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Here are the Nieman Narrative Digest’s essays on craft and industry. I especially like Michael Pollan’s Natural Narratives.

May 29, 2008

to

June 1, 2008

BEA 2008 will be at the Los Angeles Convention Center from May 29 - June 1. New for 2008:

• New Title Bookstore — With over 1500 titles and 1000 authors and publishers — be sure not to miss it!
• Expanded and comprehensive podcast program including industry events and streaming video. An interactive component to BEA to enhance and expand dissemination beyond the show dates — a BEA without walls!
• and more….

“We’re a free online service that connects authors and potential audiences of all sorts, from book groups to civic organizations, from bookstores to corporate events. Authors create their own page (biography, books, tour dates and availability) and any group looking for speakers can find them and contact them directly to arrange for an appearance. Relevant information for both authors and venues can be added in minutes through a simple fill-in-the-blanks interface. Connecting authors with potential audiences then becomes as easy as searching (by geography, book titles, subject, dates of availability) and sending an email.”For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences. For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.

Thanks to April Orcutt for this link to a SF Chronicle article about Redroom, an intriguing social networking site “where the writers are.” You’ll find Amy Tan’s virgin blog entry there, as well as links to many other writers’ blogs and websites.

NothingBinding.com is the premier global stage for Independent Authors to promote their books, attract new readers and connect with fellow writers. The gateway for writers to tap into a worldwide audience through audio and video, biography, inspirations and excerpts from their books and from their hearts.

What’s more, readers can discover hidden gems - truly without boundaries - that just are not available at traditional booksellers and other venues. Now finally, unheard voices and untold stories can be shared and heard, savored and enjoyed. NothingBinding unites Authors and Readers everywhere, across the globe. The strength of the independently published book is the great numbers of authors and readers around the world, that log on from near and far to congregate at NothingBinding.com.

Setting your writing goals for 2008? Remember that SMART goal-setting requires objectives that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• oh gosh; I can’t believe I’ve forgotten the details of this acronym already. Would someone who remembers what the R and T stand for please email me? Thanks!

Anyway, I think the Measurable parameter is the most important. And “more” does not count as a measurement.

• How many rejections are you going for in for 2008—and how many queries per week or month will you need to send to get there?

C/Net News article by Michael Kanellos Coming soon: A notebook with a terabyte

“Asus, the Taiwanese computer maker, will come out with a notebook that sports two 500GB hard drives from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Combined, this will give a fully configured Asus M70 notebook a terabyte of storage.

“Put another way, the notebook will be capable of storing 1,000 hours of video, or more than 350 feature length movies, or 250,000 four-minute songs. That will probably tide you over for even the worst airport layovers. A terabyte also holds about the same amount of data that could be stored on the paper from 50,000 trees.”

Thanks to April Orcutt for this link to the SUNY/OSWEGO guide to writing for the web, which says, among other things, that hyperlinks like the preceding one should be “phrased,” because they’re easier for skimmers to spot than one-word links.

From Jane Underwood at the Writing Salon:

“We’ve just updated our website to show upcoming Winter Session classes. Registration is open! All classes (28 of them) are listed below.

“We’ve also got some exciting news. After nine years in our funky but magical little cottage in Bernal Heights (so 70s bohemian), we are turning over a new leaf and moving to a new location in the Mission District.

Thanks to Michael Shapiro for sending this link to a New York Times article about the demise of the English hyphen:

By Charles McGrath

THE Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the scaled-down, two-volume version of the mammoth 20-volume O.E.D., just got a little shorter. With the dispatch of a waiter flicking away flyspecks, the editor, Angus Stevenson, eliminated some 16,000 hyphens from the sixth edition, published last month. “People are not confident about using hyphens anymore,” he said. “They’re not really sure what they’re for.”

The dictionary is not dropping all hyphens. The ones in certain compounds remain (“well-being,” for example), as do those indicating a word break at the right-hand margin the use for which this versatile little punctuation mark, a variation on the slash, the all-purpose medieval punctuation, was invented in the first place.

What’s getting the heave are

By Greg Hardesty
Orange County Register

The first: “Be a human being first, and a reporter second. This especially applies when covering tragedies. Show empathy. Keep your notebook and pen out of sight until after you look a person in the eye and introduce yourself, and chat briefly. Make a connection, then get to work.” The rest is on the SPJ website.

I stumbled upon the website for a book called 2012, and liked the site design (I’m always on the lookout for great marketing ideas), especially the use of that bouncy “think map” that grabs your attention without being visually obnoxious. Wonder whether I could figure out how to use it….

The site content was kind of interesting, too: “Cross Aldous Huxley, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda—each imbued with a twenty-first century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology—and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms. Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York’s literary select. He wrote for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper’s Bazaar.”

