PG 22 authoright announces the first annual london author fair. see how we and our founding sponsors are adapting to the changing industry.
PG 10 Looking to prioritize writing in the new year? Our ten writing resolutions are the perfect formula for any author’s success.
PG 37 need the perfect present for the avid readers on your holiday shopping list? see what we recommend—and it’s not just books.
NEW EDITION CONTEMPORARY
PUBLISHING
MAGAZINE
Anna Caltabiano’s self-publishing journey
Publishing Dreams Come True This Season
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
This Month
4
Book News
7
10
14 16
18
31 2
22
34
22 37
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Welcome to the December issue of New Edition! This month, Authoright is celebrating all of the changes in the industry by holding the first annual London Author Fair. We talk to Anna Caltabiano, a self-published author who has experienced traditional publishing success; Ladette Randolph, editor-in-chief of Ploughshares literary magazine; and our own James Wharton, who shares his experiences as a first-time author. New technology has changed the way we think about books. We celebrate the season with Diana Rissetto’s Christmas play, ten New Year’s writing resolutions, and a look back on some of the biggest industry news from 2013. And if you’re still looking for the perfect gift for the book lover in your life, don’t miss our recommendations. Contributors: Oren Berman, Louis Dresner, Katy Garland, Jordan Koluch, Hayley Radford, Diana Rissetto, and James Wharton
3
2013
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
A Year in Publishing News
The publishing industry is ever-changing, and 2013 has been no exception. Katy Garland takes a look at the biggest stories that dominated the headlines this year. The Author Lounge This year’s London Book Fair was huge, and Team Authoright put on The Author Lounge – a space dedicated to unpublished writers. Due to the huge number of unpublished authors who attend the event every year, we wanted them to have the chance to join seminars from traditional publishers, self publishing services and literary agents. Most importantly we wanted to recognise the shift in publishing towards author services. The Author Lounge was designed to educate authors about publishing and offer them access to a level of expertise that has previously been closed off to them. As CEO Gareth Howard put it, it was “a celebration of 21st century publishing”. The Author Lounge marked a change in terms of how authors are being viewed and positioned in the industry.
4
The Big Five 2013 was also a huge year for traditional publishing at the opposite end of the spectrum. In April, the Penguin/Random House merger was approved, changing the landscape of trade publishing forever. It’s been a fascinating development throughout the year, and the company has undergone vast re-structuring, with John Makinson now heading up the entire company. Penguin Random House has operations in the US, Canada, the UK, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Chile. The publishing giant employs more than 10,000 staff across these locations, not to mention being responsible for publishing many of the world’s bestselling authors, including more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates.
Jeff Bezos’ Newspaper When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought American newspaper The Washington Post for $250m. (£163m.) media commentators were sceptical to say the least. Taking over from four generations of the Graham family, Bezos used his own personal wealth (thought to be around $22bn/£14bn) to acquire the title but ensured that Amazon would have no role in the purchase. The Chief Executive of The Washington Post said: “Every member of my family started out with the same emotion – shock – in even thinking about selling the Post. But when the idea of a transaction with Jeff Bezos came up, it altered my feelings.” In an open letter, Bezos explained: “There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment…I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.” But what does he have in store? We’ll have to wait and see.
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Pen Names When The Sunday Times questioned how debut author Robert Galbraith could write such accomplished work, they exposed JK Rowling as the woman behind it. Following the revelation, The Cuckoo’s Calling flew into Amazon’s number one spot on the bestseller chart and dispatch time was estimated at five to nine days. Whilst her publisher Little, Brown denied that the revelation was a publicity stunt, JK Rowling expressed her disappointment at the revealing of her true identity and said she had hoped it would have been concealed for longer, as being Mr Galbraith was a “liberating experience”. When it transpired that the leak came from her own solicitors, she expressed her anger and was later rewarded a substantial donation for charity from the lawyers. Is this the industry’s biggest PR stunt yet? Or could the solicitors firm actually have been so foolish? We may never really find out. Amazon Buys Up More Book Companies Citing that the two sites shared “passion for reinventing reading”, Amazon bought book reviewing site Goodreads. With over twenty million avid users on the Goodreads site, the news sent shockwaves through the industry. American writers’ organisation the Authors’ Guild said the acquisition was a “truly devastating act of vertical integration”, which meant that “Amazon’s control of online book selling approaches the insurmountable”. In a deal valued at between $150m. and $1bn, Goodreads has pledged to remain an “independent entity”. Only time will tell if they’re able to keep that promise.
UK Library Closures Throughout 2013, it’s felt like regional newspaper stories have been dominated by the closures of libraries across the UK, and more are due on the horizon. The Library Campaign has accused the Government of ‘hiding’ the scale of cuts, which they predict will force the closure of a further 400 UK libraries by 2016, bringing the total of library closures since 2009 to more than 1,000. Three hundred and forty planned closures were reported in 2013 alone. But whilst libraries have been heavily supported by campaigners such as The Library Campaign, Voices for the Library, CILIP and a vast amount of local residents, the fight faces tough opposition from Government cuts. Prominent industry figures haven’t shied away from putting forward their opinions regarding the inability of libraries to adapt at a time when change has never been more important. At the beginning of the year, Horrible Histories author Terry Deary said libraries had “had their day” and described them as “seriously flawed”, but his opinions were quickly shot down by then children’s laureate Julia Donaldson, who expressed her gratitude towards free books, saying that they give those less fortunate the opportunity to benefit from the enchanting world of books. But is that enough to save them?
Congratulations Women and young writers dominated the award wins this year. Whilst Alice Munro was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature, 28-year-old Eleanor Catton and her novel The Luminaries won The Man Booker Prize, and The National Book Foundations 5 under 35 winners were all women. The shortlist for the Dylan Thomas Prize was made up of seven debuts by ‘young writers going for big themes’, and it was 29-year-old US writer Claire Vaye Watkins who took home the £30,000 prize for her collection of short stories, Battleborn, which was praised as “exceptional” and “infectious” work. The Self-Published Author In the USA, a self publishing boom has seen a 59% increase in DIY titles compared with 2011. Romance and literary fiction have helped drive the number of US books self published in hard copy up to 234,931. According to Bowker, the official ISBN agency for the US, this increase in the number of self published titles is mirrored by the increasing professionalism of self published authors. Bowker’s self publishing expert commented: “Authors’ understanding of the publishing process and their expectations of the quality of elements like formatting, cover design and metadata have sharpened up a lot over the past twelve to eighteen months”. In August, the $25,000 PEN/Robert W Bingham Prize for debut fiction was awarded to self-published author Sergio de la Pava and his novel A Naked Singularity, despite being rejected by mainstream publishers. This is most definitely a sign of things to come.
