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Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Authors Guild, Richard Russo, Jennifer Egan, Roxana Robinson, David Streitfeld, Authors United, James Gleick, Nicholas Lemann, Bookselling, Authors, Amazon, American Booksellers Association, Book Biz, Association of Authors' Representatives, Annette Gordon-Reed, Judy Blume, Sherman Alexie, Douglas Preston, Add a tag
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Awards, Junot Diaz, Ian McEwan, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, Ben Fountain, Marilynne Robinson, Jeffrey Eugenides, Hilary Mantel, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jennifer Egan, Edward P. Jones, Add a tag
BBC Culture conducted a critics’ poll to select the “21st Century’s 12 greatest novels.” Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao captured the top spot.
The participating critics reviewed 156 books for this venture. Most of them named Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book as their number one pick.
The other eleven titles that made it include Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Did one of your favorites make it onto the list? (via The Guardian)
Add a CommentBlog: PowellsBooks.BLOG (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Emily Bronte, Philip Roth, David Mitchell, Emily St. John Mandel, Jennifer Egan, Julio Cortazar, Powell's Q&A, authorpod, Lars Iyer, Dan Chaon, John Edwar Williams, Add a tag
Describe your latest book. My new novel is called Station Eleven. It's about a traveling Shakespearean theatre company in a post-apocalyptic North America. The book moves back and forth in time between the years just before a devastating flu pandemic brings about the collapse of civilization as we know it, and a time 20 years [...]
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Videos, Twitter, TED Talks, Jennifer Egan, Elliot Holt, Andrew Fitzgerald, Add a tag
Andrew Fitzgerald, a member of Twitter’s news and journalism partnerships team, gave a TED Talk called “Adventures in Twitter Fiction.”
We’ve embedded the video above–have you ever shared a short story on Twitter? Here’s more about the TED Talk:
He showcased excerpts of “Twitter fiction done right” by authors like Elliot Holt, who spontaneously created a narrative through the Twitter accounts of her characters, and Jennifer Egan, who used @NYerFiction to create episodes of Black Box, a novel she storyboarded into 140-character pieces. Twitter, Fitzgerald said, is not just a means of publication but one of production, as is the case with parody accounts like the foul-mouthed, sci-fi version of Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, captured in @MayorEmanuel, or “fictional characters that engage the real world,” like the accounts of the entire cast of The West Wing.
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Add a CommentBlog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Isabel Allende, Ann Patchett, David Baldacci, Writer Resources, Sue Grafton, Susan Orlean, Jennifer Egan, Sebastian Junger, Meredith Maran, Add a tag
Why do you write? Author Meredith Maran asked 20 great writers that question, collecting their replies in her new collection, Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do.
On the Morning Media Menu today, Maran shared writing advice she learned while getting responses from Isabel Allende, David Baldacci, Jennifer Egan, Sebastian Junger and Ann Patchett.
Press play below to listen to the whole interview on SoundCloud. We’ve collected a few quotes from the interview as well…
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Add a CommentBlog: So many books, so little time (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: jennifer egan, Add a tag
I really admire Jennifer Egan, who has found so many ways to tell a story (including a chapter in her most recently book told by PowerPoint slides). She recently published a story, Black Box, that was told only through the New Yorker’s Fiction Twitter account.
Read more about her writing and Black Box here.
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Stephen King, Weekend Reading, Jennifer Egan, Add a tag
For your weekend reading pleasure, here are our top stories of the week, including Stephen King‘s upcoming mystery novel, Jennifer Egan‘s sci-fi story on Twitter and the trailer for the upcoming adaptation of the Les Miserables (embedded above).
Click here to sign up for GalleyCat’s daily email newsletter, getting all our publishing stories, book deal news, videos, podcasts, interviews, and writing advice in one place.
1. How to Share Books & eBooks with Our Troops
2. Free Sites to Promote Your eBook
3. Write a Novel This Summer with NaNoWriMo
4. Neil Gaiman Shares ‘Secret Freelancer Knowledge’ in Graduation Speech
5. 50 Shades of Grey Sales Bump: INFOGRAPHIC
6. Don’t Let the Writing Life Kill You
7. Stephen King: ‘We’re Going to Hold Off on e-Publishing This One’
8. Les Miserables Teaser Trailer Released
9. Book Cover Design Resources for Self-Published Authors
10. Jennifer Egan to Publish Sci-Fi Story on Twitter
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Add a CommentBlog: Nathan Bransford (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: E-books, Culture, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, End of Publishing As We Know It, Add a tag
It seems like hardly a week goes by without one literary writer or another hyperbolically decrying the way we're all going to hell in an electronic handbasket.
First Jonathan Franzen argued that e-books are damaging society and suggested that all "serious" readers read print.
Last week Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan complained of social networking, "Who cares that we can connect? What’s the big deal? I think Facebook is colossally dull. I think it’s like everyone coming to live in a huge Soviet apartment block, [in] which everyone’s cell looks exactly the same."
Zadie Smith has written of Facebook: "When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose our bodies, our messy feelings, our desires, our fears. It reminds me that those of us who turn in disgust from what we consider an overinflated liberal-bourgeois sense of self should be careful what we wish for: our denuded networked selves don’t look more free, they just look more owned."
This of course comes on the heels of Ray Bradbury complaining in 2009: "They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’ It’s distracting. It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere."
And of course there's a long and storied history of writers eschewing technology and returning to nature, such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I don't have any stats to prove this definitively, and to be fair, there are some modern literary writers who definitely embrace tech. Colson Whitehead is tremendous on Twitter and wrote reminded everyone that the Internet isn't the reason you haven't finished your novel. Susan Orlean, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood and others have embraced Twitter.
But doesn't it seem like there's some nexus between literary writers and technophobia? Are literary writers more likely to fear our coming robot overlords and proudly choose an old cell phone accordingly (if they have one at all)? Do they know something we don't?
Even when a writer really does use tech as either an artistic mode of expression or as a relentless self-promotion engine (or both), like Tao Lin, he's derided (or praised, depending on one's POV) as "a world-class perpetrator of gimmickry."
Have lit writers become our resident curmudgeons? Or are they just like any other cross-section of the population? Is it tied to deeper fear of the transition in the book business? Is it just not interesting to think new stuff is cool?
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Neil Gaiman, Alison Bechdel, Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Lethem, Ann Patchett, Jennifer Egan, Barbara Ehrenreich, Occupy Wall Street, Samuel R. Delaney, Add a tag
So far, 224 writers have signed a new Writers in Support of the Occupy Movement petition. What do you think?
