdens of an ill and addicted mother. He lives in a rough part of Yonkers, attends school in a posh neighboring suburb, and keeps his mother's secrets, caring for her even as he's furious with her for failing him so profoundly.
Liz Moore is neither a six-hundred-pound professor or an unhappy, too-cool teenage jock. Tall and willowy, with a thoughtful manner and Julia Roberts masses of wavy brown hair, Moore grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts, the oldest of two sisters, in a "very happy family." Her mother was an English professor, her father was a research physicist who specialized in nuclear medicine, and Moore was an avid reader of everything from Beverly Cleary to Madeline L'Engle to "The Babysitters Club, which my mom was not happy about."
Living in a soccer-mad suburb, Moore recalled wishing that her mother spoke with more of a Boston accent. "All I wanted to do was be like all the other kids I knew. I remember trying to be someone I wasn't."
She played soccer: "Not well. And I would have traded everything to have been really good at it." When she was sixteen, she took up the guitar, playing "Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Phoebe Snow, all of those ladies." She learned "a bunch of their songs first." After arriving at Barnard (she followed the path of a beloved high-school teacher), Moore started writing her own songs. She worked weekends at the famed Matt Umanov Guitars in the Village, where she perfected her playing, and formed the Liz Moore Band.
At Barnard, she studied fiction with Mary Gordon and Roddy Doyle. By the time she graduated in 2005, she had a manuscript, a collection of short stories about the lives of musicians in New York City called THE WORDS OF EVERY SONG. Shortly thereafter, she had a book deal. Her first book was published in 2007, the same year her first album, called Backyards, came out.
"That book was almost luck. I had a manuscript, based on classwork I'd done." She met an agent, a Barnard alumna, at a conference. "Two weeks later, the book was edited, and on submission, and Broadway Books bought it." She was twenty-two years old, and thinking, "this will never, ever happen again." Telling her parents was almost anticlimactic, Moore recalled. "I think all of us were, like, 'What?' We weren't as excited as we should have been!"
THE WORDS OF EVERY SONG was praised by Kirkus Reviews as "sweet, wistful, artfully arranged: like the best mix tape anyone ever made for you."
But instead of getting a quick start on her next project, Moore went back to school. She got a job at the Morgan Library, and enrolled in a Masters of Fine Arts program at Hunter College. Her plans was to use the advance from the first collection to learn the craft of writing. "I would never have given myself permission to get an MFA without having published a book."
Of course, entering a graduate program in creative writing with a book already on shelves seems like a guarantee of toxic envy. Didn't her classmates want to beat her up in the girls' room? Moore laughs. "Well, you'd have to ask them. But some of my closest friends came out of the program."
The grand tradition of first novels is for the young novelist to write what he or she knows – hence the shelves stuffed with tales of Brooklyn slackers with self-doub and Prozac prescriptions, or twentysomething magazine writers coping with bad boyfriends and body angst.
How did Moore decide to populate her first novel with two main characters with whom she had so little in common?
"I knew that, whatever I wrote, people would automatically assume it was me. Writing Arthur let me write sentences I would have felt self-conscious about writing, if I was writing a young-ish woman. It was safer to make him older, and a man, and different from me."
Arthur's passion for food – the tastes, the textures, the comfort of knowing there's something good to cook in the kitchen, a feast waiting to happen – and his shame and horror at what that passion has done to his body, and his life, will feel familiar to every woman who's ever had, even briefly or peripherally, a vexed relationship with eating. Which is to say, Moore says with a laugh, every woman in America.
But writing about a male character with body issues felt safe. The danger of being a young woman and writing about a young female protagonist is this: not only will readers assume that the woman on the page is the woman behind it, there is also a tendency to take works by young women about young women less seriously.
In a 2008 review of Kaui Hart Hemmings' THE DESCENDANTS, the critic Joanna Kavenna wondered if Hemmings, along with young female authors Nicole Krauss and Zadie Smith, wrote about men "as a form of homage to writers like Roth, Updike and Bellow," and also whether male protagonists might "betray a certain anxiety of seriousness: that up-and-coming and even established female authors, fearful of their work being ghettoized as "women's writing," place male characters at the center of their work.
HEFT has gotten a decent share of critical acclaim, perhaps because Moore put male characters who couldn't be less like her front and center, while the women in HEFT take traditional supporting roles: the troubled mother, the supportive girlfriend, the cleaning-lady-with-a-heart-of-gold who helps tug Arthur back to the world of the living.
Moore acknowledges the issue. The female characters "occupy the roles we're used to seeing women in. But those roles do occur in life. There are cleaning ladies in the world."
"It's important to write good books about women as a political action," she says. "I'd like to write about women. The thing I'm working on – the protagonist is a young woman. It feels more like home."