5
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
That Controversial Rule Change On announcement that the Man Booker Prize has extended its criteria and will from next year accept, for the first time, entries from American novelists, the industry was quick to pass judgement. Granta’s Assistant Editor, Anne Meadows, said: “Good novels will be overlooked. It means the prize will be dominated by big publishing houses who maybe aren’t taking as many risks. It could make it incredibly elitist. If you’re publishing brilliant writers, you’re usually publishing a few of them.” Former Booker judge John Mullan said: “It’s going to make it more and more likely that the competition is seen as a series of face-offs – a Ryder Cup of literature. It’s going to be Toni Morrison versus Hilary Mantel, or Jonathan Franzen against Ian McEwan, and I think that’s really unfortunate. The great thing about the prize is that there’s always room in it for surprises. We shouldn’t forget that, in 1981, when Salman Rushdie won with Midnight’s Children, no one had ever heard of him.” However, Ion Trewin, administrator of the Man Booker Prize, said: “The winner of the 2014 prize will be able to say: ‘I am the best in the English-speaking world.’” One of this year’s judges, Natalie Haynes, backed this up as she wrote in The Independent that the addition of more international writers should see the quality of submissions go up. She said: “Has British literary fiction met its end? You’d think so, if you heard the despairing howls of authors this week. Rumours had been swirling, and now it’s been confirmed: the Man Booker Prize is now open to Americans, and won’t the US crush all before it like the cultural juggernaut it is? How can Brits thrive when population size alone means the Yanks will demolish their chances?” The changes have certainly created a divide but surely it can’t be a bad thing that the prize now rewards writing regardless of nationality?
6
Literary Losses At the age of just fifty-nine, Iain Banks passed away in June from terminal cancer. Best known for his novels The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road and Complicity he was described by his publisher as “an irreplaceable part of the literary world”. Shortly after, in August, the news also came that Elmore Leonard had passed away “surrounded by his loving family”. A crime novelist of such books as Get Shorty, Maximum Bob and Out of Sight, Elmore had written forty-five novels, and was in the process of writing his fortysixth. He died following a stroke earlier that month. Also in August came the death of Irish poet, playwright and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, Seamus Heaney. Heaney died at the age of seventyfour, following a short illness. Former President of the United States Bill Clinton paid tribute by saying, “Both his stunning work and his life were a gift to the world. His mind, heart, and his uniquely Irish gift for language made him our finest poet of the rhythms of ordinary lives and a powerful voice for peace…His wonderful work, like that of his fellow Irish Nobel Prize winners Shaw, Yeats and Beckett, will be a lasting gift for all the world.” Our most recent loss came just a few weeks ago when Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing passed away at the age of 94. The author was best known for her works of fiction, which included The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor. Her agent, and long-time friend, said she was “a wonderful writer with a fascinating and original mind”. These authors, like many other great writers, will be sadly missed.
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
A Year in the Life: First-Time Author
James Wharton spent a decade in the military before retiring to civilian life and becoming an author. He describes the process of completing a book in a year. This time last year, I was preparing for the final few months of my decade-long career in the army. As 2013 began, I knew my year would be filled with strange, new and, in some cases, uncertain feelings about where I was in life, and where I’d be by the end of the year. I had already signed my book deal the previous October, and was well into the writing of my manuscript, which needed to be delivered at the end of March. But as I made my move from the committed world of the military to the freedom that comes with civilian life, my emotions and fears were sidelined with the pre-occupied state of mind I found myself in with the release of my book, which would detail my army career in depth. It’s been an incredible journey, but if I could time-travel back twelve months and offer myself one piece of advice for 2013, it would be enjoy every moment, because I doubt there will ever be a year like it again. This is what happened.
7
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
January
February
March – April
May
June
8
I began the new year with a clear goal: deliver my manuscript by March 30 – ideally, before. My contract stipulated that I was allowed to run over by thirty days, but I really wanted to send it to my editor early. Having never written a book before, I had the foresight to realise I might have a lengthy re-write process, so I was sure I needed to finish the book extra early. I went on a writer’s retreat to the New Forest for a week-long break to concentrate on this goal, and it helped very much, getting me away from the distractions of the city. I managed to finish the penultimate chapter towards the end of February, which felt amazing. I then re-read my entire manuscript over the course of a few days before jumping straight into writing the final chapter. I was so excited to be finishing the book that I wrote the chapter in one sitting, in the very early hours of a Sunday morning with a glass of wine. I then cried. I’d finished! The post-writing element of the publishing process kicked in. My editor got to work immediately, and we began to chat almost daily. She had a lot of points, as you can imagine, and I had my work cut out to address those points as effectively as possible, so as not to delay the planned timeline of events. Publication was planned for early June, and I really wanted that to be the case. When you get a date in your head for something like this, the last thing you want is delay. The most interesting point my editor had for me was that she felt the second half of the book was stronger than the first. I realised that this reflected my growth as a writer. The biggest challenge was to re-visit the first half and try to make it as strong as the second half. Alongside this part of the journey, I had to do a number of fun activities, like photoshoots for media outreach and the eventual cover. My publicist also started to arrange coverage for the eventual release. There was a very daunting moment when I realised how serious everything had become; my publisher organised a meeting in a board room with about ten people, who were all looking at me for answers. That’s one of my most vivid memories from the entire year. May was a hectic month for me, but more so for my publicist. We spent the month asking people and organisations to read the book and give quotes or reviews. I managed to get some incredible people like Matthew Cain, Alice Arnold and, unbelievably, Stephen Fry to provide quotes. Stephen’s quote went on the front cover and really boosted interest when the book was eventually released. Not sure I’ll ever be able to thank him enough for his kind words! After what seemed like forever, the big day arrived. Publication was postponed by two weeks due to a serialisation deal with the Mail on Sunday – who actually put me and my book on their front page. My publisher rang me to congratulate me, saying it was the best possible launch a book could ever get. I then spent two weeks constantly on the radio, in newspapers and on TV doing interviews. The early starts and repetitive questions from journalists were hard work, but I honestly loved every moment of it. And the endless kind tweets people sent me every time I did an interview was very fulfilling. Thank God for Twitter!
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
July
August
September – October
November
My UK book tour began in early July, which saw me on the road for three weeks talking to audiences in libraries and bookshops about my book. Again, very tiring, but totally priceless in terms of engaging with potential book buyers. I signed a lot of books in July and met a lot of very nice people in doing so. For me, August was a month of mostly relaxing. I had one or two loose events that I was booked to speak at, but the highlight was a long overdue and much needed holiday in New York and cruising along the Canadian coast. It was amazing, and I even spotted somebody sitting next to a pool on the ship reading my book. I couldn’t resist the urge to introduce myself. Having found the process of writing a book and getting published an exhilarating experience, I was over the moon to get a job with Authoright. To be in the industry and working for other writers, passing on my experience and advice is very rewarding, and helpful for my own future writing ambitions. I’m having a lot of fun here! I was nominated ‘Writer of the Year’ at the Stonewall Awards in London in early November, which I couldn’t believe. Alongside me in the category were what I considered ‘proper writers’, and I was just delighted to have been thought of in the same light. I was also informed that my book is to be published in the USA in May 2014, which was pleasant – something exciting to look forward to next year! The final icing on the cake for me was the arrival of my first royalty cheque. I’m already planning another holiday in the not too distant future! Find James Wharton online here: https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/authors/james-wharton. His book Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier is available for purchase on his publisher’s website: https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/out-in-the-army-hardback
9
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
1
Write, a lot. All great writers will tell you that the main trick is to write all the time. Writing constantly helps you practise and will make you more fluent at it. The first trick to ensure you are writing enough is to work out a schedule: when are you free each day to write, and for how long? Make a timetable and stick to it. If you decide that you can spare two hours every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, then make sure you do. “But writing can’t be forced out of me”, you cry. Wrong! It can. Simply unplug every electronic distraction and get down to it. Chain yourself to the desk if you have to. You don’t have to be writing the next chapter of your latest novel; words on a page are enough. Whatever you do, just write something!
