High Concept Explained

not by me of course, but very well by Holly Root over at the Waxman Agency who, when not slithering around with Barbara Poelle and me, has been known to sell a book or two.

Why We Need Poets

"Though she can no longer live alone,
I realize that no matter where my mother
lives now, she will always be alone
in a world forever gone wild in her mind.
Still thinking I am her last late boyfriend,
she leans closer, says, "you're always so kind
to me" and sighs as she pats my hand"

Floyd Skloot "Relocation"
from Book III The Alzheimer's Suite
in "Approximately Paradise"
Tupelo Press: 2005

Jeff Somers versus NYComic Con

Well, he got there in one piece, and he left in one piece.

Clearly my work here isn't done.

And for proof; the videos

If you'll be at Comic Con this weekend, make sure you step right up to Jeff and intone "You're fucked Mr. Cates" then laugh maniacally!

Sic!

It's always a good day when the punctuation pugilists at the Abbeville blog suit up for a rousing round of fisticuffs with their sworn arch nemesis the Chicago Manual of Style.

Here's today's round.

For those of you who might not notice, the Abbeville blog has a new url. You'll want to update your linkage or google reader subscription so you don't miss out on any of the fun.

There are many reasons to love The New Yorker

Among them, this paragraph from an article on fact checking by John McPhee:

The worst (fact) checking error is calling people dead are not dead. In the words of Josh Hersh (described in the preceding paragraph as the modern fact checker who is characteristically calmer than marble) "It really annoys them." Sara (the fact checker McPhee is writing about) remembers a reader in a nursing home who read in The New Yorker that he was "the late" reader in the nursing home. He wrote demanding a correction. The New Yorker in its next issue, of course complied, inadvertently doubling the error, because the reader died over the weekend while the magazine was being printed.

Lego!

sehr gut!

Love, Loss and What I Wore

Love, Loss and What I Wore was published 13 years ago. I still remember reading it back then, and I talk about it periodically (most recently to literary agent Meredith Bernstein who is a walking piece of wardrobe fabulosity.)

And now it's going to be a play

This book defies every "must" in the industry.
And sells and sells and sells.

This is one of those reminders that publishing may be an industry, but it's also a place with a lot of room for passion. Even now.