May 2011 Archives
¡Felicidades!
Happy Birthday, Dashiell Hammett! Thank you for your prose.
Congratulations to UNL English Ph.D. student Carrie Walker! Carrie won a Fulbright fellowship to Jamaica for her project, "Letter Writing, Gender Equity, and Human Rights." Carrie is a terrific writer who's committed to transnational peace and justice, and I'm personally grateful to her for turning me on to the great book Mother to Mother by South African novelist Sindiwe Magona. Thanks, Carrie! Make a wonderful difference, and have a wonderful time!
Congratulations to Arden Eli Hill, whose lovely essay "Telling People," which evolved in our 852A class last fall, will appear in Western Humanities Review in a special issue on adaptations. The piece is about the writer's happy adaptation to a partner's multiple personality disorder, which is sometimes called plurality.
If you're lucky enough to be in Austin, you can go to Rich Yañez's reading on Saturday, May 28 at 5 p.m. at Resistencia Bookstore. It should be great! Happy reading, Rich!
Congratulations to UNL English Ph.D. student Carrie Walker! Carrie won a Fulbright fellowship to Jamaica for her project, "Letter Writing, Gender Equity, and Human Rights." Carrie is a terrific writer who's committed to transnational peace and justice, and I'm personally grateful to her for turning me on to the great book Mother to Mother by South African novelist Sindiwe Magona. Thanks, Carrie! Make a wonderful difference, and have a wonderful time!
Congratulations to Arden Eli Hill, whose lovely essay "Telling People," which evolved in our 852A class last fall, will appear in Western Humanities Review in a special issue on adaptations. The piece is about the writer's happy adaptation to a partner's multiple personality disorder, which is sometimes called plurality.
If you're lucky enough to be in Austin, you can go to Rich Yañez's reading on Saturday, May 28 at 5 p.m. at Resistencia Bookstore. It should be great! Happy reading, Rich!
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I'm in Love!
. . . with my new editor, Karyn Marcus at Macmillan St. Martin's. Joy joy joy joy down in my heart. She totally gets the project, and she 100% gets the voice of the narrator, Nola. Karyn's edits--from macro to micro--are making it a better, stronger book. More focused, more taut. I love it! I love her!
It's such a joy--and a relief--to be working with someone who's on the same page as far as the vision for the project goes. THE DESIRE PROJECTS is a complicated book with a complicated heroine; Nola's an unreliable narrator, which is tricky to sustain for 400 pages (especially when she's got a major chip on her shoulder but also has to remain "likeable" enough for readers to stick with), and the book weaves in a lot of history, myth and psychological data, which have the potential to bog it down and get wonky--which is particularly counterintuitive, given that the whole point of a noir approach is lean and mean. So it's challenging.
Karyn not only clicked with it but is clearly, clearly making it better. She's so smart and clear and deft. I trust her judgment, which makes working on the revisions, which I've been doing since I turned final grades in for spring, a complete pleasure.
I have been so blessed with all three of my editors so far: Casey Ebro, who did The Truth Book, Kristen Elias Rowley, who's doing ISLAND OF BONES for U of Nebraska, and now Karyn.
And for those of you who are comforted, as I am, by other writers' stories of numerous rejections, I can confide that Karyn's offer arrived only after 18 rejections from publishing houses and editors I would weep to be accepted by. (Not a record-breaking high by any means, but not the dream, either--you know, the one where your agent calls you the day after he submits and says there'll be an auction and to go ahead and plan your vacation in the Andes. No.)
It was an agonizing wait. But all good things came.
Speaking of all good things coming to those who wait, my copy of Silver Sparrow is winging its way toward my apartment! I am sooooo looking forward to sinking in for a good read.
And all good things are coming to its wonderful author Tayari Jones, too--who's touring with it now--including a beautiful profile in Poets & Writers and lots of great reviews. The few pages of the manuscript that it was my honor to read were as moving and real and lovely as any of her earlier work I'd read--and now people are calling it the best of her three novels! And the cover's beautiful.
Tayari works so hard and generously at her craft, as well as at publicity, and is so generous with writers and with the readers of her blog. Here's wishing her every success.
