Tag Archives: books

What Are You Reading?

Photo by Serge Melki

As July slowly but surely starts to brown around the edges, it’s time to catch up with you, my fellow book lovers, and find out what’s been on your reading tables 0f late. As we all know, the most highly anticipated and controversial book this summer is Fudgin’s Doesn’t Not Play Nice, by P.I.X. Gwantonomous. But there’s been so much press and social chatter about it already, I won’t drag us down that rabbit hole.

But how about the second most highly anticipated and controversial book released this summer? Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman. Have you read it? Are you going to? I’ve read a few reviews and despite the lukewarm response it still piques my interest. But I’m a little queasy about buying a book that it’s dementia-addled author may have been coerced into publishing. Do I want to finance her exploitation? Am I being too precious about this? You tell me.

Anyway, in the past month I’ve read Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, and The World According to Garp, by John Irving. Both books are great reads and rather topical; Ready Player One because 1980’s pop culture will never, ever, ever die, and Garp because it includes a zany but honest and humane exploration of a transgender celebrity.

At the moment and in anticipation of my attending the annual SCBWI Summer Conference, I’ve currently got my nose in The Diviners, by Libba Bray. To my knowledge, Ms. Bray isn’t scheduled to be at the conference, but her agent Barry Goldblatt is and I’d really like to talk with him. On the horizon there’s some intriguing nonfiction for me to get to, like Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils, and H Is For Hawk, by Helen Macdonald.

So that’s my book business, what are you reading these days?

LA Times Festival of Books! Day Two

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Photo by Carolyn Kraft

Back again and better late than never with another field report from the LA Times Festival of Books. The magnanimity continued on the second and final day of LATFOB’s 20th anniversary. Well done, folks!

Here’s a few pearls of conversation from the author panels I attended:

“Families are like their own civilizations.”

“A lot of the times I’m writing I feel like an actor; I have to feel the emotions.”

“I had kids smoking, getting drunk, and my editor’s worried about the scene where they aren’t wearing their seatbelts.”

“A writer’s only responsibility is to tell the truth.”

“If I want to know how great I am I call my mother; if I want to know the truth, I call my brother.”

“I’m always taken aback when people [who know I’m a YA author] ask me when I’m going to write a ‘real’ book.”

“People have suggested that hackers and artists are exactly alike.”

“Quality relationships allow for the right amount of solitude and the right amount of connection.”

“The digital revolution has undercut our need for expertise and professionalism.”

“I’m on board with the digital revolution being frightening, but I’m not so nostalgic about what we’re leaving behind.”

“All these media outlets want to ‘pay’ for your writing by promising exposure; exposure is just a way people die out in the cold.”

“Technology is whatever has been invented since you were born.”

“Why can’t we have a platform that actually benefits the people who use it?”

“Every time I hear how I am as a writer I want to rebel against it.”

“Most of what happens to human beings is funny; humor in stories is integral, it’s not a condiment.”

WHO SAID THIS STUFF: Jandy Nelson, David Arnold, Carrie Arcos, Arnold, Robin Benway, Nelson, Vikram Chandra, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Scott Timberg, Chandra, Jacob Silverman, Chandra, Silverman, Amelia Gray, Jonathan Lethem

LA Times Festival of Books! Day One

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Photo by Carolyn Kraft

One week after a great day at YALLWEST, I was off to the annual LA Times Festival of Books! It was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire for those of us who love being burned alive. By books. By writing. By mangling a shopworn adage into a tough leathery bit on which to chomp so as to contain our excitement and not draw the attention of USC Campus Security.

Anyway…

Congrats to LATFOB for celebrating 20 amazing years! Once again it was a privilege to attend, and as always the panel discussions I sat in on were nothing short of compelling and provocative. Did you go? What was the highlight for you?

Here’s a taste of what I heard on Day One:

“I thought I’d like to start a story with someone getting decapitated on a roller coaster, which I did. It’s on page 3.”

“I feel like it’s possible to fall deeply in love while also grieving a great loss.”

“What we remember about the books we love are the characters.”

“I’m an evangelist for fiction.”

“A big part of my writing process is forgiving myself.”

“Write what obsesses you.”

“To be a successful writer you have to be extremely disciplined.”

