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Another year has passed into the record books, and once again, October 10th rolls around. Why should you care? Because, in 2011, Heidi created a new holiday: Torsten Day! While others celebrate Columbus, we will celebrate Torsten Adair, who’s become our regular weekend poster, keeper of the Coming Attractions, and master of the roundup. Torsten has […]

Editor's note: It's been 20 years since the groundbreaking memoir The Liars' Club sent Mary Karr into the literary spotlight with its phenomenal success and widespread acclaim. Since then, Karr has gone on to publish two more bestselling memoirs — Cherry and Lit — and has mentored such revered authors as Cheryl Strayed and Koren [...]

A lot of amazing authors contribute to Powell's Blog, and not all of them get the attention they deserve. Here's a look back at some of the most thought-provoking author posts to appear on Powells.com this year — along with four interviews that you really shouldn't miss. The World of Publishing: 1991 vs. 2014 by [...]

Fall has brought us a true gift in the publication of the massive The Collected Poems of James Laughlin, published by New Directions in an exceptionally beautiful hardcover edition. The book includes an inexhaustible number of poems, in a lovely 1,214(!) page tome. Laughlin is best known as the founder of New Directions Publishing, the [...]

I have no hesitation in saying that Jerome Rothenberg is one of our greatest living poets and that his latest book, Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader, is among the top books published last year. Eye of Witness, published by the relentlessly pioneering Black Widow Press, is a huge, 580-page tome that encompasses the [...]

Happy National Poetry Month! I was going to try and do a roundup of several newish poetry books, but I got so stuck on this book, that I couldn't follow through. So... Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of my all-time favorite poets. I cut my teeth, 30 years ago, on A Coney Island of the Mind, [...]

April's newly released cookbooks represent the cusp of winter/spring by featuring both cozy comfort foods to keep us warm in these still-cool weeks and fresh-from-the-garden veggies ahead of harvest season. Warming up my kitchen with a French Provincial flair is From Scratch by Laurence Laurendon. This has a winning combination of simple, hardy recipes and [...]

I admit it: I have trouble retaining the details of books. Most texts eventually get relegated to a dark corner of my mind, slowly accumulating dust until they're barely visible at all. The only thing I can remember about DeLillo's White Noise is that the narrator's wife is named Babette, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen [...]

If you have a poetry lover in your family or circle of friends — or if you're a fan yourself — many, many excellent poetry books have been published over the past 18 months or so. Here are a few standouts. ÷ ÷ ÷ Many years ago, the legendary Lawrence Ferlinghetti conquered my heart with [...]

I love a good villain. I mean, Maleficent is my favorite Disney character, so I appreciate how truly amazing a well-done villain can be. I even have moods where I want nothing more than a two-dimensional, mustache-twirling, melodramatic villain to add a dose of over-the-top crazy to my reading. But here's the thing: not every [...]

Well, the season's upon us, and I feel compelled to write about two of my favorite religious books of the last year. They are two deceptively small titles published by one of my all-time favorite presses, New Directions. The books are collections of related work by that 20th-century religious titan, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. [...]

Here at Powells.com, in addition to exclusive interviews, original essays, and Q&As, we feature a wide selection of guest blogs from noteworthy authors. Each week, a new author contributes to our blog for five days straight, revealing everything from their thoughts on the writing process to details about their favorite neighborhood cat. We're constantly amazed [...]

It's been a while since I've had the pleasure — or the time — to write for the Powell's blog, so I thought I'd dip my toe into something I really love: a roundup of a few of the best poetry books I've read in the last year. This list, of course, is by no [...]

Gack! Another fairy-tale-themed romance. It really wasn't my intention to go back to this particular well, but I thought this book was so lovely that I almost felt like I had no choice but to share my affection for it with you. Eloisa James is one of my must-read authors, and in The Ugly Duchess, [...]

Some six or seven years ago, I heard a story about an employee of a coastal restaurant who beat a one-legged gull to death with a stick out back of the establishment. Apparently the gull served as the establishment's mascot, and for whatever reason, if sociopathic behavior can be said to have logical reasons, the [...]