Arthur Opp was born in 2006. "I wrote a short story right out of college, about Arthur. And then it just sort of sat there. Like Arthur. But he, as a character, stuck with me." In graduate school, Moore began writing about Arthur as the central character of a novel. "I knew I had to complicate things for Arthur. Kel was the complicating factor."
Getting HEFT published was a more traditional process then selling that first collection. Moore started working with a famous agent at the beginning of her MFA studies. Two years later, after she delivered the finished manuscript, the agent decided that it wasn't for her, and summarily dropped Moore as a client. Moore spent another six months finding her current agent, Seth Fishman. When HEFT finally went on submission, it sold to W.W. Norton within a month.
Moore moved to Philadelphia in 2009, for a yearlong fellowship at the Kelly Writer House at the University of Pennsylvania. She taught writing at Penn and Holy Family University and, when Holy Family offered her a full-time position, she and her long-term boyfriend (he's a consultant) decided to stay.
"I love teaching. I really do. Whatever happens – if I become hugely successful – I think I'd always want to teach one class every semester. It keeps me sharp, and engaged with the world."
So how does it feel to be twenty-eight with two published books, and a job teaching writing? Did Liz Moore get to be what she wanted to be when she grew up? "I would never articulate the desire to be a writer, because it felt so stupid. I didn't believe I could do it until I was actually doing it…but now that I'm doing it, it's a very exciting thing."
February 19, 2012
Every once in a while, you read a book with such well-wri...
Every once in a while, you read a book with such well-written, memorable characters that you know you're going to remember them forever.
Macon Leary in THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, Dolores Price in SHE'S COME UNDONE, Olympia Binewski from GEEK LOVE…all of them have their own specific voices, and their own unforgettable journeys.
To that list, add Arthur Opp, the unlikely protagonist of Liz Moore's first novel HEFT, about a lonely man and a teenage boy making their way out of the wreckage of their lives..and toward one another.
HEFT is a wonderful oddball of a book. I loved it, and I think you will, too…and if you buy the book before or on Monday, February 20, I will send you a signed copy of one of my books for free.
Here's the deal: treat yourself to a copy of HEFT, which is available at your favorite independent bookstore, online retailer, and wherever books are sold. Yes, e-books count. Yes, foreign readers are welcome (it'll just take a little longer for your books to arrive).
On Monday, tweet a picture of you and the book, or your receipt, or the title page on your e-reader, under the hashtag #HEFT. Not on Twitter? Post the picture to your Facebook page, or post it on mine.
Then, send an email to jen AT jenniferweiner.com with your name, which book you want, to whom you'd like it inscribed, if at all, and where you'd like us to send it. I'll send books until we run out, which won't be for a while! You can ask for a book for yourself, or for a friend, or you can donate it to your local library, school, prison, hospital, shelter, wherever.
And come back tomorrow, where I'll have an interview with Liz Moore.
January 17, 2012
Why isn't this woman smilin...
Why isn't this woman smiling?
Back in the summer of 2010, some female writers (including me) used the occasion of the orgy of coverage around Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM to make a point that seemed obvious to anyone paying attention: the New York Times does not do a very good job at covering women writers.
After a tsunami of indignation swelled across the Internet – a tsunami that, unfortunately, was directed not at the Times, but at the female writers who dared to complain about its policies -- Slate.com confirmed the problem: of the 545 books reviewed between July 2008 and August, 2010, 62 percent were by men, 38 percent were by women…and of the 101 books that were reviewed twice in that time period, 71 percent were by men.
Did the Times do any better a year after FREEDOM?
To quote Reverend Lovejoy of Simpsons fame, short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but. No male writer received the kind of saturation-level combination of reviews, profiles, think-pieces and mentions that surrounded Franzen's new book...but if you're hoping for equality, the paper's got a long way to go.
I counted the number of novels and short-story collections that were written up in the Times, mostly because fiction is what I write, and what I read. Numbers first, analysis at the end.
In 2011, the Times reviewed 254 works of fiction. 104, or 40.9 percent, were by women, and 150, or 59.1 percent, were by men.
Of the works of fiction that got two full reviews, 21 were by women, 22 were by men.
Of the works that received one full review plus a mention in a round-up, 5 were by women, 11 were by men. (This can be largely explained by Marilyn Stasio's weekly round-up of crime novels).
Finally, of the works of fiction whose authors were reviewed twice (either with two full reviews, or review plus roundup) and profiled, one was a woman and ten were men.
The men who received two reviews plus a profile were David Foster Wallace, Albert Brooks, Julian Barnes, Kevin Wilson, Nicholson Baker, Tom Perrotta, Russell Banks, Jeffrey Eugenides, Haruki Murakami and Allan Hollinghurst.
The only woman who received two reviews plus a profile was Tea Obreht (who also received a mention in the TBR column).