10
Writing Resolutions
It’s almost that time of year again: the time when we all make promises to better ourselves in the new year. For many authors, this is a time to get really serious about whatever they’re working on. Louis Dresner has ten resolutions that are guaranteed to make you a better writer.
2 10
Keep a journal. A journal is a great writing resource. It doesn’t have to be a chronological description of events, it can simply be a notepad filled with ideas. If you’re overcome with a feeling of joy, write it down while you’re in the moment so you can use it later. Next time one of your characters shares that intense emotion, you can write about it with much more authenticity than if you’re trying to recall – even only a few hours later – what it felt like. A journal can hold plot ideas, descriptions of an interesting person you passed in the street, a small selection of words that create a beautiful phrase you want to use at some point but don’t know where it fits. Don’t let those tiny moments of inspiration slip by you because you didn’t write them down.
3
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Read more. You can’t overstate the importance of reading in developing one’s writing skills. Reading a variety of things is important too, as it exposes you to other styles, voices and forms of writing that you might not have come across before. Reading outside of the genre or subject matter you write about will facilitate originality; if you want to become the next Dan Brown and all you read is thrillers, you’re likely to produce some very derivative work. Most things that seem to be unique are actually just fusions of ideas that have never been combined before; the more you read, the more interesting fusions you will subconsciously create. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. – Stephen King
4 5
Review everything you read. Start writing reviews for the books you read – on your blog, Goodreads, or just for yourself; it doesn’t matter. By developing your critical eye of others’ work, you will improve your ability to judge your own writing. Even if you employ outside editors (as you should), being able to spot strengths and weaknesses in your own writing is invaluable, particularly during the redrafting process.
Break boundries. Try exploring with a new style, a new tense, a different form, or a new genre. Stretching yourself and breaking the status quo is vital if you are to grow as a writer. Don’t be scared of writing something that’s not great. In fact, if you’ve never written poetry before it probably will be terrible the first time you try; but it’s not the outcome that’s important, it’s the act of doing it. You will find yourself tackling subjects and ideas from a new angle, and it will help expand the options available to you when you go back to working within your comfort zone.
11
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
6
Write about something you really care about. If your book is on a topic you don’t care much for, it will really show in your writing. If you write a zombie book just because it’s a hot topic, and not because you love inexplicably mobile rotting corpses, your dispassion will really show. How can you expect your reader to care about something if you don’t? Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style. – Kurt Vonnegut
7 8 12
Do proper research. Most writers will have at least one – probably more like twenty – manuscripts or story ideas that they have given up on. Don’t give up on these projects; go back and finish them. These half-baked ideas sit in your drawer like a bad omen, and the guilt over their having never been finished will hinder your ability to work on other things. Get them out of the way – you never know, they might just turn into something amazing.
Always f inish what you’ve started. Most writers will have at least one—probably more like twenty—manuscripts or story ideas that they have given up on. Don’t give up on these projects; go back and finish them. These half-baked ideas sit in your drawer like a bad omen, and the guilt that they’ve never been finished will hinder your ability to work on other things. Get them out of the way—you never know, they might just turn into something amazing.
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
9
Find a place you love to write. Writing typically starts off as a side project, something to do when you have time to spare, so you’ve never really created a space specifically for writing. But having that perfect place in which to write can be invaluable. Find a free space, set it up with everything you’ll need for writing, surround yourself with inspirational things, and let loose on your keyboard. If you associate writing with that place you love, it will never feel like a chore again.
10
Take it to the next level. Once you’ve got a manuscript you’re completely happy with and feel you can’t improve it any more, don’t be afraid to take the plunge towards getting it published. Whether you’re looking for an agent, or if you would rather self publish, don’t be afraid to put the fruits of your labour out there for all to see. Being judged is part of being a writer, so you’d better get used to it! People might hate it, but that would be far better than never finding out and letting all of your hard work go to waste.
13
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Making Her Own Way
Author Anna Caltabiano was told she was too young when she approached agents about her first novel. So she selfpublished with Authoright’s help, and the platform she had built helped her get an agent and a traditional publishing deal. Anna tells New Edition about her writing process and what it’s like to be a published author.
Setting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) has never been an easy task. I believe that the idea that one can simply let their creativity flow, transcribe their thoughts and call themself an author was never true, or at least was reserved for mad geniuses, one of which I am not and most probably will never be. The writing and publishing industry has never been simple. If anything, in the age of the internet and immediacy, it has grown even more confusing and difficult to understand. But then again, what do I know? After all, I’m only a seventeen-year-old girl without even a high school diploma. When I look back on the period of time when I began working on my first novel, All That is Red, rather than remembering the days spent typing furiously at my laptop, most of what I remember involves the work I did to prepare to write. ‘Preparation’ I had called it. The name made it sound all the more formal and put together – like I actually knew what I was doing. In reality, preparation involved drawing stick-figure versions of my characters on fuchsia heart-shaped Post-it notes. Each Post-it note described a scene or an idea for a scene. It wasn’t long before I had a collection of about eighty Post-its, colouring my desk bright pink. I would put on music I felt fitted the mood and emotions I was trying to convey, and I would spend hours moving the Post-its around on my desk until I was satisfied with the order of plot events. Though it helped to see the scenes laid out, I thought I was just procrastinating. I didn’t know it then, but what I was actually doing was outlining. When the time came later to write my second and third novels, I went back to outlining. I learned not to be a strict outliner; what I wrote in my outlines could and should change before it went into my first draft. This made me start viewing writing as a process, rather than a journey to a specific end result.
