A Writer's Moment: Navigating The Publishing Labyrinths

A Writer's Moment: Navigating The Publishing Labyrinths: “Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, a...

Navigating The Publishing Labyrinths

“Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, and social media is an arduous and nerve-wracking process.” – Paul Di Filippo 

 

Di Filippo, born Oct. 29, 1954, is the author of hundreds of short stories and numerous novels and “collections.”   Unlike some authors who find second or third novels to be problematical, Di Filippo believes that once you master the labyrinth of “processes” in getting that first book out there, it becomes easier in subsequent efforts.  

   

And as his “process” has grown so have his awards and rewards for those efforts.   He’s been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Philip K. Dick, Wired Magazine, and World Fantasy awards.

 

Born and raised in Rhode Island, Di Filippo is also a respected reviewer, writing for such magazines as Asimov's Science Fiction, The New York Review of Science Fiction and the online Science Fiction Weekly.  He also is co-author (with Damien Broderick) of Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010. 

                                    While he has had success with series' of books, including the highly praised Steampunk Trilogy, he said readers and writers alike shouldn’t always expect a repeat of what a writer first produces, because it’s usually not possible.  “The impossibility of a sequel ever recapturing everything - or anything - about its ancestor never stopped legions of writers from trying, or hordes of readers and publishers from demanding more of what they previously enjoyed.”

A Writer's Moment: Writing Other Lives And Times

A Writer's Moment: Writing About Other Lives And Times: “No one sits on the stoop when she's a kid and thinks, 'I want to be a biographer when I grow up.' ” – Stacy Schiff But, tha...

Writing Other Lives And Times

“No one sits on the stoop when she's a kid and thinks, 'I want to be a biographer when I grow up.' ” – Stacy Schiff

But, that career path has been a good one for Schiff, who won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Vera, a biography of Vera Nabokov, wife and muse of Vladimir Nabokov.  She was also a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Saint-Exupéry: A Biography about French writer and adventurer Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

A native of Massachusetts, Schiff (who turned 58 on Oct. 26) also has won a number of other awards for her biographical works on Benjamin Franklin and Cleopatra, and she was presented with the Newberry Library Award for her body of writing.  But, despite her many awards, she said that biographers, including herself, aren’t always objective in their work.

“Oh, I don't think there is ever objective biography,” she insisted.  “Our vision of our subject is always shaped by who we are. So I do, of course, think the biographer's view is always something to keep in mind.”

A Writer's Moment: Writing As A Champion For The People

A Writer's Moment: Writing As A Champion For The People: “I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is goin...

Writing As A Champion For The People

“I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.” – William Allen White

Born in 1868, White was a journalist, politician, author, and leader of the Progressive movement.   As editor and publisher of The Emporia Gazette in Emporia, KS, (from 1895-1944) White was an iconic spokesman for Middle Class America.  A champion for the “average” American, he built his newspaper, his reputation, and his community in the process.   

                                    With a warm sense of humor, articulate editorial pen, and commonsense approach to life, White soon became known throughout the country and the writing world, earning a Pulitzer Prize in the process. His Gazette editorials were widely reprinted; he wrote syndicated stories on politics; and did biographies of Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge. "What's the Matter With Kansas?" and "Mary White" — a beautiful tribute to his 16-year-old daughter on her accidental death in 1921— were his best-known editorials, but many others helped shape our nation’s life and politics.

During his lifetime, he had 22 books published and along with longtime friend Dorothy Canfield founded the Book of the Month Club, a great boon for readers and writers alike.  Today, both the University of Kansas School of Journalism and the Emporia State University Library are named in his honor.   “Present the facts fairly and honestly,” he said, “(and) truth will take care of itself.”

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A Writer's Moment: A Thought For Your Writing Week Ahead

A Writer's Moment: A Thought For Your Writing Week Ahead: “If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it.   If you don’t ask, the answer is alw...

A Thought For Your Writing Week Ahead

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it.  If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.  If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” – Nora Ephron

Happy Writing!

A Writer's Moment: Emotional, Powerful Poems

A Writer's Moment: Emotional, Powerful Poems: “I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems wh...

Emotional, Powerful Poems

“I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental.” – Andrew Motion

Born in England on this date in 1962, Motion is a poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work.  

                                              For Saturday’s Poem, here is Motion’s “Driving.”  And for those who would like to hear this wonderful poet speak his own works, I have added a link to him reading his two short poems, “A-1 Mechanics” and “The Mower.”

 

Diving

The moment I tire
of difficult sand-grains
and giddy pebbles,
I roll with the punch
of a shrivelling wave
and am cosmonaut
out past the fringe
of a basalt ledge
in a moony sea-hall
spun beyond blue.
Faint but definite
heat of the universe

flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push

an easy way through
would be dust or dew
in the world behind
if that mattered at all,
which is no longer true,
with its faces and cries.

