A Twitterific Short Story...Maybe?

When I first joined Twitter I loved reading people's little 140-character stories. I followed a bunch of people who actually made the goal of writing them. (Naturally, now that I'm thinking about it, I can't remember any of their handles anymore.) It was a quick, fun little burst of creativity for the day.

But even so, the news that The New Yorker will be "publishing" Jennifer Egan's newest original short story "tweet-by-tweet" doesn't sound super appealing to me. Okay, that's a lie. I'm not actually interested in it at all. 10 tweets at 140 characters doesn't seem all that exciting, especially when they come only one a day and I will likely have forgotten the previous day's tweet.

But, alas, The New Yorker--and I'm sure many others--disagree. Here's the scoop from the New York Times:

When the novelist Jennifer Egan submitted her latest short story to The New Yorker, she hinted to Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor, that there was a catch. It soon became evident: Ms. Egan had written an entire work of fiction in 140 character bits, to be first posted on Twitter and then published in the magazine.

“I had a sense it could work for a spy story,” Ms. Egan said this week while sitting in Ms. Treisman’s office.
Ms. Treisman was receptive to the idea, so much so that this week the New Yorker will begin publishing the story, “Black Box,” in segments on Twitter. Starting Thursday night, the New Yorker’s Twitter fiction handle, @NYerFiction, will post a new tweet of text from Ms. Egan’s 8,500 word story every minute between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. The tweets will continue for 10 straight nights. Readers can find a summary of the text posted on the magazine’s Web site at 9 p.m. each evening.

The article, built around a character in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” will appear in the magazine’s first science fiction issue, which comes out on May 29th.

While many writers have used social media to promote their work, Ms. Egan was especially interested in Twitter. She said she wanted to explore writing something serialized because that’s how many people watch television programs today.

The story is a running scroll of a spy keeping a log of her current mission. Ms. Egan said that when she was writing, she struggled not to make the language sound “gimmicky” or “cartoonish.”

“I’m just interested in serialization in fiction,” said Ms. Egan. “I’m fascinated by it. I love the 19th-century novels. I’m interested in ways to bring that back to fiction.”

Ms. Egan said that she is not entirely comfortable posting tweets. She marvels that she has nearly 3,000 followers when she has only posted four tweets, including one apologizing for being spammed. She said she feels comfortable posting to her Web site but that her posts on Twitter didn’t work.

“I felt tongue tied. It seemed phony,” said Ms. Egan. “I felt really self-conscious.”

But Ms. Egan said that after plugging so many lines of text into Twitter to make sure they were 140 characters or less, she said she felt less fearful.

Since the story’s text as written for Twitter didn’t look right in the standard New Yorker format, the magazine is using a different font called Neutra Face. The creative director, Wyatt Mitchell, said it had never been used before in the body of the magazine.

As New Yorker editors wait to see the response from readers, Ms. Egan notes the story has already lured one new follower to Twitter. “My mom is joining,” she said.

See the original post HERE

Feeling Indecisive About Your Reading Selection? Think No More!

With how insane this week has been, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't have the brain power left to even decide what book I should read next.

Luckily, for times like these, there is a website willing to lend a hand: http://www.what-book-should-i-read.com.

Just go to the site and it will give you a book recommendation. If you hit refresh, it will keep giving you more suggestions until you find one you like. This could be super helpful when feeling indecisive!

Thanks to guest blogger Alex Christopher for bringing this site to my attention!

Avoiding Reality with Spartacus

There is a lot going on in the publishing industry right now: Big-six publishers are implementing new e-only imprints, the Department of Justice is continuing its investigation, more people are suing Apple, etc. etc.It's a dramatic and volatile time. There is much to discuss!

However, I am not going to touch on any of that right now. Because, quite frankly, it is upsetting and makes me a little bit afraid about the future of this business that is my livelihood. Instead, I am going to tell you about something fun, something I am personally very excited about: Kirk Douglas has a book in the works...about the movie SPARTACUS.

The Associated Press fills us in:

At age 95, Kirk Douglas is not too old to give e-books a shot.

The legendary actor has an e-memoir coming out in June.

Titled "I Am Spartacus! Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist," the book tells about the Roman epic that came out in 1960 and helped break Hollywood's ban against suspected Communists.