J. Courtney Sullivan (a former Times employee), received a full review and a round-up mention, and was featured in the "Sunday Routine" column, where she discussed her preferred brunch, her work habits, and her favorite dog park.
Sullivan also appeared in the "Inside the List" column, wrote a book review, and published a piece on her hobby -- dollhouses.
Ann Patchett was reviewed twice, and was written up in a story that had to do with her buying a bookstore than her as a writer.
Ann Beattie was also reviewed twice for her book, MRS. NIXON, and mentioned in T Style, in a Q and A about holiday gifts. (Also featured? Gary Shteyngart and Jeffrey Eugenides.)
No female novelist received two reviews plus a Sunday Magazine profile, while two men (Nicholson Baker and Haruki Murakami) hit that trifecta. The only woman novelist profiled in the Sunday Magazine was independent publishing sensation Amanda Hocking. None of Hockings' books were reviewed in 2011. The magazine also ran a great piece on cartoonist and nonfiction author Lynda Barry and her "workshop for nonwriters." Barry's last novel, CRUDDY, was published in 2000.
Finally, there's the issue of timing.
The ideal situation for an author is to have a new book reviewed within days of its publication. New books hit shelves and e-tailers on Tuesdays, which means a review the Sunday before is ideal, as is any day-of-publication ink.
Of the authors who received two reviews within two weeks of their publication date, seven were women and twelve were men (David Foster Wallace, whose THE PALE KING was published on April 4 and received his reviews on March 31 and April 5, almost made the cut.)
The year had some bright spots. Commercial mystery writers Lisa Scottoline and Chelsea Cain were reviewed, as was YA queen Meg Cabot and chick lit-ish writer Allison Pearson.
Of the five works of fiction chosen as the year's best, three were by women: Karen Russell's SWAMPLANDIA!, Eleanor Henderson's TEN THOUSAND SAINTS and Obreht's THE TIGER'S WIFE.
Only one of them – THE TIGER'S WIFE – was reviewed twice, while both men who received the honor (Chad Harbach and Stephen King) also got two reviews.
The Times showed improvement, at least in terms of fiction, in the two-review department, but the disparity between men and women who get that coveted two-reviews-plus-a-profile is still shocking.
Final thoughts? Like they say on the subways, if you see something, say something…and if you don't see something, say something about that, too.
Social media means that everyone gets a voice – not just authors and publishers, but readers, too.
So if you believe that PEN-prize winning Jennifer Haigh's new book FAITH deserved better than a throwaway mention under the heading "For the Ladies" in a Janet Maslin summer beach-book round-up…or if you notice that Tom Perrotta got two reviews and a profile within three days of publication, while Erin Morgenstern's THE NIGHT CIRCUS received a single review, three weeks after its pub date…or if you wonder why memoirist Meghan O'Rourke is posing in a Missoni sweater in T Style Magazine, while novelist Gary Shteyngart talks technology...or if you believe the Times could have swapped one of its multiple pieces on well-connected cross-dressing memoirist Jon-Jon Goulian for a write-up of National Book Award-winning Jesmyn Ward (who was eventually reviewed, once, months after SALVAGE THE BONES was published)…or if you believe that a book review that makes space for mysteries, thrillers and horror novels can also spare a few paragraphs each week for romance, commercial women's fiction and quote-unquote chick lit, get on Twitter, get on your blog, post something on Facebook. Speak up.
The near-equality among the twice-reviewed and the best-of lists, and the occasional not-entirely-dismissive mention of a commercial female author suggests that, even if they'll never say so, people at the Times are paying attention. Things can change.
(Last but not least, a special thank-you to my assistant, the indomitable Meghan Burnett, who compiled all these numbers).
December 6, 2011
Remember that old Andre Agassi campaign where he finger-c...
Remember that old Andre Agassi campaign where he finger-combed his mullet and told us that "image is everything?"
Take that and triple it when it comes to ethics in book reviewing.
Readers deserve a critic's honest take on a book, an opinion that hasn't been influenced by the critic's relationship with the author or her publisher. Because the community of critics and writers is small and incestuous, with plenty of connections and lots of overlap, editors are meticulous about making sure that the reviews they run are beyond reproach.
A reviewer cannot share a blood relation or a bed with the author of the book she'll be considering. She can't have written a blurb or be thanked in the acknowledgments of the book under consideration, or have blurbed or thanked its author.
Critics can't review the work of a friend, or an enemy.
Generally, reviewers are required to disclose any relationship – any at all – that they have with the author. Did you ever work at the same university? Judge a contest together? Win the same fellowship, sit on the same panel, attend a writers' conference at the same time? The editors want to know, because they want to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, of log-rolling or score-settling or a review that is, or even seems to be, ethically tainted. They want their reviews to be fair, and to look that way.
