"But it was our office archaeology that I remember the most. There was a primitive chaos to it all — the hybrid scent of tobacco and mimeograph ink, Read More
Writers and Editors (RSS feed)
The old days, in book publishing
September 12, 2009
"We proudly carried manuscripts everywhere.... Decades later, I discovered that my right arm was a half-inch longer than my left," writes Joni Evans in a Preoccupations story for the New York Times.
"But it was our office archaeology that I remember the most. There was a primitive chaos to it all — the hybrid scent of tobacco and mimeograph ink, Read More
"But it was our office archaeology that I remember the most. There was a primitive chaos to it all — the hybrid scent of tobacco and mimeograph ink, Read More
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Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe
September 5, 2009
In his classic column about abuse of the apostrophe, Keith Waterhouse wrote, "The AAAA has two simple goals. Its first is to round up and confiscate superfluous apostrophes from, for example, fruit and vegetable stalls where potato's, tomatoe's and apple's are openly on sale. Its second is to redistribute as many as possible of these impounded apostrophes, restoring missing apostrophes where they have been lost, Read More
Where is Sarah Wernick's "So, You Want to Be a Writer" website?
September 1, 2009
For years writers, editors, and publishers have referred writers with questions about how to get a book published to the wonderfully helpful website of the late, great Sarah Wernick. Her old links don't work but SARAH'S WEBSITE STILL LIVES! You can find it on two pages of my Writers and Editors website:
Part 1 is Read More
Part 1 is Read More
Amazon, Sony, and Google: Digital Revolution or E-Books War?
August 30, 2009
Farhad Manjoo admires the Kindle 2 but fears its implications: "Amazon's reader is a brilliant device that shanghais book buyers and the book industry into accepting a radically diminished marketplace for published works. If the Kindle succeeds on its current terms, and all signs suggest it'll be a blockbuster (thanks Oprah!), Amazon will make a bundle. But everyone else with a stake in a vibrant book industry — authors, publishers, libraries, chain bookstores, indie bookstores, and, not least, readers — stands to Read More
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Where does Dave Robicheaux go for information?
August 22, 2009
“I long ago became convinced that the most reliable source for arcane and obscure and seemingly unobtainable information does not lie with government or law enforcement agencies,” says James Lee Burke’s hero, Dave Robicheaux, in Last Car for Elysian Fields Read More
Narrative Medicine
August 18, 2009
A colleague who read The Beneficial Effects of Life Story and Legacy Activities told me about a Narrative Medicine workshop being held in Venice, Italy (Sept. 20-22, 2009). The idea: narrative training with stories of illness Read More
Self-publishing success story (again, a good niche)
August 1, 2009
After being rejected by all the publishers to whom she sent her manuscript, a seven-year labor of love titled I Am Hutterite, Saskatchewan author Mary-Ann Kirkby self-published it under the imprint Polka Dot Press. This was NOT a print-on-demand publication Read More
Authors' moral rights: Don’t Touch ‘A Moveable Feast’
July 21, 2009
"BOOKSTORES are getting shipments of a significantly changed edition of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpiece, “A Moveable Feast,” first published posthumously by Scribner in 1964," writes A.E. Hotchner in an Op Ed piece, (Don't Touch 'A Moveable Feast'), for The New York Times. Read More
Abandon Hopefully
July 17, 2009
I used to have a little sign above my office door that said "Abandon hopefully all ye who enter here," and for years I've tried not gritting my teeth when people said things like, "Hopefully it won't rain." My poor daughter grew up with this bias against using "hopefully" in the sense of "it is hoped," Read More