Cynsations Authors In Connecticut

I recently saw posts at Cynsations by Tommy Greenwald and Dawn Metcalf. Then I opened my local city paper last night and saw that Tommy will be at R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut next Wednesday at 4, and Dawn will be at the Kent Memorial Library in (surprise) Kent, Connecticut next Tuesday at 1:30. On Saturday, July 30th, she'll be at the Collins Creamery in Enfield, Connecticut for an ice cream event and book signing.

Once again, I'm sort of ashamed for not thinking of creative things like that to do for my books. Maybe if things work out for The Fletcher Farm Body I can make some appearances at, say, historical societies or...or...Wait. I have to think of some place with food. I know! Muffins! Muffins figure into the story!

Some Serious Fan Fiction Talk

The Boy Who Lived Forever in Time. I wish I'd known about Bible fan fiction back when I was teaching Sunday school.

Thanks to A Chair, a Fireplace & A Tea Cozy for the link.

Too True

Drunk Tweets at Finding Wonderland.

I Want To Be One Of Those, Too!

Earlier this month, Tanita Davis did a post on using--or, rather, not using--ethnic and cultural stereotypes in writing at Finding Wonderland. Of course, I heartily agree with everything she says, not just because stereotypes of the kind she refers to are wrong, but in writing they are also predictable and boring.

But what really grabbed me first off in her post was this bit at the beginning "...when I pretend to my second career as a sociologist. Oh, don't laugh at me - I think most writers are amateur anthropologists and sociologists, not to mention psychologists..."

Oh, my gosh! In one of my fantasy future lives I am a cultural anthropologist! Seriously!

So Long, Borders

Slate says it wasn't the Internet that killed Borders. But it is deader than a doornail, no matter what did it in.

Borders was the first bigbox chain bookstore to open near me. I loved it. I was totally blown away by all the books. And the big, cushy chairs. Back in those days, Borders would bring in entertainment, musical groups on a Friday night, say. Independent bookstores had already become scarce around here, so Borders was filling a need.

What cooled me on Borders was the sameness. The policy of using national buyers and carrying the same thing in every store meant that whether I was in a Borders in Connecticut or Delaware or New York or, later, Vermont, I always saw the same books, presented in the same way. And since Barnes & Noble does the same, and it was opening stores in the same areas Borders was, I'm just talking the same, same, same in every store wherever I was.

When you go into a privately owned, independent bookstore, you can almost feel you know something about the people who run the place, because they have chosen the books on display. They didn't just open a case that was sent to them and put the merchandise on the shelf. What might save Barnes & Noble (assuming it needs saving) is to follow a similar policy. Give up using national or regional buyers so that only a few books get a lot of display space and allow the local store managers to do their own purchasing. Shoppers will always be able to get the bestsellers for less at Amazon, so give them something different in the stores, something that surprises them and that they want right then.

"Loved It!"

Dust City, by Robert Paul Weston is amazingly inventive. It's also what I like to call a well-balanced book. The elements of fiction are all of equal value--character, setting, plot, point of view, theme. It's not unusual for setting to get too much attention in a fantasy story, but not here.

How inventive is this thing? I can't even imagine how the author came up with the basic premise. Well, actually, I can imagine it because I've now read an article in the National Post that explains some of it. But the very most basic beginning step--that the Big Bad Wolf offed Red Riding Hood and her grandma while on, essentially, drugs--Well, there's a thought a writer can run with, and Weston does.

Weston takes his world of hominids and animalia--here a kingdom of animals that has evolved so that they can stand upright and speak and function in human-like ways, even to the point of attending institutions like St. Remus Home for Wayward Youth--and joins it with a noirish story of a son trying to assist his criminal father. Fairy dust has a part in the story, and my faithful readers are aware of how much I hate fairies. But the beauty of Dust City is that the fairies are kept offstage, which is right where I like them to be.

I would say that Dust City is also elegantly written, even literary, because what is happening with our protagonist, Henry Whelp, in terms of what kind of wolf he could end up being is as important as the plot about whether or not there is dangerous fairy dust and, if so, where is it coming from? It's a sophisticated book for sophisticated teen readers who remember their fairy tales.

Oh, and here's a terrific marketing point about Dust City. On the back cover there are no blurbs. Instead, you see in big print "WHEN YOUR DAD IS THE WOLF WHO KILLED LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD LIFE IS NO FAIRYTALE." I don't know about anyone else, but that's a much bigger draw for me than a quote from some writer I may or may not have heard of saying, "Loved it!"

Dust City was a 2010 YA Edgar nominee.

What I Did This Evening Instead Of Blogging

I am spending time this week playing with a new program I'm hoping to use for maintaining my writer's journal. Notice that I did not say I was playing with some new journal software, since it isn't precisely a journal program. There doesn't appear to be a lot of those. It's more of a manage-your-notes-to-yourself business person type of program.

You can rest assured that I will go on about this at great length for you in a few days.

The Rise Of The Typo

Errors in published book has been discussed at listservs for a few years now. The Price of Typos in The New York Times explains why copy editing ain't what it used to be.

I would like to suggest that librarians shelving Advanced Readers' Copies helps promote acceptance of typos and incomplete copy editing. Errors are supposed to exist in Advanced Readers' Copies. They're bound early galleys sent out prior to publicaton for review and inspection by groups making purchasing decision. When librarians add them to their collections because they got them for free at some conference (as I know happens), they are intentionally treating incomplete books as the real thing.

It's only a small point in a larger issue, but it does create a tolerance for error among readers.

Well That Was Exhausting

Going through the old e-mails on my two (I used to belong to four or more) listservs was exhausting and nowhere near as pleasurable as I thought it would be. And I still have more to go in of them.

What slowed me down is that I held on to a lot of these things because I needed to check out links that were included in many of the messages for one reason or another. What's left in the second listserv isn't like that, so I should be able to go faster.

I think in the future I'm just going to have to make snap decisions and delete stuff right away. I'm getting the feeling from a listserv discussion I just read that that's what a lot of people do. It must be the only way to stay out from under the load.

I've worked two days on office-related details and the room still looks like a hurricane hit it because most of the work has been weeding through things on the hard drive.

I'm going out for a glass of wine soon. I need it.

Charlotte Rounds Up Fantasy And Sci Fi

Every now and then, when I think of it, I take a look at the child and YA fantasy and sci fi round ups at Charlotte's Library. I thought of it today because while cleaning up e-mail at a listserv, I saw a Charlotte message. (Granted, it was a few months old.) My reward was to find that this very day she had done a a post on new fantasy and sci fi releases for the rest of this month.

Notice that she includes Forever, the final book in the The Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater. While I found the second book in the series a little disappointing, I definitely liked the first one.

And here is another one of those fantastic trailers Stiefvater does for her books.

Stopping at Charlotte's Library was well worth the effort.