Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- January 12, 2018 Edition

> Charles Simic, at the New York Review of Books, pays homage to "The Poet's Pencil" (and that would be a non-metaphorical pencil).

> The Authors Guild wants writers to know that a Senate floor vote is now assured on a bill to reverse the FCC's recent repeal of Net Neutrality. If you haven't made your voice heard, do so now, before the anticipated vote on Monday, 1/15.

> If you're anything like me, your book buying reach extends way beyond your book reading grasp. And Jessica Stillman, at Inc. (plus a whole bunch of people she interviewed), say that's okay; in fact, it's a good thing.

> Jane Friedman looks back at the book publishing issues that shaped 2017.

> Finally, watching this video/song parody both calmed and worried me, as I'm currently asking bookstores and libraries to host me when my book publishes this spring. Forget that Waldenbooks has been gone for eons; author Parnell Hall nails the angst (and, if you're smart, good humor) that accompanies author appearances. 

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons

Three Good Books. Out of Three Hundred. No, Three Thousand. No...

Last year, when my husband helped me re-do my home office (after 23 years), we lined two-and-a-half walls with floor-to-ceiling, walk-to-wall, black wood bookshelves. I think they look great against the new red walls, and it's a huge change from my previous system for books, comprised of hand-me-down half-height bookcases, used beige office shelves, and repurposed odd pieces of furniture topped with baskets, milk crates, plastic stacking shelves, and clumsy piles (plus boxes stacked in a corner).

Would it surprise anyone to learn that it wasn't nearly enough room for my books, even after a careful reduction? That a second culling yielded four boxes of books, now in the garage awaiting pick-up by a terrific local service that matches no-longer-needed books with organizations that want and need them? That two more boxes are in the basement; I'm undecided about their fate. That at the end of every class I teach I haul a suitcase of books into the classroom -- duplicates of books I love, books left over from contests I've judged, books I didn't enjoy but are well written enough that others might -- and still, the shelves groan?

Honestly I don't expect the situation to get much better, and though I am slowly coming around to making use of my Nook, I don't mind a bit. When you are a writer, when you have a constant need to locate good material to teach from and learn from, when reading is like breathing, and when you work at home, being surrounded by shelves that spill over is a good problem. 

Which brings me to a month or so ago when Drew Myron, a lovely writer (who contributed a guest post here with tips on giving a reading), asked me to participate in the "3 Good Books" series at her website, Push Pull Books. She assigns each invited writer a specific topic based on what she knows about the writer's work. I was happy she asked me to talk about books that feature personal essays, and even more pleased that I could pick not-so-new books (the idea is to suggest what may be missing from other writers' shelves). I decided to narrow it a bit further to essay collections by women writers which have influenced me and my writing (I hope).

To do the "research" for this assignment, I didn't have far to go. I simply stood up from my seat at my still-new writing table (in the office re-do, I tossed the desk and the entire idea of a desk), and traveled a few feet to spend some quality time with my bookshelves. The section that houses essay collections is a single unit unto itself, about two feet wide and seven shelves high. It was a good trip.

My "3 Good Books" guest post is now up, and I hope you will jump over to Drew's blog to read it.  And I also hope you have shelves that spill their riches all over your home and/or office too!

Book Lists, of All Kinds.

The Book List.  Do you have one?  I have several. One is a list of the books I own and have (somewhere) in the house. This comes in especially handy when one of my kids needs a required book for school, not to mention when I nearly buy a third copy of a book I'm sure I want to read someday. Another is a list of books I want to buy or borrow from the library or trade for. A third is the list of books being published soon by writer friends and acquaintances, so that (hopefully) I'll remember to lend some support. Still another is a list of the books I need (and usually want) to read to prepare for an upcoming class or assignment.

Then there is the list I want to add – the List of Books I've Read This Year. Except for during my MFA program, this list has been missing from my life for decades. Growing up, I conscientiously kept a list of the books I read every year. I know many of my writing friends still do keep such a list and I don't know why I fell out of the habit, probably coinciding with completing college some ahem-something years ago.

As a reading obsessed child and teenager – way before blogging -- adding a book to the list was a source of pride and more; it was a way to document for myself that maybe all that reading was adding up to something, that I hadn't merely just been (as my mother often snarled) sitting on my butt. How I would love to be able to look back at those lists today!

As an adult who now interacts with words and writing every day, wanting to once again have a Books I've Read list may represent something else; I am not sure exactly what yet. However, I do know I want to read more (but doesn't everyone, except maybe my husband?). I mean a lot more, and list lover that I am, maybe a list of what I actually accomplished will be a motivator to keep up the reading pace.