It's such a joy--and a relief--to be working with someone who's on the same page as far as the vision for the project goes. THE DESIRE PROJECTS is a complicated book with a complicated heroine; Nola's an unreliable narrator, which is tricky to sustain for 400 pages (especially when she's got a major chip on her shoulder but also has to remain "likeable" enough for readers to stick with), and the book weaves in a lot of history, myth and psychological data, which have the potential to bog it down and get wonky--which is particularly counterintuitive, given that the whole point of a noir approach is lean and mean. So it's challenging.
Karyn not only clicked with it but is clearly, clearly making it better. She's so smart and clear and deft. I trust her judgment, which makes working on the revisions, which I've been doing since I turned final grades in for spring, a complete pleasure.
I have been so blessed with all three of my editors so far: Casey Ebro, who did The Truth Book, Kristen Elias Rowley, who's doing ISLAND OF BONES for U of Nebraska, and now Karyn.
And for those of you who are comforted, as I am, by other writers' stories of numerous rejections, I can confide that Karyn's offer arrived only after 18 rejections from publishing houses and editors I would weep to be accepted by. (Not a record-breaking high by any means, but not the dream, either--you know, the one where your agent calls you the day after he submits and says there'll be an auction and to go ahead and plan your vacation in the Andes. No.)
It was an agonizing wait. But all good things came.
Speaking of all good things coming to those who wait, my copy of Silver Sparrow is winging its way toward my apartment! I am sooooo looking forward to sinking in for a good read.
And all good things are coming to its wonderful author Tayari Jones, too--who's touring with it now--including a beautiful profile in Poets & Writers and lots of great reviews. The few pages of the manuscript that it was my honor to read were as moving and real and lovely as any of her earlier work I'd read--and now people are calling it the best of her three novels! And the cover's beautiful.
Tayari works so hard and generously at her craft, as well as at publicity, and is so generous with writers and with the readers of her blog. Here's wishing her every success.
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Happy Happy Joy Joy
Patient readers, after long last, the ink is dry! I'm happy to share officially the good news that THE DESIRE PROJECTS has been acquired by Macmillan St. Martin's in a two-book deal. Many thanks to my agent, Mitchell Waters, and my new editor at St. Martin's, Karyn Marcus.
The revised manuscript of THE DESIRE PROJECTS is due to the publisher on July 1 and will be out in the Spring 2012 season. The second novel (currently known as UNTITLED #2) is due in the summer of 2012 (gulp) and will appear, I believe, in 2013.
THE DESIRE PROJECTS is my first novel, and to have it find such a great home--and to have the publisher take it on faith that I can write a second one just as good--is amazing. I am thrilled and grateful in every way.
The revised manuscript of THE DESIRE PROJECTS is due to the publisher on July 1 and will be out in the Spring 2012 season. The second novel (currently known as UNTITLED #2) is due in the summer of 2012 (gulp) and will appear, I believe, in 2013.
THE DESIRE PROJECTS is my first novel, and to have it find such a great home--and to have the publisher take it on faith that I can write a second one just as good--is amazing. I am thrilled and grateful in every way.
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Line of the Day
It’s sad in a larger way, dark and liquid, like hooded eyes, or the sky at a certain hour, or evolution.
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When PR is an Art
I've followed the PR work of Lauren Cerand
for a few years now (ever since meeting the novelist Tayari Jones, for
whom big things are happening; more on that later), so I was happy to
run across this practical, helpful piece that Lauren has out in the new issue of Poets & Writers. What I like about Lauren's work is that, in addition to being knowledgeable, strategic, and savvy about the business of public relations, she always comes across as deeply thoughtful. I like the way she keeps things fun but also always feels intellectually serious. I also happen to like her politics, including the way she got her start "in the labor movement generating press coverage for anti-sweatshop demonstrations" (from an interview).
And she's generous with her practical advice, to wit:
A consistent theme I hear from authors grappling with this new landscape [of social media] is their fear of overpromoting their work. But very few people, in my opinion, correctly promote themselves enough. Perhaps it’s my profession that colors my perspective, or my having received one too many e-mails on the day of the reading or book launch. The correct timeline for promoting an event, by the way, is to send out details one month in advance, with a reminder two weeks later, then a few days prior to the event. Linking to a Facebook invitation in subsequent status updates does the trick.