“Every book is a different labyrinth that somehow I have to get to the center of.”

“How do you learn to write a novel? You read a lot of them and then you write one.”

“I write so much because I’m hyperactive. I have the metabolism of a weasel. I have to eat my body weight every day.”

“There are probably 300 writers in America who make a full-time living from writing.”

“You owe it to yourself to be a big supporter of independent bookstores.”

“We have to practice and behave in the literary world we want to live in. We have to be good literary citizens.”

“I think we’ll look back on this time as a golden age of fiction.”

“I have a weird memory; I remember all of my parents’ license plates.”

“It’s more fun to draw something horrible and ugly.”

“New Yorker cartoons are like a magazine within the magazine.”

“People told me that when I went through the process of selling my parents’ house all the questions I had about who they were would be answered. But there was nothing; it was like they were spies.”

“The mistakes and the problems can become the greatest thing in the book.”

“You just have to draw a lot and then eventually you die.”

WHO SAID THIS STUFF: Robyn Schneider, Emery Lord, Meg Wolitzer, T.C. Boyle, Lord, Wolitzer, Sarah Dessen, Lord, Boyle, Boyle, Stephen Morrison, Sandra Dijkstra, Dan Smetanka, Morrison, Roz Chast, Mimi Pond, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Kaplan, Chast

A Day At YALLWEST

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Hard to tell from my crappy photo but yes, the first annual YALLWEST festival was held this past weekend in Santa Monica!

An offshoot of YALLFEST, this was a gathering of high-profile YA and Middle Grade authors, agents and editors coming together to connect directly with fans and to celebrate writing and reading teen literature.

I checked out the festivities on Saturday, attended a few panel discussions, and thought I’d share what struck me at what I hope will become an annual event:

“The first time I read you is probably in an email.”

“A writer should be able to capture the essence of her book in a single, elegant sentence.”

“The toughest times I’ve ever had is when I went against my gut.”

“You can publish anything regardless of what’s trending if the book is great and you can convince your team to believe in it.”

“Are we done with gay teen witches?”

“Publishers want to buy stories they can build on.”

“Writers these days need to engage directly with their readers because their readers expect it.”

“Don’t go to law school.”

“It was called the ‘Taco Bell of books’ ”

“So much of creative success is luck and timing.”

“Every ‘failed’ manuscript made me a better writer.”

“Can you imagine if everyone gave you instant feedback on everything you did every day? You’d never leave the house.”

“Writing is like a Roomba.”

“Writing is like a glass of wine: it makes sense when you start but then it all goes downhill and you should probably just sleep it off and hope that when you wake up it makes sense again.”

“Sometimes I’ll just find myself sobbing outside on the porch.”

“Science fiction and fantasy stories are a great way to talk about the present but with a protective gauze.”

“I can’t write with too much ‘genre’ in mind.”

“Writing is inefficient.”

“The inner voice is raw and impolite.”

“The YA authors I know whose work is banned are the nicest white women.”

“I choose to be ignorant of the people who might be vastly misinterpreting my work on Goodreads.”

“The YA writing community is amazingly tight. It’s a small world.”

“Kids are afraid to be their authentic selves. They think they have to be something they’re not.”

“An administrator once told me they only have ‘2% reduced lunch’ at their school and I’ve come to realize that ‘reduced lunch’ means ‘black.’ ”

“The number one thing that kids need to know: ‘You are not alone.’ ”

“We cannot underestimate the emotional intelligence of teenagers.”

“What we’re trying to do is find a voice in order to show as realistic a portrait of young people as we can. We need to be patient to find that voice.”

WHO SAID THIS STUFF: Richard Abate, Jennifer Besser, Sarah Burnes, Barry Goldblatt, Emily Meehan, Julie Scheina, Erin Stein, Jo Volpe, a smirking teen in the crowd, Brendan Reichs, Melissa de la Cruz, Lisi Harrison, Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Roth, Coe Booth, Greg Neri, Lauren Oliver, Rachel Cohn, Ally Condie, Susan Ee, Ellen Hopkins, Ransom Riggs, Carrie Ryan, Alex Morel, Madeleine Roux, John Corey Whaley, Aaron Hartzler

LA Times Festival of Books 2014 – What Struck Me

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Photo by Carolyn Kraft

Did you make it out to last weekend’s LA Times Festival of Books? Tell me about your experience. Go on. Which booths did you visit, which food trucks? What panels did you see, and how many books did you buy? Me: Upteen booths, zero food trucks, seven panels ranging from YA novels to Goodreads to literary agents to B.J. Novak talking about his debut story collection.

