Month / March 2007

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

BSS #99: Tayari Jones

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Author: Tayari Jones

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Caught in the act of untelling.

Subjects Discussed: Drawing from personal experience, Atlanta, accessible metaphors, writing and throwing away many pages, conversational vs. literary tone, “This is not what Dr. King died for,” the West End neighborhood and half-gentrified neighborhood, class segregation, Aria’s naivety, antediluvian word processing machines, the racial divide in bookstores and literary readings, labeling in the publishing industry, achieving literary respectability while being labeled, The Bigamist’s Daughters, and omniscient narration.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Jones: No one ever believes my position on this. I think actually, as strange as it’s going to sound, the bookstores that tend to have the African-American section tend to carry more African-American titles than bookstores that don’t have these sections. For example, there’s a bookstore in DC, Kramer Books. You know, they pride themselves on shelving everything together. And they have hardly any books by people of color there. And with no section. There’s no way of keeping them honest. They don’t know what they have. And though they can feel very progressive about their shelving, my book isn’t in there.

by Edward Champion

BSS #98: Charlie Huston

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Author: Charlie Huston

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contemplating the socialist qualities of the sun.

Subjects Discussed: Dialogue vs. description, the influence of acting upon fiction writing, Raymond Chandler, dashes vs. quotation marks, Huston house style, Cormac McCarthy, one-word-one-period dialogue, indicative gestures, drinking and smoking, setting the vampire rules, unintentionally ripping off Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, the beginnings of the Joe Pitt series, verisimilitude vs. heightened reality, the book reviewing climate, critical opposition to genre and series novels, Stephen King, parallels between Moon Knight and Joe Pitt, cruelty to animals, and getting New York details right while living in Los Angeles.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Huston: When I was writing my first novel, Caught Stealing, I was writing it without any expectation or drive toward getting it published. It was while I was still an actor, but not employed. And I needed to stay busy creatively. And so I started writing something that I thought would be a short story, and it grew and grew and grew. But I wasn’t thinking about anyone else reading it, let alone having it published. I didn’t care about form. I didn’t care about format. Which is why a lot of the style has evolved through the books.

by Edward Champion

Philly Inquirer Books Section in Danger?

Yesterday, Philly Inquirer books editor Frank Wilson declared that he was unwell. I was concerned that this may have meant something more. And this morning, I checked out the Philly Inquirer books section, stunned to find only five reviews appearing online instead of the usual seven. Cecil Johnson’s review was picked up from the wires. So aside from Frank’s review, there appears to be only three new reviews.

I certainly hope that this dip in column inches is a momentary aberration. While I offer the disclaimer here that I have contributed reviews to the Philly Inquirer, I believe that Frank Wilson is one of the hardest working and forward-thinking book review editors in the country. He was one of the first editors to investigate the media ecology that exists between newspapers and litblogs and he’s the only book review editor, aside from the Albany Time-Union (in which the blog serves as a surrogate to a book review section), who actively maintains a blog. It would be terrible to see his great services diminished, particularly after surviving the massacre that went down earlier this year.

by Edward Champion

Sarvas Ain’t the Only One

From Publisher’s Lunch, there’s word of the Other Ed‘s activities:

Cofounder of the Believer Ed Park’s debut PERSONAL DAYS, a comic novel about a group of office workers who suspect there is a mole in their group, to Julia Cheiffetz at Random House, in a pre-empt, for publication in May 2008, by PJ Mark at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency (world).

It’s becoming exceedingly delightful and exceedingly strange to see one’s pals and fellow bloggers nabbing book deals.

by Edward Champion

AWP Roundup

Because I’m trying to save up for a pony right now, I was unable to attend AWP this year. (I will, however, be at BEA, providing you with the same high-octane coverage that you’ve seen on these pages the previous years.)