Another reason I'm reviving the Books I've Read list is I enjoy adding to a list almost as much as I like crossing things off a to-do list. I like to watch a list grow when it means maybe I've grown a little too (isn't that what reading is really all about anyway?)

Finally, I think having a list will motivate me not to let too much time go by between finishing one book and starting another. Sure, there's that delicious time period when I close the back cover of one book and don't want to move on to another just yet; I want to remain in the world that author created for just a bit longer.

Problem is, if I linger too long, I get upset with myself for not starting that next book. So along with my new list is this new idea – I'm not to put a book on the just-read list until I've selected the next book to read and placed it, physically, in my path, for the following morning, say. This is easier said than done because there are so very many books piled on my To Be Read shelf and because often I need to gauge what kind of mood I'm in at the end of one book before choosing the next.

I don't plan to post the list here (who needs that?), but on more frequent occasions than in the past I'm probably going to mention what book just made it on to the list. 

(Note to those who receive posts via email:  No, I don't have a balky space bar on my computer. Blogger and Feedburner are having a problem with the spacing between words. I'm trying out a few suggested fixes, but my powers are limited, so I'm hoping the tech folks get this sorted out soon. Thanks to those who sent emails to alert me.)

I can write. I can spell. I just can't write, hear, think and speak at the same time.

Lately, I have been one tired, stressed and very pre-occupied writer. Here's how I know.

Preteen son pops his head into my office. I don't even turn in my chair. This is what I hear him asking: "Mom, what are band books?"

Me, staring at screen and cursing the words which are stubbornly resisting my efforts to corral them into place, an activity in which we've been mutually engaged for five hours: "Uh, I don't know. Books about bands?"

Son, sounding perplexed: "So can I read one?"

Me, momentarily grateful this can be solved with a quick click to an online bookseller: "Sure, how about the Beatles?" I finally turn to look at him.

Son, looking at me as if I have lost many thousands of brain cells since breakfast, which I may have: "No, a banned book. B-A-N-N-E-D. I saw a poster at school that said 'Read a banned book this week.' "

I know about the long, sorry lists of banned books and challenged books. I know that this is Banned Books Week. I know I can explain this to my son, an energetic and curious reader. I want to have that conversation. I want to tell him ten or a hundred things about banned books and let him know about libraries and book stores holding events to mark the occasion.

But I'm tired, stressed and pre-occupied. So I give him a two sentence summary and offer a simple link. Then I wonder why, in a school which (thankfully) displays a Banned Books protest poster, he hasn't already heard this from a teacher. Then I yawn and look back at my screen. I once read that creative folks perform better after a nap. Might be a good idea to test that theory.

Book Club Crime: Failure to Read. Discuss.

The other day I overheard someone complain that two members of her book club habitually don't read the agreed-upon book -- and bluff their way through the club's discussions. It made me remember this funny Shouts & Murmurs piece in The New Yorker several months back, as much for its non-reader angle as those dreaded reader discussion questions so frequently found in the back of current books. Enjoy.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Everything But the Turkey

► A really wonderful collection of essays on the craft of nonfiction resides over at Narrative Digest, from the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

► Interesting piece at Salon about Ben Yagoda's new book, Memoir: A History, and how and why memoir has apparently taken over the literary world.

►Nancy Rawlinson had a recent post listing a bunch of useful links for those contemplating, enrolled in, or just curious about the value of, an MFA program.

► The Poetry of Food is a new place on the web to read and write about food, and don't let the name fool you; there's plenty of prose there too.

► At Stacked Up, successful writers show off and talk about their personal bookshelves.

► And finally, if you like Twitter and the avatars that live there, try this quiz.

Have a great weekend.

Reading Anything I Want To Read. Not so Much Fun After All.

Ask MFA students what they are looking forward to post-graduation and chances are they will say something about gaining back control over their reading. Throughout most MFA programs, and for very good reasons, the reading list is determined by curriculum, faculty, genre track, workshop focus, seminar assignments, and other factors. Some students have input (three of my four faculty mentors considered my ideas when developing the semester reading list). But it's not just that the reading list is more or less dictated, but other factors are too: the speed at which we must read, the staggering quantity and the nature of the reading, and the necessity of reading with notebook nearby, jotting thoughts for annotations and/or critical research theses.

As an MFA student moves through the program's two (or three or four) year cycle, perhaps like me, each accumulates a bigger than usual stash of "to be read" books either on their shelves, or on an overlong list. "I can't wait to read what I want when I want," is a common lament.

What's that expression? Oh yes, Be careful what you wish for.

In the nine months since my MFA program ended, I've read and read and read. Anything I want, anytime I want. At my own pace. Just because. Reading heaven, no? No.