And only ONE book purchased.

Say wha? Yes, that’s correct, one book, but you pack the wallop of five books don’t you, Tenth of December, by George Saunders.

Anywho, what has become something of a spring tradition here on the blog, I’ve transcribed some of the comments that struck me from this year’s festival author panels, and a few conversational nuggets I picked up while traversing the USC campus. Enjoy:

“Ghost stories often wrestle with very poignant moral questions.”

“I’ve been trying to have a ghost experience for 25 years.”

“What is going on with me at the time I’m writing ends up in the book–as long as it rings true emotionally.”

“Walking plays a key part in my writing process.”

“I read all of my writing to my dog.”

“If you’ve written something that you think is as good as the writers you aspire to be, then it’s probably over for you.”

“As long as we have feelings we have potential for stories.”

“Every book is like starting over every time.”

“If you write every day and read every day, you open yourself up to stories unconsciously and consciously.”

“We can really only read the best stories as a child and adult simultaneously.”

“I don’t want to write stories for children that read like they were written for children.”

“I write books to deal with the problems that I have.”

“I don’t like being labeled ‘YA’. I don’t even know what a ‘Young Adult’ writer is.”

“You told the biggest possible story in the smallest possible way.”

“I write about teenagers; if they choose to read the books that’s great.”

“Getting the reader to love the character is the trick.”

“I didn’t wait until I was an adult to write for teens because I needed the emotional distance; I waited because I needed the skills.”

“Writing is self-seduction and I think it’s important to indulge that.”

“A combination of coffee and shame motivates me.”

“Steven Spielberg said it’s important to make your office the best place in your house so that you’ll always enjoy being there.”

“I’ll just give you my gun and when you find the food trucks fire off a few rounds.”

“Readers are the most sociable folk when they aren’t being antisocial.”

“Genre is the gateway drug to wider literature.”

“Raw denim jeans.”

“There’s a lot more to life than being a writer; being a dedicated reader is a great thing too.”

“A little bit of research goes a long way: an ounce of research can produce half a pound of fiction.”

“I met a writer who wanted to do a book about 1-900 numbers.”

“We want to hold you to your own best standards.”

Who said this stuff: John Boyne; Ransom Riggs; Francesca Lia Block; Jonathan Auxier; E. Lockhart; Rainbow Rowell; John Corey Whaley; Andrew Smith; B.J. Novak; a hungry, frustrated cop; Patrick Brown; David Kipen; Michelle Meyering; Betsy Amster; T. Jefferson Parker

Trust Me, Said The Unreliable Narrator

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Photo by Erling Mandelman

Reading the novel & Sons by David Gilbert has me musing about one of my favorite literary techniques: the unreliable narrator.

The book follows the story of the famous but reclusive author A.N. Dyer, a seventy-nine year old self-described failure as a father who calls his estranged sons back home to New York City. The treat here, and what gives the novel its edge, is that the narrator is Philip Topping, son of A.N. Dyer’s oldest (and recently deceased) best friend. Philip literally and literally inserts himself into the lives of the Dyer family and tells us things that he has witnessed and that he may have heard secondhand, and then proceeds to relay with conviction what he cannot possibly know: the inner thoughts, feelings, and intimate histories of Dyer the author, his sons, and even his ex-wife. Topping is actually upfront about it, suggesting early on that he’s guilty of “narrative fraud.”

But what is his agenda? Halfway through he’s already dropped more than a few hints and clues, but I’m eagerly anticipating a fuller picture by book’s end.

So what about this idea of unreliable narrators? A story is already a lie in a way, and an unreliable narrator suggests another (I wager more profound) layer of deceit. I love the notion that as readers when we open a book we automatically go along with the fiction, the lie, that this story is “true” in the context of the world the author has created. The trust between reader and writer is inherent. But what happens when the narrator-character telling the story does something that makes us question the validity of the tale? That unsettling feeling we’re in shifty hands. Alert, the author says, we’re going to have to be sharp here.