But here’s a roundup of those who are there:

by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

More on the LATBR

I’m not in New York. So I haven’t been able to confirm or deny earlier reports directly with top brass. Thankfully, Publishers Weekly reporter Jim Milliot has some concrete information, now that some of the Los Angeles Times staff is in New York promoting their yearly book awards:

Both LAT editor James O’Shea and book editor David Ulin said the paper is committed to providing extensive book coverage, including reviews. But while O’Shea said he had rejected a suggestion from his predecessor that he kill the Sunday book review, he hinted that it may not remain a stand-alone section.

Milliot has determined that the Saturday option is still being seriously considered, but that O’Shea is “looking for a way to make the section part of the main paper.”

So the good news is that books remain something of a priority for the Los Angeles Times, but the bad news is that the LATBR may very well be folded in with another section, the newspaper equivalent of the B-movie on a double bill. Some priority.

If books really matter with the Los Angeles Times, does it not make sense to find a way to bolster the stand-alone section? If it is a matter of advertising revenue, then why not devote resources to selling ads that aren’t just literary. Literary people aren’t bookworms who never leave their apartments. They don’t just buy books. They also go to restaurants, attend concerts, and spend money in other non-literary ways. And yet, as Milliot reports, the only ads in the February 25 LATBR were “a classified ad for a ghostwriting service and a tiny Borders ad for a signing for David Mamet.” I’m wondering, given this advertising paucity, whether the advertising people at the Los Angeles Times are truly busting their humps here. Or are they trying to kill off the LATBR by ignoring non-literary advertising potential? Have they, for example, considered talking with the people attending the upcoming Festival of Books to find out what their non-literary interests are?

Perhaps the answer here is to launch a campaign to save the LATBR as a stand-alone section. This worked several years ago when the San Francisco Chronicle canned its stand-alone book section and readers responded with 400 e-mails and phone calls. The stand-alone section was revived.

Having written a few reviews for the LATBR, I can tell you that the staff there is seriously committed to turning out a quality book section. Hell, they’re smart enough to catch my bullshit and have demanded that I do better. Because of this, the editing I’ve received there has been among some of the best I’ve received as a writer. While certain East Coast editors named Sam have treated speculative fiction as mere baubles, I should point out that, where Steve Wasserman turned the LATBR into a stifled and pretentious rag, David Ulin has, after a little more than a year on the job, found his sea legs, regularly turning out a pleasant medley of informed and occasionally quirky reviews that puts some of his East Coast contemporaries to shame. (But the NYTBR devoted last week’s section to Tom McCarthy’s Remainder! Surely, it’s turning a corner! Well, Ulin was there two weeks before and he was smart enough to assign it to Tod Goldberg.)

The Los Angeles Times was the first American newspaper to devote column inches to China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun, allowing the reviewer to treat the book seriously (well, the hack writer involved here also cracked jokes, so perhaps this isn’t the best example). He’s interested in quirky pair-ups, such as having Glen David Gold covering Anders Nilsen’s Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow. And he’s even smart enough to enlist the Other Ed to cover Philip K. Dick’s lost novel.

In other words, the LATBR is everything the NYTBR isn’t, clued into the latest books (many of them a bit off the beaten track) and actively recruiting fresh voices to cover them (instead of, like Tanenhaus, disparaging them), standing proudly with Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe, Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Philly Inquirer for some of the best review coverage in the country. It would be a great shame to see these accomplishments marginalized.

by Edward Champion

Ted Chiang — Red Alert!

I can’t believe I didn’t know about this until now, but Rick Kleffel has the scoop. Ted Chiang, author of the excellent short story collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, has a new book called The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate. Kleffel reports, “So when I heard that Subterranean Press was going to publish a new anything by Ted Chiang, I made sure to get my hands on a copy as soon as possible.” Rest assured, my own efforts will be equally perfervid.

