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July 2009
29 July 2009
The 2009 Man Booker Long List
The Children's Book by AS Byatt
Summertime by JM Coetzee
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
Me Cheeta by James Lever
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
Not Untrue & Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin
Heliopolis by James Scudamore
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Love and Summer by William Trevor
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
23 July 2009
Why Authors are Furious, Part Two
More examples of reviewers revealing the ending. (Maybe they think we should read their reviews instead of the books).
22 July 2009
Sociopaths in Suits: the Productivity Commission goes for broke
"This is how a civilisation commits suicide these days: it invites sociopaths in suits to dismantle its culture.
With its recommendation that territorial copyright for books be abandoned, the Productivity Commission’s final report is the apotheosis of neo-liberalism in Australia. Everything is to be sacrificed to the workings of the free market — especially writers, independent booksellers, independent publishers, and the nation’s cultural integrity. The community as a whole will benefit, the commission says, and that is all that matters."
15 July 2009
The evolving role of agents
"When the book agent’s job, most of the time, was to find the biggest possible up-front payment for an author’s work, a straight commission deal made complete sense. With writer-pays options becoming not only more common and accessible, but more sensible as a commercial choice and, indeed, becoming part of the step-ladder to commercial success, it increasingly will not."
15 July 2009
Two Furious Authors Tell Reviewers Where To Get Off
"Well, if I were Alice Hoffman, I’d go bonkers myself over the way modern critics not only give away too much plot in the novels they review (and the movies, plays, etc.) but seem determined to spoil the ending."
14 July 2009
Sex sells to women too
"The suspension of Black Lace, the UK erotica imprint "by women, for women", brings to an end 16 years of female-penned smut due to "declining sales". Sex sells – but apparently not to women.
As authors, we're dismayed. In erotic fiction, you'll probably find truer expressions of female desire than in the popular memoirs from strippers and sex workers, whose job it is to please men. But we're also unsurprised. Women's erotic fiction authors are often regarded as randy Barbara Cartlands writing purple porn for the sex-starved, their prose replete with throbbing manhoods, dungeon dynamics and swoon-inducing bastards: "Mills and Bonk".
10 July 2009
Whom do you trust to read your work?
"One of the great attractions of author events is the opportunity to find out how a book came into existence; how it began as an idea, how that vision was developed and nurtured, and eventually how it became pages glued between covers. At a packed Waterstone's Piccadilly last week, Glen David Gold – author of the bestselling Carter Beats the Devil – explained the genesis of his second novel, the patchy but utterly enthralling Sunnyside. And while the discussion of his approach to research, plot and character was fascinating, it was a question about his wife that elicited the most intriguing glimpse into the writing process."