PHANTOM LIMB, a new online literary journal, is seeking permanent staff reviewers to contribute to each issue. Please send a writing sample (a sample review is preferable) and a CV/resume to Evan Chen, Interviews & Reviews Editor, at:

Phantomlimbpress(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail)

Visit PHANTOM LIMB.

Recently, I've been on a streak of reading a lot of British "chick lit." I put chick lit in quotes because it's a fairly loaded term that isn't exactly accurate, but there isn't another shorthand term that quickly encompasses the idea of the genre. These aren't the books of bubblegum-pink covers and city girls questing [...]

This is it — the last of my lists of favorite books from 2011. This time around, it's those romance novels that I loved but, for whatever reason, didn't previously write about. And, yes, there is a bit of cheating going on with this list, because there were a few authors who published multiple titles [...]

Slowly but surely, I'm creating a mostly complete list of my favorite books of 2011. Last time, it was science fiction and fantasy. Prior to that, it was young adult fiction. This time around, it's mystery/crime/thriller fiction. Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante was one of the most haunting and emotionally affecting novels I read [...]

While others celebrate Columbus, we will celebrate Torsten Adair, who’s become our regular weekend poster, keeper of the Coming Attractions, and master of the roundup.

Torsten has been commenting at the Beat as long as there’s been a Beat, and somewhere back in the mists of the Mesozoic Era we said “Hey, if you’re going to write all that you might as well post it.”

An Omaha native, Torsten studied Library Science at the University of Nebraska, before moving to the big city and eventually landing a spot at Barnes & Noble in 1999, first as a bookseller at the famed Lincoln Center branch, and more recently as a Data Analyst. Which is why he offers those insightful posts on bookselling. He’s a regular at just about every comics gathering on this coast, and always stands ready to supply some insights.

Torsten has been stumping for graphic novels long before they were cool, and he’s definitely done his part to bring them to the masses. Please give him a big thank you, because he’s a lifer, just like The Beat.

By Matt Maxwell

So this wasn’t the first comic show in Long Beach. Not so long ago, Wizard used to have their LA-based show in Long Beach. And back then, it was pretty good. Decently-sized, good crowds, some programming, a collection of bars and restaurants nearby that you could sneak out to instead of paying eight dollars for a slice of pizza. Had great conversations with both Grant Morrison and Darwyn Cooke at those shows, and had a good time (since it was only a little over an hour away from where I lived at the time and was pretty cheap as these things went.)

Then Wizard moved their show to the LA Convention Center and it promptly became a ghost town. LA-based people no longer treated it as a vacation (Long Beach is about a half hour south of downtown and a pleasant enough destination), but as work. That and, though it’s being rebuilt and gentrified aggressively, downtown LA by the convention center isn’t that great a place to hang out (though leaps and bounds better than it used to be in the nineties). Marvel sent a delegation and DC stopped sending theirs. The LA show never really recovered. I exhibited there once and attended once, neither time was all that interesting (but the light crowds made for a good set of convention training wheels as it were.)

I was pretty interested to see that the same crew was bringing the show back, no longer under the aegis of Wizard (how often do you see that phrase typed out?) and with a very comics-centric focus (though Nintendo easily had the largest booth there). Sure, sign me up. If nothing else, it gives me a good chance to see my friends in Orange County. Maybe sell some books. Granted, it’s no longer a trivial task to get down there, but it’s not all that much of a trip either. As Sean T. Collins writes, “I’ll eat that.”

Just don’t eat at the concessions. They’re really expensive. Nearly four dollars for a bottle of Coke? Really guys? I pay less than that at SDCC, which is more or less my metric for convention costs. I suppose they’re more expensive in NY, which I may get to find out for myself next year. That’s really my big complaint, so if you’re here to listen to me whine about how terrible things were, don’t read any further. Next year, I’ll bring my own water in or something. Four dollars. Really.

And that’s not something that the organizers really have a lot of control over, at least to the best of my knowledge. The concessions come along with the facility, so really, not worth grousing about. The things that were under the control of the organizers, however, seemed pretty well in hand. Minimal fuss getting my exhibitor badge, efficient but not obtrusive security, receptive staff. There had been a slight mixup with a potential panel appearance, but easily solved.

