Photo via http://storms.typepad.com/booklust/writers_and_writing/

The slush pile: Beginning writers get lost in it. Beginning editors sift through it. The Wall Street Journal points out some of the effects of its disappearance:

As writers try to find an agent—a feat harder than ever to accomplish in the wake of agency consolidations and layoffs—the slush pile has been transferred from the floor of the editor’s office to the attaché cases of representatives who can broker introductions to publishing, TV and film executives. The result is a shift in taste-making power onto such agents, managers and attorneys. Theirs are now often the first eyes to make a call on what material will land on bookshelves, television sets and movie screen.

But lest you mourn the decline of the slush pile too much, keep the statistics in mind:

One slush stalwart—the Paris Review— has college interns and graduate students in the magazine’s Tribeca loft-office read the 1,000 unsolicited works submitted each month. Each short story is read by at least two people. If one likes it and the other doesn’t, it is read by a third. Any submission that receives two “Ps” for “pass” as opposed to “R” for “reject” is read by an editor.

“We take the democratic ideal represented by the slush pile seriously,” says managing editor Caitlin Roper.

The literary journal publishes one piece from the slush pile each year. That leaves each unsolicited submission a .008% chance of rising to the top of the pile.

What do you think? Was your manuscript pulled from the slush pile, or have you waded through one as an editor or publisher? Is there a better way to find new talent than wading through the slush?

Comment on this post »

The Booker Prize has announced the Lost Booker Prize, intended to honor books published in 1970, the only year since 1968 in which when no prize was given.

The Booker Prize was created in 1968 as a retrospective prize – that is, honoring books published prior to the award year. Then, in 1971, two changes were made in the Booker rules: the Booker became a prize for the best novel published in the same year as the award, and the month in which the award was given changed from April to November. As a result of the new rules, books published in 1970 were never eligible for the prize.

The longlist of 22 books includes Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, David Lodge’s Out of the Shelter, Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat, and the intriguingly titled A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill. The shortlist will be posted in March, with the winner announced in May.

Meanwhile, over at The Millions, Garth Risk Hallberg wonders if there are too many prizes out there.

In my view, however, all this award-granting gets silly whenever prize-granting bodies short-circuit the practical virtues of prizes – promotion, encouragement, and pleasure. They do this in two opposed but mutually reinforcing ways: first, by contriving prizes so commonplace or parochial as to carry hardly any cultural weight. Second, by attaching to a single prize more significance than any award should rightly carry… by eliding the plurality of critical judgments in favor of some settled, authoritative Best.

Comment on this post »

It’s with great pride that we announce that Christine Hartzler’s essay “Games Are Not About Monsters,” which FWR published in April of last year, was recently selected for inclusion in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2010 anthology.

Christine’s essay is a lyrical meditation on video games, the development of character, how we make meaning, and, of course, monsters. Drawing from her own experience playing RPGs like Shadow of the Colossus, she asks us to consider how the best games in this genre–like the best literature–not only challenge us to confront ourselves, but can also give us a glimpse of enlightenment. Along the way she touches on the poetics of C.D. Wright, the duty of heroes from Beowulf to the Bhagavad Gita, and theories of self-cultivation. But what truly stands out about Christine’s work is her attention to language and her deep probing of what it means to be human.

It was for all these reasons that we were honored to publish this essay last year, and why we’re so thrilled her writing has received this wonderful recognition. If you missed “Games are Not About Monsters” last spring, you can read the essay in its entirety here.

To purchase the 2008 or 2009 editions of Best of the Web, visit the Dzanc website.

Below is an excerpt from the opening of Christine’s essay. Congratulations, again!

In a role-play game, or RPG, gameplay consists largely of traveling and fighting battles. Traveling, like the “free and easy wandering” of the Chang tzu, isn’t as easy as one might think—surviving monster attacks is usually the order of the day. Even so, traveling is one of my favorite things about RPGs because an RPG is a lengthy journey in a (hopefully) immersive world. My favorite game, Shadow of the Colossus, is difficult to place in a single game genre, but it’s more RPG than anything else. You wander an expansive landscape, soaking up the aesthetic splendor, gathering information, and eventually, finding and fighting colossal monsters. Monster-killing is central to the game, and yet this game is no more about monster-killing than gardening is about slaughtering aphids or Ender’s Game is about killing Buggers.

To continue reading, click here.

3 Comments »

photo from the Harvard Book Store website

Boston-area readers know Harvard Book Store as one of the best independent bookstores in the country. The store hosts author events and readings nearly every night, and the knowledgeable staff is always ready to help should you need a recommendation. Now, they’re encouraging writers as well. In honor of the shortest month, Harvard Book Store is running a short-short contest:

Let’s make these 28 days count! Write a short short story (500 words or less). Send us your entries (no more than 3 entries per person) by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17th. We’ll read them, pick our favorites, and, at the end of the month, we’ll print them in a book, using our very own in-store print-on-demand machine, Paige M. Gutenborg!