14
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
After the outlining and various other pre-writing procedures, came the actual writing. Though I’m still a bit of a perfectionist at heart, I learned that first drafts are called first drafts for a reason –there’s no need to get everything right on the first try, because you’ll be doing many other drafts whether you like it or not. Another important thing I learned while writing was that research was never enough for me. Total immersion was the only way to go. This was especially true when writing my second novel, The Seventh Miss Hatfield, where much of the story was set in the past. I watched movies and listened to music from that time. I looked at paintings and read the literature my characters would have grown up reading. I quickly found out that to write my characters, I needed to know them intimately. I spent time wondering what my secondary characters ate for breakfast. Were they a tea or coffee kind of person? Did they know their own zodiac sign? Would they even care about that? I learned to know my characters so completely that they were as real to me as anyone who actually existed. When starting to think about publication of my second novel, this was one of the things to which I kept coming back. It was important for me to find a publisher who saw my characters as real and believed other people should meet them as well. I knew I was more than fortunate to have a literary agent who believed in me and my writing, as much (or more than) I did. I wanted the same for my book and the characters to whom I had grown attached. Luckily, it wasn’t long before I found that publisher, who had the same enthusiasm as I did regarding the novel. From my first conversation with the man who would later be my wonderful editor, it was clear that the publisher believed in the story I wanted to tell. These last few months working with them have been a learning
experience. Having people interacting with what I wrote – coming in with a fresh perspective, reading it as the reader would, questioning my story – and being able to talk to them afterwards has been indispensable. Story line, continuity, character development, plot consistency – all parts of my writing where my publisher has been able to help. Writing is such a solitary endeavour, it’s fantastic not to have to go about the editing and publication process alone. Working with a professional editor and copyeditor has also shown me how to read fiction with a different critical eye. Beyond the British versus American spellings and mechanics, I learned about storytelling as both a business and an art. We should never sacrifice either for the other’s sake. A few years ago, someone told me, “Writing is an art. Publishing is a business.” I don’t think I’ve forgotten that, so when the topic came up of how to market the books I write, naturally I remembered these words. Marketing is not a dirty word, nor is it optional in today’s world. In fact, it’s critical. If you don’t know what you want to convey, you can’t affect what people come away with after seeing your book. The image you create should be
simple, compelling and, most of all, yours. In a fast paced world we can’t afford to overlook cover design and back of the book blurbs. When split second decisions are being made on which book to buy in a bookstore or online, they really do matter. Marketing your book doesn’t have to be limited to book related media and events. People who read books are everywhere! Find your audience and get to know them. For me, this has involved everything from teaching an art class to young kids to speaking at an anti-bullying conference with Disney Channel celebrities. Marketing and how you communicate your message provides a chance to stand out. Authoright helped me build a brand and a presence, so that when I was ready with my second book, I already had a growing author platform. There are a lot of people out there (such as Authoright, other authors and various writing forums) who want to and can help authors. Use them! I think it’s easy to forget that there’s never any harm in asking for advice. I believe that passion and persistence are all you really need to publish a book. If you write what you want to write, the passion for your story is already there. Persistence, with writing, publishing, marketing, and almost anything else, is crucial. Without it, we’re too afraid to fail and cannot take risks. As with anything, don’t take “no” for an answer. “No” is simply a step along the way to a “yes”, and that one “yes” from a person who believes in your book and what you want to say is all you need. Everything else is just luck. Anna Caltabiano’s new novel, The Seventh Mrs Hatfield, will be published by Gollancz: www. gollancz.co.uk
15
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Jordan Koluch talks to Ploughshares editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph about the Boston literary magazine that has become integral to the New England writing community. Ploughshares has been around for over thirty years. What makes it such a fixture in the community? When Ploughshares was founded in 1971 in the Plough and Stars bar in Cambridge, MA, I don’t think anyone expected it to have either the success or the long life it’s since enjoyed. The young people who founded the magazine were idealistic and passionate, and maybe the only thing they had in common was their love of literature. At the time, the Boston literary scene (I’ve been told) was a bit stodgy, and they wanted a vehicle for promoting work that fit better with the changes happening around them in the wider culture. Almost from the beginning, the work published in Ploughshares struck a chord with readers. It was especially exciting for young writers in Boston, and the magazine became much more than its print edition; it became the heart of a new literary community. Young writers profited from their association with the magazine, and the magazine profited from the growing reputations of those young writers. How does Ploughshares stay relevant in the rapidly changing industry? What’s the most rewarding part of literary publishing? We stay current by paying attention and
16
being aware that we can’t necessarily resist change, but must interpret how it can best be harnessed by the magazine. It isn’t always easy, and we have a lot of conversations about it. The most rewarding part of publishing a literary magazine is supporting new talent and showcasing new work by established writers. Every day is different, and it’s a very good day when we find work that excites and surprises us. People have been talking about the death of literary publishing for years now. Do you think the industry is dying? Where is it headed? Since I’ve been hearing this same concern for over twenty years, it’s sort of hard to get too worried about it. I think there is more interest in writing than ever, but the readership for serious literature has never been large. The intensity, talent and passion I see in the literary community is sometimes staggering. It’s always hard to say where we’re heading, and I’m not a great predictor of the future. I imagine that the eBook will continue to be more widely accepted, but I don’t see the end of print technology, at least not for a while yet. I certainly hope serious readers continue to seek out and support literary magazines, which are the incubators for new talent. Every great writer has to
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
start somewhere in their career, and that’s the role the literary magazine plays. What’s your favourite thing about working at Ploughshares? What are the particular struggles for lit mags right now? I love discovering a new writer with promise. That’s my very favourite thing about working here. I think the struggle for literary magazines in general is one of patronage. Magazines can rarely support themselves with subscriptions, and in the past the generosity of the great colleges and universities [made them] ideal homes for the literary magazines, which are really the laboratory for new literature and important to the future of our literary culture. Now, though, as those same colleges and universities struggle with budgetary constraints, it’s been easy to question the role of the magazine within the wider institution. What kind of submissions are you looking for? I’m honestly not looking FOR anything. Writers always surprise me. I try to remain open to what I couldn’t imagine until I see it. That’s my role as an editor, not wishing for something but staying alert to new voices and new approaches. What do you wish writers knew about submitting to you? I wish writers knew when submitting to us how much
Ladette Randolph, editor-in-chief of Ploughshares
patience and persistence is a part of the publishing process. The writers I’ve known who published a lot, sent out a lot. I know it can be very discouraging to keep submitting when all you’re getting back are rejections, but you have to keep trying. There are many factors that determine our acceptance of a given piece, so it’s good not to take a rejection personally. Writers don’t need to use gimmicks to be noticed. I want writers to trust that an honest and authentic story is (and I hope always will be) a powerful thing. I wish we could publish every worthy submission we receive, but we can’t, and we have to make hard choices for every issue. A lot of writers get their start publishing in lit mags, then go on to pursue book deals. Do you think this is a good model? Of course. It’s THE model for many writers. One of the reasons writers want to publish in magazines like Ploughshares is because we have a platform that gets their work in front of agents and editors. If a writer is trying to publish a short story collection, most editors like to see that some of the stories have been published in literary magazines. It’s a sign the writer is serious and a part of the literary community.
Ploughshares Fall 2013, guest edited by Peter Ho Davies
17
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s... an ebook? The emergence of new technology has caused us to question the definition of a book. Jordan Koluch examines the potential (and pitfalls) of publishing content electronically. Not since Gutenberg’s movable type press changed the face of printing has a piece of technology fundamentally changed the way we read books. The move from scrolls to codices is not unlike the shift from print book to eBook. The increasing popularity of eBooks is polarising the publishing industry and challenging the way we understand the book. Most eBooks are just that – electronic versions of print books. eBooks tend to be cheaper than print books, though not by much. They’re easier to transport, since one e-reader can hold hundreds of books and is smaller than the average paperback. And they’re arguably easier to read, since you can change the text display to be comfortable for your reading needs. But, by and large, when you buy an eBook, you’re buying a picture of a print book. (You’re actually buying a licence to a picture of a print book, but that’s a subject for a different article.) Most eBooks are imitating in code functionality that is only necessary in print; you turn ‘pages’ in an eBook, even though there are no actual pages. This isn’t a terrible model; an eBook is easier to read than a print book in the same way an MP3 is easier to listen to than a CD. But what if we used eBook technology not just to mimic books, but to redefine how we think about them?
