The new challenge is:
Elves!
Illustrate an elf or two. Santa's elves? Legolas? What'll it be?
The "Gratitude" challenge is over. The new challenge is "Elves" and ends on December 14, 2009. The "Feast" challenge continues for another week ends on December 7, 2009.
The "Feast" challenge (last week's challenge) winner will receive an actual prize! The prize will be appropriate to the winner, taking location and artist's style into account. You have 1 week left before judging (December 7, 2009).
Long-time Mumpsimus readers will remember a young man named Alan DeNiro, subject of an interview in 2004, and a young woman named Juliet Ulman, subject of an interview I conducted for Fantasy magazine in 2006. Recent readers will remember that, in 2008, the elves of Mumpsimus Mansion expressed excitement that a young woman named Colleen Lindsay moved from the world of publicity to the world of agenting, and one of her first clients was the above-named Mr. DeNiro.
Well, our plan for world domination is coming together. Super-writer DeNiro has, via the talents of super-agent Lindsay, joined forces with super-editor Ulman! The elves are jumping up and down with joy, expressing great congratulations to Alan for selling his novel Total Oblivion, More or Less to Juliet at Bantam via Colleen.
Numerologists will note that the various important events (interview 1, interview 2, joy for Colleen) occurred in even-numbered years. What do we have planned for 2010? Wait and see, my children, wait and see....
(Or we could just blame everything on this movie.)
Thanks so much to Jay Baron Nicorvo for inviting me to participate in the CLMP/LWC this weekend (that's Council of Literary Magazines and Presses - Literary Writers Conference for you acronym buffs). I had a great time in the "Power of Blogging" panel with Ron Hogan (of Beatrice and GalleyCat) and BethAnne Patrick (of PW's BookMaven). Though I felt a bit outclassed -- I found out Ron has been blogging since the dark old days of 1995, and BethAnne actually gets paid to blog (though I wouldn't recommend anyone try to make her conform to some corporate idea of what she ought to be writing -- she's got opinions and chutzpah to spare!) I'm tickled to have had the opportunity to talk with them, and I hope we were of some help to the writers in attendance, who struggle (just like booksellers) with how to incorporate blogging into the world of the written word.
If you don't have plans for this evening, and you're in the New York area, may I recommend Between the Lines at the Brooklyn Academy of Music? It's a partnership between BAM and the great literary magazine A Public Space, and brings together innovative writers and filmmakers for a one-of-a-kind evening of collaboration and exploration. My colleague Tom Roberge helps run the series, which is a great recommendation for it -- check it out!
And speaking of upcoming events: have you heard the news that the once-moribund New York Is Book Country festival is returning next year, run by Kirkus Reviews -- and that they've scheduled it on the same day as the Brooklyn Book Festival? (It used to be held in July.) You know I try not to be snarky around here, but what the hell?!?! I can't possibly imagine the motivation for choosing this one weekend in the whole year, nor why the organizers have not responded to requests from all sides that they move the date. I suspect NYIBC, not BBF, will suffer for it, but why this strange spirit of competitiveness, rather than collaboration? Curious what you all think, and if there's something I'm missing here...
Read the rest of this post
Here's that supercool slideshow we promised you. Behold the glory that is the Overlook Press Experience at the Brooklyn Book Festival. And see you there in 2008!
Yesterday, September 16, was the Brooklyn Book Festival! What a day, and what a turnout. The ALP and I had a socially/personally packed weekend (turning in my business plan was just the beginning), so we didn't head over to Borough Hall and environs until around 3:00. But we still managed to fill a tote bag (purchased from Word) with new books, and see a lot of new and familiar faces, some of whom I'll name-drop here
First stop was the Small Beer Press table, where the inimitable Gavin Grant was fending off the hordes. I chatted with Gavin about an event at the bookstore with their Interfictions anthology later in October, and snagged a copy of The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, published by Del Rey but edited by Grant, to peruse for potential additions to our Halloween party lineup (and for the joy of smart, literate genre fiction, of course).
This was about the time we realized we were going to need to hit the ATM.
We'd already done some damage at a used bookstore on 7th Avenue earlier in the day, but there was no way we were going to be able to resist the bounty of books we'd never seen before on vendor tables. (I can't find the ALP's stack right now, but I know he got a new volume from the Continuum 33 1/3 music series (on "Born in the USA"), a cool cultural history of children's traditions called The Games Black Girls Play from NYU Press, the Evasion-English Dictionary from Melville House, and various other titles from poetry to novels to nonfiction.)
We stopped by the Overlook Press table and ran into the hilarious loose canon of book enthusiasm that is Jim Behrle; we exclaimed over their new reissue of the incredible Gormenghast trilogy in its original three separate volumes (the single volume weighs a ton and is difficult to sell, though it's beloved by everyone from C.S. Lewis to Quentin Crisp), commented on the incredible niceness of Slaves of the Shinar author Justin Allen, and cracked up at the ponderous outdoorsiness of the reissued tome on rodeo Let 'Er Buck.
