Entries from September 2007 ↓

A touch of romance for the weekend with news that Romantic Literature is a booming, and expanding, genre – these days it’s a lot more than just Mills and Boon!

We came across this article at The Australian this week espousing the likes of ‘romantic suspense, Regency romance, urban and paranormal romance, Christian romance, chick lit and romantic comedy’.  And you don’t need to worry that it’s all slush and gush either. According to a NSW PhD student (and award-winning romance writer), ‘The genre is very broad… united by content of a developing relationship between two or more people… They don’t always have emotionally uplifting endings for the characters and readers.’

The article also points you to a site which promises ‘All of the romance, none of the bullshit’, from ‘Smart bitches who Love Trashy books’ and who promise you the ’straight dish on romance novels’! So if you’ve got your eye on a particular book, but want the heads up before buying, check out their website for a no-nonsense review!   

And, if your novel-in-progress ticks the romantic literature classifcation box, take heart. People will always want to read about love stories, just as we all (secretly) want to be the lead player in a love affair of our own.

Aaah. Ain’t love grand?

According to BoingBoing, the Harvard University campus bookstore has just come under fire for claiming ‘copyright’ and ‘intellectual property’ to prevent students from comparison shopping their textbooks. The bookstore has thrown students out for taking notes on prices, and actually called the police on three students for writing down the ISBNs of various textbooks.

Harvard’s campus bookstore, run by US chain Barnes & Noble, has apparently claimed these students are in breach of copyright law. However, lawyers from Harvard’s own law school have criticised the bookstore, advising them to review ‘Copyright Law 101′. The first thing they would discover is that factual matters (like prices) are not copyrightable. Then they might want to think about the fact that if anyone owns the ISBN of a textbook, it’s probably the publisher.

Among the interesting responses to the BoingBoing posts included accounts of a Kentucky university bookstore that used stickers to cover up the ISBNs of its books, and would not disclose prices until you reached the register. One post also recorded a textbook comparison shop: Harvard store totaled $410, Amazon totaled $250.

If you’re within reach of Newcastle, NSW, don’t miss the National Young Writers Festival 2007 which kicks off tomorrow with the promise that ‘Several thousand of the country’s most challenging and original young minds will descend…for a five day creative bender.’  (There’s also quite a lot of encouraging talk about ginger beer!)

Now in its 10th year, the NYWF is part of the This it Not Art festival which provides a complete creative mix with a bevy of musicians, artists, journalists and performers converging for lively and challenging debate, workshops, performances and parties!

The organising team stress that they are as much a ‘festival of ideas, as a festival of writers’, so along with novels, poetry, non-fiction and script-writing, you’ll also find events on comics, zines, experimental theatre and much more.

The festival is open to everyone and most events are completely free, so if you have a love of writing and are after a ‘damn good time’ you can just turn up as the mood takes you! It runs from 27 September until 1 October and you can find all the information you could possibly need Write here!

A brilliant new online idea to help ‘authors and audiences meet’ has just been launched in Australia.

Already well established in the US, BookTour.com invites authors/publishers/agents/bookshops to post dates and information for tours, signings and book events. Register on the site and you can check who is coming to your area and when – you can even request a visit from a favourite author or track their tour via email. You can also read stories about ‘Authors’ adventures from the road’ or add a ‘widget’ to your profile for news alerts from authors or venues you are interested in.

The site currently lists over 2500 authors and it’s starting to really take off over here.

Adam Goldstein CTO of BookTour told us ‘We launched the site for Australia only a few weeks ago, but have had an absolutely fantastic response… Australian users have requested dozens of authors visit their areas, added dozens of events, and been some of our most active users.’

A staggering 75% of the agents at one of the UK’s biggest literary and talent agencies are on the verge of leaving and setting up a rival business.

To cut a long story short, the ‘rebel agents’ are said to be increasingly unhappy with recent developments at the company following the failure of a management buyout, the resignation of ‘legendary’ agent Pat Kavanagh and appointment of Caroline Michael as Chief Executive at CSS Stellar, PFD’s parent company.

The authors represented by the rebels, including Nick Hornby and Robert Harris look set to follow suit and go where their agent goes, along with clients of the acting department. The agents who represent Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet and Keira Knightly have already handed in their resignation.