Unlike & Sons an unreliable narrator often takes his time in giving himself away, revealing his ultimate aim. He’s usually betrayed by what he focuses on. Particular observations, attention to certain details, contradictions, a snowball’s effect of slip-ups that show us he is not who we first thought, that events have been tailored to show himself in a favorable (sympathetic) light. This is what I’m going after in my own novel.

It’s an approach that is definitely not for everybody. But it excites and engages another level of my reading brain. I like the challenge, the hunt, the tangle with a character who is troubled and possibly a danger to himself and others. Why else does a character craft his own reality but to disguise his pathologies?

So what about you, fellow reader? Do you prefer your literature more conventional, or do you go for something more elusive now and then?

Obligatory Halloween Blog Post

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Fahrenheit 451

I love books. As in actual, tangible, printed books. And recently I had the privilege of roaming a particular bookstore spanning an entire city block, a literary mecca four floors high teeming with over a million books standing strong on twelve foot shelves.

Powell’s City of Books, Portland, Oregon. So nice to see you again.

And now, (commencing obligatory Halloween portion) I imagine for a moment this mighty vessel of ideas empty, a dusty, ghostly warehouse where bumps in the night compete with hot, hissing rat droppings; or worse, a space where imagination and creativity once ruled transmogrified into an Urban Home or Duvets Unlimited or wherever the undead mass-consumers converge these days.

Because, apparently, there’s a spooky future out there where the printed book is extinct.

Okay, okay, it’s hyperbole, maybe, but reading this article from Publisher’s Weekly about major publishers rethinking their commitment to printed books took me to a dark place.

As a writer trying to get published traditionally, as in an analog Bryan Hilson book on the shelf in a bricks-and-mortar store, this is not welcome news. There are financial implications as well, which the above article gets into, but here I’m going to approach the issue as a reader.

I’m no technophobe, I’ve got a Nook (and a Kindle, egads!) but to me there are few greater pleasures than losing one’s self inside a bookstore, encountering, picking up, and flipping through paper pages, not your computer/tablet/smart phone’s best approximation of such. Seriously, browsing on the internet is not even close to a real shopping experience. Even at Duvets Unlimited.

How do you feel about this, fellow readers? Are you okay with physical bookstores (and maybe even libraries?) becoming a thing of the past? Do you accept that all things media inevitably will exist solely as digitized goods? Or are you ready to raise up your hardcovers and reading lights in defense of these invaluable institutions?

Some scary things to consider, my friends. Happy Halloween.

What Are You Reading?

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Although not as exciting as lurking outside your windows and occasionally peeking in to see what you’re reading, it’s easier to just put the question to you in blog form. So here goes: What are you reading these days? Fiction, non-fiction, biography, memoir, comics, tech manuals, graffiti, tea leaves?

While you think about it, here’s what I’m reading at the moment: This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time, Canada by Richard Ford, and last but not least, Putting Circles Into Squares For Dummies, by Advarious Starch. I imagine most of you also have a few books going at the same time. A different book for a different mood, right? Sometimes I’m dreaming about Canada and sometimes about setting wheels on fire.

Are you looking forward to any upcoming releases this fall? I am. Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Salinger by Shane Salerno and David Shields (in support of the Salinger documentary coming out next month, which also looks pretty enticing) and of course, Funk in the Trunk: A Mongoose Fingus Mystery, by Tiara Loo.

So then, pretend I’ve got my nose pressed up against the glass outside your reading room while you’re curled up in your favorite chair, lost in a good book. What titles would I see in there before you call the police?

Festival of Books 2013 – What Struck Me Part 2

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Photo by Carolyn Kraft

That’s right, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is simply too magnanimous to contain itself to one day. Did you go? What struck you about the event? Here’s the writerly wisdom and wit I collected on Day 2, with a few snippets of conversation I couldn’t help but overhear:

“When I get drunk I get more affectionate.”

“Writing is very intuitive. Sometimes we know something’s wrong in a story but not how to fix it.”

“An influential pastor in Princeton, New Jersey circa 1905 once said ‘We do not entertain any new ideas here.'”

“Theodore Roosevelt was often considered a traitor to his class–meaning he wasn’t a bigot.”

