- Her Pinkness has the skinny on Saunders in Pittsburgh. I do not know if Bob Hoover was involved with all the madness, but it’s my feeling that he should have been.
- His Markness (or perhaps His Sarvoir Faire) has the inside scoop on what it means to be a debut novelist. Being a rather silly person in Brooklyn, I do not know if I am “actually in a position to advance [his] interests,” but if it helps the galley to come here any faster, I can offer a few lacrosse lessons or some helpful tips on stamp collecting, assuming that his “interests” plan to expand in the forthcoming months.
- Whether ’tis Nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous prognostication, I would argue ’tis not until the jury’s out. But his Scottness has the hots and bothers for those occupying their time with endless speculation.
- Que sera Sarah! Happy fourth!
- Friends! Romanos! Countrymen! Lend me your review space!
- His Hitchness gets busy with Wilson squared. To which I beseech: O Library of America, how can I get on your list?
- Just so you know, we’re ashamed the divine Ms. Jones is being pegged as a mere Dixie Chick! (By the way, ever notice that the early history of the Dixie Chicks, in which two older women — specifically, Laura Lynch and Robin Lynn Macy — were part of the band, but fired in favor of the younger and presumably more outspoken Natalie Marines, appears to be notably elided within certain accounts? And you thought the Dixie Chicks represented some populist version of female empowerment!)
- Her Weinerness defends Her Kathaness, leading to a Noun Ness Monster within these bullets that I may have to abandon in favor of the more trenchant ammunition of one misperceived word.
- Online censorship hurts us all. When you wake up with that bruise tomorrow, just remember to tell everybody you had “a fall,” even though everybody knows you’ve been censored online. Speaking of censorship, not that I care, but shall I cry J’Accuse! against Cory Doctorow for not linking to any of the informative interviews conducted with speculative fiction authors — some, his friends — that have appeared on this site? After all, I have criticized Boing Boing in the past. For that matter, why have certain comments that are critical of Boing Boing disappeared from the Boing Boing site? Hypocrite much, Cory?
- A talking Dalek tie! This is great for those boardroom meetings when some overbearing suit is trying to lowball you into a deal. While you can’t say anything to this guy that might suggest that self-defenestration might be the best thing he could do for his career, the Dalek, by contrast, might be able to suggest a one-word command that fits the bill. This is a great gift for passive-aggressive types stuck in an oppressive office environment. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
- It’s a tough life being a novelist. While others are condemned to work at a McDonald’s or work two soul-sucking full-time jobs to feed their families, the novelist sits on his ass and perspires! Not that Mr. Swift said any of these things. As is evident from the article, he’s paid his dues. But the headline of this article suggests that Mr. Swift is one of those types who has the effrontery to compare full-time writing with “backbreaking labor,” but have never once performed hard physical labor. (For the record, I have. A few years ago: Three days loading 100 pound boxes at the docks to pay my rent. That’s “backbreaking labor.”)
Author / Edward Champion
New Review
My review of Ann Patchett’s Run appears in today’s Philly Inquirer.
OMG! Radiohead Has a New Album!
Next Thing You Know, These Atheists Want to Marry Each Other!
The Record: “‘Coming out’ as the first openly nontheist member of the United States Congress, Representative Fortney ‘Pete’ Stark (D-CA) quipped, “I’m pleased that I’m in Cambridge and not in Salem!’ On September 20, 2007, Congressman Stark spoke publicly for the first time about his atheism to an audience of approximately 300 members of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, the Harvard Law School Heathen Society, and various other atheist, agnostic, secular, humanist, and nonreligious groups.”
NBCC and Penguin: A Match Made in Loosey-Goosey Ethics
As reported by both Publishers Lunch’s Michael Cader and The New York Times‘s Motoko Rich this morning, Penguin Group is teaming up with Amazon and Hewlett Packard for a contest called The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Unpublished manuscripts will be first submitted to a group of Amazon’s top-rated reviewers (one suspects that all the manuscripts will pass Harriet Klausner’s loose standards with flying colors). From here, 100 finalists will be handed off to a panel consisting of Elizabeth Gilbert, agent Eric Simonoff, Penguin imprint founder Amy Einhorn, and NBCC President John Freeman.
The winner will receive a $25,000 advance and a publishing contract. But it is within these details that things start to get dicey. As Cader noted this morning:
The winner agrees to accept Penguin’s publishing contract “as is” and acknowledges it “is not negotiable…if he/she wishes to enter into the publishing contract being awarded.” But Penguin’s director of online sales & marketing Tim McCall says “it’s a good contract,” noting that “it is designed for someone who is getting their start in the business. That’s really what Penguin is looking for–a brand-new voice.”
In other words, the author, sidestepping the protective safeguards that an agent can ensure, has no leverage whatsoever in squaring away the contract details.
Likewise, since John Freeman is being billed in all publicity materials I can locate as “the president of the National Book Critics Circle” and has made no efforts to separate his personal participation from his association with the NBCC, I must therefore presume that, because Freeman is the head of the NBCC, the NBCC must, as a matter of course, endorse this contest, which represents authors abdicating all publishing rights, without discussion or compromise, to a single conglomerate. So is the NBCC now in the business of favoring one publisher above all others? That doesn’t seem like a sign of critical integrity to me. The NBCC’s support of this contest is no different from a critic who decides to throw his integrity to the wind and only review books by one publishing house.
While it is true that Freeman’s participation here is not an explicit “political activity” under the IRS code and Freeman is legally in the clear, it would make me feel more comfortable about the NBCC’s integrity if Freeman had lived up to the standards of what a “political activity” constitutes. Freeman’s alliance with Penguin is dangerously close to IRS requirements in which “organization leaders who speak or write in their individual capacity are encouraged to indicate clearly that their comments are personal and not intended to represent the views of the organization.”
It seems hypocritical for the NBCC to suggest a code of ethics for litbloggers when there remains not a single code of ethics for NBCC board members. (And why have the results for the NBCC ethics survey remained unannounced? Do ethics only apply to the online upstarts?) Shouldn’t a 501(c)3 organization of book critics stand for a variegated critical environment in which many publishers and critical voices are underneath one umbrella? And shouldn’t it stand for an environment in which organization leaders remain transparent about their activities and untainted from corporate influence?