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Mistakes Were Made [Or, in which I respond to a preposterous "critique" of bloggers]
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
I don’t usually publish new posts on Fridays in the summer because, well, nobody is on the internet on Fridays in the summer, but I’m making an exception today to respond here, in my own sandbox (as Raych would say), to mistakes that were made elsewhere, on a site I won’t link to because it doesn’t deserve any more traffic (and because I, unlike the writer, trust that you are intelligent enough to find it on your own should you want to), by a writer who denigrated Book Expo, publishers, the state of literature, and book bloggers in an impressive feat of unfounded ridiculousness. When my comment finally appeared on the offending post some 24 hours after I left it, they’d excluded all of the formatting. So here it is as I intended it.
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[To the writer],
The truly disappointing thing is not the turn BEA has taken but the fact that you managed to attend and, instead of focusing on the myriad interesting and exciting developments, air what appear to be your personal grievances about the changes the industry is experiencing and the fact that your status as a writer no longer automatically entitles you to more cultural authority than anyone else.
I’ll allow the publishers and Book Expo organizers to respond to your problems with them, as I know they are more than capable of doing so. Because I am a critic (one accepted by the National Book Critics Circle, at that), I’ll opt for a close reading and critique of the points you attempt to make about my community: book bloggers.
First, you state that the attendees of Book Blogger Con were “mostly women between 20 and 50 years old, often known as “mommy bloggers” because they are housewives who blog about romance novels, horror/vampire stories and paranormal novels.” As my colleague Ron Hogan has pointed out, mommy bloggers blog about motherhood. Are some book bloggers mothers? Yes. Are some of them even stay-at-home mothers? Yes. (By the way, the 1950s are calling and they want the term “housewives” back.) But most book bloggers work full-time jobs outside of their homes and maintain their blogs in addition to developing their careers and nurturing their personal and family relationships. And many of them are damn good at it. Read more
Bookrageous Episode 20.1: To BEA and Back
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
After several years talking books and nearly a year podcasting together, Team Bookrageous (referred to internally as JoshBeccEnn, you know, like Brangelina) finally got ourselves into a room together and whaddya know, it was amazing. Also, Scott Westerfeld sang in harmony with himself. As Donald Duck. But more about that later.
Here’s the first half of our recap of Book Expo America 2011. This episode will be pretty familiar to anyone who has listened to the show before; it’s our traditional top half, with a discussion of the books that we’re reading right now. Tomorrow, our discussion of the big books we’re excited about from the show will go live.
Enjoy, subscribe, and let us know what you’d like to see in future episodes.
Books for Your Beach Bag: Women’s Studies Edition
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Because a Book Lady reading round-up wouldn’t be complete without a list of feminist/women’s studies titles. And because there are some really terrific ones out right now. Beginning with this:
Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex, edited by Erica Jong
I made my Shelf Awareness debut last week with a review of Sugar in My Bowl, and I am so thrilled to finally be able to talk about this book I’ve been excited about since spring. The superfreakingfantastic—yes, it’s supposed to look like a vagina—cover is just a hint at the fun to be found within these pages of essays and short fiction by more than two dozen contemporary female writers.
The pieces in Sugar in My Bowl (Ecco, June 2011) run the spectrum from prudish–Julie Klam (You Had Me at Woof) half-ashamedly admits that until recently, her six-year-old daughter believed women’s private parts were simply called “the front”–to downright erotic–Susan Cheever’s “Sex with Strangers” explores the pleasures and perks of just that and will make you (at least momentarily) want to run out for a one-nighter with the first hottie you can find. This is not your mother’s book about S-E-X, and it is proof positive that, despite Anais Nin’s statement to the contrary, women can write about sex and be taken seriously. It’s also really a lot of fun.
An Interview with John Milliken Thompson (THE RESERVOIR)
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
John Milliken Thompson’s debut novel The Reservoir is out this week from Other Press, and I had the pleasure of interviewing him in anticipation of his launch party tomorrow night at Fountain Bookstore.
The Reservoir is based on a real murder trial. How did you discover it?
A paragraph in Virginius Dabney’s Richmond: The Story of a City got me on the trail of this 126-year-old case.
Were you looking for a book idea, or did the book idea grow out of discovering the case?
I’m always looking for and open to book ideas, but really I was just interested at that point in learning more about Richmond. I played around for a while with doing some kind of nonfiction book on the case, but I became so engrossed with the story I decided to try writing it as a novel.
You’ve written extensively about American history. Why make the move to fiction for this story?
Continuing from the previous question, the story wasn’t working for me as straight nonfiction. I was having a hard time probing deep enough into the characters to make the story anything more than an interesting local incident. I had a feeling that the only way to really get at the characters and their motivations, and to give the story more universal meaning, was through fiction, which allows and requires the imagination to go beyond the available facts. The characters’ thoughts, words, and actions, then, became the story, with the real case providing a rough outline.