The space itself was set up well enough, though I might’ve wanted it a tad more well-lit. It was weird: the floor itself was illuminated but when you looked up into the ceilings, the light fell off fast, leaving a kind of inky blackness and hints of rafters above. Granted, most people aren’t going to notice weird stuff like that, but I do. Can’t help it. Bare concrete floors and walls made for a pretty major echo, a constant thrumming of noise (and when the bargain trades barker fired up her FIVE DOLLARS FOR ALL TRADE PAPERBACKS chant towards the end of the day on Sunday, well, there was no escaping. Just as there was no escaping from the full size wrestling ring that had full-impact, full-volume exercises going intermittently on Friday and Saturday. These exercises, I’ll add, threatened to drive some artists from their homes in artist’s alley. I’d have considered it, but I’d flown all the way down and wasn’t to be scared off so easily.

That didn’t make it fun. Maybe if I were a big wrestling fan I’d feel differently. Thankfully, they weren’t active all day on Saturday and had pretty much knocked it off by Sunday.

As for my home in artist’s alley, it was pretty nice. Had a corner booth, between David Gallaher (writer and co-creator of HIGH NOON on Zuda, whose book was just out in stores last week) and Stuart Sayger (creator of SHIVER IN THE DARK, artist on the recent BIONICLES series and pinup artist extraordinaire.) After being on the corner, I don’t really want to go back to hanging out in the middle of the aisles. Like ever. But that’s usually not up for me to control, so I try not to worry about it.

The crowds on Friday gave me a pretty good feeling about the eventual size of the show. The last Wizard show I did, I came in towards the end of the day on Friday and found open aisles and only light clustering around the Marvel booth and some of the premium retailers. There was a solid stream of folks circulating all around the show floor this time around. Now, not everyone was freely spending, at least not at the Alley, but there was money changing hands.

I’ve noticed that having a big piece of original art does get more people to linger at my table now. I recently acquired the original Guy Davis art to one of the pin-up pieces that appeared in MURDER MOON and have left that as an eyecatcher on the table (along with some unrelated pieces that happen to fit in the big portfolio I lug around with me now). Lots of lingering, and sometimes people even conversing (and more than a few people recognizing the artist’s work and taking a closer look.) Maybe some sales as a result of that, but tough to gauge (and I’m really lazy about that.) The only problem with this is that people flip through the rest of the portfolio, even though there’s no other related art there, but I did get a lot of comments on the Cameron Stewart INVISIBLES page, so, yay? Even had someone mistake that for Milton Caniff’s work, so, go Cameron.

Made some sales in the afternoon, ran into editors (I’m not stalking, I swear to god!) and had a pretty good time. The dollars from these sales alone weren’t enough to justify coming down, though. Good thing that I’m not measuring success strictly by those. Gotta keep showing up, gotta keep turning over cards, coffee is only for closers and I’m suffering the caffeine shakes. Chatted awhile with Gabe ( and AGENTS OF ATLAS) and Corinna (Bechko, also of HEATHENTOWN), even bought some art that never got published but really should have. Talked with the guys from RED MOON, which I’d seen at SDCC, and think I even plugged on “What Are You Reading?” over at Robot 6. It’s good, worth a close look once the whole thing hits. Also talked with Emonic and the guys from BRAINS, who I see a lot on the local circuit. Oh, and the crew from Hightower Comics who were having a pretty good time, at least signs pointed that way.

Though the question was brought up to me more than once, regarding the attractiveness/usefulness of a half-day at the start of shows like this one. SDCC’s preview night on Wednesday (which is really a misnomer, since the show floor is fully-functional on Wednesday) serves a purpose, in response to clearly insane demand. You heard that “Preview Night” itself for SDCC 2010 sold out already, right? Granted, there’s questions about what constitutes those tickets, but the headline prompted the reply from at least one comics wonk (okay, me) “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” If I was cool, I’d embed the YouTube of Roy Scheider here. Not cool.

