Category Archives: Blogroll

What Has J Been Reading? [Dominican Independence Day, 03 Nov 11]

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BEST LINE OF THE DAY (from The Rejectionist’s review of Anonymous): “I find complaining about scholarly inaccuracy in a Roland Emmerich film to be analogous to expressing displeasure that Transformers does not correctly represent the mechanics of the internal combustion engine.”

“Spanish Blood,” a short story from The Simple Art Of Murder anthology by Raymond Chandler.

Habeas corpus,” an ironically titled essay on the non-necessity of murder in crime fiction, by Lynne Patrick at Hey There’s a Dead Guy In The Living Room.  And, in the same vein, I’m catching up on the shenanigans at Slushpile Hell.

A science piece at the New York Times about how causing senescent cells to self-destruct could prevent many of the symptoms of aging.  Sounds like forced retirement for the microscopic set!

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Curing The Heartbreak of Being Published.

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I love this article.  It is realistic and honest, even brutally so, but tough and helpful. Love it, love it, love it.

In a blogosphere where so much of what’s aimed at the aspiring writer is positive-thinking pablum, author Ruth Harris offers us some warnings, some disillusionment, and some practical advice on how to get over it all, in her “6 Prescriptions To Cure The Heartbreak Of Being Published.” 

The comment thread is also an eyeful (and a mindful) as well.  Kudos on a fantastic piece of advice!

Top Referrers to Leith Literary

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A few days ago, I posted an analysis of hits at this website, listing the Top Ten Posts at Leith Literary.

Curious, I decided to see where most of these hits were coming from.  I was really surprised to find that Facebook, where exposure to the announcements is limited to the roughly 500 people who Like the page, sent seven times more viewers here than Twitter, where exposure is virtually unlimited.

In fact, Les Edgerton’s blog actually sends more than half as many hits here as Twitter.

Interesting.

Category: Blogroll

Who Sees What When Cultures Collide?

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In a damn* interesting piece yesterday at Talk To YoUniverse, Juliette Wade discusses how writers can navigate the differing perspectives of characters inside and outside a culture group.

She uses her own experience as a foreigner in Japan who speaks Japanese “too well,” but lays out a set of general principles writers can use to make the meeting of any two cultures seem more authentic, whether they are writing historical fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, a modern realist tale about culture clash, or even a story about the distinctive culture of a single family.

Enjoy “Insiders and Outsiders.

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* Taking Mark Twain’s advice. Sans editors.

Taking Lit Agent Advice With A Grain Of Salt

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At Technorati, author Jane Sadek tells a little tale from an agents conference held by the Writer’s League of Texas.  Three agents all agree that a certain query submission would have been stronger if it had contained a comparative title, but how do they react to the title comparisons in the queries that follow?

Check out “Goldilocks and the Three Literary Agents.”

Chuck Tells You It’s Time To Quit Writing

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Remember the last time I posted an item on writing? Yeah, me neither.*

And why? Because I’ve been writing. Because I love writing. I love it more than I love writing about writing. And, way more than I love scrambling like a methed-up hamster in the writing self-promotion wheel.

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Category: Blogroll, My Two Cents

End of the Week Thoughts on Authorhood

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While we’re talking about author self-promotion (ok, we weren’t, but the other day I was) let me link you up to an interesting piece in the New Statesman about Harper Lee and, by extension, other wildly successful authors who were less than ideal self-promoters.

The Statesman writer cites a Mirror article claiming that J D Salinger, whom I reffed in my piece as the very model of the reclusive author, wrote 15 novels after his famed Catcher in the Rye, but stashed them away in a safe.  Why?  In 1974, Salinger expressed his feeling that publicity was a “terrible invasion of my privacy.”

That feeling of having his privacy invaded might have cost the literary world 15 works by a master writer.  An interesting insight into the author self-promotion debate.

I am hesitant to post a link to this next story, due to the arcane and disparate online access policies at media sites like the Wall Street Journal, but China Miéville is such an intriguing writer that I would feel it a dereliction of duty not to bring up this recent WSJ piece on him.  I hope it’s available to the public when you click to it.

As WSJ says of Miéville, he “leapfrogs between literary categories, playing with the narrative conventions of police procedurals, Westerns, sea adventures, urban fantasy and even romance.”  Also add to that list “classic noir” and “intergalactic space romp.”  Eight of Miéville’s books are now being repackaged together with covers designed to brand them as literary, despite their so-called “genre” content.

This, I believe, is a fantastic step forward from the absurd literary-genre apartheid that has afflicted literature since the middle of the 20th Century. I am also glad that WSJ chose to use the neutral term “literary category,” so double kudos to them on that.

Category: Blogroll, My Two Cents

The literary-genre debate picks up steam

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The debate continues on whether “literary” fiction is distinct from “genre” fiction. 

Literary versus genre fiction: Meaningful difference or false distinction?” is an upcoming panel discussion on this issue scheduled for 28 January at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, New Jersey.  The panel will include several authors: Christina Baker Kline, Alice Elliott Dark, Laurie Lico Albanese, Elizabeth Brundage, and Peter Golden.

As I am currently rounding up contributors for a website dedicated to promoting a concept of literary quality that is not spoiled by genre bigotry, this issue is high on my watch list.  If I were in the northern New Jersey, I would definitely stop by; any aspiring writers or interested fans in the area should attend.

For more of my take on this issue: Continue reading

The Rejectionist opines on rejections and recommendations

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I may be one of the luckiest writers on the planet.  “How so?” you ask with your brows flat like a pair of furry balconies for your brain’s apartment.  Let me tell you.

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Pirates vs. Ninjas

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Following the lead of author and former lit agent Nathan Bransford, I decided to settle the pirates vs. ninjas controversy once and for all, using Google’s Ngram generator, which charts instances of words in literature from 1800 to the present.

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