Among the list of thou-shalt-nots is a rule that's so basic that editors could be forgiven for not even mentioning it: thou shalt not take money from the publisher to promote the book you're reviewing.
That's why it was surprising to find the Minneapolis Star-Tribune publishing Bethanne Patrick's review of Joyce Carol Oates' book THE CORN MAIDEN…the same book that Patrick, wearing her #fridayreads hat, had done a paid giveaway of the month before. (Full disclosure: Joyce Carol Oates was one of my creative writing professors in college, some twenty years ago).
Patrick was assigned the review in August. She turned in her review in October. At some point between October and November, she negotiated the promotion with Oates' publisher.
Star-Tribune Senior Editor Laurie Hertzel said in an email interview that at no point did Patrick disclose that she was doing a paid promotion for the book she'd reviewed. Hertzel said she "did not know about the financial relationship (between Patrick and Oates' publisher) before the review was published."
In fact, Hertzel said didn't even know that there was a paid component to Fridayreads.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following the Fridayreads saga, and who know that Patrick, who has been doing paid promotions ranging from $750 to $2,000 since March of this year, chose to disclose that fact that Fridayreads is "a hashtag and a business both" halfway down a FAQ page on a website, as opposed to on Twitter and Facebook, as FTC regulations require, and did not label promoted tweets as such.
When all of this was pointed out, by me and other writers, Patrick essentially threw up her hands and pleaded ignorance. Things moved fast, steps were skipped, the Internet's a big, confusing place. Maybe she didn't do everything right, but she didn't mean to mislead anyone and she's sorry if she did.
Which is the same line she's repeating now that the book review-promo conflict has come to light. "I'm in new territory here," she tweeted yesterday.
Except disclosing a conflict to a newspaper editor isn't new territory, or even new media. It's fundamental. It's Book Reviewing 101.
Readers and writers understand how rapidly the ground is shifting as the conversation about reading moves from print media to the Internet, where book bloggers work multiple jobs and sometimes have conflicting allegiances. Reasonable people can make allowances for honest mistakes…but not telling an editor who's assigned you a review that you've been paid to promote that same title?
That's hard to understand…particularly from someone who's worked in the publishing world for years.
Hertzel said Patrick's future as a freelance critic for the Star Tribune is now under review.
But there's a bigger issue here than the critic who made bad choices, the editor who was kept in the dark, the author whose glowing review now looks fishy, and the readers, who now have reason to wonder whether what they read in their morning paper was an honest assessment or a bought-and-paid-for Valentine.
Authors deserve reviews that are fair and impartial. Other freelance critics and book bloggers don't deserve the cynicism and suspicion that they'll receive in the wake of Patrick's double-dip. Most of all, readers deserve reviews that are not, and do not appear to be, influenced by relationships, connections, or -- above all -- money.
Take that and triple it when it comes to ethics in book reviewing.
Readers deserve a critic's honest take on a book, an opinion that hasn't been influenced by the critic's relationship with the author or her publisher. Because the community of critics and writers is small and incestuous, with plenty of connections and lots of overlap, editors are meticulous about making sure that the reviews they run are beyond reproach.
A reviewer cannot share a blood relation or a bed with the author of the book she'll be considering. She can't have written a blurb or be thanked in the acknowledgments of the book under consideration, or have blurbed or thanked its author.
Critics can't review the work of a friend, or an enemy.
Generally, reviewers are required to disclose any relationship – any at all – that they have with the author. Did you ever work at the same university? Judge a contest together? Win the same fellowship, sit on the same panel, attend a writers' conference at the same time? The editors want to know, because they want to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, of log-rolling or score-settling or a review that is, or even seems to be, ethically tainted. They want their reviews to be fair, and to look that way.
Among the list of thou-shalt-nots is a rule that's so basic that editors could be forgiven for not even mentioning it: thou shalt not take money from the publisher to promote the book you're reviewing.
That's why it was surprising to find the Minneapolis Star-Tribune publishing Bethanne Patrick's review of Joyce Carol Oates' book THE CORN MAIDEN…the same book that Patrick, wearing her #fridayreads hat, had done a paid giveaway of the month before. (Full disclosure: Joyce Carol Oates was one of my creative writing professors in college, some twenty years ago).
Patrick was assigned the review in August. She turned in her review in October. At some point between October and November, she negotiated the promotion with Oates' publisher.
Star-Tribune Senior Editor Laurie Hertzel said in an email interview that at no point did Patrick disclose that she was doing a paid promotion for the book she'd reviewed. Hertzel said she "did not know about the financial relationship (between Patrick and Oates' publisher) before the review was published."