There are many days when I wish I had a list, an annotation deadline, a seminar prep requirement based on an assigned book. In other words, now that I can read what I want when I want, as quickly or as slowly as I want, there are days when I have no idea what I want.

I would like a new reading list, please. For life.

For a while I determined to read the literary classics I was too embarrassed to admit having never read in their entirety (or at least not for decades). I bought Speak, Memory, but constantly forget it's on my shelf. There too, sits most of Jane Austen. I did begin St. Augustine's The Confessions (reportedly the first Western autobiography ever written). I guiltily admit I abandoned it on page 11, though I did read the entire 31 page preface by Patricia Hampl (see below).

In less ambitious moments, I declared (to no one except myself) that once the MFA was over, I'd read any old dumb book I wanted, just for fun. Or, having concentrated on nonfiction during the MFA, I vowed to read only novels, and maybe even some not-so-great ones, too. Then there was the long list of books and authors I wanted to check out, those recommended by faculty members and visiting authors and fellow students. I planned to read the dozen or so newly published books written by recent graduates (and fellow students) of my program. And those published by members of the rich, extended writing community at home, which I'd dutifully purchased – and stored. These now stand, along with (oh God, I am going to say it in print – the nearly 200 other not-yet-read books), in one bookcase in my home office, fully dedicated to future reading, their spines uncracked.

So you'd think I wouldn't have any trouble deciding, on a day to day basis, what to read. You'd be wrong.

Here's what happens. I stand before the shelves. Wonder what kind of a reading mood I'm in. Ask myself if there's anything I should be reading. Muse over what I want to read that day – fiction, memoir, biography, poetry, essays, history, genre fiction, the newspaper, a cookbook, 100 Klean Korny Jokes for Kids?

You see the problem. It's a combination of riches – so many books, so much time, too few outside expectations. (Well, the abundant time is actually a fallacy, but compared to the amount of "leisure" reading time available during an MFA program, I feel positively overrun with "free" time now.)

I stare at the shelves. I scan titles. I pull out one and then another and another book and make a small pile of "possibles." I read the first pages of each, the acknowledgments page, the jacket copy. Then I put them all back on the shelf and start again with another pile. Finally, I choose a handful of books and scatter them around – night table, breakfast counter, car, desk, coffee table. I may start all of them at once and see which one wins me over. I may start just one and work my way methodically through the group. I may lose interest altogether and find myself back at the shelves, staring.

The only three exceptions to this debilitating dithering are: if I'm writing something which leads me naturally to wanting to read a particular author or book; if I've recently promised someone I would read their book and respond; and if I've been assigned a book review. (See – expectations and deadlines are just grand, no?)

It's not that I haven't been enjoying my reading time post-MFA. It's just that I often don't have the sense, which I did all through the program, that whatever it is that I'm reading at the moment, has a purpose. And I also miss the delicious ability to say to my family, "I'm busy reading for school." (Yes, I know that for a writer, reading is an essential part of writing, indeed as essential as the actual writing. Try explaining to hungry kids and a spouse who just arrived home through 90 minutes of rush hour traffic, that dinner is not ready because Mom was reading.)

Lately when I look over the books I've read in a given week or month (ready to be reshelved in the "already read" cases), I get a sick feeling – not because the reading experience itself was not satisfying, but because I wonder: Was there was something I should have read instead? Did I read closely enough (as closely as if I had to annotate)? Or I panic at the overall "message" my reading might be sending (to whom I don't know).

And then there's the (lack of a) method of how I choose books lately – you'd think I had no literary education at all. Last week I read Jane Hamilton's terrific novel, A Map of the World. Why? Because my son, who loves maps, saw it on my shelf and asked, "Mom, what's this book about?" I'd forgotten I had it. So I read it. And was glad I did. But is that any way to choose? A few weeks ago I read Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen. Why? I needed a pick-me-up and the cover art reminded me of my sister. Not too long ago I read An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Home in New England by Brock Clarke. Reason? Maybe because the cover was red or the fact that I'd recently returned from New England. Then I re-read, for perhaps the fourth time, the first half of The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl. This at least I understood. For anyone who attempts to write memoir and falls into a crevasse of doubt – or maybe I should say for women over the age of 45 who attempt to write memoir and find themselves straddling too many familial lines -- a lifeline from Hampl seems only natural.

For a while I thought it would help if I reported here on the blog on what I was currently reading, or had just read, or was about to start reading, that perhaps I'd make wiser or richer literary decisions that way. But it was far easier just to stop putting that information on the blog, instead.

None of this haphazard book selection malaise is in evidence when I choose reading material for my students. Then, I make sure-footed decisions and present precise lists of books and authors, carefully curated to address specific writing issues. And perhaps those students find themselves thinking that once the 8- or 10-week class is over, phew, then they can go back to reading what they want.