If you haven’t checked out Ted Chiang’s previous collection, you owe it to yourself to do so. And if you don’t believe Kleffel or me, why not pay heed to China Miéville?

by Edward Champion

Today in Killer Robot Warfare

theterm3_2.jpgThe Register: “‘Team Warrior’, a killer robot manufacturing alliance led by General Atomics of San Diego, CA, announced yesterday that its Warrior Extended Range/Multi Purpose Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System (ERMP UAS) would enter production for the US Army, another step in the US forces’ ongoing effort to automate most military activities….The Warrior will carry a relatively limited weapons payload, typically a quartet of Hellfire II missiles. It will be able to destroy no more than four tanks or buildings before reloading. However, its new General Atomics stablemate, the evocatively-named MQ-9 ‘Reaper’ can manage up to a tonne and a half of varied ordnance, or as many as 14 Hellfires.”

by Edward Champion

Or It Could Just Be the Considerable Number of Soul-Crushing Office Jobs

Scientific American: “Clues to the underlying causes of boredom have come from patients who suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBI). According to James Danckert, a neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, people with TBI often begin to indulge in riskier activities after their accidents. These activities might include taking drugs or jumping out of planes&mash;pursuits they pick up in an attempt to deal with their new and chronic boredom.”

by Edward Champion

EXCLUSIVE: Prepub Version of Kenneth Eng’s Column!!!

San Francisco Chronicle: “The 22-year-old author of a column titled ‘Why I Hate Blacks’ in the regional newspaper AsianWeek has been dismissed, and the paper’s editors said Wednesday that they suffered ‘a serious lapse in editorial judgment’ when they published his column.”

Return of the Reluctant has obtained a version of Kenneth Eng’s racist column that was circulated shortly after it hit the AsianWeek copy desk.

Why I Hate Niggers Blacks
Kenneth Eng, Feb 23, 2007

Here is a list of reasons why we should discriminate against blacks and string them up, [Editor: shouldn’t we clarify the order here? Also, save the “stringing up” angle for a future column.] starting from the most obvious down to the least obvious:

� Blacks hate us and wish to copulate with our daughters. Every Asian who has ever come across them knows that they take almost every opportunity to fuck our women [Copy desk: Yes, we’re aware of the evils of miscegenation, but do you think you can tone it down? This is a family newspaper. See recommended change.] hurl racist remarks at us.

In my experience, I would say about 100 90 percent [Legal: Leave margin of error in event of lawsuit.] of blacks I have met, regardless of age, penis size, or environment, poke fun at the very sight of an Asian. Furthermore, their activity in the media proves their hatred. [Editor: Examples?]: Rush Hour, Exit Wounds, Hot 97, etc.

� Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are easily exploited weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It’s unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back.

On the other hand, we could have been slaveholders during the Civil War [See recommended historical example.] slaughtered the Russians in the Japanese-Russo War.

� Blacks are easy to coerce. This is proven by the fact that so many of them cannot play mahjong and insist on dominoes, including Reverend Al Sharpton, tend to be Christians.

Yet, at the same time, they spend much of their time whining about fried chicken how much they hate “the whites that oppressed them.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they steal dominoes from us? wasn’t Christianity the religion that the whites forced upon them?

� Blacks don’t get it. [Copy desk: Cover our asses with doubtful statement!] I know it’s a blunt and crass comment, but it’s true. When I was in high school, I recall a class debate in which one half of the class was chosen to defend black slavery and the other half was chosen to defend liberation.

Disturbingly, blacks on the prior side viciously defended slavery as well as Christianity. They say if you don’t study history, you’re condemned to repeat it. In high school, I only remember one black student ever attending any of my honors and AP courses. [Editor: Good, Ken, but we need something more sensational here. Can you invent something along the lines of cheating?] And that student was caught cheating.

It is rather troubling that they are treated as heroes, but then again, any of the non-Asian races [Ted wants us to play up the evils of the white liberal.] whites will do anything to defend them.

[NOTE: If Ken can’t turn around the edits, do you think we could get Michelle Malkin to finish up this piece? I’ll talk with you about all this after the racial tolerance meeting. (Why this diversity nonsense? Do they really think we’re that racist?) Thanks!]

by Edward Champion

So We Need an Obama for Literature Then?