Douglas, who starred in the "Spartacus" movie and helped produce it, reveals that Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay after the blacklisted Trumbo had worked throughout the 1950s under assumed names.

The book includes a foreword by George Clooney. It is being released by Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher that announced the deal Monday. An audio edition will be narrated by Douglas' actor-son Michael Douglas.

See the post HERE in the Washington Post

To put it simply: I am stoked about this book. I am a huge fan of SPARTACUS. I watched it for the first time in early high school (or late middle school..I can't quite remember haha), but became obsessed, bought the VHS and proceeded to watch it over and over and over again. Just this past year I tracked it down on DVD so now I can watch it again whenever I so choose. I will still never stop laughing about the scene where Sparty drowns the prison guard in a pot of soup. Ahh, classic.

Why Old Books Smell: Does It Matter?

I am definitely a fan of the "old-book smell," I'm not going to lie. I love going into used/rare bookstores and just breathing it in. There's something so calming about it for me--I guess, in a way, it takes me back to a time when things were simpler, where there weren't so many choices to be made to simply read a book, when life was just less busy.

And yes, this "smell" is one of the reasons I prefer print books to eBooks. I am one of the people that GalleyCat blogger Dianna Dilworth speaks of in her April 20th post about the topic. And I am perfectly okay with that.

It honestly doesn't matter to me that the smell of an old book is just matter deteriorating; smell is the most memorable sense and that is what it's all about.

But for those of you who are interested in learning more about why old books really smell, here's the GalleyCat post and an interesting (and somewhat amusing) video from Abe Books:

Many people use the excuse that they love the smell of an old book to describe why they prefer print books to eBooks. Abe Books helps explain the science behind the smell of old books in the above video.

In the video, Richard from Abe Books says, “A physical book is made up of organic matter that reacts with heat, light, moisture, and most importantly of all, the chemicals used in its production. And it is this unique reaction that causes the unique used books smell.”

Here is more from Abe Books’s YouTube post: “Chemists at University College, London have investigated the old book odor and concluded that old books release hundreds of volatile organic compounds into the air from the paper. The lead scientist described the smell as ‘A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.’”

See the post HERE

Book Review: "Rainshadow Road" by Lisa Kleypas

I impulsively purchased a copy of Rainshadow Road in the drugstore recently as I was killing time before going to a wedding with my significant other. I knew without even reading the back cover copy that I'd enjoy it. Lisa Kleypas is one of my favorite authors (and she's super nice in person too), the cover instantly expressed women's fiction and magical realism (two of my faves) so it would, of course, be a win-win situation. Of course, I did read the cover copy after I purchased it:

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington.  She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal:  her fiancé Kevin has left her.  His new lover is Lucy’s own sister.   Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life.   Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be made into something new and beautiful.

I was engrossed from page one by Lisa's richly drawn characters, layers of complex emotion, and smooth and memorable diction. Her writing has always astounded me, inspired me even. She's one of the only commercial fiction authors I have ever quoted because she is that good. Her words speak to some part of my soul, as silly and cheesy as that sounds. And in Rainshadow Road, even though I'd hoped for more magical realism and a little less coincidence, she was at the top of her game.

I read and read and read. I couldn't put it down. But then life stepped in about three-quarters of the way through and changed it for me. My relationship hit some pretty big rocks and I'm not so sure it's going to survive, even now, almost two weeks later. As a result, my bleeding heart couldn't handle watching Lucy and Sam fall so amazingly in love, to see them find everything I've always dreamed of when I continually seem to lose grasp of it myself.

But even though I wanted nothing to do with their love story, I was incomprehensibly drawn back in. That's what this author does--she makes you feel so much that you can't do anything but feel more--and want to. It made me cry and smile and laugh and want to tear out my hair, but her love stories are so honest and true and palpable that those things would've happened even if I weren't in the place I am now. I am impressed again and again when I read her books.


The Last Word: If you are a hopeless (or hopeful) romantic, if you enjoy feeling like the characters in a book are your best friends, if you want to smile and laugh and be inspired, pick up a copy of Rainshadow Road. Now.

A Special Gift from a Special Author

When I first read Allison Pang's submission for the novel that would become A Brush of Darkness, I had no idea she and I would become such amazing friends. I also didn't know I'd only be her editor for one book and then my entire professional life would change drastically over the course of two years, but ya know. What can you do?

