Q: The other day you tweeted while on the “SATC” tour that you’re “totally a SSSamantha.” How much action have you been getting while on your furlough from the zoo?
A: I get some asp here and there.
—The Bronx Zoo Cobra, to John Sellers on The Wrap
(Evidently he had time to stop for an interview before his capture.)
Suzan Sherman In the conclusion of your story “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried”, the chimp who knows sign language and whose baby just died, expresses her grief incredibly honestly in the signs, ”’Baby, come hug, baby, come hug,’ fluent now in the language of grief.” This chimp has the ability, more than the narrator of the story whose best friend is dying, to fully express her emotions to the one that she loves, and stands by the dead and dying when it’s needed the most. It’s as though the animal is more compassionate than the human being is. With your love for dogs and other animals, do you think of them as being more humane than people in some ways?
Amy Hempel I think there’s a purity of feeling there that humans can connect with if we’re lucky, or if we’re looking for it. And in that story, you got it exactly, the animal is capable of the response the human might have liked to have but is incapable of.
SS Animals don’t have any walls that have been built up, boundaries, for protection.
AH Right, and to my knowledge animals don’t hide from real feeling behind sarcasm or irony.
We love this woman.
Amanda Hocking, wildly-successful self-published author, who just signed a $2 million deal with St. Martin’s
An interesting contrast to Mr. Eisler’s comments.
“It also would have had to be enough to act as an insurance policy against legacy publisher ineptitude; to be worth giving up the joy and excitement of finally being in charge of all the aspects of publishing I’ve always wanted to be in charge of; and to offset the discomfort of being part of a system that I think is fundamentally flawed and that in many ways has become punitive both to writers and readers.”
—Barry Eisler, explaining in the Daily Beast why he turned down a $500,000 publishing contract to venture into the waters of self-publishing
We wish Mr. Eisler well, of course, but wonder why there isn’t one mention in this entire article of who is going to edit Mr. Eisler’s work. As a “legacy publisher,” we don’t just sit around and screw up author bios and jacket art all day.
New Yorker editor David Remnick’s advice to young students interested in getting into the long-form journalism business. (via gillianmae)
(via doree)
A very good, and oft-said point. This could also apply to writers, editors, publicists, copyeditors, and oh, yeah the average citizen. Nothing like reading often, and widely, to maintain your active and engaged membership in the human community.
The Irish Arts Center is giving away free books all around the five boroughs of New York today to honor Irish and Irish American authors, including our own, Gerard O’Donovan.
Happy reading, happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Every three months or so, we gather together. In our hands, launch meeting packets still hot off the copy machine. Our editor-in-chief sits at the head of the double-long conference table, and introduces us, the weary and largely bespectacled, to the newest crop of books. Over the years I’ve found that most editors describe their hopes and dreams for their future covers in the same ways. Please make them look “hip,” “sexy,” and—oh yes!—”fresh, too”! Our job as jacket designers is to keep reinterpreting these well-worn requests.
Read the rest at The Atlantic
Wow, really? Our art meetings usually involve small rooms, hot tempers, and a lot of pitchforks and sharp knives. If it’s really contentious, then dull ones are brought.
Seriously, nothing raises an author/editor/publisher’s hackles like an unacceptable cover design.