“She went to his wedding even while she has having an affair with him.”

“Genre writing is pleasing for a literary writer.”

“Historical fiction is always about the present as well as the past.”

“Literature is a way of evoking sympathy.”

“Writing is crystallized improvisation.”

“When I say books you say books! Books! Books! Books! Books!”

“It’s important that the reader doesn’t know everything about the character but suspects that the author does.”

“When I say past you say tense. Past! Tense! Past! Tense!

“I’m into being interesting.”

“When I say Voyage of the Dawn Treader you say C.S. Lewis. Voyage of the Dawn Treader!…”

“Kurt Vonnegut is the original YA author.”

“I started writing at 7 or 8 years old and I was awesome. All of my sexy vampire stories were published under the pseudonym ‘Anne Rice.'”

“That sounds like diarrhea.”

“Books on writing make the invisible visible.”

“There’s always more to say about verbs.”

“Bad writing reveals what we don’t know.”

“The way writing is taught in the U.S. is completely wrong-headed.”

“The drama comes from the verb choice.”

“Recognizing your own habits and upending them is very refreshing.”

“As soon as I get comfortable with a draft, I must get suspicious of it.”

Progenitors of the quotes above include: two women sitting behind me in the Bovard Auditorium; woman in the shade near the YA Stage; Joyce Carol Oates; D.C. Pierson; Sean Beaudoin; Elizabeth Eulberg; Amy Spalding; Thomas Curwen; Constance Hale; Ben Yagoda

Festival of Books 2013 – What Struck Me Part 1

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Photo by Carolyn Kraft

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is always a great time, and this past weekend’s event did not disappoint. And how could it, really, with two full days on the beautiful USC campus where books and authors reigned supreme?

If you were there I’d love to hear about your experience. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of what struck me from Day 1’s author panels and, in a few instances, my own casual eavesdropping on some unsuspecting festival-goers:

“The music of the writing has to marry the story being told.”

“It’s a fun challenge to describe something from another art form.”

“Hell yes it’s an antiwar novel!”

“There’s a reason why 19-year olds are crazy. Whipsawed between raging hormones and the most profound existential questions in life.”

“My process is creative floundering. With this kind of work we have to create our own problems. That’s why writers are crazy.”

“I went nuclear on my publisher not to have a headless woman on the cover.”

“You shouldn’t be taken less seriously as writer because of your gender.”

“Endings are hard. There’s a significant amount of psychological pressure when you don’t know how the novel is going to end. But it’s also thrilling.”

“Flannery O’Connor said that she liked a story that was like a sandwich she eats on a Thursday and makes her sick on a Saturday. It’s got to stay with you.”

“There is no time in the psychological.”

“When you’re looking for feedback on something you need a reader who will accept the story on its own terms, who won’t try to impose on it their idea of what a story should be.”

“Stuff: In the end it doesn’t mean anything.”

“The only you fail to make something better is by not trying.”

“We can’t help but remake ourselves constantly. Have to really work at being stuck.”

“Fortune-telling: Sometimes we want to invest someone with the authority to tell us what we already know.”

“You never know what in your life you’re going to use in a book.”

“Characters who are omnipotent ruin the hell out of your plot.”

“I like to be the writer, the reader, and the character simultaneously.”

“Isabel Allende said writing is lonely; it’s the response that reconnects you to the world.”

“You can visit a country by reading its folktales.”

“Why did they give the new Star Wars movie to J.J. Abrams? I know exactly what that movie is going to be, I don’t need to see it. They should have given it to someone like Eli Roth to direct.”

“The idea that terrifies you the most, that’s the story to write.”

“Writing is not a choice. It’s like I have no choice but to write.”

“Michael Bay is actually our greatest independent director.”

“A writer has to be willing to torture his characters.”

“A story is like a piano: a finite number of keys but an infinite number of melodies.”

“Writer’s block is really just the critical voice overwhelming the creative voice.”

Those quoted above include: a group of gently snarky USC students; Janet Fitch; Ben Fountain; Lauren Groff; Elizabeth Berg; Amity Gaige; Nalo Hopkinson; Gennifer Albin; Mark Frost; Cornelia Funke; Lauren Oliver; Lissa Price; Veronica Roth; Victoria Schwab