I said hi to the folks selling books on behalf of HousingWorks Used Book Cafe, and shared excitement about the upcoming Open Air Book Fair on September 29, which McNally Robinson will participate in. (Along with the embarassing pleasure of having a Housing Works employee tell me she loves The Written Nerd, I got the added satisfaction of the phrase "And is that the Adorably Literate Partner?")
I sought out and met Jay Baron Nicorvo, Membership Director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, who posted a comment on this post last week inviting me to join a panel on blogging at the clmp's Literary Writers Conference in November. Of course I'm delighted -- I love having conversations about book world issues in public, and hope I'll be useful -- and grateful to Ron Hogan for recommending me. Invite by blog comment -- a clever way to fill out a blogging panel, eh?
We ran into an old coworker of the ALP -- Derek White, who now heads litmag Sleeping Fish and indie Calamari Press. Derek is one of the writers published by Calamari and designs most of the covers, which I think are beautiful and disturbing; he's clearly found his calling, and I think a lot of publishers should be looking to him for good ideas in well-done indie design. I picked up a poetry collection by Peter Markus called The Singing Fish which looks irresistible.
Unexpectedly, publicist extraordinaire Molly Miklowski was manning the Coffee House Press booth -- she's usually found nearer the publisher's headquarters in Minneapolis, so it was a treat to see her. (Remember Firmin at the LBC? -- Molly helped make that happen, and we sighed over our love of Firmin once again). She pressed upon me Brenda Coultas' poetry collection The Marvelous Bones of Time, another Halloween-appropriate offering, and if Molly's taste is anything to go by another winner.
Molly also introduced me to her table-mate, Bob Hershon of Hanging Loose Press, which just happens to be Brooklyn's oldest independent publisher (since 1966). As Bob pointed out, it's funny that a friend in common thousands of miles away should bring together book people who live in the same borough! He passed along his collection Calls from the Outside World and we traded praise for Sherman Alexie, who published his first collection with Hanging Loose when he was practically a kid. Can't wait to get these guys -- who are still putting out cool new work -- into the store for an Indie Press Night.
What else? -- Stopped by BookCourt's booth to say hi to Henry and Zack, and ran into another old friend, Random House sales rep Annette-Trial O'Neil, who's always a trip. Visited the cool artists' collective Booklyn to make a deal on some chapbooks and learned about their bookmaking courses (and their cool T-shirts). Chatted with Dennis Johnson of Melville House about the amazing success of The Little Girl and the Cigarette and the economics of hardcover vs. paperback original. Saw Zoe and Tom at the Archipelago and A Public Space booths, respectively. I'm sure there were other encounters -- forgive me if I spoke to you and haven't mentioned you here, and thank you for adding to the joy of the Festival.
Didn't make it to any of the readings, which were rich and plentiful. But as we wandered toward home as the Festival wound down around 6:00, we noticed Pete Hamill chatting with Jonathan Safran Foer in front of Borough Hall. A little further along was Chuck Klosterman, surrounded by a bevy of admirers. And a few yards later, Jonathan Lethem answered questions from a reporter or friend -- it was hard to tell.
It was lovely to walk home in the fall air with our bag of books and plans for dinner, just like people in any other town. But it was especially clear yesterday that Brooklyn, though it can feel at its best like a small town, isn't like any other town, anywhere.
New Yorkers in search of a literary fix this weekend are cordially invited to attend the second annual Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 16, 10:00am to 6:00pm, at the Brooklyn Borough Hall and Plaza.
The Overlook Press will be at Booth #91, so please come by to say hello to The Winged Elephant, and take a look at some of our new releases and bestselling titles. Paul Auster is one of the festival headliners, and we'll have the new paperback edition of Collected Poems at the Overlook booth for a low-low, one-time-only, Brooklyn Book Fair price!
Dear readers, the end of this week is the deadline for the Brooklyn Business Library's business plan competition, and I still have some elements to pull together. So blogging will be light, if it happens at all.
But just in time, Shelf Awareness linked to three articles about independent bookstores making good.
Explore Booksellers and Town Center Booksellers are among the only local shops lauded for good customer service in an article about the trade-offs of shopping local in the Aspen Times. (Note to self: customer service is a key component of a successful indie.)
The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, Kansas is getting new owners after twenty years, according to this article in LJWorld. Click on the video link to hear Kelly Barth, a long-time employee who is one of the three new owners, talking about plans for the future, including focusing on the store's strengths and providing space for local writers. (Note to self: the neighborhood is the strength of a successful indie.)