It’s an honest question. Even lingering, the show floor isn’t going to take much more than a couple hours, unless you happen to strike up a conversation with Pepe Moreno (I did, and I bought the remastered REBEL from him, even though I acquired the original US release of it some months back), you’re going to exhaust the floor pretty quickly. My gut feeling is that Preview Night is for the well-heeled collector/fan who can take the time off and hit the floor hard, looking for that one thing. In my case, I was looking for a miniature Space Godzilla for my son and a unique My Little Pony (has the Junko Mizuno pony hit yet?) for my daughter. But then I’m a man of simple tastes. The Friday crowds were good, but nothing compared to Saturday’s. I suppose it may come down to how the facilities are rented and it just made sense to take the Friday date and add some extra programming on it. But when there’s a perception of Sunday being dead, maybe less really is more. I’ll continue on that thread later.

Sold a few books, chatted with David Gallaher and bought that HIGH MOON page I forgot to pick up at SDCC (didn’t really have anything to carry it in, anyways). Looked over the printing of HIGH MOON and saw that the paper stock and color reproduction was a marked step above the first edition of BAYOU, the only other Zuda book I have currently. My understanding is that later pressings of BAYOU will benefit from the new stock and color as well, which obviates one of my largest criticisms of the book as presented.

Sneaked out a few minutes early, not sure what kind of hell traffic would be offered up to me. Accidentally stayed on Ocean Avenue until it became Second Street and ended up driving through Belmont Shores, which is like a more suburbanized version of Long Beach, more money, smaller buildings, more walkers on the sidewalks. Finally caught PCH and cruised along just after dark had settled in, breathing in the salt marsh and listening to Savage Republic in the moonlight. Parts of it were like rolling back the calendar decades, to an industrial seventies mangle of pipework to the east of me, oblique concrete outbuildings on the public beach to the west, all lit by sodium lamps, making things dingier than they perhaps really were.

Mexican-style chicken soup with the avocado fished out for dinner, that and too many chips and a too-watery margarita. Good company and the plasticine embrace of an air mattress, interrupted only by waking up just before dawn and panicking that I couldn’t find my alarm clock and wondering where the hell I was. It was like I was operating my own body by pulleys and levers. Underwater. Calmed down and slid back into sleep.

Saturday morning revealed to me that there are nineteen hundred and forty calories in an IHOP chicken fried steak breakfast. I loves me some batter-coated cubesteak, but man, that’s a day’s worth of food energy there. Pass. Of course, that breakfast would have been cheaper than the lunch I ended up buying, so calories or dollars? Saturday also yielded healthy attendance and contented milling about the show floor. Not enough people lingering, but again, maybe I need to get me a gold Elvis suit and some sequins. I mean, who couldn’t use some Bedazzling? Something to consider for next year.

But really, and I probably shouldn’t have to admit this, I hate selling books. Don’t get me wrong, giving people something to read? That’s awesome. That’s why I’m here. But having to sell people on the books themselves? Actually promote them? Summon forth my inner carny (who’s malnourished on a lifetime of candy apples and non-USDA approved frankfurters) and bark like a seal to get people to come over? Painful. But this is part of the game we get to play. So I do my best to honor that, but it does drag along. I imagine it’s easier for artists who can sit down and start with a blank page and black ink and whip up something you can immediately appreciate. Granted, it’s not always fun to watch (though I’ve seen some artists put on a real show when sketching, breaking pens and spattering whiteout-Bill Sienkiewicz comes to mind here) but you have an artifact that you can apprehend the second you get it.

Writers? Yeah, well. Did I mention that according to experts (and me) that it’s harder to break into comics as a writer than it is as an artist? It is. I used to have a sign that archly stated “I can’t draw. My art is invisible.” Mostly in response to people asking for sketches of characters I couldn’t draw even if a gun was held to my head. Of course, being a contrarian, I figured that there was a way I could do something that would keep people around, and thus was born the five minute story.

The rules are simple, and we have to have rules, else we’d be little better than our lizard brains. Bring me a piece of paper and three words. I write you a story over the next five minutes or so. Compound words will get ignored. No bonus for stumping the dealer. I get to look up anything I want and if I choose a different meaning, too bad.

