The “New York Times” has an essay about literary dealbreakers. Is there a book that, if seen on the shelf or favorites list of a potential mate, would make you turn around and run?

We all have our dealbreaker lists, I’m sure. Although, in the throes of passion, these kinds of lists usually disappear until the relationship goes sour. While it may have once been refreshingly unpretentious to you that his favorite book was “The Seven People You Meet in Heaven,” now that he’s gotten on your nerves it’s solid proof that you were never meant to be.

Jessa Crispin of Bookslut, after saying she’s not too picky about what others read, sums up my position pretty well:

… if I went over to a man’s house and there were those books about life’s lessons learned from dogs, I would probably keep my clothes on.

I probably have a lot of people in my life, friends or more than, who break my little rules. In theory, I’d say:

– Too much affection for Ayn Rand and her philosophy gets you the boot (says the girl who’s been with not one but two men who want to marry Rand’s ideas).

– Please don’t love “The Secret” or “The Celestine Prophecy” (pretty sure I’m going to soon get copies of those from someone I know).

– I do not like those fairy tale fiction books by Gregory Maguire, “Wicked” and the lot! I do not! (I don’t think this rules out anyone I know. Does it?)

– Chicken Soup for the ___ Soul, unless it was a gift from your grandma.

– Self-help books or books about how to become rich make me go “ungh!” and be sad (Now I am jinxing it and the man of my dreams will dis me because I do not want to read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” aloud to him in bed.)

And more!
What are yours?

-Marcia

I really enjoyed this list of 100 best last lines from novels–at least what I read of it so far. It reminded me how beautiful the English language can be. Here are a few that I liked:

You have fallen into art- return to life -William H. Gass, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife (1968)

The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. -Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)

And you say, “Just a moment, I’ve almost finished If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino.” -Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who. -Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (1963)

Yes, they will trample me underfoot, the numbers marching one two three, four hundred million five hundred six, reducing me to specks of voiceless dust, just as, in all good time, they will trample my son who is not my son, and his son who will not be his, and his who will not be his, until the thousand and first generation, until a thousand and one midnights have bestowed their terrible gifts and a thousand and one children have died, because it is the privilege and the curse of midnight’s children to be both masters and victims of their times, to forsake privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes, andto be unable to live or die in peace. -Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981)

You?

~ Joy

Here’s an interview with Anita Thompson, wife of Hunter S Thompson. She talks about his last days, what it was like living with him, and the struggle with his estate. It’s all pretty predictable and gossipy, but interesting none-the-less:

“The best thing about our marriage was that it was like being married to a teenage girl trapped in the body of an elderly dope fiend,” says Anita. “Which was also the hardest thing about our marriage.”

~ Joy

Hollywood is a mess and the studios are blaming the writers. Now that the writers are back at work after the strike, the studios are restricting raises and reluctant to make new deals, according to this fascinating article in Variety.

In the same way that some execs were convinced that WGA leaders were hell-bent on striking, some writers’ reps believe the cost-cutting and downsizing taking place in Hollywood isn’t a mere matter of economics.

“The studios are punishing writers for going out,” one partner at a major talent agency argued. “They want to take their pound of flesh, so they’re pushing back deals and not making new ones.”

and:

No wonder then that TV overall deals, while still being made, are an endangered species on most studio lots. Many of the scribes who saw their overalls eliminated during the strike are slowly realizing that they’re not going to get a new pact somewhere else (though reports of bidding wars for a few scribes make clear there will continue to be exceptions for top talent).

Even those with jobs and deals aren’t immune to the pain.

Mid-level scribes looking forward to the usual pay bumps that accompany the start of a new season have also received bad news in recent weeks: Forget about the raises. Because the strike resulted in far fewer episodes being produced this season, execs believe segs that will air next fall should be treated as this season’s episodes.

“Why should someone who’s rendered services for eight or 10 episodes instead of 22 be bumped up?” one studio chief asked. “Why would I want to increase costs like that? We’re dealing with things in an appropriately tougher manner.”

and:

For example, it once made sense to sign a dozen comedy scribes to development pacts because odds were that one of those deals would result in a “Friends” or a “Two and a Half Men.” But with networks measuring primetime success by a much smaller yardstick, and syndie revenue a fraction of its former self, having a large roster of comedy talent on staff now just seems stupid. …

Some agents, however, believe execs need to be careful about just how hard a line they take with talent. Push too hard, they argue, and creative types could just end up abandoning the studio system altogether.

“The studios are being short-sighted,” one tenpercenter said. “They’re biting the hands that feed them. As long as content is controlled by creators, we’re going to be in the driver’s seat.”

Don’t these network CEOs sound awful? Hollywood may be one of the few places where writers can make some decent bank, but man, sounds like you have to put up with a lot in the process.

