Friday Fridge Clean Out: January 22 Edition

► The journal Creative Nonfiction is launching a complete redesign with its next issue. To celebrate, there will be free launch parties in Pittsburgh (where CNF is published), Bethesda, MD, and Denver. A special subscription price is also being offered. All the details are here.

►If you have not already read it, grab a cup of whatever, scroll down or click to the previous post, and settle in for a good long soak in the waters of book PR. Vicki Forman, who did a stellar job garnering coverage for her memoir, This Love Life, gives the (detailed) low-down on what a first-time author should know and do to promote a book, beginning a year before publication.

►Information on my intensive, online four-week creative nonfiction classes for March and April can be found here. By request, I’m also setting up a less-structured online workshop exchange for February – limited to 4 writers. Email me for details.

►Check out Pimp My Novel, a blog by an anonymous (and often very witty) someone who works on the sales side of publishing and knows what happens to a book once it's acquired.

►Paige Williams's article, Finding Dolly Freed, is an interesting experiment in independent (by default), online, reader-supported literary journalism. Enjoy the piece, and be sure to click on "about this story".

►Late in 2009, Kirkus Reviews folded, as did Editor and Publisher. E&P is coming back, and now Kirkus too may be revived. Now, about those authors, book critics and media columnists who were quick to write jubilantly snippy columns and blog posts about how glad they were that Kirkus had died, because it was not so great anyway....well, let's hope none of them have a book coming out anytime soon.

►Local folks can join me on Thursday evening, February 4 (at 7 pm) at the Montclair Library, for Reject Revamp – you bring in what editors have said “no thanks” to (cover letter and the piece), and we try to troubleshoot what might be needed before submitting elsewhere. Sponsored by The Write Group; no charge, but do RSVP.

►Now here's an idea: The Squam Art Workshop Reader's Retreat, where the purpose is to read. For five days! Not to write, not to network, or participate in a workshop. Just reading, glorious reading, a little talking about books, and a few notable author drop-ins.

Have a great weekend.