Bob Baker’s Newsthinking site is “dedicated to the proposition that there are only two kinds of journalists: bad ones, and those who are improving. Newsthinking was originally written for college journalism students and journalists in their first five years of work. But it has developed a following among a broader range of journalists and other writers, who applaud its sophisticated yet plain-spoken approach to the biggest unspoken problem journalists have: ‘Now that I’ve collected all this stuff, what the hell do I do with it?’”

“Ever wonder what foods the Vikings ate when they set off to explore the new world? How Thomas Jefferson made his ice cream? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip…and why?” Thanks to Anna Lane for sending this link to a food timeline. It might come in handy next time you’re researching a story!

On his blog, The Artist’s Midwife, former Bay Area resident Scott Fisher describes two distinct types of spiritual journey, which also could well be applied to most creative endeavors, including writing. Which describes your writing?

“In my experience, there are two kinds of spiritual journeys associated with art and self-growth. The first kind is the one where you throw yourself into something unknown, giving up all attachment to what the outcome is and committing only to remaining open to what comes up on the journey. This kind is like going on a pilgrimage. The second kind is the one where you know what you’re up to, and you throw yourself into something unknown, giving up all attachment to what the journey is and committing only to achieving the goal. This kind is like building a cathedral.

Thanks to Diane LeBow for sending this August 22, 2007 link to JournalismTraining.org, sponsored by The Society of Professional Journalists and “many of the country’s leading journalism organizations.

“Whether you want to improve your writing skills, learn more about convergence, investigate resources for your reporting beat, or catch up with other designers at an infographics quick course, we’ve got you covered. Hundreds of classes and seminars from scores of recognized organizations are a mouse click away.

“Visit the site and search for training that meets your needs. Search by topic, date, or location. Or use the advanced search feature to create a more specific search.

Thanks to Karen Misuraca for sending the link to booktour.com, “where authors and audiences meet.” The site includes authors bio, events calendar, links for buying books, and a “follow this author: by email | by RSS | in my calendar | on my website” function. If you have a book, you should be there!

“This is a fabulous new site putting authors and readers/book buyers together. Free, very easy. Author has a “presence” describing who they are, the book(s), calendar of appearances, etc. Readers can search by author, book, geographical area, etc. And, get alerts as to when any/all authors making appearances in their zip code.

And, speaking of 826 (as we were a few days ago, in the article from Australia about Dave Eggers: “826, the non-profit writing and drop-in tutoring centre for young people that, in the multi-faceted and seemingly frenetic world of Dave Eggers, doubles as the city’s only pirate supply store.”) … here’s an article by Rebekah Schilperoort from the 9/4/07 Ballard News-Tribune about “826 Seattle, a writing center that offers free drop-in tutoring and writing workshops for students ages 6 to 18.”

Here’s an 8/18/07 article about San Francisco’s Dave Eggers that ran in Melbourne, Australia’s (newspaper) The Age. Great example of local happenings that are news for the whole world, and can be pitched to just about any English-speaking publication. (If that’s the correct term. Can a paper “speak”?)

“THEY ASSEMBLED ON NEW Year’s Day, all 180 young men. Several years before, after they emigrated to the United States, these refugees — Lost Boys of Sudan — were given a collective date of birth. Though it was conjured by the UN, they had come to enjoy the tradition.

“Do bloggers need their own Norma Rae? In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.”

Read the rest of this 8/6/07 AP article here. Thanks to Diane LeBow for sending the link.

Congratulations to Connie Hale, who has accepted a position as program director at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism. She will be teaching a seminar in narrative to fellows who
are mid-career journalists, as well as organizing the Nieman Narrative Conference in Boston next March. The job is well-deserved; Connie has been teaching classes in the Bay Area, as well as organizing conferences for Berkeley’s J School, for some years.

The Harvard press release (below) pretty well covers it, except for neglecting to mention that Connie has been known to jump up and do the hula at the slightest provocation.

One less excuse; if he can do it, so can you: “An Italian writer decided to put his mobile phone to good use during his daily commute to and from work — by writing a book. Robert Bernocco, an IT professional took advantage of his travel time by writing a 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), on his Nokia using the phone’s T9 typing system.” From the International Business Times.

From Janet Reil’s website I found Writers in the Sky, “a blog, newsletter and podcast for the craft and business of writing, publishing and book marketing. Tons of tips for freelance writers.” I particularly appreciated the articles Striking Keyword Gold, about how to figure out which keywords will be most useful and knowing how best to use them, and Purple Snowflake Marketing, about making your book stand out from the rest.

Thanks to Eva Schlesinger for this link to About.com’s website for freelance writers.

Book Passage now has a blog, written by guest authors. Looks like a great way to get some inside scoop from authors’ perspectives.

keep looking »

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