Tag: adult lit

Financial Expectations for Working Writers

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My friend Andrew has a great post up about the recent McSweeney’s comic contest debacle and why writers should take notice. In very short, McSweeney’s ran a contest in which the winner would get to run regular, bimonthly feature on Internet Tendency for a year (so 24 total posts). But there was no monetary compensation, and 24 separate comics is a lot of work. There was an uproar among comic artists, and McSweeney’s ended up pulling the contest. Andrew notes how this might not have happened for a writing contest:

“I don’t mean to suggest that McSweeney’s hasn’t done great things for the publishing industry, and for writers, and for schools, and for the community. But it seems like a dangerous precedent to admit that contests of the sort they run—hell, business models of the sort they run—can be “used for the purposes of exploitation.” If it’s exploitative to ask graphic artists to produce work on spec, why is it not exploitative to ask the same of writers? Are we not also creative individuals trying to make an honest living doing what we love?”

Frankly, I think this would be a great opportunity for McSweeney’s to look at how it acquires content and what it can do for its writers. Most writers, even really successful ones, don’t make enough money from writing to have it be their only job. Not that McSweeney’s can save the day, but they can certainly take a step forward in fostering artists of all kinds.

Ray Bradbury Knows the Monster’s Sadness

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Another loss for the literary world: Ray Bradbury has passed away at the age of 91. I haven’t read much of his longer work, but one of my favorites is his short story “The Fog Horn,” about a sea monster who hears the fog horn from a lighthouse and thinks the lighthouse is calling to it. From that story:

“The Fog Horn blew.

And the monster answered.

I saw it all, I knew it all-the million years of waiting alone, for someone to come back who never came back. The million years of isolation at the bottom of the sea, the insanity of time there, while the skies cleared of reptile-birds, the swamps fried on the continental lands, the sloths and sabre-tooths had there day and sank in tar pits, and men ran like white ants upon the hills.”

Saddest story about a sea monster ever. Make sure to check out the whole story in Bradbury’s collection, The Golden Apples of the Sun.

Going Graphic

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Love this idea of the graphic cannon. No, not the cannon of graphic novels–these are works in the literary cannon that have been made into graphic art. Aside from being totally awesome, it sounds like The Graphic Canon: The World’s Great Literature as Comics and Visuals would be a great way for teachers to get reluctant readers interested in the classics.

Candlewick also has graphic versions of classics like Moby Dick and The Merchant of Venice, which are fantastic. Works like these might not replace the standard text version, but I think they’re an awesome accompaniment.

(image: Beowulf illustrated by Gareth Hinds, via The Atlantic)

Friday Fifteen

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Hey Friday! Here’s the best in this week’s fifteen-word reviews:

1. Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume 1 by Various Authors
Let’s talk about how much I love Buffy. Ideal middle school TV watching.

2. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
Excellent stories, although in general I prefer Salinger’s longer works.

3. Piping Down the Valleys Wild ed. Nancy Larrick
Read in fifth grade, my first real encounter with poetry. Lovely collection for kids.

4. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Always kind of hoped the tree would whack the boy with one of its branches.

5. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
A courtroom drama centered on race. Expected more To Kill a Mockingbird than I got.

Handwritten Manuscripts Get Analyzed

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Although it’s very cool to see the handwriting of famous authors, I’m a little afraid of how mine would be analyzed. Mine probably most resembles Chuck Palahniuk’s, about which the handwriting analyst said:

“The crowded nature of Palahniuk’s lines suggest someone with “confused thinking” and a “poor organization of time and space,” who might even be “overly familiar”…inharmonious printing indicates a person who is fragmented in his thinking and has difficulty relating to others. He can be sharp and unfeeling in social interactions.”

Kind of makes me want to brush up on my penmanship.

My favorite handwriting of the group is probably David Foster Wallace’s:

I need to use more stickers in my writing.