Or this:
As far as social media goes—whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, or other platforms—you need to share information of merit efficiently and in an open manner. For instance, consider the time of your post. Weekday mornings have the most eyes.
The whole piece, "Social Media for Authors: Forever in Search of Buzz," is readable and worthwhile.
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May 2, 2011
Well, I have absolutely no wisdom about the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
I can only say that it felt strange, roughly into a decade that has, sadly, defined life (and death) for so many young people, for the goal of all these efforts to suddenly, unexpectedly, be reached.
I'm grateful that I was not--like many of the people up in trees last night, wrapped in flags and whooping and hollering--a child in middle school when 9/11 happened, when we turned our whole focus as a nation toward war. I'm glad I had a chance to grow up with other, smaller national problems, without that convulsion of national horror and grief, without watching the adults around me terrified and silenced (if only temporarily), without the bitter ideological substitute for the Cold War that the so-called War on Terror became. I'm glad that the attacks and their ruinous aftermath have occupied only a quarter of my life, after I'd already reached adulthood, and not a full half of it, while my mind and my views were still developing. I'm sorry that the case has been otherwise for so many.
Regarding the killing itself, I continue to think it's so deeply strange that we come to associate a person's ideas and ideology so much with his or her body. Do we think that by destroying the body, we destroy the idea? Ideas, good and ill, can't be expunged from the earth so easily. (On that note, go here to sign a petition to urge the Chinese government to free artist Ai Weiwei, who has been "disappeared" by security forces.)
Do we hope to frighten others away from a similar course by demonstrating what their likely ends will be? Or is it the urge to punish? The urge for revenge?
All these, I suppose.
It left me feeling hollow and disturbed. Not euphoric. Impressed with Obama, sure. But only up to a point.
In the Dhammapada, it says, "For hatred can never put an end to hatred. Love alone can. This is unalterable law." Encountering that text quite early in life has probably ruined me for triumphant violence.
It goes on: "People forget that their lives will end soon. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end." I like that part, too.
Shifting gears entirely: if all goes well, one year from today--on May 2, 2012--I'll be teaching my first class at the University of Seville! I'll teach creative writing for five weeks. I'm excited! They want someone who will teach in English; I want a place redolent with new scents and sights where I can be a flâneur and improve my Spanish. Perfect exchange. Many thanks to colleagues Ariana, Amelia, and James, who encouraged me to apply, and to future colleague María Luisa, whom I can't wait to meet.
Many happy returns of the day to these lovely students and former students who've recently published their work or had pieces accepted:
I'm excited to report that the University of Nebraska Press has acquired paperback rights to my memoir The Truth Book. Thank you, Tom Swanson! They're deciding now about when to release it. I'm happy, because it will have a redesigned cover--no more tabloidesque red, white, and black--and will get to shed, at long last, its rather sensationalistic subtitle, which was imposed by Arcade, the original press, and which always embarrassed me and seemed to point readers down a prematurely narrowed road.
Ah, the power of marketing departments. Sigh.
Anyway, I'm happy about the new incarnation The Truth Book will get to have, and I look forward to seeing what the University of Nebraska Press, with its wonderful book designers, will do with it.
But most of all, I love the fact that it will finally be available in a less expensive version for readers and especially for students.
I started reading War and Peace this morning, and finished Jennifer Egan's The Keep over the weekend, which I can't recommend highly enough (especially if you have a weakness for the Gothic). It's self-reflexive postmodernism, yes, but with a heart and a point, and it's just a lovely, wholly intelligent work of art. So clever and haunted and well wrought. (White privilege alert, though: no characters of color to be found.)
In other book news, the editor who acquired THE DESIRE PROJECTS emailed today to say that she'll have her edits on the first 200 pages sent to me by the end of this week! I'm so excited. I'm finishing grading final papers right now, and just about the time I turn in final grades, her edits should be here. She's also putting together the announcement for Publishers Marketplace, so that's exciting, too. More soon . . .