The petition is composed of a single sentence: “We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world.” So far, the petition has virtual signatures from Alison Bechdel, Samuel R. Delaney, Jennifer Egan, Barbara Ehrenreich, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Lethem, Ann Patchett, Salman Rushdie and many other authors. You can sign at the bottom of the page.
Earlier today, Occupy Wall Street activists braced for a possible eviction, but the city decided to postpone the scheduled cleaning. (Via Sarah Weinman & Bookforum)
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Add a CommentBlog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Music, Colson Whitehead, Jennifer Egan, Erin Morgenstern, Spotify Playlists, Add a tag
Both Knopf and Doubleday and have joined Spotify, building hand-picked music lists for their authors. The site includes a number of playlists, including one by Colson Whitehead, Erin Morgenstern, Jennifer Egan.
Follow this link to get a Spotify invite for the free service. We also recommend you check our “How to Control Your Facebook Apps” post to make sure you are happy with your privacy settings. We’ve already built “12 Spotify Playlists for Writers.”
Here’s more about Whitehead’s playlist for Zone One: “The undead take Manhattan in this literary and literal feast from award-winning author Colson Whitehead. The author selected these 10 songs to set the scene for his postmodern meditation on exterminating zombies in Manhattan.” (Via K.B. Abele)
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Add a CommentBlog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Authors, Writer Resources, Jennifer Egan, Add a tag
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan has published a new 300-word short stort story at the Guardian–a dark and suspenseful tale told entirely through a “To Do” list.
Egan has experimented with writing modes for years. Her critically acclaimed novel A Visit from the Goon Squad included a section written as a PowerPoint presentation. You can see the slideshow here.
Above, we’ve embedded a video shot during Egan’s presentation at BEA 2010 about PowerPoint fiction. Egan spoke at the 7x20x21 event that year, a discussion curated by Ryan Chapman and Ami Greko.
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Add a CommentBlog: First Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Philanthropy, Goodreads, Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, First Book Partners, Goodreads Book Club, Add a tag
Last week we were happy to announce that First Book joined forces with Goodreads, one of the largest online communities of readers, to bring more books to more children this summer.
This summer the Goodreads community will be reading ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’, by Jennifer Egan, to kick off their new Goodreads Book Club. For every 10 members of the Goodreads community who add this title to their shelves on the site, Goodreads will donate 1 book to kids in need through First Book.
We are happy to announce that the participant count is now at 32,613, closing in on 33,000. We would love to get to the 40,000 mark so that we can donate 4,000 books to kids in need. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to help First Book get books to kids, this is it! Goodreads members simply have to add the book to any shelf. (For folks who are new to Goodreads, registration is easy, quick, and completely free.)
Join the the book club and help us get books to kids!
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Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Clubs, illiteracy, Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad, Publishing, Trends, charity, First Book, Goodreads, Add a tag
Goodreads has partnered with First Book, a charity group whose mission is to make sure children who reside in low-income communities are able to have access to books. Together, these two organizations will be fighting illiteracy using the Goodreads Book Club.
Every time 10,000 Goodreads members add A Visit From the Goon Squad to their shelves, the organization promises to donate 1,000 books. So far, 25,000 members have added the book. If another 5,000 members follow, then Goodreads will provide 3,000 books.
Here’s more from the site’s blog post: “Our initial goal is to donate 5,000 books—which means we need 50,000 people to add A Visit From The Goon Squad by August 2, when the Book Club concludes with a live video chat with author Jennifer Egan. If more than 50,000 people add the book before the end date, we will honor our pledge and donate up to 10,000 books!”
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Add a CommentBlog: First Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Goodreads Book Club, Books & Reading, Authors & Illustrators, Video, First Book, Goodreads, Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, First Book Partners, Add a tag
We’re excited to announce that First Book has joined forces with Goodreads, one of the largest online communities of readers, to bring more books to more children this summer.
This summer the Goodreads community will be reading ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’, by Jennifer Egan, to kick off their new Goodreads Book Club. (It’s an incredible book; it was recently awarded both the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and the National Book Critics Circle Award).
For every 10,000 members of the Goodreads community who add this title to their shelves on the site, Goodreads will donate 1,000 books to kids in need through First Book. That may sound like a lot of people, but it turns out there are a whole bunch of people on Goodreads. 25,000 people have already added this title, so we’re up to 2,000 donated books right out of the gate. Woot!
But we’d love to get that number much, much higher, so if you’re on Goodreads, please read (and add) ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’, and see what all the richly-deserved fuss is about. And if you’re not on Goodreads, go sign up! It’s free and it’s a huge, interesting community of people who love books. Plus there are quite a few First Book staffers on there already, and we’d love to talk about our favorite books with you.
Add a CommentBlog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: 1book140, Apex Hides the Hurt, Jeff Howe, Super Sad True Love Story, The Blind Assassin, The Keep, Neil Gaiman, Snow, Catcher in the Rye, Readers, Colson Whitehead, American Gods, Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, Twitter, Book Clubs, Margaret Atwood, J.D. Salinger, Orhan Pamuk, The Atlantic, One Book One Twitter, Jennifer Egan, Gary Shteyngart, Add a tag
Jeff Howe has partnered with The Atlantic to relaunch the online book club, One Book, One Twitter.
Howe explained in the announcement: “I’d always intended to relaunch One Book, One Twitter … It has a new name—1book140—but what hasn’t changed is the global, participatory nature of the affair: The crowd is still in charge.”
Twitter readers will choose the book to read in the online book club. You can still vote on the following titles: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Snow by Orhan Pamuk, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, and Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead. Reading will commence on June 1st.
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Add a CommentBlog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Add a tag
Nowadays he was huge—from medications, he claimed, both post-cancer and antidepressant—but a glance into his trash can nearly always revealed an empty gallon box of Dreyer’s Rocky Road ice cream. His red hair had devolved into a stringy gray ponytail. An unsuccessful hip replacement had left him with the lurching, belly-hoisting walk of a refrigerator on a hand truck. Still, he was awake, dressed—even shaven. The blinds of his loft were up and a tinge of shower humidity hung in the air, pleasantly cut by the smell of brewing coffee.