Entries must be unpublished and written between February 1 and February 17. If your story is chosen, you’ll receive a copy of the yet-to-be-titled collection and will be invited to read their story at the bookstore on March 1. One grand-prize winner will also receive a $50 gift certificate.

Full details and rules are here. And if “Paige M. Gutenborg” caught your attention, check out store owner Jeff Mayersohn’s essay about why he invested in the book-making machine.

Comment on this post »

photo by austinevan

When I moved from Ann Arbor to Boston, movers came to pack our things. After the thirteenth box of books–literally–Mover #1 actually set down his tape gun and said in complete seriousness, “Do you really need all these books?”

Oh yes. I needed them.

The New York Times, however, understands that now and then one must actually cull one’s library for reasons of space. The editors asked several authors for their advice on how to do it:

Francine Prose:

• Unless you are an Egyptologist, you only need one, at most two, enormous coffee table books on the Art of the Pharaohs.
• If a country, like Czechoslovakia, no longer exists, it’s unlikely that you’ll want to take the travel guide along with you when you go.

Chang-rae Lee:

• Any novel or poetry collection written by a celebrity
• Books originating from or inspired by a blog, because I’m hopelessly sentimental about the dying world of book-only books.
• Anthologies of fiction and poetry that have “greatest” in the title; “best” is O.K., but “greatest” usually means a hit list of the too familiar and bland.

Fred Bass, co-owner of The Strand:

My advice is to first clean out duplicates and books with repetitive information — why do you need six dictionaries? Next, remove all books with out-of-date information, like atlases and reference books. Political, economic and topical books should be the next category to sort through; you don’t really need that copy of Richard Simmons’ “Never-Say-Diet Book” (a 1981 best-seller), or a book on the future of the Democratic or Republican parties, written 20 years ago.

And a man after my own heart:

Joshua Ferris:

Get rid of books? Are you kidding? The only reason anyone should get rid of a book is if they’re going for that Japanese minimalist design look in which the room is all white and not even the drawers are visible. For those of us with more modest decor goals, living everyday lives with clutter and old clothes, cats and children, sour towels hanging from the rack, knickknacks, pilled throws, boring old mementos, what could be more essential than books?

FWR readers, as you enter this new year, will you be clearing out any space on your shelves for new books? If so, tell us what you’ll be getting rid –and why.

(And, in case this discussion of getting rid of books gave you the vapors, here’s the antidote: those same writers on books they could never, ever part with.)

3 Comments »

One year after President Obama’s inauguration, everyone seems to have either criticism or advice for his administration–for pushing health care reform; for not yet passing health care reform; for not waving his magic wand to fix the economy, eradicate H1N1, and end both wars; for not leaping tall buildings in a single bound. But author Junot Diaz points out a different problem in an an essay in the New Yorker: President Obama’s lack of storytelling since his election.

All year I’ve been waiting for Obama to flex his narrative muscles, to tell the story of his presidency, of his Administration, to tell the story of where our country is going and why we should help deliver it there. A coherent, accessible, compelling story—one that is narrow enough to be held in our minds and hearts and that nevertheless is roomy enough for us, the audience, to weave our own predilections, dreams, fears, experiences into its fabric. [...] But from where I sit our President has not even told a bad story; he, in my opinion, has told no story at all. I heard him talk healthcare to death but while he was elaborating ideas his opponents were telling stories. Sure they were bad ones, full of distortions and outright lies, but at least they were talking to the American people in the correct idiom: that of narrative. The President gave us a raft of information about why healthcare would be a swell idea; the Republicans gave us death panels. Ideas are wonderful things, but unless they’re couched in a good story they can do nothing.

What do you think? Is Diaz on to something here? Is the lack of presidential narrative part of what’s hampering Obama?

Via.

4 Comments »

We’ve seen a lot of book adaptations lately, from Where the Wild Things Are to Precious to The Lovely Bones. Screenwriters and directors cut scenes here and add scenes there to transform the book into a cohesive viewing experience. A good adaptation can be a brand-new work of art. But in the process, the book is often boiled down to its essence while the particulars–the writer’s own words–are often lost.

The American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is trying to work around that. The A.R.T.’s latest production is “Gatz,” a staged reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby in which the original text is the show:

Gatz is conceived as a single six-hour production in which an ensemble of 13 actors bring to live every word of the novel with no text added and none removed.

The show begins as an office worker (played by actor Scott Shephard) finds a copy of The Great Gatsby and begins to read it aloud. An NPR review explains what happens next:

It doesn’t take long for things to turn strange. Co-workers wander on and off stage — an assistant, a janitor, a man in a suit. The lines between the narration and the action begin to blur. It’s as if the book is coming to life. Then, the janitor blurts out a line of dialogue from “Gatsby” character Tom Buchanan.

“Civilization’s going to pieces!”

And so it goes, ramping up, getting more surreal. While “Gatz” stays true to the words, it takes liberties with every prop, sound effect and stretch of the imagination.

The show is so long that it’s split into two parts, separated by a dinner break.

