I am considering combining the weekly lit agent round-up with the “miscellaneous” publishing pros.
Between the blogs that inexplicably dry up — or consist mainly of their own link lists, Happy Release Day posts, or “everyone can be a writer, don’t give up!” cheerleading — the lit agent offerings have been growing thin. Maybe it’s because of this god-awful heat! What’s the summer version of hibernation?
On to the lit agent links! Continue reading
I have always been a fan of Mr. Boffo, but sadly I can’t find a periodical in my neck of the woods that carries it. However, artist Joe Martin’s sense of humor is so off-the-wall that I rarely have an opportunity to share it.
No more! Recently, this Mr. Boffo was published, explaining a new literary genre: Mystery Thriller Instruction Manual. Writers, enjoy!
Last night I walked to the National Mall (because I can) to watch the Independence Day fireworks.
In the course of my travels through the crowd I witnessed several conversations and scenes that could very easily be adapted to fiction.
Pyramid scheme? Is that an unsigned writer standing by a publishing bridge with a lighter in one hand and a can of kerosene in the other?
Believe me, what follows is not intended as an accusation of any sort. I have the greatest respect for literary agents, editors, and publishers, who slog through piles of manuscripts that would make me cry like only a grown man can cry: masked in anger and empty threats. I have suffered through enough truly awful writers’ group submissions to know that I could never do what these ladies and gentlemen do on a daily basis.
So, this isn’t about questioning anyone’s integrity. And, it’s not about protecting or promoting my own interests as a writer, which the last few paragraphs will make clear. It’s about trying to help the literary community as a whole by connecting dots that are as yet unconnected, showing how several recent trends in publishing are converging in a very, very bad way through a natural and largely unintentional process of business evolution.
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“So why,” you ask, “do you keep alternating the name of these round-ups between ‘links’ and ‘roll’?”
“Because sometimes they are spicy and meaty, and other times just a hearty helping of carbs!” 😀
You sigh at my dumb joke, and click the link below to see this week’s awesome publishing links.
On a roll.
Oh what a week! As critics and pundits debate the merits of non-literary fiction (whatever that might be), agents and writers are debating the merits of agents shifting from a representative model of payment to a pay-per-service model.
It’s getting hot up in here! But, let’s slip quietly out the back door of this tavern brawl and just read some literary agent links, okay?
The other day, I pointed you to Carolyn Kellogg‘s masterful debunking of Lee Siegel‘s snide and absurd assertion in the New York Observer that fiction is dead and culturally “irrelevant.”
Now, Jason Pinter has added insult to well-deserved injury with his attack on Siegel, with a piece in the Huffington Post arguing that it’s not fiction, but the snooty “literati” class that is dead and culturally irrelevant for dismissing the importance of genre fiction.
Pinter states:
The more the literary establishment simply ignores anything other than the moldy old status quo, the quicker they will join Lee Siegel in his musty ivory tower, missing out on all the wonderful books, blogs and writers who revel in writing outside the archaic rules of the literary establishment.
This observation brings to mind a quote from the greatest work of genre fiction of the 1900’s, and perhaps the most influential fiction of any sort in that century, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I can still remember when being a fan of Tolkien was an occasion for ridicule, but the themes of addiction, the strength of the “little guy,” and overcoming despair in the face of violent evil were addressed nowhere as vividly as in Tolkien’s fantasy story about furry-footed hobbits.
Put into the mouth of Gandalf in the film adaptation, the quote brought to mind by Pinter’s observation above is from Faramir in the book:
The Númenorians … hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted the names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars.
Do I have my misgivings about certain trends in today’s literary world? Absolutely! I could use fewer sparkly pedophilic vampires, and I am less than sanguine about the recent trend toward sampled mash-ups.
But, unless the literary elite want to end up throne-less and irrelevant, they will move with the flow of culture’s river, appreciate the best writers driving today‘s literature, and leave aside their foolish dreams of a perpetual Golden Age based on dry honors and impotent nostalgia.
I have noticed a distinct gender imbalance to my writer links. Sure, I have Les and Scott and John and J on my list, but the overwhelming majority of writers on my regular rounds are women. In fact, all of the links I’ve roped up over the past week are from women writers.
Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with this, but I would like to get a few more dudes to provide more of a “guy’s take” on writing. Insofar as there is such a thing. Is there such a thing?
Okay, moving on. To the writer links! Continue reading
Here’s an interesting idea. Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas is hosting a literary speed dating event in July as part of their “Week of Love and Lust.”
The idea is that the love of reading is a strong tie that can spark good conversation, affection, and maybe more. Wonder if such a thing might work north of Oz?
The article on the event at the Sydney Morning Herald is great, and goes on to provide a peek into romance among various publishing types like historians, playwrights, poets, writers festival organizers, novelists, and critics.
Check it out, because I said so! 🙂
On this day, 18 June, in the year 1178 in Canterbury, England, a group of monks reported seeing a strange “flaming torch” on the moon, which caused the moon to “writhe” like “a wounded snake.”
Bizarre and unexplained real-world events like this can be the jumping-off point for a good science fiction story. Did these monks see an explosion, perhaps a meteor impact as some scientists have suggested, or was something more strange going on?
A backwoods skirmish in an interstellar war? A rift in the spacetime continuum? The appearance of a time-travel machine from our own century? The arrival of several alien probes?
Of course, such an event could also be worked into a fantasy story. Perhaps the moon became the last refuge of the dragons, and the monks were witnessing their fiery departure from Earth.
Here is a translation of the incident, as recorded by Gervase of Canterbury:
There was a bright new moon, and as usual in that phase its horns were tilted toward the east; and suddenly the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of this division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals, and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the moon which was below writhed, as it were, in anxiety, and, to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterward, it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then after these transformations the moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.
What sort of story do you think could be built around this strange incident?