I can only say that it felt strange, roughly into a decade that has, sadly, defined life (and death) for so many young people, for the goal of all these efforts to suddenly, unexpectedly, be reached.
I'm grateful that I was not--like many of the people up in trees last night, wrapped in flags and whooping and hollering--a child in middle school when 9/11 happened, when we turned our whole focus as a nation toward war. I'm glad I had a chance to grow up with other, smaller national problems, without that convulsion of national horror and grief, without watching the adults around me terrified and silenced (if only temporarily), without the bitter ideological substitute for the Cold War that the so-called War on Terror became. I'm glad that the attacks and their ruinous aftermath have occupied only a quarter of my life, after I'd already reached adulthood, and not a full half of it, while my mind and my views were still developing. I'm sorry that the case has been otherwise for so many.
Regarding the killing itself, I continue to think it's so deeply strange that we come to associate a person's ideas and ideology so much with his or her body. Do we think that by destroying the body, we destroy the idea? Ideas, good and ill, can't be expunged from the earth so easily. (On that note, go here to sign a petition to urge the Chinese government to free artist Ai Weiwei, who has been "disappeared" by security forces.)
Do we hope to frighten others away from a similar course by demonstrating what their likely ends will be? Or is it the urge to punish? The urge for revenge?
All these, I suppose.
It left me feeling hollow and disturbed. Not euphoric. Impressed with Obama, sure. But only up to a point.
In the Dhammapada, it says, "For hatred can never put an end to hatred. Love alone can. This is unalterable law." Encountering that text quite early in life has probably ruined me for triumphant violence.
It goes on: "People forget that their lives will end soon. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end." I like that part, too.
~
Shifting gears entirely: if all goes well, one year from today--on May 2, 2012--I'll be teaching my first class at the University of Seville! I'll teach creative writing for five weeks. I'm excited! They want someone who will teach in English; I want a place redolent with new scents and sights where I can be a flâneur and improve my Spanish. Perfect exchange. Many thanks to colleagues Ariana, Amelia, and James, who encouraged me to apply, and to future colleague María Luisa, whom I can't wait to meet.
Many happy returns of the day to these lovely students and former students who've recently published their work or had pieces accepted:
¡Felicidades! Wow! Enjoy the glow, and be sure to let it last.Faye Snider, whose creative nonfiction "Goldie's Gold" will appear in Alimentum this June
DeMisty Bellinger, whose short story "what plums would do" appears online in SpringGun
Sindu Sathiyaseelan (who has also been moonlighting as my fantastic and indispensable research assistant; lucky me) who's had creative nonfiction accepted by both Brevity and Water~Stone Review
I'm excited to report that the University of Nebraska Press has acquired paperback rights to my memoir The Truth Book. Thank you, Tom Swanson! They're deciding now about when to release it. I'm happy, because it will have a redesigned cover--no more tabloidesque red, white, and black--and will get to shed, at long last, its rather sensationalistic subtitle, which was imposed by Arcade, the original press, and which always embarrassed me and seemed to point readers down a prematurely narrowed road.
Ah, the power of marketing departments. Sigh.
Anyway, I'm happy about the new incarnation The Truth Book will get to have, and I look forward to seeing what the University of Nebraska Press, with its wonderful book designers, will do with it.
But most of all, I love the fact that it will finally be available in a less expensive version for readers and especially for students.
I started reading War and Peace this morning, and finished Jennifer Egan's The Keep over the weekend, which I can't recommend highly enough (especially if you have a weakness for the Gothic). It's self-reflexive postmodernism, yes, but with a heart and a point, and it's just a lovely, wholly intelligent work of art. So clever and haunted and well wrought. (White privilege alert, though: no characters of color to be found.)
In other book news, the editor who acquired THE DESIRE PROJECTS emailed today to say that she'll have her edits on the first 200 pages sent to me by the end of this week! I'm so excited. I'm finishing grading final papers right now, and just about the time I turn in final grades, her edits should be here. She's also putting together the announcement for Publishers Marketplace, so that's exciting, too. More soon . . .
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