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Adaptation, Pulitzer Prize, Jennifer Egan, Goon Squad, HBO series, Jocelyn Hays Simpson, Michael London, Fiction, Authors, Add a tag
Jennifer Egan‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad will be adapted into a TV series by HBO.
International Creative Management negotiated the deal. Michael London and Jocelyn Hays Simpson will act as co-executive producers.
Fans of A Visit from the Goon Squad can look forward to this adaptation and Egan’s current project. In a Bookmunch interview, Egan revealed: “I’m actually working on a new piece now that involves a character from Goon Squad.”
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Add a CommentBlog: So many books, so little time (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: jennifer egan, carol shields, Add a tag
I loved <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307592839/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=aprilhenrymys-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307592839">A Visit from the Goon Squad</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=&l=as2&o=1&a=0307592839" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. There are some books you can imagine yourself writing; there are others that you know you could never write, not because you wouldn't want to, but because you don't have the sheer dizzying talent to write them. Goon Squad was one of those book for me. (For that matter, so was Egan's The Keep.) It’s written not only in first and third, but also in second person. It takes place in various times, including the 1980s and a rather scary future.
In January, I wrote her a note about how much I liked it and she even wrote me back a few weeks later. This week she won the Pulitzer. So I have corresponded with a Pulitzer-prize winner! And once, long ago, I interviewed Carol Shields, who also won the Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle Award, like Egan. She was a gracious and funny woman, and you can read our interview here: http://aprilhenrymysteries.com/writing/carole_shields.php (excuse the extra e on her name - must get Web master to remove it)!
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Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Croatia, Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name, iPad2, Add a tag
The iPad2 was my husband's gift to me—marketed weeks upon weeks in advance. "I don't need that," I kept saying. "It feels indulgent." But we run a communications business here, we need to know what is up, what can be done, what hasn't been done yet, and besides, he had to talk me into a Blackberry, too, and you don't now find me going out too often without that. Also besides, I've been saying for a long, miserable time that I need to spend less time in front of the computer and more time in a quiet place, a room or two away, reading and writing.
And so, the iPad2, which arrived a week ago, and which I have put to minimal, but interested use. I am a New York Times subscriber, for example, and so, by downloading the New York Times app, I can now sit with this glass tablet on my lap in the dark making no disturbing rustling noises while I read the reviews of such great books as Francisco Goldman's Say Her Name. I find it easier to read this way—my arms don't hurt, my eyes don't squint, and I can turn off the lamp beside my husband while he watches shows about fish, food, and war (sometimes he's lucky and all three things appear on one show at once). I'm reading my hometown paper this way as well, and when my subscription to the paper version of The New Yorker runs out, I may go iPad with that as well, though I don't know. I'm rather fond of my stacks of New Yorker stories, torn fresh from the bindings. Vanity Fair? Maybe.
I also, as readers of this blog know, downloaded Tina Fey's Bossypants and iPad2'ed it—the perfect book for this medium. As much as I loved Bossypants, I don't plan to ever teach it, do not need my scribbled marginalia as a guide to my first readerly reactions. I know that some sort of marginalia can be achieved via the iPad2, don't get me wrong. I'm just not interested in going there at this moment and rather suspect I'll never be. There's an art to making notes in books, and I like pen to paper. I also like, however, the extras the expanded iBook version of Bossypants afforded—more photos, an audio chapter, pretty cool flipping and bookmarking technology. I've just downloaded Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad as well as a guide to Croatia for my next iPad2 readings. I want to take Egan to Ithaca over Easter weekend and Croatia to Croatia, some time in June. I think of these books as traveling companions.
Finally, I've downloaded the PDF app that will allow me to iPad2-read my own manuscripts-in-progress. I've got two books I'm working on—a novel, nearly complete, and a memoir. I've worked to give myself enormous distance on the novel and reading it again on a new technology, following a final set of revisions, will, I think (I hope), allow me to see this book as a stranger might. That, at least, is what I'm going for.
My friend Karen, always so far ahead in matters of technology, does many things with her iPad that I don't know how to do—watch Netflix movies while exercising, say, or grading student papers. She's the real expert on this (as she is on most things). I'll become a smarter iPad2 user in time, I hope. But for now, to answer your questions:
I really like my iPad2.
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Awards, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen, Laura Miller, Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad, Andrew Womack, Add a tag
Today A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan has won the 2011 Tournament of Books at The Morning News–a round robin competition that pits books against books every March.
A team of literary judges decided each round of the competition, and all the judges voted on the final two books: Jonathan Franzen‘s Freedom and Egan’s novel. Egan earned nine votes; Franzen earned eight.
Andrew Womack concluded the contest with this vote: “How fortunate to find two books in the championship so comparable—both spanning decades (or beyond) and heavily centered on music. For me, this decision comes down to pacing, and Franzen is the Pink Floyd to Egan’s Sex Pistols; by the end of Freedom I couldn’t take another meandering guitar solo, while I was dazzled by how much Goon Squad packed into such a compact space.”
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Add a CommentBlog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Awards, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen, Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad, Andrew Womack, Add a tag
Today A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan has won the 2011 Tournament of Books at The Morning News–a round robin competition that pits books against books every March.
A team of literary judges decided each round of the competition, and all the judges voted on the final two books: Jonathan Franzen‘s Freedom and Egan’s novel. Egan earned nine votes; Franzen earned eight.
Andrew Womack concluded the contest with this vote: “How fortunate to find two books in the championship so comparable—both spanning decades (or beyond) and heavily centered on music. For me, this decision comes down to pacing, and Franzen is the Pink Floyd to Egan’s Sex Pistols; by the end of Freedom I couldn’t take another meandering guitar solo, while I was dazzled by how much Goon Squad packed into such a compact space.”
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Add a CommentBlog: So many books, so little time (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: jennifer egan, Add a tag
A Visit from the Goon Squad was one of the best books I read recently. It’s a marvel, written not only in first and third, but also in second person. It also bounces back and forth in time a lot - characters might be 40 in one chapter and 14 on the next. Part of it is even set in the future.
After I finished, I wrote the author, Jennifer Egan, a note, telling her how much I loved the book. (She also wrote The Keep, which I reviewed for the Oregonian and would again highly recommend.) I told her that each time I started a chapter in Goon Squad, I would try to orient myself and ask “Which now is it?” because each of the nows was equally valid, whether a chapter was set in the 1980s or even twenty years from our current now. I found that concept oddly comforting, because my friend [Lisa Madigan] was dying, and it was reassuring, somehow, to think that all the various times of her life, including so many when she was healthy and happy, were equally valid.
