Since we received so much feedback about our interview with super indie-publicist Lauren Cerand last month (if you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor), I’m taking it upon myself to inform emerging and mid-career writers alike eager to learn the art of kicking ass in publicity and connecting with readerships, about this web seminar LC is running September 22. This is a great opportunity to take the pebbles from LC’s hand, without busting the bank. And you can do it in your pajamas. And no, I don’t get a commission, I just don’t wanna’ see my fellow writers starve in their ivory towers. Educate yourself, people! And poke around the SheWrites site while you’re at it.
-JE
Continue reading Educate Yourself, People!
I don’t suppose it’s easy to be someones kid, especially when you follow in their footsteps and take up the same occupation. For David Updike that must have been brutally difficult, and dealing with your own hopes and dreams while your father fulfilled his over and over. I was surprised when Entertainment Weekly ran a story on this book, and it’s author. It’s not everyday that EW takes this kind of risk, and writing a piece about someone who doesn’t like to suck blood is a risky proposition even for a magazine with morals as sturdy as EW’s.
JR: I think most literary websites today are created out of frustration, by people who have been rejected by the establishment, and felt the need to set up their own shop where they could at least express themselves, but then they turn around an exclude a good percentage of the people who approach them as a creative outlet, thus they turn into what they were running from (Rumpus, Second Pass, The Millions–great new design by the way). They’ve got published authors, and most importantly aspiring writers, to provide content for their sites, as there are millions of writers out there with something
It’s not the first time I’ve read everything by one writer. I read Sam Taylor start to finish basically without stopping. I went on to interview him, and if everything goes right, we will advertise and sell Sam Taylor soap on a rope. His new novel, The Island at the End of the World goes on sale on today (August 25th). It’s an affordable paperback and an engaging story. If you feel like it, read our reviews of The Republic of Trees or The Amnesiac.
The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri is a storytelling feast about two families, one of which, sometimes half-heartedly, dedicates itself to India’s great music tradition and the other, also with some qualifications, dedicates itself to business. The families form a complex alliance when the matriarch of the business family, Mallika Sengupta, takes singing lessons. Bombay in the 80′s, Mumbai, bursting with new wealth and a millenarian cultural confidence, is the setting.
When Pure Slaughter Value first came out, I had just started at Bantam Doubleday Dell, long before it was Random House, and before the world changed. This was an exciting book, it clearly touched on the pre-Blackberry generation, who seemed even more deprived and desperate to find meaning in their lives then the twentywhatevers walking the earth today. It was a book filled with realism (example? read this story, as our hero adjusts his penis while waiting in the security line at the airport), and I probably identify with it more now then I did 15 years ago. His novel, Lightning on
JE: I should have made this post a month ago, upon the release of David Liss’s new book, “The Devil’s Company,”(about which the Washington Post raves), but alas, I’ve been up to my neck in dirty diapers and rewrites, so here we are. If you’re not familiar with Liss, the dude is a historical fiction franchise; the author of seven books, including the Edgar Award winning A Conspiracy of Paper. To mark the release of “The Devil’s Company,” (which marks the return of hero Benjamin Weaver), I thought I’d share an interview I did recently with DL, which originally ran in KNOCK.For starters, beyond being an
This is a fast read, and one that involves more of your time than you would think. You don’t have to be an underachiver to enjoy it, but you do have to achieve a certain level of belief suspension. William, our trusty narrator, seems to think that he’s always going to place second to his twin brother Clive. All this is told through a diary where William has written his life story, or as much of a life story as a twenty something can write over a short life. From the very start William feels inferior to his brother, and chats up
John Updike wrote 18 stories about “the Maples”, a touchstone couple for him, over a long span. They have recently been re-issued in a beautiful…and cheap…Everyman edition. The stories themselves are anything but cheap. If you wanted to sample mid-20th century American storytelling at its peak; I’d say start here. Please notice that the stories are chronological, a modern poetic sequence. The history of the Maples’ marriage progresses like a chess game…opening, mid-game (the most interesting part) and an extended endgame. Or it’s like something out of Goethe…a botanical study…it germinates, flowers and then decays into dust.
OK, so there are about a million blogs and websites and newspapers doing reviews and retrospectives about Thomas Pynchon, now that Inherent Vice is upon us.
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