And my hero Betsy Burton speaks in the Deseret Morning News about the King's English, one of the most successful indie bookstores in the country and spearhead of a powerful Local First movement in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her confidence and optimism have shaped the world around her; she's seen growing public awareness of the value of local businesses. (Note to self: the benefits to the local economy are one of the values of a successful indie.)
It's good to be encouraged by such voices as I turn toward what I hope is the real beginning of the process of starting my own independent bookstore. I hope you'll forgive the Biblical quotation, which seems unavoidably apropos as I find myself inspired by the community of booksellers testifyin' about the good work that they're able to do:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders... and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
I'm off and running. See you after the deadline.
P.S. In the meantime, don't forget about the Brooklyn Book Festival this weekend! The lineup is even better than last year -- I'll be there if I possibly can.
Today marks the first installment in an ongoing series I'm calling Brooklyn Lit Life: interviews with authors, publishers, retailers, bloggers, readers, and others involved in the literary life of my favorite borough. Questions are designed to spark conversation from a variety of perspectives on what characterizes Brooklyn and its neighborhoods as a cultural and literary place. If you'd like to take part or you know a great candidate for the series, email me: booknerdnyc at earthlink dot net.
Brooklyn Life Life #1: Johnny Temple
Johnny Temple is in some ways the face of Brooklyn literary life. He is the co-founder and publisher of independent press Akashic Books, and the chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, which organizes the Brooklyn Book Festival. He is also the organizer for the Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival, and I've seen him selling books from a booth at the Atlantic Antic. And that's all when he's not touring with his band, Girls Against Boys. The following is an edited transcript of a phone interview with Johnny on July 27.
Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?
When I move to New York in 1990 from Washington D.C. where I was born and raised, I had a friend who lived in Fort Greene and had room open. I moved in with him and immediately took to the neighborhood. It was almost a bizarre coincidence, because the cultural life of Fort Greene syncs up so perfectly with my own interests -- literary, musical, cultural, everything. One of my favorite writers is Richard Wright – he was the first African American author to have a bestseller. That book [Native Son] had a major impact on me when I first read it in college, and got me into African American and literature and literature of the African Diaspora. Then I moved to Fort Greene and found out Wright had written parts of Native Son while sitting on benches in Fort Greene Park. I subsequently found out that Whitman and Steinbeck had also lived in the neighborhood. That opened the door to understanding and researching the literary history of Fort Greene and the borough in general. And I still live on the same street, though not in the same building.
Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?
Brooklyn is such an incredibly diverse place – as are Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx – though Brooklyn and Queens are probably the most racially, religiously, economically diverse boroughs. So as a result it's a little bit hard to generalize about a Brooklyn spirit or character. Though diversity is part of that character – perhaps its defining characteristic.
One of the things about literature coming out of Brooklyn – for example, in Brooklyn Noir [published by Akashic Books], which is the best anthology of Brooklyn literature out there – I say that as the publisher, but no one has ever disagreed with it… one of the things that characterizes it is a sort of rugged, working class aesthetic. That's not to imply that everyone in Brooklyn is working class – in fact it's rapidly gentrifying. But one of the things that draws people to the place is its everyman spirit, that working class aesthetic. Not that Jonathan Safran Foer is a working class hero (and I don't know Jonathan Safran Foer), but I bet that the rough edges of the borough is what attracted him and writers like him to the borough.
What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.
Fort Greene is a wellspring of African American and Caribbean culture. The face of the neighborhood is certainly changing as gentrification happens. However, Fort Greene is the place where people like Spike Lee emerged from. In the neighborhood the streets are alive with sense that this is a culturally cutting edge location, partly with regards to black culture. It's no coincidence that you hear Fort Greene name checked in hip hop songs, that it shows up in Spike Lee movies… There's a well established history and legacy of African American culture here, and great writers like Nelson George, Colson Whitehead, Toure live in the neighborhood; these are some of our best black writers, or I should say some of our best writers, period. And there are also newer immigrants like Jhumpa Lahiri and Jennifer Egan who live here now.
What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?
I'm not an expert on urban development, so can't really predict where it's headed. When I moved into Fort Greene in 1990 there were crack dealers on the corner, but there was the sense that the neighborhood was on cusp of change. And when I spoke to folks who had lived here since the 70s, they said it had felt like it was on the cusp since the 1980s, though it didn't really start to happen until the mid-90s. The neighborhood has changed; you see more young white hipsters and there are lot more white homeowners. At the same time, it is still a majority black neighborhood, and in addition to white people moving in there are also new black homeowners. The gentrification process is happening, demographics are changing, but I wouldn't make the leap to say the cultural essence is being destroyed. There are still a lot of extremely creative people firmly rooted in the place, as well as families of all races and ethnicities.