Anyway, if you love Jennifer Egan’s writing as much as I do, or if you simply want to know more about her, you’ll enjoy this long interview with her.
Interestingly, it looks like they are making a complete change for the paperback cover. I’m not sure I like the new one as well.
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: GalleyCat Reviews, Brad Watson, Jennifer Egan, Jaimy Gordon, Eric Puchner, Deborah Eisenberg, Awards, Mixtapes, free book, Add a tag
Today the PEN/Faulkner Foundation revealed the 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction nominees. Below, we’ve created a literary mixtape linking to free samples of all five novels.
The release has more information about the award: “The winner, who will receive $15,000, will be announced on March 15; the four finalists will receive $5,000 each. In a ceremony that celebrates the winner as ‘first among equals,’ all five authors will be honored during the 31st Annual PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library, located at 201 East Capitol Street, SE on Saturday, May 7, at 7pm.”
If you want more books, we made similar mixtapes linking to free samples of 2011 Edgar Awards finalists, the 2011 ALA Youth Media Awards winners, the 2011 Book Critics Circle Awards finalists, the Best Translated Books Longlist, the Believer Book Awards shortlist, and the Best Books of 2010.
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Add a CommentBlog: The Written Nerd (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: book reviews, Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad, Add a tag
A Visit from the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
(Knopf, June 9, 2010)
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Reading this book was a little like starting a conversation out of general politeness, and discovering that you're talking to someone you passionately want for a best friend.
Jennifer Egan -- full disclosure -- is a friend and customer of Greenlight Bookstore. I'd hosted her before for events at other stores, and chatted with her and her kids at Greenlight, but to my own detriment I had never actually read any of her fiction. (Even though, as often seems to happen, it seems in retrospect like obviously the sort of thing I would like: the smart but not overtly political feminism of Look At Me, the Gothic nested stories of The Keep, etc. -- good storytelling in the service of big ideas, or vice versa, without sacrificing the one for the other.) It seemed like now would be the time to pick her up, though, since we're hosting her launch party for the book on Wednesday. So I opened the intriguingly titled A Visit From the Goon Squad earlier this spring.
And found a new addition to my personal author pantheon.
As I wrote for our recent staff picks email, A Visit From the Goon Squad is ostensibly (and quite effectively) about the world of rock music, and the intersections of the realms of commerce and creativity (and the dysfunctional folks who inhabit both). But it's really about life on Earth, in all its heartbreaking and maddening and rich and loveable complexity. It's about the mistakes of each generation, about being young and growing up, about adventure and domesticity, about interconnectivity and isolation, and (especially) about the brutality and kindnesses of time.
And it doesn't hurt that it is structured in my favorite form: the novel as interlinked stories (cf. my pantheon authors David Mitchell, Charles Baxter, Joan Silber, and others). Some of those were published in the New Yorker -- trust me that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, though each story has its own poignant and complete miniature arc. One of them perfectly evokes being a young and foolish professional woman in New York City (ahem). One is written flawlessly from the perspective of a very young gay man, one about a record exec, several about the intersections of teenagers who have grown up too fast and adults who are not very grown-up at all. One is composed of a series of PowerPoint slides and is alarmingly literate and moving. San Francisco, Italy, and Arizona make appearances, as do the 1970s, the 1990s, and a near-future that is the most believable I think I've ever read (wait till you learn what a "pointer" is). The meaning of the title is illusive, but when it hit me it hit hard, and shaped my understanding of the project of the novel in the way the best titles can do.
And did I mention the damn thing is funny, too? Apparently Jennifer Egan is one of those rare authors who can quite literally do anything.
I have already seen Jennifer post-Goon Squad reading, and gotten out of the way my mumbled fangirl admiration. Luckily she seems as delighted at how it came out as her readers will, and is in fact the sort of kind and smart and idealistic and charming author that
If your books aren't hand copied in Latin by an order or Benedictine Monks, you're just phoning it in.
Great blog, Nathan. To answer your question, I think they are a tad cranky and will probably come around to the tech side of things. After all, I'm sure they all have cell phones, remote controls instead of antennas on their TV and probably even listen to I-tunes. LOL
Wow, those are some cranky pants writers!
I guess Gutenberg's press was high technology in his day.
And the internet is here to stay. How we use it is up to us.
Maybe it's just that writers are introverts by nature.
Maybe it's the loss of thoughtfulness that comes with technology?
Maybe it's because these authors don't have to join social networking--us newbies are required these days :-)
I embrace technology, but sigh when something new comes along (like Pininterest--come on, I just figured out how to work Facebook).
Ray Bradbury has since changed his mind. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/30/fahrenheit-451-ebook-ray-bradbury
People are always suspicious of the new thing. Just give them some time.
I think age might have something to do with it. A lot of the younger writers have embraced the technology, while some of the older ones used to doing things in a certain way or manner of writing for years are more averse to change - until someone gets around to explaining the benefits to them.
They'd better all change their minds or accept being very poor in ten years.
For me, in person socializing is much better than "chatting" on Facebook and so is holding a bound book in my hand better than reading an e-book. Being on the computer feels more like work - interacting with a person or a book is relaxing at least for me.
They are just bitter because they chipped their favorite quills on their monitors.
I still hold that college professors are the ones who are pushing back at technology. Refusing to use anything besides powerpoint, not sending out emails, etc.
But on the writer front, I'd say we're in transition. it's not that literary writers are completely averse to the idea of an online book world, but rather they are trying to get used to the idea. I mean, even the publishing world is still trying to adapt to the e-book. It'll just take some time for things to settle down again.
I don't completely disagree with the notion that there is some evil in technology. Or at least that technology makes it easier for people to do evil things.
On the other hand, I completely disagree about Facebook. I mean sure, the company and some of its policies aren't perfect, but it allows me to stay in touch with friends who live across the country with more ease than any other tool in history.
What do you think of Google's new Word Verification, Nathan? Have you had to use it yet?
I think some of these writers believe that the users of internet technology are not in their target market.
I am sure they're still getting used to the whole thing.
As a grad student in literature who is also an aspiring science fiction/fantasy author, as well as a high school English teacher and a technophile, I have often thought that the majority of "literary" writers have tremendous sticks up their rear ends. I rarely read the sort of self-important pedantry from "genre" writers that I do from the so-called "important literary figures," with the obvious exceptions Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, who still eschews the Internet and types his stories, last I heard, on a manual typewriter.
