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Untitled
“I've been orphaned,” I said to myself as I hung up the telephone. I had published one novel, and my editor had called to tell me that he was leaving HarperCollins. An hour later, the phone rang again. It was my agent, Artie Pine. “You're going to get a call from Carolyn Marino. She's a big fan of yours.
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That's the Ticket
TO: Future Commander-in-Chief John McCain FROM: Chair, Vice President Search Committee RE: Our Philip Roth We have concluded that an Obama-Roth ticket is indeed a real threat (see current fawning footsie: Roth in Der Spiegel calls Obama “attractive,” “smart,” “tremendously articulate” and claims an Obama presidency would be “a marvelous thing”; O...
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Working Hard, or...?
All fields of endeavor offer the opportunity to pursue a life of indolence and pleasure while you're still ostensibly and productively on the job. Nowhere are the prospects for a dignified, well-paid faux retirement more abundant, however, than in the world inhabited by the readership of this publication.
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Touring in Real Time
Because I covered publishing for the Wall Street Journal for five years and had been on a book tour previously, I actually thought I knew what to expect when I recently went on a 19-city tour for my third book. Now, I'm in blog shock. As a writer, I'm tech savvy enough to have a Web site and e-mail newsletters on my book topics, but I wasn't prepared for the volume and quality of Internet feedb...
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Traffic Report
The most famous joke about Los Angeles is Woody Allen's retort in Annie Hall: “I don't want to live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.” Of course, that's not the only cultural advantage: What about validated parking? The clever drive-through system at In-and-Out Burger? Or L.
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Author's Note
In this book there are no fictitious persons, nor fictitious events.1 To avoid hurting the living or distressing the dead, certain proper names have been changed2, deliberately misspelled or artistically embellished3. Certain characteristics of the persons, dogs and places involved—including the author's place of employment—have been altered.
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So (Don't) Sue Me
In 1998, Misha Defonseca, the recently confessed author of a hoax, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, sued her publisher for failing to make her book a hit in the U.S. Her ghostwriter sued, too, on the grounds that her name did not appear on the cover of the book. They won. It was the second largest judgment in Massachusetts history.
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For Your Consideration
With the discontinuation of the Quill Awards, the short-lived experiment in egalitarian book award shows has come to an end. Perhaps, however, the problem was not public apathy or the books themselves, but the categories. If the Quill Awards had had as many unique and hairsplitting categories as the Grammys and had been as equally entertaining (sartorially as well as verbally), they might have ...
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Chasing Headlines
Welcome to contemporary book publishing in the emerging world of mentalities shaped by instant media and reality TV. Get out your tea leaves, your Ouija boards, your grandmother’s magical chicken bones. There’s been a lot of buzz lately about foolhardy writers of nonfiction books who “chase headlines,” and the agents and publishers who tout their work.
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The Mystery of the Thriller
“How come you review Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels in Fiction?” Rob Rosenwald, the publisher of Poisoned Pen Press, once asked me, PW's Reviews editor in charge of mysteries and thrillers, who ought to know. “I thought he wrote mysteries.” I often get this sort of question.
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Tropic of Turpitude
I got the call from my author shortly after he landed at Newark's Liberty International Airport. “I've got good news and bad news,” Sebastian said. “The good news is: they all know about the book. The bad news is: they all know about the book.” Sebastian was being held for questioning.
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A Day in the Life of a Book Publicist
7:30 a.m. Alarm goes off. Smack snooze button. Should've skipped that third glass of wine at author drinks last night. 7:47 a.m. Remember marketing meeting this morning. Shoot out of bed and into shower, knocking unbound manuscript pages all over floor. 8:30 a.m. Stop at Starbucks. Order venti latte and think about how ridiculous it is that the store sells The Kite Runner.
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Quite a Mouthful
The first time I chalked my license, it was to get into the New York Public Library's rare books room. I was researching the biggest history paper of my teenage career, a tome on 17th-century New England, and I wanted in that room. But I was under 18 and that room didn't want me back. The white chalk I had used to turn my '78 into a '73 rubbed off (the first time I successfully doctored my lice...
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Eat My Shorts. Then Buy My Book
I’ve been writing for The Simpsons for 19 years now. Throughout its run, the show has had a pretty good reputation. Ministers mangle our jokes in their sermons each week. And several colleges teach courses about The Simpsons. I think this is a very good sign. Of the apocalypse. However, when the show premiered in 1989, it was considered the most scandalous thing on television.
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She Could Change Her Mind
The furor over Margaret B. Jones's “memoir”—of life as a half-white, half-Native American girl who was abused as a child and then raised by a black foster mother, “Big Mom,” in south-central Los Angeles, where she ran with gangs, watched her loved ones die and received a gun for her 14th birthday—reminded me of a white girl I knew in high school, here in Sout...
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She Could Change Her Mind
The furor over Margaret B. Jones's “memoir”—of life as a half-white, half-Native American girl who was abused as a child and then raised by a black foster mother, “Big Mom,” in south-central Los Angeles, where she ran with gangs, watched her loved ones die and received a gun for her 14th birthday—reminded me of a white girl I knew in high school, here in Sout...
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How Green Was My Galley
It has been several months since the publication of my eco-manifesto Stocking Coal: Why Santa Should Give Clean Coal to All the Children of the World (Not Just the Bad Ones). I wish to again express my gratitude to you, my publisher, for supporting me in my efforts to make this the first carbon-neutral book of its kind.
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Mankind Is Our Business
Right after 9/11, every writer I know had second thoughts about being a writer. Sitting in front of a blank computer screen and filling it up with words seemed irrelevant. There was real work to be done in the world, and here we sat, merrily spinning tales. That equation was false, of course. The cause of literature has always been noble, and it's through great fiction that we understand war, p...
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Book Signing Junkie
Bookseller Paul Ingram is jumping up and down by my side as I thumb through the new Ann Patchett novel, Run, at Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa. “They come pre-signed!” he squeals, pointing to the sticker on the book's shiny, turquoise cover. I feign a smile, but I can only be happy for Paul.
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Every Teen's Struggle: Why I Wrote a Young Adult Novel
Lost in Cincinnati during the book tour for my young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I argued with the GPS in my rental car. After publishing 19 books for adults, and enjoying what some might call a distinguished career, I was now driving in circles and cursing at a machine.
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