The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Toonijuk," by Bill Goetzinger.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Ambushed," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Meetings on the Road, II: Immortal Conflict," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from At First You See It," by A. Valentine Smith.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Hogmaney (New Year's Eve)," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Lighthouse Keeper," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Dragons," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "How to Pet a Cat," by Lori Dillman.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Sustenance," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "The Maypole," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Stillpoint," by Denise Lussier.
Following the rotation, the Redwood Review poem of the week is "Safe at Home, September 11, 2001," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Battles & Wars," by Zona Douthit.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "The Rider," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Oxidation," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "A The Bronwyn Tale," by Andrew McNabb.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Review: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Earth Apple," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Pedestrian Crossing, A Novel," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Dishonorable Intentions," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Life Grows Richer Still," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from A Circle of Three," by A. Valentine Smith.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "I-Roc, Do You?," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Vituperative," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Congregation," by Lori Dillman.
With reference to Donald Sensing's blog-based book pitch, Kathryn Lopez (whose POV is probably more that of an editor) suggests:
My guess is as soon as this idea catches on--pitching books online--it will become inefficient for book editors to look through the net for their next book. On the other hand, like the blogosphere works, a survival-of-the-fittest kind of filter might actually make it worthwhile.
This is obviously a topic in which I've a desperate interest. I spent years pursuing the established path toward publication, and then more years dabbling in self-publication. Now I've decided to blog-serialize a second edition (in a manner of seeing it) of my novel, A Whispering Through the Branches (beginning here, with the actual story beginning here). Through all of these endeavors, I've come to four related conclusions:
Returning to Lopez's prediction, I'd suggest that her success in her area of publishing leads her to miss one factor: states of success vary for both writers and publishers. I imagine that she rarely — probably never — finds it necessary to scour the blogosphere or solicit contributions in order to fill an edition of NRO; when she does come a-callin', I imagine writers are very responsive. And the same will be true for major book publishers. Similarly, well-known writers don't require innovative methods of attracting publishers.
Lower down the hierarchy, however, all sides stand to gain the more routes they have to find each other. Publishers in the low-to-middle market, to whom writers might not think to send their proposals, benefit to the extent that they can go in search of open proposals. Some time at the computer can lead one to Sensing, in lieu of advertisement and unsolicited calls to agents and writers whose names the publisher stumbles across somehow. And obviously, unknown writers have nothing to lose by making their proposals available to anybody and everybody.
Of course, this idea is hardly new. I've had proposals online for years (although their longevity is mostly attributable to the perpetual postponement of a site redesign). The blog dimension adds only the ability to plug into an existing and expanding network of related content. Even with links from the likes of the Corner and Instapundit, however, the primary benefit of online pitches and proposals is that they'll increase the efficiency with which writers can move through established procedures — from query letter to proposal to samples to manuscripts.
The process will still involve a lot of work, and those who overestimate their ability (which may well include me, by the way) will still be disappointed. But the more paths there are, the more likely it is that the right people will connect and — perhaps more importantly — the more merit will overwhelm preexisting connections as a decisive factor.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Are Adults Too Old for Young Adult Literature?," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Elsewhere," by B.E. Delaplain.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Granda," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "The Plane Ride," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Numb," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "An Existential Wish," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Three Women on a French Canal," by Heide Atkins.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Born on the Cadence," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Twice Sorry," by Barbara Moore.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "SanGimignano (Siena) Italy," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Thank the Pilot," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "The Reluctant Preacher," by Andrew McNabb.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Recollections of Switzerland," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Meetings on the Road, II: Immortal Conflict," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Spitting Distance," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Ambushed," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Lighthouse Keeper," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Stakers," by Mark Ellis.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Hogmaney (New Year's Eve)," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Sustenance," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Toonijuk," by Bill Goetzinger.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "How to Pet a Cat," by Lori Dillman.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Safe at Home, September 11, 2001," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "My First and Absolutely Last Summer on Cape Cod," by Stephen S. Hale.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Stillpoint," by Denise Lussier.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Oxidation," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from A Circle of Three," by A. Valentine Smith.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "The Rider," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Earth Apple," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Fantasia in C Minor, Opus 64," by Zona Douthit.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Review: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Life Grows Richer Still," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "House of the Green Fairies," by Gary Bolstridge.
PROEM:
For an easier-to-read layout, click "Turn Light On" at the top of the left-hand column.
With a backhanded compliment to the Spider-Man 2 movie (as the best film in the worst genre), John Podhoretz has kicked off the inevitable discussion. In the post that introduced the topic to the Corner, Jonah Goldberg suggests that reading comics helped to form his love of reading more generally. He subsequently posted an email lamenting that the subject matter of comics has followed our culture down the gutter in the past fifteen years, leaving parents to introduce their children to the classics of a supposedly un-classic medium.
Now, anybody who's ever read my novel — or even asked what it's about — will know that few surpass me in literary pretension. With that being said, I won't hesitate to confess that I'd list some of my boyhood-favorite mini-series and limited plot lines from running comics alongside the best of child and young-adult literature. Many of these comics have proven to have a quarter-century staying power and have been collected into books. Moreover, some of their stories could yield record-breaking movies.
The first that comes to mind is the book version of the first four-issue Wolverine mini-series from the early '80s (which I still have stored away at my parents' house). This series set the standard for the loner superhero — the roadhouse samurai, torn between a wild nature and the draw of discipline.
But the most compelling series involved a number of issues of the regular X-Men comics culminating in 1980: The Dark Phoenix Saga. By the time I discovered it, in the mid-'80s, it was already in paperback form, and I remember climbing up in a tree, where I could see over the apartment buildings to New York City, to the Twin Towers, and wedging myself between some branches just to read the story over and over. The emotions evoked by the last few pages still echo through the years, and I can't help but think there's a lesson for Hollywood in that fact.