Usually people look at the sign and sort of lock up, like they just can’t figure out what I could possibly do that would be of interest in five minutes. I generally do two or three over a weekend. Pretty sure I’d done five by Saturday. Did nearly that many that day and some more on Sunday. I’m not sure it’s a hit (still losing money on every one…) but I guess it’s beginning to stick. I’d love it if an editor came up to me and asked me to pitch stuff based on that. Still holding my breath on that one.

So yeah, I do those for free. I have yet to see someone unhappy with the results. So maybe my art is at least somewhat visible. Kinda. Or I’ve fooled people into thinking so. Actually, I was told on Sunday that someone who’d gotten a story from me had put it up on their facebook page and gotten a lot of response. I wish I’d get a lot of response whenever I posted a Strangeways page. Perhaps the idea that it all happened in realtime makes is more compelling, don’t know. I do know that I should start charging for them. But I probably won’t, out of habit.

Talked briefly with , whom I’d seen on Friday. Turned out that he was going to get me (as well as David Gallaher) on the digital comics distribution panel on Sunday. Which was great. Even if I get stage fright. But that’s for Sunday.

People around me seemed to be doing a good business, though not offering specific benchmarks as to how well things were rolling. Most folks, when asked, figured they’d be back next year (though some wondered about the timing, as Reed’s NYC show will be in October, as well as Baltimore traditionally happening then.) My read on Saturday was that it was easily as busy as the Wizard shows had been in this venue. Almost like the intervening three or four years hadn’t happened.

An interesting difference between then and now was a lack of floor presence from either of the Big Two. As I mentioned earlier, when Wizard was in Long Beach, DC had a big cluster of tables. I know that Bob Wayne and perhaps a few other DC folks were there this year, but I didn’t see a table, no flying of the flag (to which I add that Geoff Johns was there, as was Jim Lee, but not specifically as a DC rep). There were some people from Marvel there as well, but no big table. The largest publishers with tables were IDW, Boom!, Top Cow and Archaia. Does make you wonder how important regional shows are to these companies. My understanding is that at least two of the above are more or less local to Long Beach, unsure on Archaia and Top Cow). And then again, maybe traveling across the country doesn’t seem so appealing when you’ve got an east-coast regional show coming up in a week.

I’d talk about the diversity of the crowd, but not much struck me this time around. Seemed a little light on the cosplay, really. Maybe I’m just inured to it now. I guess it’s not a highlight any longer. I’ve been coming to shows longer than a lot of the cosplayers have been alive, which makes me old. That and after having seen the spectacle of SDCC, it might just take a lot for me to be impressed.

One thing that was impressive, however, was being able to meet Berkeley Breathed, creator of BLOOM COUNTY, which was one of the first comic strips that I felt like an active participant in. I’d read my parent’s collections of DOONESBURY when I was a kid, but a lot of the history and politics sailed over my head (I liked the earlier, less sardonic and more cartoon-strippy material a lot more as a kid-that would be flipped around these days.) But I hold a lot of fondness for BLOOM COUNTY. As I told him “I only ever followed three strips to their conclusion, and yours was one of them.” He, of course, guessed the other two with no difficulty whatsoever. I’m predictable like that. So yeah, I had a big heavy book to cart home with me. But it was a big heavy book that I really wanted to read, with a signature and sketch of Opus on the front page, so I’m not going to complain.

Then “Home” for more Mexican food, a bootleg Cure video (1984, Edinburgh, and a surprisingly good set) chased with the Soft Cell videography. And if you haven’t seen the original version of the video for “Tainted Love”(hint: it’s not on YouTube), well…just…wow. You’ll never listen to the song the same way again. And if there’s a more perfect video for the song than “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, I don’t want to know about it. Kind of a disservice to the band that they’re only known for their most popular singles over here in the states when they released a whole raft of singles that were often quite ahead of their time. Was offered the trailer for F IS FOR FAKE, but didn’t have the presence of mind to watch the whole damn thing. Con is exhausting.

