NSSM: “The Birds for Christmas”
In honor of National Short Story Month, I’m thinking about Mark Richard’s “The Birds for Christmas.” I recently finished Richard’s new memoir House of Prayer No 2 and some of the scenes in there are clearly familiar to anyone who had read “The Birds.” My first experience with this great short story came from Mark…
continue readingNational Short Story Month Launches
I’ve been in full-time nonfiction mode recently. So what little reading I’ve been able to do has been of the factual variety. But I’ve been longing to dive back into made up worlds. And National Short Story Month provides the perfect excuse to revisit some old favorites and to hopefully discover some new voices that…
continue readingSheen’s $10 Million Book?
Various outlets picked up a where Charlie Sheen is writing a memoir that he thinks might be worth $10 million. Presumably, he is writing the text himself and there hasn’t been any word of a ghostwriter being involved. But for the sake of our discussion, let’s hypothetically assume that a co-author or ghostwriter were brought…
continue readingAre Bad Reviews Better than No Reviews?
Here’s an interesting article that says Stanford researchers believe bad book reviews may help lesser known authors. The key point here is that researchers “looked at the effects bad publicity had in well-known and obscure books over time. Some subjects looked at glowing and negative reviews for a well-known book by John Grisham and reviews…
continue readingLiterary Sunday Nights
I often complain about how everyone in the world who achieves a level of fame in this country gets to write (or co-author) a book. Win the Super Bowl, get a book deal. Sleep with a politician, get a book deal. Star in a reality show, get a book deal. The vast majority of time,…
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