In all the back and forth about comic book movies, a central point seems to have been missed. Movie makers, TV writers, and cartoon drawers tend to take merely the characters and general themes of the comics and write new stories using them, a practice that usually disappoints both the avid fans and the newcomers. Imagine if Peter Jackson had just collected the hobbits and friends from Tolkien's work and presumed to pen a new plot.
One would think that comic books, being both literary and visual, would be better suited for translation into movies. Why, then, don't those producers (or whoever it would be) who sniff around the library and who make a 1,000th version of Camelot look to the stories that have helped to make comic books such a phenomenon? Perhaps it's a bit of the lingering conceit, among moviefolk, that they can outdo lowly scribblers. I think that's a mistake, and one that will bring rewards to the first bigwig not to make it.
If done right, a movie version of the Wolverine mini-series could stand against Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and The Last Samurai. In fact, I'll go so far as to make a statement so bold that it will surely draw readers' ire: given proper care and appreciating treatment, the Dark Phoenix series could be transformed into a movie trilogy to rival The Lord of the Rings.
(N.B. — As a movie!)
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Dishonorable Intentions," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Vituperative," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Elsewhere," by B.E. Delaplain.
Andrew McNabb is among the best writers of fiction whom I've had the good fortune to know personally. He writes extremely well, of course, but more than that, he infuses his work with the perspective of a devout Catholic. The majority of his stories, at least that I've read, aren't explicitly religious in nature, but that sense is there, as it ought to be in life, undergirding the plot.
Offering encouragement to all unknown Christian writers, Andrew has begun to place his stories where his perspective is arguably most desperately absent — among the nation's many "literary reviews." Latest of these successes is the short story "It's What It Feels Like," in Potomac Review. (Note that the quirks of formatting were probably the doing of the Web master, not the author.)
I had the privilege of critiquing this piece at our writers' group, before Andrew moved to Maine, and I think it's among his best. One need only have heard the audible reaction of the writers when Andrew's reading had wound toward the final scene to know that he had reached a level above us. Somebody, somewhere among the Catholic bloggers recently asked where the Flannery O'Connors of our day could be found. Well, here's one.
Here are all of Andrew's stories that I'm able to find online:
"The Reluctant Preacher" in The Redwood Review
"A Night at Dorian's" in The Adirondack Review.
"A The Bronwyn Tale" in The Redwood Review
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Guest of Honor," by me.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "I-Roc, Do You?," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Numb," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from A Circle of Two," by A. Valentine Smith.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Are Adults Too Old for Young Adult Literature?," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Born on the Cadence," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Sweet Blood," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "The Plane Ride," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Thank the Pilot," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Toonijuk," by Bill Goetzinger.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Three Women on a French Canal," by Heide Atkins.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Names of God," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from At First You See It," by A. Valentine Smith.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "SanGimignano (Siena) Italy," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Meetings on the Road, II: Immortal Conflict," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Dragons," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Recollections of Switzerland," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Lighthouse Keeper," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "The Maypole," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Ambushed," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Sustenance," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Battles & Wars," by Zona Douthit.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Hogmaney (New Year's Eve)," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Safe at Home, September 11, 2001," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "A The Bronwyn Tale," by Andrew McNabb.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "How to Pet a Cat," by Lori Dillman.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Oxidation," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Pedestrian Crossing, A Novel," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Stillpoint," by Denise Lussier.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Earth Apple," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from A Circle of Three," by A. Valentine Smith.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "The Rider," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Life Grows Richer Still," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Congregation," by Lori Dillman.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Review: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Vituperative," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Granda," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Dishonorable Intentions," by Anne Dubose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Elsewhere," by B.E. Delaplain.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from A Whispering Through the Branches," by me.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "I-Roc, Do You?," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Numb," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "An Existential Wish," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Are Adults Too Old for Young Adult Literature?," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Born on the Cadence," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Twice Sorry," by Barbara Moore.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "The Plane Ride," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Thank the Pilot," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "The Reluctant Preacher," by Andrew McNabb.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Three Women on a French Canal," by Heide Atkins.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Names of God," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "Spitting Distance," by Janette van de Geest Van Gruisen.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "SanGimignano (Siena) Italy," by Len DeAngelis.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Meetings on the Road, II: Immortal Conflict," by me.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from Stakers," by Mark Ellis.
James Lileks offers a view of a newspaper-business reality pertinent to those who desire to write books for a living of which I've been informed in the past:
I should note that I rarely buy books - I work at a newspaper, which is a cornucopia of free reading material. You cannot imagine the heaps of stuff shoveled from the book room every day. I always want to take young writers to the book room and show them the mountains of books - unread, to say nothing of unreviewed. This is what you're up against. And this doesn't included the sixty billion paperbacks printed every year, half of which are pulped and set to Japan to make toilet paper. That's right: the end result of most American author's labors ends up hanging on a roll in a karoke bar in a Tokyo suburb.But keep writing!
Gee. Thanks a lot.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "Recollections of Switzerland," by Christine L. Mullen.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Lighthouse Keeper," by Ingrid Mathews.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "from The Toonijuk," by Bill Goetzinger.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "from Ambushed," by Anne DuBose Joslin.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Sustenance," by Gary Bolstridge.
The Redwood Review fiction piece of the week is "My First and Absolutely Last Summer on Cape Cod," by Stephen S. Hale.
The Redwood Review nonfiction piece of the week is "How to Pet a Cat," by Lori Dillman.
The Redwood Review poem of the week is "Safe at Home, September 11, 2001," by me.
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