Sunday was, well, Sunday. I’m pretty sure that I’ve used that line before, but it’s almost always true. Yes, I sold a couple more copies on Sunday than on Saturday, but there was a Sunday vibe to the whole room that was, I don’t know, enervating maybe. Plenty of people at tables actively talking to their neighbors because the crowds had thinned off towards the afternoon. Hard to get a deal at the artist’s alley, but the fabled “last show day” deals may have been found elsewhere.

Oh, my debut on a panel, right. I, along with Steve from Archaia, Rantz from Longbox, Joshua from TUMOR and ELK’S RUN, and David from HIGH NOON did a panel on digital distribution of comics and why it’s a good thing. For anyone who’s been on the comics internet, it’s nothing that you haven’t heard before. There were some teases of specific things (including what was hailed as the near-certainty of an Apple tablet-I’m dubious of the pie in the sky wishes of some folks with regard to that) that may hold great promise. Did you know that TUMOR (the Kindle-only digital comic that Josh Fialkov, and maybe Noel Tuazon, are doing with Archaia) was in the top 500 items sold at Amazon that weekend? Not in the top 500 books, top 500 items. Pretty impressive.

The panel went over why digital distribution is perceived as a crucial change of delivery method for comics in particular, and let’s be clear: nobody on the panel said “BURN DIRECT MARKET, BURN.” There was a lot of love up there for comics, and acknowledgment that were it not for Diamond and the direct market, there wouldn’t be a comics market now. However, like any media, there’s big changes afoot in comics. The real question is figuring out how to make the changes non-fatal and perhaps even thrive in the face of them. Putting comics on portable electronic devices (particularly on ones that are now mere vaporware) is a big deal. Getting more readers for comics is a big deal (and if you’ve been reading any of my commentary, it’s perhaps The Biggest Deal), so I regard these changes as scary but exciting.

I’d love to say that people stormed down after my bravura performance at the panel and asked for, nay, True Believer, demanded copies of STRANGEWAYS. But that demand never materialized. I did field a few questions about how to start out in comics (don’t do what I did with an OGN right out the gate-start smaller and make it a complete story, not a fragment; find an artist that you can work with and can afford, nobody will work for free; strongly consider webcomics first and don’t worry about print at this point, unless you’re looking at very small runs that you can afford to lose money on, or roll the dice and have cheap ottomans made out of remainder product.) Did a couple more five minute stories. Mostly said goodbye to folks and got my stuff headed the heck out of Dodge.

Pork ramen with broth that was knife-thick for dinner. Wait and wait and wait around in the Wi-Fi free wasteland of the terminal at Orange County airport. Sleep on the flight back. Curse loudly as I fear I’ve forgotten the parking ticket to get out of hock. All of these things waiting for me on the way back home.

And what? APE is in two weeks? See you there, pilgrims!

[Matt Maxwell has a blog and is the author of the webcomic Strangeways, currently being serialized at Robot 6]

I'd like to edit a collection of essays on a specific topic and am unsure how to proceed. Should I query an agent or publisher with a proposal before I begin to reach out to potential contributors? Should I have my contributor list firmly in place? Should my query look like a nonfiction query or take another form altogether?

This is a great question and one that I would imagine would be hard to find information on. Anytime you are doing a collection, whether it’s an essay collection or a nonfiction collection similar to a book on our list, The Secrets of Millionaire Moms by Tamara Monosoff, you need to have at least some of the contributors firmly in place.

With any collection, whether it’s essays or a nonfiction collection of insider tips, the selling points to editors and readers is not the subject matter, but who is involved. Let’s face it, a book on how to get published that features essays from a bunch of authors or agents who have only been out for a year and are relative no-names is far less interesting to you than a book that features essays from the top agents, editors, and bestselling authors in the business.

So, in a case like this you will want to have a commitment from at least 25 to 50 percent of your contributors and a list of who else you intend to approach.

As for writing the query letter, yes, I guess in some ways your query would more closely resemble a nonfiction query than a fiction query. In other words, your focus would be less on the subject matter and more on the contributors.

Jessica