I wish them well. But I've found that being one's own reading czar is not as much fun as I'd anticipated. And now, I need to end this post, which I have a feeling was just another way to put off choosing a few books for the week ahead.

Suggestions?

Friday (the 13th) Fridge Clean Out: No Unlucky Writers Here

• I attended a reading last night, and during the Q&A, an audience member remarked that the alliteration and rhythm of a particular sequence was especially appealing. The author, looking surprised, said she'd never noticed it before. This was a happy instance of when reading work aloud resulted in a good discovery. And it's why I swear by the wisdom of reading everything I write out loud at some point in the revision process -- alone in my office or living room – because more often than not, the opposite happens: some rough language or clunky construction only becomes apparent when it's heard.

• Take a first look at Second Pass, a relatively new books and reading site.

• Jean Hartig, writing on the Poets & Writers website, makes several good points about the challenges of life after the MFA.

"….writing programs don't tend to teach the skill set required to work fruitfully—and joyfully—beyond their gilt walls. The MFA experience does not necessarily prepare us to be writers in the world. Our time as students is set apart as a sacrosanct period during which we perform the very important work of honing and polishing our craft, but little guidance is given as to how we might preserve that sacred lifestyle (as well as the more profane, yet necessary, moments of criticism and editing) once outside the bubble. On the other hand, no one could have told us then that our devotions would flag and that distractions—such as earning a living and making our way in the world—would threaten to prevent us from writing altogether."

You can read the rest of her thoughtful essay, which also has tips for creating a writing community post-MFA.

• When I was a public relations specialist and a freelance reporter (in the dinosaur 1980s and early 90s) the telephone was the best, fastest, and often only route to information. On a busy day I spent hours on the phone, and at some point began to loathe it; while these days I can go days without once reaching for it. But yesterday, because email was not getting me the information I needed in a timely manner, I made actual telephone calls.

The first was bad news -- the publication's current issue would be its last, and my previously accepted piece was now once again in need of a home. Disappointing, but good to know. Next, I left a message (with a human) and got a return call within minutes: So glad you called, where is the response to the edits we sent last week? Huh? Turned out someone had transposed letters in my email address. In the third case, I reached voice mail, and an hour later, received an apologetic email about staffing disruptions and assuring me my essay was still scheduled for publication.

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed as if each editor was either pleased to take a phone call, or at least appreciated the chance to quickly clear up misunderstandings, and not annoyed by the telephone contact, as I think many writers fear. Could it be the never-empty, guilt-inducing email in-box is actually making the phone look good?

Have a great weekend.

Snow Days and Books and Mr. Geisel

As Google reminded us today, Happy Birthday Theodor Geisel.

It's a snow day, and after playing their allotted hours of Wii, I found my kids curled up on separate couches, reading. Though they are far from beginning readers now, it made me think back to Dr. Seuss and how excited I'd get when I was a very young reader, and a crisp new book arrived in the mail each month, many times one of his.

Today the 10-year-old is reading the final book in a series about a young British spy with fantastical gadgets, and the teenager is pushing through a two-pound Star Wars-inspired novel.

Kind of makes me want to dig out the entire Seuss catalog from my attic, but it's far too cold up there. So I crack open a new novel and silently thank one extremely intelligent and wonderfully wacky early teacher.

"You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room." - T. Geisel

Enough said.

Guest Blogger Christin Geall on Writing in Heaven and That Other Place

In a new situation, surrounded by people I've never met, within a short time I'm usually able to point out those with whom I am likely to strike up a friendship. Then there are those unpredictable friendships that take me by surprise. That's the way it was when I was befriended by Christin Geall during my first MFA residency three years ago. On the surface, Christin was – is – so many things I am not: in her 30s, gorgeous, intelligent and highly educated in several languages and varied disciplines, comfortable writing about sex, diplomatic, relaxed at parties, spontaneous, and succinctly forthright (here's what I mean – when I asked for a bio, she sent this: Christin Geall writes nonfiction from her home in Victoria, British Columbia. A Stonecoast MFA grad, she has an agent, a lover, a son and a dog, but she still isn't sure if she's lived the ending to her first book.).

One thing (among many) which I admire about Christin is how she is able to claim the badge of writer, regardless of what her publishing status may be at any given point in time. She's been a newspaper columnist and magazine feature writer, but more recently has been less published, yet also more sure of being a writer. Me, I seem to keep needing that affirmation of frequent publication, yet I keep hoping that my friend's belief in her right to call herself a writer--with or without frequent publication--will rub off on me.

Please welcome Christin Geall.

