Booksquare

There is a writing exercise — we’re sure you’ve all played along — where the class is given three items and instructed to construct a story (or at least a paragraph) including all items. The last time we participated in this, there were exploding fish and dead bodies. And those weren’t even on the list […]

Far be it for us to offer advice on how a publisher should conduct business, but we believe there should be a modicum (a modicum!) of experience when it comes to evaluating, oh, writing talent, marketability, and such. Those are traits we have encountered with many editors. The (we presume) press release reprinted by ABC […]

Further to yesterday post pointing to a discussion at BookAngst 101, we bring you a comment aimed at artists for another industry: At a panel discussion by A&R (artists and repertory) executives, speakers described a business that wagers huge amounts on promoting blockbuster hits, with little interest in slower-building, long-term careers. Because probably Rod Stewart […]

Agent Amy Rennert defines her taste as character-based literary fiction. This is a catch-phrase we actually get, thanks to her helpful examples (and, also, meeting Rennert at a conference). All she had to do was say “Anne Tyler”, and we got it. Why can’t everything in life be this easy? Also, for those of you […]

Gwenda Bond, she of Shaken & Stirred (there’s a woman who knows the right decision to make when encountering a novice bartender), wrote a few things last week that we meant to get back to because she touches on topics near and dear to our heart. First, she revels in the joy that is revision. […]

Jesse Kornbluth gets all worked up about grammar of all things. Like there’s a problem or something. Oh wait, there is a problem. Nevermind. We can buy into all of Kornbluth’s suggestions except the one about shining shoes — isn’t just easier to buy new ones? Hopefully (Not): Ten usage and grammar errors that could […]

We are quite excited tonight — we have taken the first step toward our redesign: upgrading to WordPress 1.5. Now we can tackle the spam problem with even more vicious impunity. We will be spending the rest of the evening studying the WordPress manual to learn cool new tricks.

It is a rare day when we can combine two of our favorite things into a single post. Such is our excitement, we have held off all day, hoping the thrill would diminish. It did not. Thus, we bring you Edward Wyatt profiling Dan Brown. You read that right. If we didn’t have a mandate […]

Mad Max, apparently over his Elvis Costello foray (may we recommend following up with Tom Waits or perhaps the Pogues if Max is feeling poetic), considers the plight of the unsung publishing rainmakers. Hmm, that felt like our tongue in our cheek, but our intention was almost sincere. Max says: Another double-page NYTBR ad for […]

Tod Goldberg has, out of the goodness of his heart, compiled a brief (but comprehensive) list of things one should consider before submitting an application to an advanced writing course. He skips past all the typed, double-spaced advice in favor of Stuff You Can Use: If any of your dialogue regularly has the following tags, […]