Where this leaves PFD, without respected staff members and clients, remains to be seen. What is certain is that there are interesting times ahead.

Read more at The Times UK.

We came across this at excellent blog site Boing Boing…

These books are incredible. Artist Brian Dettmer meticulously splices and carves classic books into stunning 3-dimensional works of art – in self-styled Book Autopsies!

See more of Brian’s work in his Altered States series including ‘extractions’ of road and regional maps, encyclopaedias and even cassette tapes!

On her blog, Call My Agent!, anonymous literary agent, Agent Sydney promises ‘to shed light on the sometimes shadow-shrouded world of publishing in order to help writers work out how the hell they get published’.

And now Agent Sydney is bringing her considerable expertise to AWM online for 3 days only! Put 8-11 October in your diary and start thinking about what you really want to know about getting an agent – and getting a book deal.

We will be accepting your questions on the website from Monday morning (8th October) and Agent Sydney will log on daily to address the issues, solve the problems and help you find your way through the jungle that is publishing.

Tell your friends – this is your chance to get 5 minutes with an agent!

Watch this space for more details closer to the time…

After his much publicised fall from grace, US author James Frey has been offered another chance at earning literary credibility with a book deal secured with Harper Collins, for new novel Bright Shiny Morning.

Frey’s debut book, the supposed memoir A Million Little Pieces was the top-selling non-fiction book in America in 2005 and Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club - a move which virtually guarantees a book a place on the bestseller list. So when much of the book was exposed as fabrication, Frey was forced to publicly apologise (including a dressing down from Oprah on her show), was dropped by his agent and lost a lucrative book deal.

But it is testament to the strength of his writing that he has bounced back. As Simon Burnham who negotiated the new deal with Harper Collins told the New York Times, "What matters is this is a very, very good work of fiction, and it very much stands up on its own."

Read more about Frey and other famous literary fakers in Jane Humphrey’s article Fake True Stories in the Writing Resources/Articles section of the website.

Bestselling fantasy author Robert Jordan passed away on 16 September, at the age of 58, from a rare blood disease he had been diagnosed with in early 2006.

His death leaves the final installment in his famous Wheel of Time saga incomplete, and the decision whether to complete and release the last volume, which had a working title of A Memory of Light, has been left with his estate. However, fans have been assured that the author shared important plot details with family members before he died, so presumably any new release will complete the cycle according to Jordan’s plans and wishes.

There has been a huge outpouring of condolences, eulogies and discussion from Jordan’s friends and fanbase; read more here, here, here, and here. At the time of posting, there were 1,262 comments on Jordan’s publisher’s blog, regarding the death notice.

The Brisbane Writers Festival drew to a close yesterday after a jam-packed 4 days of lectures, seminars and workshops.

Grabbing headlines across the country, Abdel Bari Atwan, author of ‘The Secret History of al-Qa’ida’ finally got his visa approved late last week and made it just in time on Saturday to take part in a discussion on ‘Religion, Society and the individual’, and was later given the dubious honour of being interviewed by The Chasers’ (equally controversial) Julian Morrow and Dominic Wright. Lincoln Hall had listeners gripped by his amazing story of surviving Everest and coming back from the dead and Armistead Maupin, David Malouf, Paul Durkan, Victoria Glendinning and James Freud were just some of the other names who created a stir!

Thursday and Friday saw the schools programs dominate in the marquees. Canadian Baba Brinkman taught kids Chaucer, rap style; Shaun Tan shared his vast expertise on the graphic novel and Simon Higgins launched latest book ‘Tomodachi: the Edge of the World’ with an awesome display of Japanese swordsmanship by members of the Australian Seishinkan laido team.

On Sunday morning The Australian Writer’s Marketplace chaired a seminar entitled ‘How to Get Published’. Publishers Annette Barlow (Allen & Unwin) and Bernadette Foley (Hachette Livre) and literary agent Sophie Hamley (Cameron Creswell Agency) answered a barrage of questions from an enthusiastic audience of would-be authors. Key advice? Be patient, concentrate above all on the quality of your writing, follow submission guidelines to the letter - and don’t expect to be able to make a living from writing! As Annette Barlow concluded ‘Revise, revise, revise – and then research, research, research’!

** We’re sorry - we had a few technical issues on site and weren’t able to keep blogging over the course of the festival **