18
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
What is an Interactive eBook?
Jay-Z’s memoir Decoded in hardcover (above) and paperback (below).
The Decoded app displayed on the iPhone and iPad.
Interactive eBooks already exist. These are files that include not only text, but audio, video, images and hyperlinks. The experience of reading an enhanced eBook is more akin to being on the Internet than to reading a print book, which is one of the main reasons they’re criticised. Some book lovers feel as though they lose something in the digital format, an authenticity that only analogue can supply. But I prefer to imagine the possibilities. Take these notable examples. In 2010, Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House, published Jay-Z’s memoir Decoded. First they launched a hardcover (£20.00/$35.00), then a paperback edition (£18.99/$25.00). But at the same time, they also published two eBooks and an app. Each of these digital editions offered more content than the last. The standard eBook (£7.49/$12.99) included sixteen pages of material that wasn’t in either of the print editions. The enhanced book (£9.49/$14.99) included thirty minutes of video interviews recorded specifically for the eBook, as well as two bonus music videos. The app (£NP/$9.99) included JayZ’s annotations on an additional song; the ability to preview, play and buy previously unreleased songs; and an option to pick ten of your favourite Jay-Z songs with the rapper’s own annotations. Suddenly the book was just the beginning of the reading experience. In 2011, Faber and Faber, in conjunction with Touch Press, released The Wasteland by TS Eliot as an app (£9.99/$13.99). The app is a digital copy of the poem, but it also includes a copy annotated by Eliot himself, two different audio recordings of Eliot reading the poem, recordings by other famous poets and actors, a video reading and videos of academics and critics analysing the poem embedded within the text. The poem in digital form is an artistic and educational experience beyond anything print could offer. Choose Your Own Adventure has ten titles available in the iBookstore. Instead of flipping through pages, a series of hyperlinks guides you through the text, with an overall story map included in each book. This is one of the scenarios where enhanced content really shines. Enhanced content eBooks allow readers to move past the linear nature of print books. When you make a choice on page thirteen of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, the ‘next page’ may be page twentyseven, but there aren’t thirteen pages in between. HarperCollins has a whole list of enhanced eBooks, or what they’re calling EEBs. The publisher has identified books on its print list that it considers particularly well-suited to have enhanced content, and records original video and audio with authors, while also adding imagery and interactivity. They emphasise that not every book benefits from an enhanced eBook, but the ones that do become much better reading experiences.
19
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Potential of Interactive eBooks Imagine a world in which the eBook version of a novel includes a soundtrack created by the author for one of the main characters. A world in which a biography links to digital copies of source material in library archives. A world in which a cookbook has exportable grocery lists and warns readers with dietary restrictions which recipes are safe. A book is no longer print on paper, one page after the other; eBook technology allows the book to be so much more than a linearly oriented container for words. HarperCollins believes that about half of readers will pay more for enhanced content. It’s easy to see how consumers could feel better paying £11.00/$17.99 for an eBook that offered more than resizable text. Instead of redefining the platform, there’s an opportunity to redefine the book. But who’s going to do that?
T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland app, created by Faber and Faber in conjunction with Touch Press, displayed on the iPad.
The table of contents of a Choose Your Own Adventure ebook displays the non-linear nature of the digital format. Electronic CYOA books take advantage of the technology’s capabilities to create a reading experience that is arguably better than the print version.
20
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
‘Hacking’ the Book This year’s Books in Browsers conference (held October 24 and 25 in San Francisco) included a hackday, where software engineers and designers were encouraged to come together and electronically challenge the idea of the eBook. While publishers sent managers from their digital departments to participate, a number of the hackers were not publishing professionals. This makes sense, since hacking is something more common in the tech industry than in publishing. Hacking is by definition the breaking of something, though often with the intention to make it better. The publishing industry is notoriously aligned with the ethos of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, so there’s a good chance the next big revolution could come from industry outsiders. Companies like Facebook often host hackdays, where employees are required to try out new ideas by breaking old code and writing new variations. No idea is too outlandish to try, which is what keeps these companies on the cutting edge of technological innovation. Apply this to the eBook, and suddenly what a book looks, feels and sounds like is all up for interpretation. The Limits Right now, the limitations on enhanced eBooks are mostly about platforms. The coding technology is there for all sorts of enhanced content and interactivity, but some e-readers don’t support all the extras. iPads are often the best at this, which is why so many enhanced eBooks are released as apps, but the Kindle Fire is catching up. The next generation of e-readers will be steps closer to handling video content, audio and hyperlinks that link out to the Internet. The other limit is how we conceptualise our reading experience. We’ve effectively moved the page to the screen. But what’s left is a reimagining of what the book can be. An eBook doesn’t have to be just words. It doesn’t have to flip from page one to page two. How we interact with our books and how they interact with our environment is murkier than ever. But it’s a whole world of possibilities waiting to be explored.
21
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Writers Unite Everyone at Authoright is passionate about supporting and championing the individual author. And what better way to do it than by launching our own series of international events, dedicated to serving, educating, promoting and enriching the global writing community? We start with the inaugural London Author Fair on 28th February, 2014. Authoright’s co-founder Hayley Radford reveals her ambitions for the event, thanking those who are helping to make it happen. Curating the AuthorLounge at this year’s London Book Fair was a turning point for Authoright. Not only was it a terrifically rewarding experience – enabling us to connect with over a thousand authors over the course of three days, advising them on their publishing options – but it also gave us a real confidence boost. Knowing that we could stage and host such a successful event so quickly – we were only given a matter of three months to turn it around on top of our daily commitments as a growing business – really proved what we could achieve if we set our minds to it. That made us want to create an event that was bigger, better and even more forward-thinking. With the support of our friends in the industry – in particular Blurb, CreateSpace, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kobo Writing Life and NOOK Press – we hope to achieve just that, in a truly collaborative way, connecting authors with the best and brightest minds working across all areas of the book trade: cover designers, editors, branding experts, publishers, literary agents, marketers, publicists, distributors, discoverability websites, and digital publishing platforms. We speak to over 2,500 authors a year at Authoright, so we know intimately the problems they face, the questions they have and the dreams they are chasing as they approach publishing, either for the first time, or as they migrate from one model to another.