I think it comes from their need to think their work is something more than storytelling. If they don't convince themselves that they're doing something important, they might realize they're no better than TV writers, and then what would they do with their smug sense of superiority?
This also ties into our society's need to seperate stories between "Important Work" and "Entertainment," as if the two can't be the same. People who buy into this forget that Shakespeare was the pop culture of his time, and would doubtless be writing (brilliant) television today.
They're just chicken because they can see the end coming. Rather than dodge the knife coming for their neck like everyone else, they choose to stand firm and say "To hell with dodging. That's not real. Dodging isn't standing." Good riddance to all those dinosaurs.
I love Franzen, but he writes a book a decade and laughs all the way to the bank. Who on earth has that kind of a sweet deal? If I were him, or John Iriving, or any other authors who've found a great thing and have milked it for years, I'd be against technology, too.
When telephones first came out, there was a time that the boss did not dare use one. That was the work of his secretary. Twenty-five years ago I worked at a company where the CEO didn't have a computer, but everyone else did. Not his job.
With the evolution of each technology, the same comments were made. But there is an entire population out there that has never grown up without a cell phone or the internet. All of the books on my e-reader have saved at least one tree. I'd say that some say we're all going to have to wake up and small the Kindle, but by that time we'll probably start having books transmitted to the thought centers of our brain.
Bradbury sounds like a delightful grumpy old man in the quote you provided. "[The internet]'s not real. It's in the air somewhere." That's just brilliant.
I don't know... I feel like things are always going to change. It seems a bit pretentious to state that serious readers read print. I prefer print books to ebooks right now, but I know I'm still reading the same story as someone with a Kindle. I think.
This post made me think. Thank you.
I'm not sure the writers you've quoted here are all technophobes. They are specific in their comments and it is difficult to dismiss them out of hand even when one does embrace social networking as a medium for writers.
Facebook can be dull. And I found myself thinking about "looking owned" as Smith puts it. As for Franzen's comment about e-books, it is a larger question that he raises: taking the time to let work inhabit us as we read it. E-books don't necessarily preclude that but the idea that you have a battery life on the device you are using does, in fact, change the reading experience.
I see the same thing that these writers and that many commenters seem to acknowledge: when we embrace what is next, we have to consider if, when, and how to let go of what is. It may take a little time (as it did for Bradbury) or we may find ourselves looking at new kinds of writing that use the social media even as they use us. I think "420 Characters" by Lou Beach is a fine example of this, as is Margaret Atwood's use of Twitter.
I suspect that the real difference between "serious" writers who reject electronic media or appear to do so, is simply that they are more private people to begin with. And they have limited time. It helps all writers to consider how best to use that time and how best to connect.
The internet is the home of mass consumption and mass culture - the common denominator (sometimes the lowest common denominator) is what makes it big on the internet.
And that is not (typically) literary fiction. It's more of a niche market, these days, and is somewhat reliant on traditional forums that support it as important culture.
I think literary writers are probably a little fearful of the literary free-for-all of the internet, of being a small fish in a really big media pond. There's no Amanda Hocking self-pub success stories among literary writers, at least that I've heard of (though I'm sure there's a few doing well in this new market).
I think the old system supported literary fiction, both in terms of exposure and financial support. It was assured a place at the table. The new system? Nothing is guaranteed. And that's probably pretty scare at a time when mass culture seems to be moving ever further away from literary fiction (at least in North America).
Spot on. I don't presume ever to rank among the likes of the literary authors you quote here, but my manuscript is getting a healthy bunch of rejections from editors for being "too literary." As a result, I'm starting to consider the ebook route, although making sure to get proper editing along the way. But then folks make me doubt my idea, like the well-established and straight-talking agent I ran into the other day who, having read a couple of chapters from said manuscript, said: "Don't do an ebook. Only as a last resort. Your book is too good." That's flattering and all, but I wonder, how long are "literary" and "e", or technology, going to continue to look at each other askance from across some divide?
In 50 years it won't be an argument at all, the ones arguing will mostly be dead or too old to argue or care. Times change whether we want it to or not. Arguing about the lack of merit in it isn't going to make it go away. Embrace it or don't, but it's going to thrive and grow and someday we'll have computers in contact lenses and data pumped directly into our brains. And in 50 years, they'll be talking about how it was so much better when we were on Facebook.
Elizabeth, you bring up the point of battery life. Have you ever used an e-reader? Even with active reading and a lot of syncing, you will find it takes at least two weeks to drain their batteries. Normally the battery lifespan can be a month or more.
Heck, you'll usually change the batteries in your reading light far more often than that!
The batteries on e-readers don't in themselves mess with the reading experience.
What do I make of this? Facebook sucks. Smart people, some of whom are writers, recognize that. Twitter is much better, and smart people, some of whom are writers, recognize that. And as an unrelated note, some writers are iffy about ebooks.
I don't think I would lump all of this under "technophobic."
But seriously, Facebook is terrible. A terrible software, a terrible system.
I think there needs to be a balance. Sure, I love the convenience of e-books, but I still relish the smell and feel of a book in my hands.
And though some part of me agrees with with the comments made about social networking, I also have to note that if it weren't for Facebook and Twitter and the fact that everyone and their grandmother (literally) has quick access to publicly speak their mind, it has forced those of us who fancy ourselves clever to be that much cleverer.
As far as Colson Whitehead's comment about the internet keeping us from finishing our novels... I'm sorry, but I can find any numerous ways to distract myself from getting any writing done. But the internet did give me http://writeordie.com/ so I consider that a win.
Dude.
Tao Lin is lin-tastic.
Go Knicks.
Of course lumping them all together is dangerous and unfair, but I'm going to go with fear. And I can only say that because as a new author with my very first book hitting shelves in May, I am slightly terrified of the e-book business myself. Not that I haven't embraced it. I love my Kindle, but I do wonder just where we authors will be when the cookie does crumble.
I think, for a lot of people, there comes a point in life where "New" becomes synonymous with "Bad." You get comfortable enough in life and suddenly those things that come along and change it are no longer opportunities but threats. The status quo is more important when you have somethign to lose. This is why older generations look back on the younger generations and say "Those Damn Kids!" even though their parent's generations said the same thing of them.