(image: Flavorwire)

Links Galore

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A few more links to close out Memorial Day:

  • The children’s literature world lost another wonderful voice this weekend. I didn’t know Peter D. Sieruta personally at all, but these posts about him are very moving.
  • Redivider, the literary journal I worked on in grad school, is celebrating their 10th anniversary with the Beacon Street Prize. Literary fiction and poetry writers, submit your work!
  • I think I need a writing treehouse (and other writing spaces).
  • Wellesley Books shares their picks for summer reads. (YA fans, see here.)
  • In other favorite local bookstore news, Brookline Booksmith is having a YA Debut Author panel on Saturday, June 2. Who’s going to join me?
  • Even more cool bookstore events: the New Dominion Bookshop in Charlottesville, VA is hosting an exhibit of two of my favorite photographers and their work for Beyond the Flavor.

Friday Fifteen

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This week’s Friday Fifteen takes us into a long weekend–woohoo! Onto the reviews:

The Ringmaster’s Daughter by Jostein Gaarder
Per usual Gaarder, there are storytellers, philosophy, precious children, and a certain level of weirdness.

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
Small town romance meets music. Not my favorite Dessen, but fun.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Romantic period at its best and eeriest. Victor passes out a lot.

Logan Likes Mary Anne! (The Baby-sitters Club #10) by Ann M. Martin
Mary Anne manages to snag the cute new guy guy, giving hope to awkward preteens.

Let’s Go 2005 London by Let’s Go Inc.
My travel guide for summer study abroad. Didn’t lead me astray.

Friday Fifteen

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Hey there Friday! Perfect time for the Friday Fifteen, in which I review five books in fifteen words or less.

1. Connections: Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults, ed. Donald Gallo
Got for class in 8th grade; ended up reading most stories on my own.

2. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Love boarding school books. Great look at personal cruelty and vindictiveness.

3. American Smooth by Rita Dove
Beautiful poetry as usual, with a shoutout to ballroom.

4. The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones
Read for class. Having a hard time remembering much about this one.

5. About Me (Childcraft: the How and Why Library #14) by World Book-Childcraft International
I liked learning about diseases I could contract. Measles, anyone?

In a Word

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At The Millions, Bill Morris takes a look at one word titles and when they work. As someone who stresses over titles, it’s interesting to see this collection of titles ranging from Hamlet to Swamplandia! to Salt. He also notes that “seven of the 32 books on the current New York Times hardcover fiction and non-fiction best-seller lists – a healthy 22 percent – have one word titles.” That’s a solid showing.

The focus in this list is on adult literature, so I was interested in single word titles for YA and children’s books. Looking at the Newbery and Printz lists, my first impression is that children’s books tend toward longer titles. In the last twelve years of Newbery winners and honors, only four have had single word titles (all honors, not winners).

Single words fair a little better for Printz titles–twelve total, with one winner and eleven honors. The inaugural year featured a one word title winner (Monster by Walter Dean Myers) and two one word title honors (Skellig by David Almond and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson).

One guess as to this divide: single word titles tend to suggest a higher level of intensity, which you’re more likely to find in a YA novel. (Monster and Speak aren’t exactly light books.) I think there’s a greater potential for whimsy in Newbery books, which probably works best with multi-word titles. (You can get a little more sass in there.) Obviously that’s not a hard and fast rule, but it was my first assumption. Any other guesses?

The Secret Life of Gone with the Wind

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From this list of Gone with the Wind trivia:

“Though Mitchell spent the next decade working on characters and plot development, almost no one knew she was writing a book. She went to extreme lengths to hide her work from friends and family, including hurriedly throwing a rug over pages scattered on her living room floor once when company showed up unexpectedly.”

I don’t talk a lot about my writing with people who are non-writer friends. It can even feel weird if they ask “What’s your book about?” or “How’s the writing going?” Usually they ask out of genuine interest and enthusiasm, but it can be hard to explain the writing process to someone who hasn’t done it before. (Plus the day-to-day work  of me sitting at a computer isn’t glamorous.) And I don’t tend to show my work to people who are non-writer friends.

I think there’s a lot to be said for keeping your work private. Once it’s published and out in the world, it belongs to other people. It’s not yours anymore. But while you’re still writing, it’s yours in a very special way. Sharing that with lots of people can dilute your enthusiasm in some way.

Or maybe that’s just Margaret Mitchell and me. Do you tend to share your work with family and friends?