In fact, Hertzel said didn't even know that there was a paid component to Fridayreads.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following the Fridayreads saga, and who know that Patrick, who has been doing paid promotions ranging from $750 to $2,000 since March of this year, chose to disclose that fact that Fridayreads is "a hashtag and a business both" halfway down a FAQ page on a website, as opposed to on Twitter and Facebook, as FTC regulations require, and did not label promoted tweets as such.
When all of this was pointed out, by me and other writers, Patrick essentially threw up her hands and pleaded ignorance. Things moved fast, steps were skipped, the Internet's a big, confusing place. Maybe she didn't do everything right, but she didn't mean to mislead anyone and she's sorry if she did.
Which is the same line she's repeating now that the book review-promo conflict has come to light. "I'm in new territory here," she tweeted yesterday.
Except disclosing a conflict to a newspaper editor isn't new territory, or even new media. It's fundamental. It's Book Reviewing 101.
Readers and writers understand how rapidly the ground is shifting as the conversation about reading moves from print media to the Internet, where book bloggers work multiple jobs and sometimes have conflicting allegiances. Reasonable people can make allowances for honest mistakes…but not telling an editor who's assigned you a review that you've been paid to promote that same title?
That's hard to understand…particularly from someone who's worked in the publishing world for years.
Hertzel said Patrick's future as a freelance critic for the Star Tribune is now under review.
But there's a bigger issue here than the critic who made bad choices, the editor who was kept in the dark, the author whose glowing review now looks fishy, and the readers, who now have reason to wonder whether what they read in their morning paper was an honest assessment or a bought-and-paid-for Valentine.
Authors deserve reviews that are fair and impartial. Other freelance critics and book bloggers don't deserve the cynicism and suspicion that they'll receive in the wake of Patrick's double-dip. Most of all, readers deserve reviews that are not, and do not appear to be, influenced by relationships, connections, or -- above all -- money.
November 27, 2011
By now, people who follow publishing news are familiar wi...
By now, people who follow publishing news are familiar with the headlines from last week's Fridayreads brouhaha: popular hashtag revealed as a business, too! Proprietors apologize for not properly labeling promotional tweets! "We may have made mistakes, but we've got ethics!" they claim.
When it began, #Fridayreads was a popular hashtag that was billed by its founder Bethanne Patrick, who tweets as @thebookmaven, as a "global community of people who come together each week to share whatever they're reading." Last week, Patrick admitted that Fridayreads is a hashtag and a business both, a business that charges publishers fees from $750 to $2,000 to host giveaways, author Q and A's, "twitter tours," and post positive tweets about their books.
Now that the business aspect is out in the open, there's another question to consider, one that's bigger than the issue of why Patrick and her colleagues chose to disclose the moneymaking component of a Twitter hashtag on a website few would have occasion to see, and whether they really believed that disclosure was sufficient: namely, why does any of this matter to readers and writers?
My own full disclosure: I found out that Fridayreads was selling services after a new online literary magazine called Book Riot ran a story that criticized me and Jodi Picoult for the crime of being insufficiently pissed about the coverage novelist Jeffrey Eugenides received (yes, this is the life I lead). A few of the Riot's employees were kind enough to tweet the link at me, just to be sure that I saw.
I read the story. Then I went to the masthead to figure out who was in charge of this new magazine, and was surprised to learn that Patrick, who I've met once and who has always been friendly to me on Twitter, was the Riot's new executive editor.
I went to Patrick's Twitter page, to see whether her new job was mentioned. It wasn't, but her Twitter page led me to the Fridayreads home page (which also failed to mention Patrick's new affiliation). The home page led me to a link to the FAQ page, and, deep on the FAQ page was the news that the Fridayreads services were for sale (the page also revealed that two of Fridayreads' three employees also have positions at Book Riot).
How many casual readers and tweeters would follow such a serpentine path, figure out how Fridayreads worked, and make an informed decision about whether they wanted to participate and be counted not just as a reader but as a potential consumer of the books Patrick was selling? My guess: not many.
In addition to posting their disclosure on a website, while most of #fridayreads happens on Twitter and Facebook, the people running the hashtag failed to clearly label promoted tweets as promoted. This is a problem, too. As others have noted, the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection has rules spelling out how bloggers and Twitter users must disclose when they're paid to endorse or mention a product.
The rules make it clear that "a single disclosure doesn't really do it because people visiting your site might read individual reviews or watch individual videos without seeing the disclosure on your home page," and that promoted tweets have to labeled as such, with an #ad or #sponsored or #promoted hashtag.
I won't speculate about whether the disclosure-on-a-website and subsequent failure to label promotional tweets correctly was deliberately deceptive or merely clueless.
But I do want to talk about why disclosure and transparency matter.
On Monday, Patrick issued an explanation/apology on her website. In the comments section, someone named "Chris" said this was much ado about nothing. "It was obvious that someone was getting something for hours of hard work."