A writer dies. She goes to heaven. At the pearly gates she meets St. Peter who asks, “Would you like to stay here for eternity or would you like to take a look at hell first?” The woman, thinking what writer never wanted a glimpse of hell, replies, “Sure. I’ll take a peek. Thanks.” In hell, the woman sees a forest of tall fir trees, densely packed, their bases burning, the air gray with smoke. “You may want to look up,” St. Peter suggests. Atop every tree the woman sees a person typing on a laptop. Chains glint in the light. “What are they doing there?” She asks. “They’re writing.”
“I think I’d like to see heaven.” St. Peter takes her up through the clouds, opens the pearly gates and they again enter a burning forest of tall fir trees. On top of every tree sits a writer, chained to a laptop. The woman turns to St. Peter. “I don’t understand. There’s no difference.”
“Well,” he says, “the only difference is that in heaven you’re published.”

Janet Burroway told this joke in a chandeliered ballroom in Chicago last week at the annual conference of The Association of Writers and Writing Programs. In the room sat a couple hundred people, mainly women, curious about the lives of those in ‘heaven’ - the women with multiple books, essays, professorships, prizes and invitations. These ‘women of a certain age,’ as the panel described them, also included Hilda Raz, Alicia Ostriker, Linda Pastan and Rosellen Brown.

I must reveal at this point that I am not a journalist by trade so my notes are sketchy. I tend to draw in my margins. Nevertheless, between the scrolls, I captured a few pithy one-liners about the writing life, (attributed where possible):

· The two most difficult things to write about: 1. Your mother 2. Yourself.
· Beware the twin imposters: success and failure.
· Do a writing program, but remember -- you have to figure out how to make writing a continuing part of your life after you are done.
· Ego will always demand more – money, prizes, prestige. So just focus on the work.
· Invent a discipline. Sit down for a few hours every day, no matter what. Eventually you’ll get so bored, you’ll write something.
· ‘If it’s any good, it will sell’ is a capitalist mantra and frankly, not true.
· Work is its own cure. You have to like it more than being loved. – Marge Piercy
· We get the children we deserve.
· Kill your censor and write what you are afraid to write.
· Share your work in a community.
· It’s fear rather than time that prevents us.
· Keep a low overhead. – Grace Paley

I’m neither young nor aged, but I’ll take hindsight over foresight any day. Writerly wisdom is too rare and I’m not in heaven yet. Sure, I’ve been published here and there, but I do not have one book. Not one. I sense this puts me in writer’s purgatory, between heaven and hell, where I am destined to smolder atop a tree of anxiety and ambition until my agent says, “You’re done.” This could take years; I once read it takes five years, on average, to get that first book out. And then? The pearly gates open to a new forest of writers, typing atop their proverbial trees.

No wonder you gotta love the work.

Stuck? Rx: Read a Novel. Feel Worse, then Slightly Better.

When I am stuck – in life, in a waiting room, and of course when I am stuck in my writing – I read. Of course I'm always reading, but when I'm stuck as a writer, I read with a different sort of attention. Sometimes, no almost always, reading helps. I learn something about the world, about myself, about writing. Occasionally however, instead of getting me unstuck, reading makes me wonder about this whole writing thing, as in how can I ever hope to get there, from here.

The other day, I decided to read a novel that's been on my shelf for a while, The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss. Oh, reading the book was fine, excellent in fact. An interestingly complex main character with a voice that just did not quit, not even for a paragraph. A secondary character vulnerable enough to make me want to take home and mother, but smart enough to admire. A bunch of interwoven narratives seamlessly braided, but not until Krauss had set such an intriguing puzzle that I was up way past even my usual really late bedtime.

So, this book? As a reader, a huge hit. As a writer, a huge hit to the confidence. It's writing and craft techniques and talent and risks like Krauss's which makes me, even on a good day, doubt my own (meager) literary competence and nearly decide that anything I might produce would only be anemic in the extreme.

After I closed the cover, I thought to myself now you've really done it, now you'll be more stuck than ever, and depressed besides. And I was, for a while. Eventually (that is, after a nice nap), I picked up a pen. Some days, that's all you can ask.

Feed a Book Addiction with a Freebie

Tuesday was the official publication date of a new collection in which one of my essays appears, Feed Me! Writers Dish About Food, Eating, Weight and Body Image, and since I love freebies, and since the book blogs and social media book sites even the health blogs, and the book review sites and at least one edgy online magazine are talking about it, I figure it's time to give away one copy of the book here.

Leave a comment by the end of the day on February 14 and if yours is randomly selected, I'll send the book off to you, along with the wish that you love – or at least appreciate – your own body.

If you are near New Paltz, NY, drop in for a reading from the book this Saturday.