So why do it this way? Every novelist’s dream: a profound love for the novel itself, exactly as it’s written. “What made this a great book,” director John Collins explains in a video interview with NPR affiliate WBUR, “was not so much the story, or the characters, or the themes, or the symbols, but this writing. We thought, well, here’s a great crazy idea to start with, here’s a great crazy project, here’s a great impossible task: we’ll do every single word of it.”

Even the most slavishly faithful adaptations are based on plot and characters; usually, the only use of the actual text of the book is in dialogue, or (shudder) voiceover. Beautiful, powerful, pivotal passages of prose are condensed into a single shot, or left out entirely–never mind that the author probably spent weeks fine-tuning the language and picking just the right words. So as a fiction writer, I can see the appeal of the “Gatz” type of adaptation: the writing itself is in the spotlight the whole time.

What’s more, the show is intended to dramatize the blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction. Collins continues, “When you read a book that you love… you start to see the people that you know in the characters. And you also start to see the book around you, when you get that involved. The line begins to blur a little bit between your own reality and the reality of the book.”

You can see the A.R.T.’s trailer here and snippets of the show here.

1 Comment »

Yesterday FWR published a very exciting essay by Michael Rudin on the history, future, and literary/artistic potential of video games. While this piece was in the publishing pipeline, the Writer’s Guild of America announced its 2009 nominations for best video game writing. The “destabilizing” narrative behind Modern Warfare 2, discussed in Rudin’s essay, was officially recognized by the WGA for its outstanding storytelling, earning one of the five nominee nods–and the final game Michael worked on at Activision, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, also received a nomination.

Below is an excerpt from “Writing the Great American Novel Video Game”; click here to read the whole essay.

For some time I was one of few standing firmly in both camps—writer and gamer, fiction-fiend and pixel-popper. But the innovative nature of Next-Gen gaming, with its leaps in technology and massive install-base, means games have developed new depth–and the future of gaming promises to look a lot more like literature than flight simulators. This is, in many ways, the rise of a new novel. Like its lexicographic predecessor, the pixilated form revels in moral ambiguity, character motivations, conflicts between free will and fate.

Comment on this post »

In my old (and much-missed) neighborhood of Fort Greene in Brooklyn, the fabulous Greenlight Bookstore is doing its part to raise money for Haiti. NYC-based readers, shop at Greenlight today and tomorrow to help! Via the store’s newsletter:

A lot has been given to us at Greenlight Bookstore. It’s high time for us to give back.

The earthquake in Haiti has affected many of our Brooklyn neighbors, and we want to do what we can to assist in the relief efforts there.

So, this weekend, Saturday January 23 and Sunday January 24, Greenlight Bookstore will donate 10% of all sales before tax to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief.

With your purchase at Greenlight this weekend, your book-buying dollars can contribute to something greater. And read on for a chance to partner with co-owner Rebecca Fitting to do even more good.

Thanks for all the support you’ve offered us. We hope you’ll join us in offering our support to the organizations working to help the people of Haiti.

Best,
Greenlight Bookstore

A challenge from Rebecca

At Greenlight we have been very fortunate in the short life of our new bookstore and we are mindful of it every day. We are thankful for our store’s good fortune, and for our own personal fortune for living in a part of the world that has an infrastructure and amenities that are sorely lacking elsewhere. The past week’s news about Haiti is an especially tragic event and it makes us want to give back in return. With that very much in mind, Greenlight Bookstore is pledging to donate 10% of our store’s sales for Sat 1/23-Sun 1/24 to the Red Cross for aid to Haiti.

Taking this a step further, if any customer is willing to match the bookstore’s donation of 10% of the weekend’s sales, I will also personally match what the store donates. Just think – if you pledge to match Greenlight Bookstore’s donation, all of a sudden one sum becomes tripled because I will do the same. That’s some strength in numbers, for sure, and it would mean a lot to me if one (or a few) of you would step up to this challenge.

If you stop by the store today, author Nick Flynn will be signing copies of his new memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb (portions of which appeared in Tin House, Esquire, and Open City), at 3 PM.

Greenlight Bookstore is located at 686 Fulton Street (corner of S. Portland) in Brooklyn, NY. / Hours: 10 AM – 10 PM Monday through Saturday, 12 noon – 8 PM Sunday

Comment on this post »

a devastated neighborhood in Port au Prince / photo: United Nations Development Programme

They may be in dire financial straits, but several publishers are reaching out to Haiti anyway. GalleyCat reports that Random House is donating $100,000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund and Partners in Health. Its parent corporation, Bertelsmann AG, is adding 100,000 euros, while Time/TIME Inc. is releasing a book on Haiti with proceeds to benefit earthquake victims.

If you’re still looking for ways to donate, here are some options:

• SMS text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief effort; it will appear on your phone bill
• SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts
• Donate directly to the Red Cross at their website
• Donate to UNICEF or CARE using Google Checkout or through any of the links listed on that page
• Visit MSNBC’s comprehensive list of ways to donate

Every little bit helps.

Comment on this post »