I don't think it has as much to do with the culture of literary writers, especially since most of the writers you included are exactly young. Franzen and Egan are in their 50s. Zadie Smith is almost 40 (old enough to remember life before the Internet). David Foster Wallace would turn 50 in a few days if he were still around (how's that make you feel?).
I think it has more to do with finding comfort, which often leads to complacency which, in turn, can lead to a protectionist mindset.
How many up-and-coming literary writers are anti-tech? Phillip Roth will continue to get his checks with or without Twitter. The unknowns...they're more likely to see the benefits.
Technology, the Internet, Social Media and other New Fangled Things(tm) are just tools. They aren't good. They aren't bad. They just are. It's how we use these tools that give birth to good and bad outcomes. Like anything else in life, its where we choose to put our efforts and our time that make the difference.
I'd love to hear the literary crowd talk about THAT.
Great post, Nathan! Appreciated that you talked about this. And loved that you pointed out that "new stuff is cool".
Because it is!! :)
I think Bryan Russell nailed it. It's anxiety.
The changes in the book world are probably scary for some Lit writers.
I think they may fear that the democratization of books will push literary fiction into a very small corner or make it disappear altogether.
I would argue that literary fiction is already in a very small corner.
E-books will expand the book world tremendously, but there will still be a place for literary fiction, with it's artistry and innovation. Those who love it and award prizes, like the Nobel prize, as a small example, will keep it alive and thriving.
Literary fiction writers may also reach new audiences with the e-book, and they might make more money, too, so, they may find that they like the new book world once they get used to it.
I agree with F.T. Bradley. Writers are introverts, most of us, and certainly the older ones among us have a fondness for the touch and feel and smell of paper, a love of bookbinding and design, a sense of connection to history through the books we handle. So even if we are willing, out of need or desire, to publish our book in ebook form (guilty), we still feel guilty about it, as if we have cheated on our old friend, the book made of paper.
At least I do.
I haven’t read the articles you link to yet, but in response to this post I would point out that people who see themselves as intellectuals are often critical of what they see as popular--especially when, as in this case, the field from which they draw their identity is heading down a wildly popular but unpredictable path. All cultural shifts meet with derision, and even those of us who embrace certain changes might benefit from considering them with doubt as well as hopefulness. (After all, as things change, we always gain and lose.) But, when it comes down to it, the future happens no matter how comfortable we are in the present, and I believe those who choose to meet it with enthusiasm and cleverness despite their misgivings will be happier as it comes.
I work in a public library. Right now, at my branch, we’re seeing more patrons than ever, but I have no delusions about how the future decrease in the printing of both popular and literary books will challenge our library system. As long as librarians and library users value the role of the public library, though, I keep faith that it can live up to its value. It’s up to the public library community to figure out how to do so, even if we find ourselves uncomfortable.
And on an aside--If Franzen really means to assert that serious readers only read print, all I would say is that he seems to be great at sticking his foot in his mouth. Maybe he likes it that way, and I doubt it will lose him any readers. I still hope to read him one day, and I might even do it on my Kindle. :)
Oh my holy crap.
I think people who write about how much they hate facebook are far more ruined & time-wasting than those of us who check in real quick (oh, look! my SIL had a baby!) and MOVE ON with our very real, very fulfilling LIVES :)
My point in a nutshell: writers, settle down.
Nathan,
I suspect there's several reasons for the criticism of social networking sites. One may have to do with the fact that it's something new, and authors are used to doing things their own way, so having to change how they market their books is difficult for them and requires their taking time to learn all about it. Second, authors are frequently solitary people, used to working alone most of the time, and now here they are, having to take time to interact with others which they may find difficult to do, and may take time from their writing. Third, it may stem from the fact that publishing houses are abandoning authors more and more and putting marketing and promotion duties on the author, and well-established authors like Franzen react angrily by denigrating the social networking sites, even though those aren't the real cause of their anger. As a new writer myself and not published in fiction, I'm appalled and disgusted at the way writers are treated by publishers. It's getting harder and harder to get published these days, but the social networking sites are not to blame. I'm probably older than any of the writers you mentioned, but I use and embrace Facebook (though not Twitter, I do think that's for the birds). After all, Facebook is how I get to your blog through the updates that come through my Facebook page.
Enough said.
If my 75 year old father can embrace the Internet then everyone can.
Much, I suspect, is due to people insisting that, say, print is dead and the books that they love are on their way out. No one likes to hear that something he or she loves is obsolete and needs to be thrown away, especially if he or she still sees value in it. I think that a lot would come around to the idea of "E-books/Kindles/social networking aren't THAT bad" if the technophiles would stop insisting that e-books and Kindles and such are not only valuable but the only possible future...indeed, the only future worth having.
No one likes to hear that the things that they love will cease to exist in a few years, and good riddance. Of course they're resistant to that attitude! It's human nature to cling to what you love and to fight to preserve it, especially if you feel that it's being threatened.
And, to be honest, social networking on places like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter is not very social. People post comments on Facebook (and on Blogger)--but there are no threads of comments; you can't have a conversation in writing with someone. I have seen no conversations on Tumblr; people post, people like the post and people re-blog the post. Twitter is limited to 150 characters. I think that a lot of writers see social networking, in many cases, not as promoting communication and thought but as curtailing both.
The Allegory of the Cave comes to mind.
I am a debut author who is published in both print and e-book. When I first saw my debut title up on Amazon it was great thrill. I e-mailed all my friends and told them they could pre-order!!!
Then my release date came and I immediately made the rounds of all the local B&Ns. Discovered my book was on the New Releases shelf! Equally thrilling! I took a jpg of my book with my iPhone and posted it to my blog page on my website!
I think I love both high and low tech. Not sure that one without the other would be as wonderful.
The music and sound industries already went through this.
In 1994 a tape transfer house my production was using had a sign on their counter that read "The Future of Digital is Analogue".
Needless to say they are out of business.
Well, lit writers do tend to be big on tradition - paper over word processors,plots with cerebral rather than visceral entertainment (if it's meant to entertain at all)... but the Internet is about laughing at silly stuff, learning highly interesting but completely useless facts... we DON'T worry about the human condition. We have fun, and a great deal of it involves zero intelligence. Zero personality too, maybe, and lit writers fear that. Their issue is that so many of them completely dismiss the web - they refuse to wait around for the benefits. And I think that hurts their readership.
Hi,
I've completed a manuscript, and I just wanted to know whether it would be okay to walk into a literary agent's office and query in person. I live in manhattan.