Anyway, today, Allison sent me the most lovely gift. A hand-drawn and inked illustration of my favorite scene from A Brush of Darkness by the super talented Aimo.

I don't even have words to describe how much this surprise meant to me. And the fact that it arrived on a day where I was very much in need of some love, kindness, and support from the people in my life was just plain perfect.

Allison also sent along a digital copy of the image, if you want a closer look:

Now, I've just gotta get this gorgeous baby framed. =)

Guest Blogger, Paul La Rosa: On Writing a Memoir

I consider myself an experienced writer. After all, I’ve been a newspaper reporter, a producer for CBS News, and the author of four true crime books. But I had never written a memoir until I began trying two years ago.

Writing a memoir is different.

My first challenge was deciding which tense to write in. Initially, I chose to write in the past tense, as I’ve mostly done in all my previous books. But then I went to a memoir writing workshop on in Guatamala and began to change my mind. I don’t remember if one of the writers leading the workshop (Joyce Maynard and Laura Lippman) suggested switching to the present tense or if it was one of the other students but that’s what I did.

That might seem minor but it made a world of difference. Writing in the past tense means seeing your life in hindsight, with 20/20 vision, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be always making judgments about the past, as if “Wow, it was much harder being a reporter without the internet.” Boring.

I wanted to experience the past as I had done when I was living it, at least as much as possible and the present tense allowed that to happen. I was seeing my life through the eyes of a kid who was kind of clueless and overwhelmed by most things. I also tried to temper my voice a bit, not using as big words when I was seven years old as in later chapters when I was a college student. That was tricky but one reviewer picked up on it so I thought I was successful.

One is also influenced by other writers, and around the time I began my book Leaving Story Avenue; My journey from the projects to the front page I was reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I loved the rushing, kind of staccato pace of his writing and tried to give my own writing that feeling of immediacy.

If you read the first chapter of my book – about the fast-paced Daily News city room at deadline -- I think you’ll see what I mean. After that, when my book goes into my backstory, I had to slow down until I got back to writing about the newsroom again.

Writing aside, I also had to make some big decisions about content. When you’re writing about a life, you have to ask yourself a lot of questions: What goes in? What stays out? How honest do you really want to be? Some of what you’ve experienced is bound to be embarrassing; can you stand exposing yourself that way?

Of course, the answer is that you have to be honest to pull a reader into your story but you can never put in every experience you’ve had. That too would be way too boring. So I was always honest – there’s no James Frey moments in the book where I said I spent time in jail but did not – and told some embarrassing stories about myself, but I also left out some moments that would have made me too uncomfortable.

I also decided to end my memoir in 1983. People ask me why and there are several reasons. I felt the story had come to a natural end. The point had been made. I wanted the book to be about my journey from being a clueless kid in a Bronx housing project to being a sardonic writer for the largest circulating newspaper in the country. How did that happen? Well, if you read the book, you’ll hopefully understand.

I’ve lived a lot of life since 1983. I left The News, the paper I grew up with and loved, for television. I also had children. Again, I was placed in situations where I was clueless and had to learn but, you know what, that’s the subject of another book somewhere down the line.

One final note: This time, instead of being published by one of the Big-6 publishers, I’m being published by a small independent in Brooklyn just starting out (Park Slope Publishing). Why? Well, the Big-6 editors loved my book but weren’t giving me the love I wanted to feel. This house in Brooklyn did that, so I traded in broad distribution for mostly buying the book online.
I think that’s how most people buy books these days anyway. I love bookstores but, even when they carried my other books, they were always hard to find. Let’s see how it goes just being available online and in a few bookstores near where I live. I did want the book to be available as a trade paperback and it is because I did not want to ignore those people who love the feel of the page.

At the same time, we made the book available in all e-reader formats so as not to shut someone out. I hope our plans work. We shall see but, hey, you can help by, you know, buying the book. It’s relatively cheap and it’s online everywhere!


About the blogger: Paul LaRosa is a journalist with more than 30 years experience in print and television. For nearly 20 years, he’s been a successful producer for the CBS News magazine “48 Hours.” He’s written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and has authored four previous non-fiction books. To read his blog and for more information, please go to his website: www.paullarosa.com.