Trend Watch

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Where we keep up with the Joneses so you don’t have to. There are certain jobs where one is, by definition, isolated from reality: politician, Hollywood executive, and book publisher. That is the only possible explanation for the fact that, gulp, Gangsta Lit is any sort of phenomenon. After all, there is no evidence on MTV or the streets to indicate that the hip hop lifestyle (yes, that is our tongue firmly in our cheek) has gone mainstream. White kids in small mid-western towns call each other “homie”. Yet publishers shied away from so-called hip hop stories (something about sending […]

Publishers and Editors

When Art and Business Collide

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We read Sarah Weinman’s post on the publishing business without our rose-colored glasses (they were lost in an unfortunate incident we’d rather forget). Her comments and experience certainly mirrored ours. A few other bloggers have weighed in on the topic, and while we appreciate idealism (we even exhibit it sometimes), we feel compelled to offer our thoughts on their thoughts. Maybe it’s because we suffered in Hollywood for too long, but we know the struggle between art and commercially viable. It is the commercially viable that often makes the art possible, as much as we hate the idea that the

Publishers and Editors

The Surprise That Isn’t

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The recent announcement that sales of ebooks increased in the first quarter of 2004 reminded us that it wasn’t quite a year ago that funeral arrangements were underway for the medium. After all, if you couldn’t buy them from Barnes and Noble, where could you buy them? We were being rhetorical, of course Powell’s would be our first destination. We never bought into the “I prefer to hold something” argument, especially given the fact that an entire generation is growing up with fingers attached to keyboards. Perhaps it was that the Internet made all revolutions seem so effortless — ebook

Publishers and Editors

Solving the Mystery

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We have heard it said that it’s easier to get published than to acquire an agent. We have also heard it said that to get published you must have an agent; to get an agent, you must be published. It is enough to confuse the most logical mind, and, so, we stopped worrying and learned to love the process. Sarah Weinman looks at how connections can help an author — let’s face it, networking is part of any business situation. If you’re not doing it, you’re not doing your full job. Sarah’s column discusses how connections are made, and we’d

Square Pegs

Because Tetris Isn’t Just A Game

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We enjoyed this exploration of procrastination because it helped distract us from the fact that we haven’t written a word all day. Of fiction. For the novel. Of course other fiction passed from our fingers (we call it a social lie…as in, sorry, we can’t respond to your email right now because we’re writing. Which, of course, means we’re surfing the web). Structured Procrastination Structured Procrastination by John Perry (apparently we did not invent this concept)

Square Pegs

Truth in Fiction

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We are continually amazed at how the universe provides. For example, we’ve spent the last week thinking about adultery (not about commiting adultery, but about the emotional and physical aspects because we wanted to get inside a character who would cheat). We’ve also thought about readers who refuse to read about adultery — rather than treating it as an exercise, they choose to avoid the subject much as they’d pretend death and destruction don’t occur. Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti takes a long, well-considered look at adultery in literature and in our culture. Her conclusions are not necessarily ours (because we’re looking at

Books/Mags/Blogs

As If It Weren’t Depressing Enough

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Being an author is sort of like, well, the life of the slug we accidentally squished last night (we do feel very bad about the abrupt end of life and will do something karmically good this weekend, though we’re not sure how we’ll fit it in, what with our quarterly “we must do something about this garage” day occuring on Saturday). It seems just as you crawl out of the slush pile, you’re crushed in a new and different way. For example, a woman famous for sex and a frank blog is (we’re sure) on the verge of a book

Books/Mags/Blogs

On Humor

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There is something about funny that we find funny. And that is the way people laugh in the absence of humor. Example: an author known for humor (we’ll call him/her Author X) reads from a novel. The passage is poignant, perhaps even downright depressing. Yet the audience is roaring as if they were watching a (good) Saturday Night Live skit. Jessica Jernigan, in an interview for Borders, asks David Sedaris about this — we can’t tell if he’s relieved or saddened by the auto-laughter than accompanies his public appearances. At least he’s found a trustworthy gauge of his humor…Sedaris is

Square Pegs

The Copyright Conundrum

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We believe, very strongly, that artists should be paid for their work. We (mostly) pay for all the music we download. We rarely patronize used bookstores (generally for items out of print or almost impossible to buy in other ways). We have made a life’s work of studying the relationship between consumer and artist (we realize how pathetic that sounds, but it was a job and we were particularly inclined toward the work). We also firmly believe in the old adage “you can’t take it with you.” Increasinlgy in our time, art has been legislated and litigated out of the

Square Pegs

Gone Fishing

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The entire book world has packed up and left town. Except the book world in Chicago — they pretty much stayed home. BEA is this week, and, while we expect all sorts of exciting announcements (Clinton arrives, Clinton speaks, Clinton leaves), we have a feeling fascinating tidbits from around the world will be sparse. Not that we’re stumped by that sort of thing. We’ll post links to items of interest (like The Elegant Variation’s wrap-up of the blogger’s panel). And we’ll return to our favorite activity: making stuff up because reality isn’t nearly as interesting as our fantasy world. BEA

Square Pegs
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