And if by chance you are thinking of buying the book via Amazon, consider doing so on February 1, the book's Amazon Spike Day. No one (certainly not me) will earn any more if you do, but it does bump up the book's ranking -- always a good thing.

When leaving your comment, if you are so inclined, I'd love to hear at least one thought about this love-hate relationship almost everyone seems to have with their body, appetite, eating, food, and weight.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out

►Like your book reviews short? How about 140 characters short? Check out Littweets.

►My friend Kathy Briccetti is posting sections of her memoir-in-progress, a nontraditional book of lyric essays and poetry reflecting on her life as a school psychologist working with children on the autism spectrum, as well as the mother of a boy with Asperger's Syndrome.

►Most writers, and almost all of those who compete for freelance writing assignments, are protective of our ideas. Sometimes too protective, as one long-time magazine editor, Michael Caruso says in an interview over at Mike's Writing Workshop:

"I know a lot of writers are skittish about this. They think their ideas are going to be stolen. Believe me, at major publications, theft of ideas is not really a huge issue. So don’t be worried about losing an idea. And if you are, if you’re too attached to one thing or a couple of things, then you don’t have enough ideas. You have to become better at coming up with them. If you’re really having trouble coming up with more than one idea at a time, you need to work harder at that skill. The people who are the most successful at this are the least afraid of someone stealing from them. Their attitude is, “Okay, I dare you, steal this one. I have 20 more.”

If you think one of your ideas is so precious, you probably don’t have enough of them to make it in this business. You have to be a little more cavalier, and less attached to your ideas, just as you need to be less attached to your words during the editing process.And just because you have one really great idea doesn’t make you a writer. Just like having one great idea for a movie doesn’t make you a filmmaker."

►Stumbled upon Good Books in Bad Times. Need I say more? If so: "a resource for books that provide comfort and serve as a force for good in difficult times"

►Have a bit of fun with Literature Map. Type in the name of an author you like, and get a visual "map" to other authors you might like. The closer their name floats to your author, the greater the chances their books will also appeal.

Have a great weekend.

One Writer's Holiday Haul

In the spirit of it being a week in which not much real work will get done, I'll simply ask if you got (or treated yourself to) anything this holiday which will make your life as a writer easier, or just more fun? I did:

-An inexpensive, simple-to-use digital camera of my own (meaning it won't always be in my husband's office just when I need it, or in my 10-year-old's hands, or at the bottom of the camping bag, or the dashboard of the car).

- An oversized calendar titled, The Reading Woman, featuring gorgeous images of paintings of a woman alone reading. They are mostly carefully attired and coiffed women in period dress and lush surroundings, although I must say my favorite is At a Book, by Maria Konstantinova Bashkirtseva (Ukrainian, 1860-1884), in which a grey-haired woman dressed in plain black is at a table, her head bent over, ample hand splayed across her forehead and hairline. I guess I like it best because it's how I picture myself, me and something to read, alone, in any simple setting, shielding out the world. (Except that my grey hair is Medium Brown #43). With online calendars, I suppose I don't really need this, but my office walls always have a place for inspiration.

- A book about Latin for word geeks, Carpe Diem by Harry Mount, which I requested, since my teenager is studying Latin (and scoring 98s), and I'm convinced that if I knew more about Latin words, I'd have a better writing vocabulary. Plus, I'm one of those odd people (otherwise known as writers) who like reading about words.

- Paper. Green paper. Rectangular-shaped. With two-digit numbers on it. Every writer always needs more paper, especially that kind. Thanks, Mom.

As a show of support for the print media industry, I gave subscriptions, but since my husband made it clear that war would ensue if one more magazine or literary journal arrived in our own mailbox, this was probably the first year no one gave me one in return. He doesn't really need to know about the ones I get shipped to a friend's address now does he?

Hope you got something nice too.

Bookstore Bailout

Received this timely message from the Author's Guild, and although I'm guessing I'm preaching to the choir a bit, I'm still passing it on. The Guild encourages everyone to pass it along, as well, so please join in and post it (with attribution) wherever you think it may do some good.

I've been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren't known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don't lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn't in the cards.

We don't want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let's mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party.

Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that's just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves.

Stockpile children's books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they'll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: "Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see...we're the Authors Guild."

Enjoy the holidays.

Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild

Writers Judging (Their Own) Book Covers: Discuss

I know, you'd think – if, like me, your work has yet to appear between two hard covers with only your own name on the front – that once you get to the point when a publisher is running proposed cover designs by you, you would be so darned happy about having a firm upcoming publication date, you just might be in a pretty agreeable mood.

Or, not.