~ Joy

The Huffington Post has a fun thingy — FundRace 2008 –that lets you look up political donations based on all sorts of criteria. Searching for political donations by those who list their occupation as “writer” shows that writers donated almost $2 million … with about $1.7 million of that going to Democrats.

Some people I’ve heard of:

Dean Koontz donated $4,600 to Mitt Romney (He also donated $2,300 to Fred Thompson)
David Mamet donated $4,600 to Christopher Dodd
Michael Chabon donated $4,600 to Barack Obama
John Grisham and Amy Tan donated $4,600 each to Hillary Clinton

I don’t know what this is, besides a strange way I entertained myself for 10 minutes. Politics!

–Marcia

Is the Orange Prize sexist? The all-woman literature prize has been won by writers I deeply admire, like Ann Patchett and Margaret Atwood. But then, here’s someone else I deeply admire–AS Byatt–saying that “such a prize was never needed.”

This is a tough issue. After all, the traditional canon of English literature is dominated by white men. Women have had a famously difficult time being taken seriously as writers. Even today, if asked who the major American novelists are, you’re going to hear a name like Philip Roth and John Updike before any woman’s name comes up. (Case in point.)

But then, one time I was in Borders. I wanted to buy Beloved by Toni Morrison as a gift for someone. I looked all over the fiction section, and couldn’t find anything by Toni Morrison. I thought, this is ridiculous. Even though Borders often neglects to carry books by writers I love (seriously, I can never find what I want from that bookstore), surely they have heard of Toni Morrison!

So I asked a clerk. And do you know where they had put Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize-winning novels? In the African American Literature section.

And therein lies the problem with this kind of thinking. Even when you start making specialized categories for people to help them get a leg up, your group can still end up marginalized. It simply becomes the group vs. the norm–in this case, African American Literature vs. Fiction. While someone like Toni Morrison deserves to be on the same shelves as Cormac McCarthy or Thomas Hardy, there she was, sitting off in some separate shelf in a special category, and all because she’s black. To me, that’s bothersome.

Still, I’m not sure what I think about this issue. Because really, I’m more concerned that Lily Allen is an Orange Prize judge than that the prize exists at all. (Yes. Lily Allen. The singer who rambles about her weight on MySpace–you know, the one who dropped out of school at age 15?)

What do you think?

(Via Bookninja)

~ Joy

Steve Moran, a judge for an English contest called the Willesden Herald short story competition, wrote a list of reasons why he rejects short stories. It starts out with common critiques such as too many characters or weak endings and quickly descends into a highly personalized and whimsical list. For example:

Ankles. Particularly ankles in Asia. But I don’t want to be overly negative and turn critique into a despicable blood sport, because there have been many charming, fascinating and amusing entries from the sub-continent as well as from Africa and other (to me) strange places. As a matter of fact, I’m not at all sure that Ankles in Asia, though it sounds worryingly now like a rare disease, is not in fact a virtue. Let a thousand professors dream of butterfly kisses with a thousand feisty young neighbour girls. And please do try us again with wonderful tales of African village life and politics.

What is he talking about? Maybe he’s trying to be funny? Also did you know that the British write too many short stories about old people living in squalor? Anyway, he makes some good points amongst the pet peeves. Mostly, however, it’s a revealing little insight into the mind of someone who judges one of these contests.

(Via Bookslut)
~ Joy

If you have a short story, you best submit it to Glimmer Train. There’s no reason not to. It’s a quality publication. It’s free to submit your story, and payment for accepted stories is $700 plus 10 issues. The current reading period is the entire month of April, so you still have a few weeks for editing and polishing. (Or writing something new altogether) Snap to it. Go to Glimmer Train for the full details.

–Marcia

Memoir (and) is a new literary journal that will be hitting new stands this spring. Looks like they need submissions. Here’s the deal:

Memoir (and) is an up-and-coming journal for the exploration of memoir as “the” genre of the 21st century. We are based in Sausalito, California, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We strive with each issue to include a selection of prose, poetry, graphic memoirs, epistolary memoirs, narrative photography, lies and more. The editors particularly invite submissions that push the traditional boundaries of both form and content in the exploration of the representation of self, and are especially looking for graphic memoirs. Memoir (and) is available in print in over 600 bookstores in U.S. and Canada, including Borders, Barnes & Noble, Hastings and independent bookstores.

Our next reading period is May 1, 2008 through August 15, 2008.

More here.

~Joy

On March 4, the Word Pirates talked about characters. What makes a good character? What characters stick in our minds and why? How likable does a character have to be? etc. It was a good discussion.

For the prompt, we wrote with the John Gardner Writing Award in mind.

HERE’S WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

We want to see your best character description

from either a fiction or a nonfiction piece (published or unpublished).

Your entry may be up to 150 words in length.

Send as many entries as you wish.

1 First Prize: $500

· 2 Second Prizes: $100

· 3 Third Prizes: $50

· 4 Fourth Prizes: $25

· 5 Honorable Mentions

Deadline May 15.

Joy