In other words, duh, of course the Fridayreads crew was getting paid. You'd be a naïve idiot to think otherwise.
That's my biggest problem.
I don't believe that the vast majority of authors, or literary bloggers, are secretly or semi-secretly for sale.
I don't think that publishing is a private club run behind a locked door with winks and nods and secret handshakes, where insiders know the truth about how things really work, and the outsiders are left in the cold, guessing. It worries me that readers are going to come away from the Fridayreads contretemps believing that's the case: that there's a story that gets handed to the public, and then there's the truth that gets whispered among the members of the club, who all know that of course litblogger A runs hashtag B and also works for magazine C and who don't think the public needs to know that a hashtag that presents itself as a fun exercise in community-building is quietly a business on the side.
In ten years as a novelist, that hasn't been my experience with publishing professionals, or other authors, or the dozens of literary bloggers I've met. Implying otherwise is an insult to every blogger who ever did an interview or a giveaway because she loved a book or an author and wanted to get out the word.
It's an insult to every author who ever gave an honest blurb or recommendation, or tweeted, "Guys, you've got to read this" because he believed it, not because the publisher slipped him some cash or he expected a favor down the road.
It's an insult to the authors who do interviews and Q and As and post advice and links and the stories of how we got started on our blogs, who do giveaways and pay for the postage out of our own pocket because we want to give back to the reading and writing community, to support other authors, to encourage the newbies, to celebrate books in a world where opportunities to do so are shrinking, and are too often given to the usual suspects.
It's an insult to the bloggers who have chosen to monetize their content publicly and honestly, the ones whose ads look like ads and whose disclosure policies make it clear when they get books to review or give away from publishers.
Nobody's running a literary blog or magazine to get rich. Most writers who maintain blogs end up losing money, not making it. Should a blogger decide to try to turn their hobby into a paying endeavor, nobody rolls their eyes or clutches their pearls. We're all used to seeing ads alongside a blog post, or a request for sponsorship on a literary website, or a virtual tip cup at the bottom of a post or a review with a note saying, "Hey, if you like what I'm doing, consider supporting it." I don't think anyone begrudges the Fridayread folks the ability to make money from their endeavors, if they've found a way to do it honestly.
But honesty matters – to readers, to writers, to bloggers and Twitter users, to those who've chosen to monetize their content in a clear and public way, and those who continue to do what they do for community and good karma instead of cash.
In the midst of the Twitter conversation someone wrote to say that I was wrong to imply that Patrick was dishonest. "If you knew her, you'd never say that," he claimed.
I don't know Bethanne Patrick or her colleagues, except on the Internet…but I believe that you know people through their actions. If they're honest, if they're ethical, you can see it in the choices they make. If they aren't, no amount of indignant insistence otherwise will change your mind.
The Fridayreads people have taken the steps of saying the right things, of adding the hashtag #promo to their promoted tweets and updating the Fridayreads FAQ page to note that the hashtag is also a business. Here's hoping that their actions continue to reflect their words.
When it began, #Fridayreads was a popular hashtag that was billed by its founder Bethanne Patrick, who tweets as @thebookmaven, as a "global community of people who come together each week to share whatever they're reading." Last week, Patrick admitted that Fridayreads is a hashtag and a business both, a business that charges publishers fees from $750 to $2,000 to host giveaways, author Q and A's, "twitter tours," and post positive tweets about their books.
Now that the business aspect is out in the open, there's another question to consider, one that's bigger than the issue of why Patrick and her colleagues chose to disclose the moneymaking component of a Twitter hashtag on a website few would have occasion to see, and whether they really believed that disclosure was sufficient: namely, why does any of this matter to readers and writers?
My own full disclosure: I found out that Fridayreads was selling services after a new online literary magazine called Book Riot ran a story that criticized me and Jodi Picoult for the crime of being insufficiently pissed about the coverage novelist Jeffrey Eugenides received (yes, this is the life I lead). A few of the Riot's employees were kind enough to tweet the link at me, just to be sure that I saw.
I read the story. Then I went to the masthead to figure out who was in charge of this new magazine, and was surprised to learn that Patrick, who I've met once and who has always been friendly to me on Twitter, was the Riot's new executive editor.
I went to Patrick's Twitter page, to see whether her new job was mentioned. It wasn't, but her Twitter page led me to the Fridayreads home page (which also failed to mention Patrick's new affiliation). The home page led me to a link to the FAQ page, and, deep on the FAQ page was the news that the Fridayreads services were for sale (the page also revealed that two of Fridayreads' three employees also have positions at Book Riot).
How many casual readers and tweeters would follow such a serpentine path, figure out how Fridayreads worked, and make an informed decision about whether they wanted to participate and be counted not just as a reader but as a potential consumer of the books Patrick was selling? My guess: not many.