Wet Asphalt: “It’s not just that someone who’s really into José Saramago might love Ursula K. LeGuin, but never be exposed to her, and vice versa with LeGuin’s fans, though that’s the most obvious complaint. It’s that it’s clear that the number of people who are reading fiction are dwindling. Fans of Literary Fiction and Speculative Fiction are small, almost religiously fanatical groups with a deep love of the their favorite authors and books, and if the content of those books is so similar so much of the time—and it is—then why is there a division at all? Why can’t they all be fans together? But it’s almost like the fans are too fanatical, creating arbitrary loyalties and irrational prejudices. It’s as if in certain quarters, the words ‘Literary Fiction’ and ‘Speculative Fiction’ have the same weight as ‘nigger,’ ‘spic,’ or ‘kike.’ Listen to the way they say, ‘I don’t read that Science Fiction crap.’ ‘I don’t read that boring, pompous Literary stuff.’ It makes me want to get all the Literary Fiction readers and all the Speculative Fiction readers in one room and throw Kelly Link books at them until they kiss and make up.”

by Edward Champion

Another Game of “Humiliation”

David Lodge featured the game “Humiliation” in his book, Changing Places, and it looks like James Tata is raising the stakes, bolding the NYT‘s “Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years” that he’s read. Since this is a better (although still flawed) list than the other one, I’m in.

Beloved–Toni Morrison
Underworld–Don DeLillo
Blood Meridian–Cormac McCarthy
Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels–John Updike
— Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, Rabbit at Rest
American Pastoral–Philip Roth
A Confederacy of Dunces–John Kennedy Toole
Housekeeping–Marilynne Robinson
Winter’s Tale–Mark Helprin
White Noise–Don DeLillo
The Counterlife–Philip Roth
Libra–Don DeLillo
Where I’m Calling From–Raymond Carver
The Things They Carried–Tim O’Brien
Mating–Norman Rush
Jesus’ Son–Denis Johnson
Operation Shylock–Philip Roth
Independence Day–Richard Ford
Sabbath’s Theater–Philip Roth
Border Trilogy–Cormac McCarthy
— All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain
The Human Stain–Philip Roth
The Known World–Edward P. Jones
The Plot Against America–Philip Roth

Yes, I’m sadly slack on Cormac McCarthy. And Marilynne Robinson’s two novels have been staring at me for the past year.

by Edward Champion

Digg’s Pay to Play Policy

Annalee Newitz: “I can tell you exactly how a pointless blog full of poorly written, incoherent commentary made it to the front page on Digg. I paid people to do it. What’s more, my bought votes lured honest Diggers to vote for it too. All told, I wound up with a ‘popular’ story that earned 124 diggs — more than half of them unpaid. I also had 29 (unpaid) comments, 12 of which were positive.”

by Edward Champion

Jonathan Ames Alert

As regular readers know, several years ago, I made a deal with a demon at a crossroads. The demon informed me that his name was Anthony Robbins. The demon, who insisted that I call him Tony, hoped to introduce me to something called neuropsychotic programming. I informed the demon that no, I was simply looking for a good potato salad recipe, and had no desire to become a sociopathic maniac. It was the salad recipe that had inspired me to thumb my way across the country, suffering bad Denny’s meals and declining invitations to sip lemonade with white-robed men referred to as “Grand Wizards.”

The demon said, “Okay, tell you what. I’ll give you your salad recipe if you report all Jonathan Ames developments.”

“Jonathan Ames? Well, that’s easy. I like him. He’s a funny guy.”

“Do this for a year,” said the demon, “and I will give you your precious potato salad recipe.”

Well, as everyone who knows me knows, I’m a man of my word. And I would be remiss if I didn’t point you to this Jonathan Ames story in Nerve, which begins with the sentence, “She was a foreign journalist, assigned to interview me.”

Of course, I’ve been doing this for more than a year and the potato salad recipe has yet to turn up. But I’ve consulted an attorney to see if there’s an escape clause in the contract.

Let this be a lesson to all who encounter demons at crossroads.

by Edward Champion

Roundup