With my best,
anon-
Strongly, strongly advise against it.
I'm an aspiring lit author and I'm on twitter. So are Lauren Groff (author of the gorgeous forthcoming Arcadia), Jami Attenberg, and the much-anthologized Sherman Alexie. It becomes more difficult to market yourself as a lit writer using online tools such as twitter and blogs because your audience isn't necessarily online, unlike, perhaps, YA, which has an established online community. Most of my preferred agents aren't on twitter, they don't have blogs. It's just a different community that has different expectations as to how to market your writing. For me, publication in a little mag will mean more than cultivating a following of thousands as far as my career goes. Do I think that lit writers should ignore the internet? No. But I don't think that Zadie Smith is entirely wrong in her assessment.
Thank you Nathan. I'll go the conventional query route. It was tempting to walk in since these agents' offices are mere blocks from me haha.
Thanks again. It's a great resource you have here for would-be writers.
Yours,
In a slightly different vein, it also brings to mind the question as to whether established literary writers are willing or would be able to write convincingly about technology. We can't imagine 19th century literature without the epistolary device, but it's hard (for me) to imagine serious literary works involving social media sites, text messaging, or any reference to technology which might be dated in another two years.
On the matter of Facebook. Sorry, I don't make friends that easily. If Facebook allowed me to indicate "acquaintances", I'd be just fine with it.
On the matter of E-books. Battery life and readability of the screen have been solved. What hasn't been solved is how to do the equivalent of flipping the pages until you see something interesting and then reading from there. I just did that with a book. Started in the middle of a paragraph that caught my eye and an hour later I was still reading. That's really hard to do with any of the e-readers that I've seen. That's also how I determine if I'm going to buy a book at a bookstore, and again, you can't do that with an e-book. (Of course that plays merry hob with the author's intent, but that's just too bad.)
Funny that when I read your title I thought the blog was going to be about writers being afraid of technology, as in still using typewriters instead of the computer. It took me years to learn how to double space.
But afraid of technological advances -- considering the number of writers tweeting, blogging, publishing e-books, putting out there trailers of their books, and altogether using every ounce of technology that seems (to my amateur eyes at least) available today -- I don't know if I'd agree with that.
But I liked your quotes of the grumpy anti-tech writers anyways.
www.lilcornerofjoy.blogspot.com
Interesting points, Nathan.
I don't think all literary writers are technophobic, just the ones who make the headlines.
As for the social networks, they need more security and better blocking/screening ability.
Nathan, Nathan, just when I have a blog post all planned, you write something that makes me want to blog my response instead. Why do you keep doing this to me? ;-) Kidding.
Okay, seriously.
First, I really hate that everyone here seems to think that young people have embraced the digital world and it's only old curmudgeons who aren't really that into it. I'm 33, I've had a computer since I was eight, and I'm in the paper and ink camp. Just sayin'.
Part of it is time. We only have so much, and learning how to use all this stuff and use it effectively takes a whack of time. And I don't think I'm the only one who feels like just when I get the hang of something, everyone has moved on to something else. (Pinterest? REALLY? Come ON.) I'd rather be writing.
Plus, there's the fact that Twitter and Facebook and the Blogosphere are basically just electronic versions of High School, where the cool and witty kids have bazillions of followers and the rest of us struggle to rack up more than five. A lot of us chose writing so we could get away from those uber-cool people and feel successful at our own thing.
And I think there's something to Zadie Smith's comment. Sure, I can read your witty posts on Twitter. I can read and "Like" your Facebook page and comment on your blogs. But if I met you on the street and acted like I know you, you'd call the cops and take out a restraining order, because the fact is that I DON'T know you. I just know what you choose to post about. I only know about a tiny, tiny piece of the man named Nathan Bransford. And you only know about a teeny, tiny piece of me, the writer named Ishta Mercurio-Wentworth.
When I meet my writer friends in person, I get the whole person: the facial expressions that say that even though they're putting on a brave face, the waiting is really getting to them; the stories about kids and spouses that are too private for the Twitterverse; the banter and fast exchanges that stimulate ideas; the look of their notebook as they scribble in it. And they get the whole me.
I love email: it helps me keep in touch with my close friends in Seattle and Connecticut and Australia and England. I use Twitter: it lets me chat briefly with other writers about specific topics at pre-arranged times. And I blog, regularly. And I read blogs.
But whenever I leave my office and meet with other writers in person, I am reminded of this: the internet, for all its wonders, is less. The internet me is a lesser me. And I only want to spend a very limited time being a lesser me.
Thank you for the very interesting article. Our writing world has changed so much with technology and will continue to change. http://www.amberlykclowe.blogspot.com
I don't think that's necessarily technophobia, that's critical thinking. What social media is doing to you, either good or bad, is something worth thinking about.
I think if they're not accustomed to using things like Facebook and e-books, then they're more likely to be wary about it. On the other hand, like you said, there are people from older generations who have embraced technological advances.
I'm kind of divided on this issue. I don't use Facebook or Twitter because I think both would take up too much time; they seem like a lot of work. But I like blogging because I think it's good writing practice and it's a good way to meet other writers.
Ray Bradbury is a shocker!
I think FB is a great way for a fiction writer to stay in touch with the day-to-day concerns of real people.
But I can also understand busy writers complaining about the amount of time eaten up by keeping up with FB friends.
Franzen is (in effect) telling poor writers not to shop at Walmart. He can afford to be snippy about ebooks. Without estories (short, not books) I might not be published at all. Without Facebook and Twitter, I'd have to grab strangers on the street and beg them to read my stuff.
Honestly? I think it's because most of these quoted writers are bad at social media so they disparage it. "You don't see me on Facebook or Twitter not because, god forbid, a genius like me doesn't *get* it, but because I *reject* it." I feel justified in saying this because I am bad at social media--at least in terms of connecting with potential readers. I'm not an extrovert, and I bet most lit writers aren't either. I've met plenty of writers (many YA writers) who are extroverts or otherwise self-promotion gifted, and they're *awesome* with social media. I appreciate that plenty of writers feel that way--but am self-aware enough to see that it's only the well-esatblished writers who can afford to reject social media in its entirety offhand--and that, in that old maxim "It's not you, social media--it's me."
I'd much rather connect with friends in person and save Facebook for stalking people to see who's gotten fat since high school...but I also recognize that the world is moving in different directions.