Andrew Motion reads:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mnet-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mnet&p=Poems+by+Andrew+Motion#id=1&vid=5d3ea257898b7007632e87fc537195b0&action=click

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A Writer's Moment: Living Life 'On The Wide Side'

A Writer's Moment: Living Life 'On The Wide Side': “Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.   Love is the best school...

Living Life 'On The Wide Side'

“Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.  Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.” – Diane Ackerman

Born in October 1948, Ackerman is the author of the bestselling book on love, One Hundred Names for Love, also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.   And, of course, she authored The Zookeeper’s Wife (also made into a popular movie) and A Natural History of the Senses, adapted into a 5-part NOVA television series called “The Mystery of the Senses.”    Not to be categorized in any way, she also penned The Human Age, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award (in the Natural History Literature category).

A native of Pennsylvania, Ackerman earned her Bachelor’s degree in English from Penn State University then went on to earn 3 degrees, including a Master of Fine Arts and a Ph.D., from Cornell University.     In addition to her many books, she has written essays and stories for magazines and journals around the globe, taught at several colleges and universities, and done wide-ranging poetic explorations of the natural world.

“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it,” she said about her seemingly boundless energy.   “I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

  

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A Writer's Moment: Don't Lump People Together

A Writer's Moment: Don't Lump People Together: “I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make gene...

Don't Lump People Together

“I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations about groups of people.” – Mark Haddon

Born in Northampton, England in the fall of 1962, Haddon is a novelist and poet, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (also made into an award-winning Broadway play).  The book won the Whitbread Award, the Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award, the Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Although written from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome, Haddon claimed that this was the first book that he wrote intentionally for an adult audience.  He said he was surprised when his publisher suggested marketing it to both adult and child audiences, and it’s had phenomenal success with both audiences. 

While he has now written 5 best-selling adult books – including this year’s The Porpoise – Haddon said he still loves writing for youth, many of which he also has illustrated.  But, he said a book for kids has to stand up to incredible scrutiny.

“If kids like a picture book, they're going to read it at least 50 times,” he said.  “Read anything that often, and even minor imperfections start to feel like gravel in the bed.”

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A Writer's Moment: Feeling It In Your Bones

A Writer's Moment: Feeling It In Your Bones: “You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bones? Sometimes whe...

Feeling It In Your Bones

“You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bones? Sometimes when I'm writing, I can feel my bones vibrating because I'll have a thought or I'll have a character's voice in my head, and that's when I know I'm on the right track.” – Laurie Halse Anderson

 

Born in Potsdam, NY on this date in 1961, Anderson is the award-winning author of numerous children's and young adult novels for which she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her contributions to young adult literature. 

Among her best-known and most honored books are Speak, Wintergirls, and the 3-book Seeds of America or Chain series.  She also has authored a 17-volume Vet Volunteers series and is an advocate for veterans.

While she grew up enjoying reading and writing, she always looked upon it as a hobby until after her graduation from Georgetown University.  After beginning writing as a journalist, she switched to children’s picture books, then gravitated to the Young Adult genre, which has been her primary focus since 1999.   She is noted as writing on “tough topics” softened by humor.

“If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet,” Anderson said. 

“The feedback I get is that my books are honest. I don't sugar-coat anything. Life is really hard.”

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A Writer's Moment: Supporting And Leading 'The Moral High Ground'

A Writer's Moment: Supporting And Leading 'The Moral High Ground': “I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but th...

Supporting And Leading 'The Moral High Ground'

“I get a lot of moral guidance from reading novels, so I guess I expect my novels to offer some moral guidance, but they're not blueprints for action, ever.”– Ursula K. Le Guin

Le Guin, born on this date in 1929, sandwiched a terrific writing career around raising a family and writing about and supporting dozens of causes that in their own right helped create a moral high ground.

Primarily a writer of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guin authored novels, children's books and short stories, and was cited as a major influence on other successful writers like Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, and Neil Gaiman.  Her writing was honored with the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards – each more than once – and in 2014 she was named for the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.     Le Guin died in 2018.

                                  “The task of science fiction is not to predict the future,” she once wrote.   “Rather, it contemplates possible futures. Writers may find the future appealing precisely because it can't be known, a black box where ‘anything at all can be said to happen without fear of contradiction from a native. The future is a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas in, a means of thinking about reality, a method.’”

A big part of her success, she said, was due to the fact that she never preached to her readers.  “I don't write tracts, I write novels,” she said.  “I'm not a preacher, I'm a writer of fiction.”

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