22
The industry landscape has shifted remarkably in recent years, with myriad routes to publication now viable and new opportunities galore for those with a story to tell. Writing is now more multifaceted than ever. Over the past fifteen years, the rise in citizen journalism has broken down the boundaries of traditional and accepted authorship. With the advent of social media, everyone has the ability to produce and share their original content, as writer, blogger, commentator, tweeter and so on. But in the same breath, that choice – that potential to select in what was previously an entirely one-dimensional market – can feel overwhelming to someone who just wants to focus on the creative elements of their craft and get their book out there. It’s still difficult for writers, especially unpublished ones, to find the answers they need to make positive, empowering choices, whilst understanding the trade and knowing their own worth within it. The book trade is at last becoming more transparent, having spent years effectively shielding itself from contact with those writers whose talents sustained it. Ironic, much? There’s never been a more freeing and potentially rewarding time to be a writer than right now, as long as you approach the business of books with your eyes open, armed with knowledge. The London Author Fair will host over 400 authors across three floors of the private members club, for a day of radical seminars, intimate workshops, oneon-one collaborator hubs, educational films, the live
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
PitchUp! literary agent submissions event run by LitFactor, and a lavish late-night drinks reception and networking event to close. The full programme of events will be confirmed in the New Year. The London Author Fair is the first in a series of live international author events – subsequent fairs are scheduled for New York in September 2014, and California, Canada and various European cities during 2015 and beyond. A true celebration of what it is to create, publish and be read in the twenty-first century, this one-stop extravaganza will be filmed and made available online, enabling The London Author Fair message to reach an international audience. As someone who has been fortunate enough to observe the publishing industry at close quarters during a period of radical change – change that is ongoing – I am certain of only two things. First, that the way in which the industry functions at present cannot be sustained; there will be significant casualties amongst literary agents, publishers, distributors and retailers unless more of them move to expand, review or refine their operations. New thinking is still badly needed. The second thing is that, at the
heart of all of this, the writer has the opportunity – possibly for the first time ever – to operate as an astute consumer, becoming more selective, demanding, finessed, entrepreneurial and, hopefully, better rewarded for it. If every author moved to self publishing, the traditional side of the trade would cease to exist, and it knows this only too well. Each and every component part of the publishing process must justify its value to the independent writer in order to merit his or her custom. How, where and with whom should we invest our time and our expertise, and with whom should we entrust our manuscript, our stories, our content, ready to be shared with the reading world? And how will they want to read that content tomorrow? Or in five years’ time? How do we anticipate the trends that will be shaping the publishing curve a decade from now? No one has a crystal ball that can predict the future, but all the indicators would suggest that people crave content and more and more of us consider ourselves to be ‘authors’ than ever before. It’s imperative that we encourage the writing community to look at the bigger picture. Publishing today is about content creation
and its dissemination, and we want to ensure that writers everywhere understand their potential and what’s available to them now and in the future, whether they are interested in disintermediation, author-entrepreneurship, distribution, rights or anything in between. The London Author Fair will be a content-creator-focused event, one reflecting the massive changes sweeping the media and publishing industries, an event that is forward-thinking and future-focused, not only exploring the scope of what it is to create, publish and promote content for readers today, and tomorrow, but also supporting writers with each creative and commercial step they take. We look forward to seeing you there. The London Author Fair takes place at The Hospital Club, Covent Garden, London, on Friday 28th February, 2014. For tickets, go to www.londonauthorfair.com
23
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Our Fouding Partners WE
24
Blurb® is a creative publishing and marketing platform that unleashes the creative genius inside everyone. Blurb’s platform makes it easy to design, publish, market and sell professionalquality books, using the Blurb Bookify™ online bookmaking tool, Blurb’s free, award-winning Blurb BookSmart® app or Blurb’s PDF to Book workflow. Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools enable customers to market and sell their books, and keep 100% of their profit. Blurb’s social and community features allow customers to create and share Blurb books among friends and colleagues with ease. Blurb was founded by Eileen Gittins in 2005, and includes a team of design, internet and media veterans who share a passion for helping people bring their stories to life. Visit www.blurb.com
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
WE
WE
CreateSpace provides a fast, easy and free way to create, publish and distribute your print book on Amazon.com and Amazon’s European websites. Through our services, you can sell books, CDs, and DVDs for a fraction of the cost of traditional manufacturing, while maintaining more control over your materials. We make it simple to distribute your books, music and video through internet retail outlets, your own website, and other bookstores, retailers, libraries and academic institutions. CreateSpace is a DBA of On-Demand Publishing LLC, part of the Amazon group of companies. For more information visit www.createspace.com
With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) you can easily publish your book for free on Kindle and Kindle applications and reach millions of readers while maintaining complete control of your work. All you need to get started is a digital file of your book. Kindle Direct Publishing is part of the Amazon group of companies. For more information visit www.amazonkdp.com
25
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
WE
WE
26
Kobo Writing Life is an author-friendly, do-it-yourself publishing portal which makes your books available within Kobo’s global catalogue. Kobo Inc. is one of the world’s fastestgrowing e-reading services, offering four million eBooks, magazines and newspapers to millions of customers in 190 countries. Believing that consumers should have the freedom to read any book on any device, Kobo provides consumers with a choice when reading. Kobo offers an e-reader for everyone, with a wide variety of E Ink e-readers and Google-Certified Android tablets to suit any reader’s style, including the award-winning Kobo Touch™, Kobo Mini, Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Arc, Kobo Arc 7, Kobo Arc 7HD and Kobo Arc 10HD. Along with the company’s free top-ranking e-reading apps for Apple®, BlackBerry®, Android® and Windows®, Kobo ensures the next great read is just a page-turn away. Visit www. kobowritinglife.com
NOOK Press™, Barnes & Noble’s digital self-publishing platform, is expanding internationally. Independent authors and publishers in the UK will soon be able to launch their work as a NOOK Book® and reach millions of book-loving customers in the US and UK. NOOK Press is an innovative self-publishing platform offering authors a fast, easy and free way to write, edit, collaborate and publish the highest quality eBooks and directly distribute them to millions of avid readers. By removing the technology barrier from self publishing and offering easy-to-use tools for writing, editing and publishing eBooks, NOOK Press makes it even easier for authors to focus on writing and reaching new readers. To get started today, visit www.nookpress.com
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
LitFactor
TWO-SENTENCE STORY CONTEST [NEW BEGINNINGS]
[
]
Sign up for LitFactor and submit your two-sentence story for a chance to be published on LitFactor’s homepage and in our author newsletter. Find all the details here: http://bit.ly/187qSjx
27
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Acclaimed online literary community WEbook relaunches as an innovative new publishing platform where readers choose the stories they want to read and help get them published! Publishing just got reinvented. That is, according to the good people at the popular literary community WEbook. The creative connection between writers and readers as content creators and consumers is changing shape, and WEbook are at the heart of that change. Established in 2007, WEbook.com was the first true online community devoted to discovering new authors, and has been enabling readers, writers and literary agents to unite with unpublished manuscripts ever since. WEbook’s winter 2013 relaunch marks a profound change of direction for the website: WEbook has become a publisher, enabling its dedicated readers to call the shots, finding and publishing the next bestseller from within the WEbook community. WEbook Director, Simon Rosenheim, told New Edition, “What we’re trying to do, is to take a great community, a great writer’s website, and to make it, WEbook, the publisher. But it is what type of publisher that we think makes it unique and compelling. Along the lines of the original idea for WEbook, we want the whole community, working as a collective, to be the publisher. We are independent, ambitious and just a
28
little bit crazy. But we think that we’ve come up with something that will make the publishing industry sit up and think.” Historically, writers have had two options when it comes to publishing: work with a traditional publisher or take the self published route. WEbook will artfully combine the best of both worlds, retaining the creative spirit of independent publishing with the invaluable talent-spotting prowess of a traditional publisher, but also fuelled by the passions of an engaged social community. Through its free Page to Fame programme, the power and decision-making will be transferred to the WEbook audience, who will judge a book’s quality and its commercial potential. If thousands of WEbook members read and rave about a particular book in the raw, it has a strong chance of being successful once published. Readers who sign up to Page to Fame are given book openings, short stories, essays, poems and blog posts to read, and are able to choose their preferred genre so that an author’s material is always matched with its target market. Readers then rate each written work on a five-point scale,
with the ratings determining the work’s progression to the next commissioning stage. Each time a book is elevated, a publishing professional will review the manuscript. The programme is fair and anonymous; a reader is unable to search for a specific work or author, preventing biased voting. Those readers who review in high volume will be promoted to Top Scouts and Expert Raters. After five rounds of intensive reviewing, the most popular texts will be published by WEbook, who’ll provide a full-service publishing process, including layout, cover design, eBook conversion, print-on-demand, distribution and marketing, offering 85% royalties to its WEbook authors. At WEbook. com, readers can also find news, information, photos and interviews about up-and-coming authors, allowing readers to really connect with the writers in whom they’ve invested. With over 830,000 reader votes cast and eight exciting new titles already published, the scope for WEbook looks limitless. For more information go to www. WEbook.com
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE WEbook has published eight books so far and plans on many more as its new innovative approach to book publishing.