I am an aspiring literary novelist but I have to agree with what someone said above me- the professors, the MFA writers-in-residence, aren't helping the peaceful merger of lit writers and technology. I am a creative writing student and my prof is a self-proclaimed luddite- he has a feature cell phone and has just signed up for Facebook two years ago. He is 36 going on 37, so age isn't really a factor, I don't believe. I am 33 and have always embraced technology, am pushing my way through promoting my literary YA novel, etc. I'm not sure where the disconnect is for these writers, though they are the only ones, it seems making any money from their literary works. My professor is not.
As a lit writer I can tell you I don't think I am going to devote all my work to a strict literary formula. I want to make money at this. I want to do this for as long as I can. Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, etc is a step I must take to ensure, or at least tilt the odds .85 degrees in my favor.
I wonder if it has something to do with what they view the role of the writer is. With the advent of media, many commercial authors have embraced it as a tool to connect with fans, and they consider connecting with fans and creating communities for their writing an important part of their job. But literary authors are probably more likely to consider their job solely "writing"; why should they reach out to the people who read their writing?
The 2 F's. Fear and frustration.
Afraid of new things.
Afraid to leave the classic ways behind.
Afraid we can't learn new ways.
Frustration at the amount of time taken away from writing to master and use new media.
Frustration that the brain changes (it's documented)caused by using the shortcuts available via new media will mean beautiful writing no longer has a place in society.
What is a book but a box of many characters? And what is a computer/the internet but a box of many more characters? I don't understand how it can even be considered limiting or superficial, especially in comparison to a traditional book.
I think the technophobia derives from feeling slightly threatened... well-established authors around before the digital age may be feeling a bit overwhelmed by the access people now have to fictional works - it ups the competition!
I say, "To each their own." I love holding printed books, and I love getting an e-book in 30 seconds. My book is available in both formats, and the printed version is selling better, because people still visit bookstores. So yay! But friends who are on my Facebook, who didn't know I'd written a book until they saw a post, enjoyed downloading right away. So I'm for all of it--whatever works best for the book! ♥ K. L. Burrell
I believe what we're hearing is the fear of established writers that their exclusivity is disappearing with the power of the big publishers who have supported them, and whose power is vested in print.
This attitude reminds me much of Aesop's fable "The Sour Grapes"- which because the fox could not reach them dismissed the grapes as being sour. Likewise, those who haven't a clue how to master Internet say the same thing.
I can see both sides. How's that for straddling the fence? My next gig will be politics. This conundrum reminds me of the setting of Fahrenheit 451. Yes, I will be that lady who goes up in flames for her books. I love to caress the pages, admire the art and care it took to create the actual book. Going deeper, I appreciate the actual experiences that lead to the stories I've enjoyed. A virtual adventure is never the equal of the real thing. How to describe the smells and sounds are tempered by what we've known in our past. Your past is not mine and vice versa. I appreciate technology for opening new worlds to me that I cannot afford or physically manage to visit. I appreciate the ease with which the internet makes possible for me to send my words out into the world. Like all things in life, there needs to be moderation. A melding of technology and experience, the virtual and the actual, is the best we can strive for. Afterall, the quill was once new technology.
Sorry to disappoint, but I agree with them. How can anyone who loves words and the richness of the English language read Twitter without a sense of revulsion?
"How can anyone who loves words and the richness of the English language read Twitter without a sense of revulsion?"
This sentence is less than 140 characters. Does it lack meaning and inspire revulsion?
A million poets would disagree with the notion that being brief necessarily means dull and meaningless.
"How can anyone who loves words and the richness of the English language read Twitter without a sense of revulsion? "
Well if that's your standard, how can you go anywhere without ear plugs or talking to anyone when the majority of the population butchers the language just by speaking daily without a sense of revulsion? Are you a hermit?
Twitter is not a genre of literature. It's social media. That means it's people talking. If you choose to avoid the global chit chat, that's a valid choice. Trying to compare it to literature, not so much.
*No offense to anyone writing their WIPs one status update at a time. There's no way to account for the artists. :)
I'm late to this discussion, but I wanted to chime in because I'm a literary writer, I'm 25, and I don't think I could ever read a book on an e-reader.
I've tried. Many of my friends have e-readers, and I've attempted to read books on both Kindles and Nooks, but there was something about reading on a screen that made my mind wander, and I generally gave up after only 15 pages. In comparison, I can read print books for hours without falling prey to any distraction. I love the feeling of pages under my fingers.
So why the attention deficit? I think I'm enough of a digital native that my mind subconsciously links words on screens with reads that are supposed to be quick and easy -- I can't read a long article online; that's not what the Internet is for. When friends send me manuscripts over 5 or 10 pages long, I have to print them out.
This is not to say that I'm a technophobe; I use Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress, and I'm the social media specialist at my day job. But I can see why established literary writers are leery of the advance of e-books and other technology. The "death" of the print book is something that brings me great sadness, too. When I chose to become a writer, I did so partly because of the desire to one day see my name on the front of a print book, and I knew that getting my name on the front of said book would take years and years of effort and rejection and, ultimately, validation. While I know that e-books take hard work, too, seeing my name on a screen seems like a much easier job: all I have to do is open Microsoft Word and type my name. The concept of having a novel released only as an e-book isn't satisfactory; it doesn't connote effort to me in the same way that a print book would.
I have no idea if any of this made sense, but the transition from print books to e-books -- the general dissolution of physical connection in general -- bothers me a lot.
"A million poets would disagree with the notion that being brief necessarily means dull and meaningless."
Brevity isn't the problem. It's the distortion of the language into unrecognizable gibberish such as this:
Great catch by @sullydish reader that Dr. George's objections to HHS regs =rejection of Cath principle of double effect http://bit.ly/AeGnrS
Criticus,
I respectfully disagree. I think that:
"Great catch by @sullydish reader that Dr. George's objections to HHS regs =rejection of Cath principle of double effect http://bit.ly/AeGnrS"
is a strange and beautiful language. A language with hidden meaning, that requires great effort; one must read it many times before it even begins to make sense.
However, regarding Twitter, I think you underrate it.
I'm late arriving to this conversation, but I thank you for posting about this. I see this all the time among both literary fiction writers and serious nonfiction writers. They're very resistant to social media. They see it as a time waster (maybe they're right). It's difficult to convince them of the benefits. I think Mieke was right in saying that literary fiction writers don't see people reading blogs as their target market. I say the more ways you can reach readers, the better. It can't hurt to try.