Ken Whyte, editor-in-chief of MacLean's magazine, got into a cover art tug-of-war with Random House for his upcoming first book (Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst) and shares the brief mess in an earnest and ultimately self-chastising piece on his magazine's blog. An excerpt:

"I went on strike. I quit answering emails from my editor’s production staff and announced that I was no longer in a mood to promote the book upon publication.
A few days went by.
My agent called: “Are you an idiot?”"

Read the whole (short) story here, and learn more about the book and Whyte's writing process in this interview.

Author Interviews, Book Review Sites, and a Used Books Cache

►Now that the household is healthy once again, it's going to be a busy month here. I have four author interviews lined up, so look for one each week, starting in a few days. I'm always thrilled when writer friends have new books coming out, and especially when it's a first book. Yes, I'm jealous too. Sue me.

►I recently discovered One Minute Book Reviews and if I hadn't also recently met the blog author, I'd have thought she was really ten people, otherwise how could she possibly read all of those books and make all of those smart observations? But she's the real deal and what I like most is that she takes a look at all kinds of books, not just a narrow sampling of personal favorites, as is often the case with book blogs.

►This weekend was the annual used book sale held at the apple-pumpkin market on the grounds of an historic site here in our little town. I got there just as the barn doors opened for first crack at the stacks (and piles, boxes, rows and milk crates full) of books. I wasn't looking for anything in particular (why risk disappointment?) which I find is the best way to approach these things.

The haul: 34 books. Total: $14. A very random sampling:

• The Slate Diaries. Pre-2000 postings from a hugely divergent group of 71 essayists, journalists, novelists and others from the site's early days, and a how-Slate-started introduction by Micheal Kinsley that now reads as both social media commentary and quaintly wide-eyed history.
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger). 'Cause my teenager is going to have to read it sometime soon and since it's his habit to first read the school-issued copy and then re-read and re-read, and this was a never-been-cracked open recent issue. And hey, I can barely remember most of it myself. Maybe I'll read along with him.
• Blue Shoes and Happiness (Alexander McCall Smith). Never had a desire to read anything from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, but a visitor recently remarked that I had a lot of "blue books" on my shelf – Blue Suburbia (Laurie Lico Albanese, a memoir in poetry); Born on a Blue Day (Daniel Tammet's memoir of growing up with Asperger's Syndrome); and Blue Peninsula (Madge McKeithen's memoir of how poetry got her through a son's illness). [Anyone else see a symmetry there?] So I grabbed it. And you know, anything with "shoes" in the title might be OK.
• Paris to the Moon (Adam Gopnik). I snagged this even though it was the only one in my stash with that musty been-sitting-in-the-basement-too-long odor, because I love Gopnik's New Yorker essays and articles and since I'll never move to Paris (or anywhere!) with my spouse and kids for a few years and bathe in culture and food and all things foreign, I may as well read about it.
• The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros). A chapter from this novel-in-vignettes was assigned during grad school and I was happy to find the slim book. Lately, I love anything written in short sections like this (some as short as a half-page). Is it my ever-shortening attention span in the face of too much to do, or my love of writers who can condense and condense and yet say so much more?
• Three by Annie Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, The Writing Life. This is a strange thing to say for someone who just finished an MFA in creative nonfiction: I'm not a huge Dillard fan; and yet I've learned an awful lot from studying her writing, so I figured this belongs on my shelf. If I read only a page at a time, from time to time, I'm guessing it will be worth at least 50 times what I paid for it. Probably more.
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Lynne Truss). Had this on my Christmas list a few times but Santa apparently isn't into grammar and punctuation and all that.
• It Happened in New Jersey (Fran Capo). I plead guilty. I live here.
• And finally, Shiloh Season (Phyllis Reynolds Naylor). Because Mom has to come home with something for her favorite young reader.

Something to Start Your Week

The New York Review of Books is podcasting. Currently, among other offerings: Mary Beard on humor in ancient Rome, Michael Chabon on the Democratic National Convention, and New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld on the Republican National Convention.

The Brooklyn Book Festival is this coming Sunday, and if my heel spurs cooperate, I'll be running around – OK, walking slowly – to take it all in. On the schedule are dozens of readings by fine writers which interest me, but bearing in mind my family might tag along, I've also checked off a panel on Writing Funny, two that target food and eating in prose, a Six Word Memoir reading, and my dynamic friend, poet Patricia Smith who can enthrall anyone.

Writers who combine magazine and other journalism work with books are of special interest to me, and most especially when they live practically in my backyard. And while that's usually nearby Montclair (where it seems one cannot turn around without bumping into a writer or other media sort), sometimes it's nice to see another Jersey girl doing well – like Jancee Dunn, from Chatham, about 10 miles away.

Congrats to my fellow Stonecoast alum, Raye Tibbitts, who is taking on the editor-in-chief post for the print magazine edition of Motherwords, with the end-of-year holiday issue.