In addition to posting their disclosure on a website, while most of #fridayreads happens on Twitter and Facebook, the people running the hashtag failed to clearly label promoted tweets as promoted. This is a problem, too. As others have noted, the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection has rules spelling out how bloggers and Twitter users must disclose when they're paid to endorse or mention a product.
The rules make it clear that "a single disclosure doesn't really do it because people visiting your site might read individual reviews or watch individual videos without seeing the disclosure on your home page," and that promoted tweets have to labeled as such, with an #ad or #sponsored or #promoted hashtag.
I won't speculate about whether the disclosure-on-a-website and subsequent failure to label promotional tweets correctly was deliberately deceptive or merely clueless.
But I do want to talk about why disclosure and transparency matter.
On Monday, Patrick issued an explanation/apology on her website. In the comments section, someone named "Chris" said this was much ado about nothing. "It was obvious that someone was getting something for hours of hard work."
In other words, duh, of course the Fridayreads crew was getting paid. You'd be a naïve idiot to think otherwise.
That's my biggest problem.
I don't believe that the vast majority of authors, or literary bloggers, are secretly or semi-secretly for sale.
I don't think that publishing is a private club run behind a locked door with winks and nods and secret handshakes, where insiders know the truth about how things really work, and the outsiders are left in the cold, guessing. It worries me that readers are going to come away from the Fridayreads contretemps believing that's the case: that there's a story that gets handed to the public, and then there's the truth that gets whispered among the members of the club, who all know that of course litblogger A runs hashtag B and also works for magazine C and who don't think the public needs to know that a hashtag that presents itself as a fun exercise in community-building is quietly a business on the side.
In ten years as a novelist, that hasn't been my experience with publishing professionals, or other authors, or the dozens of literary bloggers I've met. Implying otherwise is an insult to every blogger who ever did an interview or a giveaway because she loved a book or an author and wanted to get out the word.
It's an insult to every author who ever gave an honest blurb or recommendation, or tweeted, "Guys, you've got to read this" because he believed it, not because the publisher slipped him some cash or he expected a favor down the road.
It's an insult to the authors who do interviews and Q and As and post advice and links and the stories of how we got started on our blogs, who do giveaways and pay for the postage out of our own pocket because we want to give back to the reading and writing community, to support other authors, to encourage the newbies, to celebrate books in a world where opportunities to do so are shrinking, and are too often given to the usual suspects.
It's an insult to the bloggers who have chosen to monetize their content publicly and honestly, the ones whose ads look like ads and whose disclosure policies make it clear when they get books to review or give away from publishers.
Nobody's running a literary blog or magazine to get rich. Most writers who maintain blogs end up losing money, not making it. Should a blogger decide to try to turn their hobby into a paying endeavor, nobody rolls their eyes or clutches their pearls. We're all used to seeing ads alongside a blog post, or a request for sponsorship on a literary website, or a virtual tip cup at the bottom of a post or a review with a note saying, "Hey, if you like what I'm doing, consider supporting it." I don't think anyone begrudges the Fridayread folks the ability to make money from their endeavors, if they've found a way to do it honestly.
But honesty matters – to readers, to writers, to bloggers and Twitter users, to those who've chosen to monetize their content in a clear and public way, and those who continue to do what they do for community and good karma instead of cash.
In the midst of the Twitter conversation someone wrote to say that I was wrong to imply that Patrick was dishonest. "If you knew her, you'd never say that," he claimed.
I don't know Bethanne Patrick or her colleagues, except on the Internet…but I believe that you know people through their actions. If they're honest, if they're ethical, you can see it in the choices they make. If they aren't, no amount of indignant insistence otherwise will change your mind.
The Fridayreads people have taken the steps of saying the right things, of adding the hashtag #promo to their promoted tweets and updating the Fridayreads FAQ page to note that the hashtag is also a business. Here's hoping that their actions continue to reflect their words.
October 28, 2011
The hands-down, all-time chart-topping question writers g...
The hands-down, all-time chart-topping question writers get is, "where do you get your ideas?"
Usually we mutter something jokey and self-effacing about Target or the Idea Elves, because the truth, at least for me, is, we don't know where ideas come from. They just come…and whether they arrive as an image, or a scrap of dialogue, or a what-if question, it's hard to say where they're born.
At least, that's true most of the time.
But, on Tuesday, I had an idea, that turned into a story (my first-ever horror story!), and I can chart exactly how it happened.
I spoke at an event Tuesday night, out in the suburbs, and I was driving home, letting my trusty GPS be my guide. As I tooled through the darkness, along a deserted road I'd never been on, I thought, What if this thing doesn't want me to get home?
What if it sends me somewhere else entirely?
On Wednesday morning, I sent out a tweet asking if anyone had ever written a story about a possessed GPS.