29
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
All books published through WEbook are available for purchase at amazon.com.
30
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
2014 marks the centenary of the Great War. As our connection with the past begins to fade, Hayley Radford examines how the historian Peter Doyle and the artist and photographer Chris Foster bring the character of the indefatigable British soldier vividly to life, in a book that truly honours the legacy of the fallen: Remembering Tommy.
Dulce et decorum est
Image courtesy of telegraph.co.uk
31
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
The British soldier of the First World War
has been depicted in many books. Invariably, a pen picture paints him as stoic, joining the army in a wave of patriotic fervour, destined to serve four years on the Western Front in some of the most costly battles in history. Yet often the picture is difficult to resolve for the reader. There were, after all, nearly nine million soldiers sent to war from the British Isles, to join an international conflict which would ultimately claim the lives of over sixteen million people. What was it like in the trenches? How did the soldier live? Where did he sleep? What was it like to go over the top, and when he did, what did he carry with him? For many, the idea of trench life is hazy, and usually involves ‘drowning in mud’ in, as one writer put it, ‘the pitiless misery’ of Passchendaele. Recently, military historians have presented an alternative picture, one in which the hopelessness of the First World War is given new life and purpose. Two of my most treasured possessions are cards dating from the First World War. The first is a Christmas card sent from my greatgrandfather to his wife and baby daughter, my paternal grandmother. In a few short lines he sends them love and best wishes whilst trying to mask his own fears, caught up, as he was at the time, on the Western Front. The other was sent just a few months later; a British Army condolences card delivering the news of his death to my greatgrandmother, and to Mary, then less than a year old, the daughter he had cherished but would never meet. These mementos of the war serve to foster a connection with it that is far more profound than anything we might experience more remotely. This is the power of firsthand testimony, of witness accounts of storytelling. We have all vicariously endured the horrors of trench warfare through the agonising poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, their sense of duty matched only by their contempt for the miserable, needless slaughter of their many young compatriots. As we move further away from
32
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
the decade in which European soil was first scorched, we lose too our physical contact with that war as its survivors finally pass on. As their connection evaporates into history, the need to collate, restore and preserve a tangible link to this most significant and substantial period in British and European history becomes more profound, so we begin to rely purely on archaeology, on artefacts such as my two war mementos from the soldier who never came home. We must find new ways to continue honouring those who fought, perished and then prevailed for generations to come. Peter Doyle is a scientist and military historian specialising in the role of terrain in warfare. A visiting Professor at University College London, and co-secretary of the All Party Parliamentary War Heritage Group, he has crafted one of the most important books to commemorate the Great War and, in particular, the spirited British soldier. Remembering Tommy: The British Soldier in the First World War pays tribute to the real life British soldier of the Great War, from the moment of joining up to his final homecoming. Using original artefacts in historic settings, the men and their words are brought vibrantly to life. The uniforms they wore, the equipment they carried, the letters they wrote home, their personal possessions, mementos and photographs come together in a powerful tribute to the indomitable Tommy. Each one of these precious artefacts bears witness to the men who left them behind, allowing us to almost reach out and touch history. Doyle and his collaborator, the photographer Chris Foster, were determined to illuminate the real men behind the brave soldiers. “For
We must find new ways to continue honouring those who fought, perished and prevailed for generations to come.
many people, the Great War was ‘fought in black and white’, and for others their only connections with the war are faded photographs and tarnished medals. In putting this book together, we set out to give people some insight into the personal journey of the average soldier, doing so through his kit and artefacts, placing them in contemporary situations and photographing them in colour. In this way, we hope to reconnect people with their family history, and to enable them to reconstruct their ancestor’s own war service.” Trench humour also echoes throughout this beautifully researched and skilfully presented book. Foster’s photographs really serve to inspire an invaluable connection with the past, helping to render intimate and immediate the stories of strangers which help the reader to understand and reevaluate what it was to be at war, one hundred years ago. It’s a haunting but somehow uplifting tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that others might live freely and in peace. Remembering Tommy: The British Soldier in the First World War by Peter Doyle and Chris Foster, published by The History Press, £25, hardback, ISBN: 9780752479552 is available now at www.historypress.co.uk
33
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Write Christmas
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
Diana Rissetto loves Christmas: the music, the movies, the decorations, and the weather. When she found out one of her favourite performers doesn’t share her passion for the season, she was inspired to write a Christmas play.
I’ll never forget the night I started writing my first (of many, I hope) off-Broadway play, Pigeons, Knishes and Rockettes. I had just seen my favourite singer and musician, Peter Cincotti, perform, and I was completely obsessing over a single lyric from a new song. The song was ‘Cinderella Beautiful’, a sad song about a lost love, and the line was, “You know I don’t like Christmas, but thanks for the holiday card.” “You know I don’t like Christmas.” Who on earth does not like Christmas? I came from a family that started with Christmas music immediately after Thanksgiving. My father and I would always try to beat our record of how many different versions of A Christmas Carol we would watch every year. (Yes, including the Susan Lucci version.) I was one of the rare kids who actually was depressed on Christmas Eve because it meant it would all be over soon. I have always just really loved Christmas. Peter has one of the warmest, loveliest voices. I
34
would classify his voice as a ‘Christmas voice’, and I have always really wanted him to record a Christmas album. And when I heard that song, my heart sank because I realised it just might never happen. Because Peter Cincotti did not like Christmas. Immediately, my mind started moving, and suddenly I was writing about a character who was a handsome young jazz musician in New York City who really hates Christmas – even though he has recorded a Christmas album (because Christmas is profitable; everyone else loves Christmas besides this guy). One Christmas season, he meets a girl who knows It’s a Wonderful Life by heart and sings ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing’ to herself as she walks down the street. (I bet it’s totally a shocker where this story is going...) As I wrote, I used the name ‘Peter’ as a filler, intending on changing it later on, but then realising I couldn’t. This character’s name was Peter now, and it wasn’t my business to change it. I threw in two trusty (and much more tall and traditionally attractive) sidekicks for the heroine – a gorgeous Rockette
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
I I I I I I I I
Actors Julia Arazi and Carl Graham Howell under a blanket to give the effect of cold weather in August.
