AgentSpeak: Character-Based Literary Fiction

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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 who still like to debate the Agents Must Be New York Based/Agents Can Work Anywhere issue, here is a topic for thirty-second discussion (with time for rebuttal): Rennert’s home base is in the headlands of Marin, Calif., but her clients are sprinkled far and wide—from […]

Agents

Do Not Polish A Mess*

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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. We cannot express how much fun revising is. First drafts, for us, are like root canals from the patient’s perspective**. Revision is, well, like surgery performed by the most gifted of gifted surgeons. Yes, we’re feeling good about our work today, why do you ask?

Tools and Craft

Probably, We Commit Seven Of These Before Getting Out Of Bed

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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 (or should) cripple a career

Tools and Craft

New Disguise

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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.

Square Pegs

It’s A Two-fer

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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 to live to age 113, we would die happy right now. They discuss, via email, the pressures a certain book has placed on the author. Darn those higher expectations, the problems with celebrity (hey, we sympathize), and the fact that characters don’t give a rip

Books/Mags/Blogs

The Balancing Act

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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 Danielle Steele? Full pagers for James Patterson…John Grisham…Nora Roberts… Robert B. Parker…Lisa Scottoline…Michael Connelly…Jackie Collins? They’re done because, well, because that’s what’s done. But–and meaning no disrespect to any of these fine individuals–where are we as an industry going to be a decade from now

Publishers and Editors

Good Advices, Or Not Really Breaking Issue #3

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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, please consider a lower division course: interjected, retorted, perked, chided, elaborated, huffed, declared, admonished, clarified, ejaculated, defecated, spurted, sputtered, blustered, feigned, forced, exclaimed, condemned, purported, reacted, cautioned, cajoled, stated, lauded, or lambasted. Also, if you find yourself placing adverbs alongside any of those words —

Tools and Craft

On Making Our Point For Us

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MIRAMAXERS — or what’s left of them — are fuming. “We have no idea what’s going on,” said one staffer in the book department. “We had no idea Jonathan Burnham was leaving or that Harvey and Bob [Weinstein] wanted to start another book company until we read it in The Post. No one at the company is bothering to tell anyone what’s going on. And Hyperion hasn’t contacted any of us or the authors.” Some staffers aren’t waiting to be pushed out. Dina Wise, head of special events, left to form her own company, Wise & Co., while publicity honcho

Quote of the Week

Keeping Up With Salinas

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It seems that the fine people of Salinas, when faced with the reality of their libraries closing their doors, have realized the consequences of the situation (all except one who seems to think the problem is fiscal mismanagement…which is true, but not on the local level). Locals, and Bill Murray, have contributed to a fundraising effort called Rally Salinas. The goal is raise sufficient funds to provided limited library services. While many other libraries face this type of crisis, Salinas has received the most attention. Such is the lot of being a John Steinbeck kind of town. We are happy

Square Pegs
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