Surely, She Doesn’t Mean Our Slushpile
The wonderfully acerbic and incredibly informative Miss Snark describes three nitwit queries that came over her transom. Certainly, none of our readers would make such a mistake, but these provide a good reminder of what not to do when querying an agent. They’re also pretty damn funny. Claims of being the fist novel to explore…
continue readingInspiration from the Dead
Most of us have our own methods for seeking inspiration and story ideas. Some of us take notes in bars, some of us look for funny news items in the paper, and some of us utilize writing exercises to jump-start our imagination. But Bernice McFadden listens to the dead. The author writes an essay…
continue readingBountiful Publishing Opportunities on eBay
For anyone out there with dreams of becoming the next Maxwell Perkins or maybe Charles Scribner, there are plenty of acquisition opportunities on eBay right now. For $700,000 you can purchase the copyrights for “three books. They are books on 9/11/2001. A story of courage under fire. One book is on domestic violence. A tragedy that…
continue readingVollman Goes Batty
The fine folks over at The Bat Segundo Show scored a major interview with literary genius William T. Vollman. Vollman discussed a wide range of topics including Copernicus, the relationship between religion and science, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Ptolemy, Intelligent Design, Iraq, live lived according to the “cash nexus” versus life in other countries, the Bush Administration as…
continue readingWhen Did Jesse Helms Move to Hollywood?
I’m confused. Or maybe I’m just a bumpkin. But I thought Hollywood was liberal. The Kerry-Edwards ticket defeated Bush-Cheney in the state of California by more than 1.2 million votes. Presumably, much of that came from Los Angeles and Hollywood. British media outlet The Guardian reported that more than 1,500 Hollywood residents “from all walks of…
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