An author reading addict? If you haven't already (I know I've mentioned this at least once before), think about signing up for BookTour. You get a weekly email listing author readings, appearances and other new-book-related events in your area -- free. Authors, book publicists, or event planners should be posting your events there – also free. Doesn't get much better than free on a Monday morning.

Have a great (and productive) week!

Guest Blogger: Kathy Briccetti on a Reading Drought

By now you all know I am but a few weeks shy of finishing the MFA. Which is the same as saying that pieces of my mind have been drifting off with alarming regularity as I frantically go about completing the final requirements. With time and mental clarity in short supply, I've asked a half-dozen friends who happen to be very good writers, to do some guest blogging. So here goes.

My first guest is Kathy Briccetti, a year-and-a-half ahead of me on the "after the MFA" curve, having graduated from the creative nonfiction track at Stonecoast in January 2007. Since then, she's been shopping her excellent memoir, collecting awards and a Pushcart nomination, and publishing memoir excerpts all over, most recently in the edgy new anthology from Seal Press, The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change. She's got another in a 2009 anthology, Who’s Your Mama: The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers (Soft Skull Press/Counterpoint). Kathy is also an editor, writing teacher, a school psychologist, and the mother of two sons.

Welcome Kathy!

"Before I was a writer, I was a reader. Make that Reader with a capital R. A bibliophile. Someone for whom reading is therapy. Bibliotherapy. Ever since I devoured the Nancy Drew series in fourth grade, I have carried a book with me wherever I go. But since my move to El Cerrito, California (a town I consider a suburb of Berkeley) in April, I’ve lost my lifelong reading habit. It’s been a time of personal turmoil, and anyone who has moved knows how time-consuming setting up a new home can be.

During the move, I put a freeze on my requests at the library, and my subscriptions—Poets & Writers; TIME; New York Review of Books; River Teeth; Bellingham Review; and Gettysburg Review—have piled up unread. I’ve ignored all the great book recommendations on Shelfari, and I even stopped reading the daily newspaper.

Reading is an addictive habit. The more you do it, the more you need to do it. At least that’s been my experience. And since I stopped—cold turkey—I haven’t quite figured out how to start again. After spending days scrubbing floors, hanging pictures, and planting a garden, I crawl into bed and collapse. No more bedtime stories for me. No lounging on the couch on Sundays and telling my kids I’ll see them at the end of the book.

But lately, I’ve made it a point to stop working on the house in the evening and instead plant myself in my oversized reading chair and look at a printed page. One night, I read the Sunday New York Times all the way through and the next, I made my way through the Author’s Guild Bulletin (and a fascinating article on book reviews and reading online vs. reading print which perhaps fittingly, I can't link to because it's not online!). When I took one of my kids to the bookstore the other night, I bought David Shield’s collection of essays, The Thing about Life is that One Day You’ll Be Dead, and put it on my To Read pile.

A couple of days ago, I picked up the July issue of Oprah’s magazine to check out her summer reading recommendations. While it’s frustrating to know I won’t be at a beach this summer or even lying around in my new (gopher-ridden) garden in a lounge chair reading a book a day (my usual and preferred reading pace), I still feel the familiar tingle of anticipation when I scribble out the list of books I want to read—the ones that will end my reading drought.

On top of my list is my friend Bunny Goodjohn’s novel Sticklebacks and Snow Globes. Yesterday, I unfroze my library requests and am eagerly awaiting Careless, a novel by Deborah Robertson; How To Build A House by Dana Reinhardt; Dreaming Up America by Russell Banks; and No one belongs here more than you: stories by Miranda July.

It won’t be a book a day, but if I can make room for these books this summer, I may be on the road to recovery."

Tuesday Tips

►If, like me, you still have a bunch of VHS tapes in your family room tucked behind the DVDs, and you want to toss the phone when you can't break through a company's automated voice-prompt system and get an actual human voice, you're going to love this: the techie wizards who control "content" (and thus our entire future writing lives) are slowly abandoning MS WORD and all future copy (sorry, I mean content) may have to be entered straight to a "content platform."

►Readings by faculty members and visiting writers at the Stonecoast MFA winter residency are now up in podcast form over at the Maine Humanities Council. A few I especially enjoyed were visiting novelist Tayari Jones, and the 3-5 minute "flash readings" by several faculty members.

►If I were going to be in the Los Angeles area this coming weekend, you'd definitely find me at the Los Angeles Times' Festival of Books. Check it out, my West Coast friends!

►Your book coming out soon? You might want to get this free email newsletter, with ideas even first time authors with barely any budget can do on their own to build book buzz. (Sign-up is at the bottom of the hard-sell home page; but the newsletter delivers).