A few people mentioned the great Stephen King story, "Big Driver," (it's in his latest collection, FULL DARK NO STARS). But in that story, the GPS is a benevolent presence, almost a friend to the beleagured heroine.
I was thinking of a darker kind of GPS. And then, I started asking the big writers' question: why? Why would a GPS want to do bad, bad thing?
Just like that, I had a story. An abused wife. A dead husband who doesn't want to stay dead. A gift-wrapped box in the attic…and a GPS that starts telling its new owner to make some seriously wrong turns.
This was Wednesday morning. I emailed my brilliant agent and asked, if I write this thing, like, today, is there any chance we can get it up for sale on Halloween?
She talked to my editor. My publishing house swung into action. I wrote the story…and it came really, really fast. Thirty-five pages in five hours fast.
My agent and my editor both gave me notes. I revised it late Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
On Thursday afternoon, my copy-editor, Nancy Inglis took a pass. By Thursday night, we had a cover, designed by the amazing Anna Dorfman. Everyone there hustled to get this thing formatted, spruced up, and ready for your enjoyment.
The story goes live on Monday – Halloween – and will be available for your Kindle, your Nook and on iTunes (I'll add links as they go live) for a mere 99 cents -- such a bargain!
Technology is amazing. And my publisher's great. I hope you have as much fun reading "Recalculating" as I did writing it.
Happy Halloween. And if your GPS starts sounding like it's angry with you the next time you take a trip, you might want to pack a map…
July 5, 2011
Greetings from Bungalow 5, on my last day in Los Angeles....
Greetings from Bungalow 5, on my last day in Los Angeles.
Tonight, I'll pack up my office and go out to dinner with the writers for "State of Georgia." Which, by the way, got an amazing review in The New York Times.
Tomorrow, I'm on a plane to New York. Tomorrow night, I'll be live-tweeting "Georgia," which airs at 8:30 on ABC Family. Tomorrow's episode introduces a few of the show's semi-regulars, Jo's physics classmates Lewis, Leo and Seth, played by the very funny Kevin Covais (remember him from "Idol?"), Jason Rogel and Hasan Minhaj, all of whom are on Twitter…just put an "@" sign in front of their names, and you can't miss them.
On Thursday morning during the eight o'clock hour I'll be on "The Today Show," along with Harlan Coben, who writes some of my favorite thrillers. We'll be giving our summer reading recommendations, so please tune in!
Then, on Tuesday, July 12, THEN CAME YOU hits the shelves, and the e-reading devices, and I'll hit the road, with stops in New York, Princeton, Philadelphia, the Chicago suburbs, and Kansas City. THEN CAME YOU has gotten some lovely early reviews, including the coveted four beach umbrella award from the New York Post, which said, "Weiner makes the unsympathetic women compelling, and chronicles the hard-luck ladies sans melodrama. We come to care about each one."
You can check out the first chapter of THEN CAME YOU right here and look at my tour dates here. Please note: all readings will feature whoopie pies. Not because there are whoopie pies in the book (although now that I think about it, there should be), but because I like whoopie pies, and I don't trust anyone who doesn't.
Thanks to everyone who checked out "Georgia," and I hope to see lots of you on the road.
Tonight, I'll pack up my office and go out to dinner with the writers for "State of Georgia." Which, by the way, got an amazing review in The New York Times.
Tomorrow, I'm on a plane to New York. Tomorrow night, I'll be live-tweeting "Georgia," which airs at 8:30 on ABC Family. Tomorrow's episode introduces a few of the show's semi-regulars, Jo's physics classmates Lewis, Leo and Seth, played by the very funny Kevin Covais (remember him from "Idol?"), Jason Rogel and Hasan Minhaj, all of whom are on Twitter…just put an "@" sign in front of their names, and you can't miss them.
On Thursday morning during the eight o'clock hour I'll be on "The Today Show," along with Harlan Coben, who writes some of my favorite thrillers. We'll be giving our summer reading recommendations, so please tune in!
Then, on Tuesday, July 12, THEN CAME YOU hits the shelves, and the e-reading devices, and I'll hit the road, with stops in New York, Princeton, Philadelphia, the Chicago suburbs, and Kansas City. THEN CAME YOU has gotten some lovely early reviews, including the coveted four beach umbrella award from the New York Post, which said, "Weiner makes the unsympathetic women compelling, and chronicles the hard-luck ladies sans melodrama. We come to care about each one."
You can check out the first chapter of THEN CAME YOU right here and look at my tour dates here. Please note: all readings will feature whoopie pies. Not because there are whoopie pies in the book (although now that I think about it, there should be), but because I like whoopie pies, and I don't trust anyone who doesn't.
Thanks to everyone who checked out "Georgia," and I hope to see lots of you on the road.