Actors Matthew Waterson and Kristin Muri play with holiday yarn.
I I I I I I I I
named Georgia who moved to New York from the South and gets a little tired of the holidays (and having to dance around with a giant snowflake on her head), and a model-handsome struggling actor with a heart of gold named Cherokee. I finished the play, and then had no intentions of showing it to anybody. I also continued to watch every single original Christmas movie that came on Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel and couldn’t help feeling that Pigeons, Knishes and Rockettes was better than some ‘Santa Clause has amnesia!’ story or yet another modern Christmas Carol. (There are some things Tori Spelling just shouldn’t be allowed to do. Playing Ebenezer Scrooge is one of them.) During this time, I was also blogging, and I was suddenly getting many comments and ‘likes’ from readers in Italy. I was quite confused. And then I learned that even though Peter Cincotti wasn’t followed by hordes of fans in Manhattan, he did, indeed, have a huge following in Italy, some of which had found my blog after I had mentioned him in it. I started emailing back and forth with one regular commenter, Cristiana in Rome, and told her that I had written a play inspired by Peter. I’m not sure why I did it. English wasn’t her first language, and she wasn’t familiar with New York. She wouldn’t get the jokes or the references. She was the very first person to read it– and this stranger in Italy was soon emailing me every ten pages telling me how brilliant and funny this play was. (She even sent me two paintings inspired by it.) It was weird. I had a fan. I started thinking, “If some person I have never met who speaks English as a second language thinks that this play is brilliant, maybe it’s good. Maybe other people will like it, too.” Without showing it to anybody else, I entered the play in the New
Peter Cincotti, singer and pianist who inspired Pigeons, Knishes and Rockettes.
35
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
I started thinking, “If some person I have never met who speaks English as a second language thinks that this play is brilliant, maybe it’s good. Maybe other people will like it, too.” 36
York International Fringe Festival. The Fringe is a theatre festival held every summer in small downtown theatres all over. Thousands of writers enter their plays every year. Two hundred are chosen. After I dropped the play into the mailbox, I pictured the judging committee (whoever they were) reading it and laughing, and saying something like, “The Fringe usually does all this edgy and avant garde stuff. This play is sweet and happy, and everyone’s nice to each other. It’s refreshing. We should choose it.” I imagined getting the phone call saying I was chosen, and calling a good friend of mine to tell him the news. I was one of those two hundred chosen, and, just like I envisioned it, I called that friend to give him the good news right away. I looked back at the chain of events leading up to being accepted, and I realised it isn’t just a cliché that everything happens for a reason. Because of that Peter Cincotti song, I was inspired, and because of that Peter Cincotti fan in Italy, I suddenly had the confidence to put my writing out there. We worked on our play for nearly the entire summer of 2010, leading up to a debut on August 14. We were doing a Christmas play during the hottest time of the year. The theatre didn’t have air conditioning, the actors were drowning in coats and scarves, I was a nervous wreck and having ‘But what if nobody laughs?’ anxiety attacks nearly every half hour. But as I look back at it, it was definitely one of the most exciting experiences of my life. The day after the show ended, I experienced a certain kind of feeling that was reserved for something very specific – December 26. I am so grateful for the experience, the wonderful people I met through it, the friends who helped me produce the play and all the supportive people from many different periods of my life who all came to see the show and laughed and ‘awwed’ at the right moments. I was actually doing what I always said I was going to do – I was writing scripts and getting them produced – and if it hadn’t been for my obsession with Christmas and Peter Cincotti’s not liking it, it never would have unravelled like that. Pigeons, Knishes and Rockettes is already on the schedule to be performed next Christmas at a community theatre in New Jersey. It will be weird to exit the theatre and feel cold air instead of sweltering heat, and I’m looking forward to it, and glad these characters will keep living on. I still watch every single Christmas movie that’s on TV every year. (In fact, just the other night, I was watching one that had Mira Sorvino playing Mrs Claus lost in Las Vegas.) I love this time of year, and I don’t think there’s any greater inspiration than Christmas in New York.
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
No, It’s Not a Book
Anyone who has a number of book lovers on their Christmas shopping list knows that gifting books can become tedious. As avid readers ourselves, we’ve picked up some fun literary-themed gifts that we would be happy to find under our Christmas trees.
Oren: Book Darts. These little metal tags are the perfect gift for avid readers. They slide snugly onto the side of the page and conveniently mark your page and line without protruding from the book or marking the paper. Several of my own favourite books on my shelf have lots of these little guys lining the outside edge, like little GPS markers, on my favourite passages, lines and verses. I also found them extremely useful when I was a student, for marking important spots in my source books for papers and reports. They are beautiful, elegant, subtle, and they double as a great toothpick or a tool for digging crud out from under your fingernails. Book Darts. The answer to all your discreet, nondamaging bookmarking needs.
Diana: Since I don’t have pierced ears myself, I can’t buy myself earrings, but I can buy all my book-loving friends these book earrings from The Idle Bindery! The necklaces are quite beautiful, too. The maroon floral one is my favourite! This site has many other lovely gift ideas too, such as unusual notebooks, sketchbooks and wedding albums.
37
NEW EDITION, DECEMBER 2013
Jordan: This is admittedly a little risky, since some die-hard book lovers consider defacing books to be a sin. But others of us love the idea of repurposing old books in the name of art. A number of artists have started using pages of books as canvases, either for imagery related to the page’s content, or just as a literary backdrop for a fun image. The best place to find these is probably somewhere indie like Pinterest or Etsy. There are a variety of images and themes, so it’s the perfect gift for any literary personality.
Louis: I just love great book covers, and this year I’ve seen a lot of very neat redesigns of classic book covers. Many of these redesigns have been made available as posters, t-shirts, mugs, and in London a whole load of public benches have been decorated with cover art recently too. I think prints always make a nice gift, and what better present to give a book lover than a print of their favourite book’s cover? If you think a book cover is too uninventive, how about a book poster containing the entire text of the book? This one for James and the Giant Peach is especially eye-catching.
38
CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE
Katie: This wonderful wallmounted bookshelf is not only practical, but it also offers a quirky alternative to storing your favourite books in pride of place. It can even be used as a visual and motivational ‘to do’ list; you can add the books you’ve been dying to read to one side of the scales, and once they’ve finished reading each book, you can add it to the opposite side of the scales! With beautiful black painted steel pipe fittings, natural stained pine wood shelves and black acrylic twine, the bookshelf is the perfect addition to rooms with even the most extravagant interior design. Alternatively, they can instantly bring an edgy design to a room that lacks a personal touch. Find them in the cushdesignstudio Etsy shop.
James: Being a resident of London means I can enjoy the very best of the city all year round. Significantly, this includes the booming scene of the West End Theatre world, and what better gift to receive than tickets to your favorite book turned musical? This year, as a book lover, particularly a Roald Dahl book lover, I’m hoping for tickets to either Matilda the Musical or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A night at the show is always magical, especially at Christmas, when the mixture of festivity and the indulgence of reminiscing over a childhood literary favorite conjures feelings that are priceless.
39
NEW EDITION CONTEMPORARY ISSUE
9,
PUBLISHING
DECEMBER
MAGAZINE
2013