The one real gentrification curveball is the Atlantic Yards project. If that arena goes up, along with the 15 skyscrapers or whatever that accompany it, that will certainly affect the neighborhood. But I can't say how. Some people say it will destroy the neighborhood, but I don't think so. It will change it, but who knows for better or worse. Urban development needs to be monitored, and citizens' groups need to have their voices heard. But at the same time I think that change is not inherently bad. Cities do evolve. I have mixed feelings about the changes underway, and I'm not as anti-Atlantic Yards as some of my close friends.
Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?
One writer that I feel I have to mention is Jonathan Lethem. Fortress of Solitude is the best novel addressing urban gentrification that I've ever read. Like I was saying, it's that rugged aesthetic – the book is very rugged and raw, and it's also a masterpiece. There's Walt Whitman in the mid 19th century, who was also crucial to the founding of Fort Greene Park – he argued in the Brooklyn Eagle for more public community space, which led directly to the development of the park. You can look at the path from his work, to Richard Wright writing here in the 1930s, and fast forward to Colson Whitehead in the present.
Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn?
For one thing, many writers can't afford to live in Manhattan. Most writers can't earn a living being writers, so they have to have day jobs. And if you're working a day job and trying to find time to write around it, you're probably not pulling in enough to live in Manhattan. But then why not Queens or Staten island? I think the answer is that New York is one of the cultural capitals of the world, and Brooklyn is as close as you can get to the center of that while still being somewhat affordable.
What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?
There's so much exciting stuff going on. One exciting new literary journal is A Public Space. In June, Book Expo America, the biggest annual book trade conference, was held in New York [and partly in Brooklyn]. A Public Space created a great Brooklyn-centric fanzine with groundbreaking Brooklyn authors. The challenge of any literary endeavor is to create something that didn't exist before. [Editor] Brigid [Hughes] was previously with the Paris Review, and while I haven't talked to her about this extensively, it seems that her goal was not replicating Paris Review, but creating a whole new entity.
There are other great publications like Tin House, and Harp and Altar, an online poetry magazine based in Brooklyn. There's so much bubbling up. And so many young Brooklyn publishing companies like Ig, along with Soft Skull and Akashic. It's exciting for me and [publisher] Richard Nash at Soft Skull, because seven or eight years ago we were the young upstarts. I think we still have a fresh creative energy, but there are also a lot of new literary entities in Brooklyn now.
What do you think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place? What does the borough still need? What are the opportunities and challenges it faces?
I think the main challenge – and this cuts to one of main goals of the Brooklyn Book Festival – is for people to recognize and embrace Brooklyn as the literary capital of New York City. Though so many people in the literary world live in Brooklyn, the big public literary events are so often still in Manhattan. I have no problem with Manhattan, but you'll go to a literary event in Manhattan with 50 people, and 40 of them are from Brooklyn. Why not save the subway fare and the time, and promote public events in Brooklyn? Certainly there are some, and it's changed from 2 or 3 years ago. The goal of the Brooklyn Book Festival is to connect the dots so everyone can see each other. Borough Hall hosts Literary Mingles, which I believe you've been to, so that people can see each other in public and realize they all live within three miles of each other.
What's lacking in Brooklyn is a thriving network of public events. I feel strongly that public events are crucial to the survival of literature. In the publishing industry you hear people talking about literature being on the decline, and how people don't read any more. To sit and complain – that energy would be better spent on trying to harvest new audiences for literature. And what better place than Brooklyn, with all these different and diverse groups? The publishing industry should be working to cultivate those readers.
Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?
Are you familiar with a restaurant in Fort Greene called Habana Outpost? It's a Cuban restaurant with large patio. On weekends they have vendors, who make clothes or books or whatever, and these artisans show up and sell their goods in the patio where delicious food is being served. To me, if there was a bookstore/café entity somewhere centrally located, like Fort Greene, that was very public spirited, that invited people not only to attend and host events, but to set up their own corner to interact directly with public in a comfortable, creatively stimulating environment – that would be ideal.
Brooklyn could use a few more really great bookstores. There are some great ones, but we could use a few more. I have seen some open and close in Fort Greene, but the neighborhood needs something to water the literary garden that is here.
I think the thing to avoid is a literary snobbishness that you sometimes see in the New York publishing world – again, tying back to this issue of making literature more accessible. A great, public-spirited Brooklyn bookstore would steer clear of anything smacking of snooty New York snobbishness. Literature needs to be yanked down from the ivory tower. I don't think people need to be super well educated to appreciate a good book, a good novel. Obviously they need to be able to read and think critically, but I think a lot more people do that than the publishing industry recognizes. Multiculturalism is important to the future of publishing, not just for spirit of equality it embodies, but because publishing needs the energy, a new spirit, new approaches.
The new challenge is:
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I feel really lucky to be in such superb hands on a variety of fronts!
I loved the Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead collection.