f a i t h * i n * f i c t i o n

Amy Krouse Rosenthal Is Wonderful

2008-06-22T21:25:00.011-05:00

How do you say Thank you! to an author? The usual suspects—pithy card, fine chocolates, elegant Moleskine—suffice. But most authors silently wish you’d put aside the gifts and, if you want to really show your gratitude, publicize their book.

And so I want to say my thank you to author Amy Krouse Rosenthal here. For going above and beyond what’s required of an author to make a reader (not me, btw) happy. I hope she’s okay without the chocolates, but this is more fitting. After all, it was a bit of Wonkian-author promotion that started this whole business in the first place.

About three years ago, Lisa Samson read and recommended Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Sounded interesting, so I read it and enjoyed it. It even made my “favorites” list of 2005. A few months into 2006, Mark Bertrand and I met up at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing, and, having an evening free, browsed the aisles of a local Barnes and Noble. We alternated, as often happens on such trips, between pointing out favorites (covers, authors, books) and scoffing haughtily at things. At some point, we passed by Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life in trade paper and I picked one up to show Mark. (To praise, not scoff.) And like that Dahlian-hero Charlie Bucket, I found myself holding a Golden Ticket. (It was actually a postcard. And not overly golden.)

But it was one of a hundred out there in the world. It entitled me to a prize. It had a password. And it was signed AKR—Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

I’m forever on the lookout for clever author promotion ideas we can “borrow” here at BHP and this one seemed easy enough. I brought the postcard back to the office, showed our assistant marketing manager and then logged on to Amy’s website to peruse the “prizes.”

I’m not a big fan of butterscotch. I figured I wasn’t quick enough to be one of the first 10 people to get my own entry. The flower thing wasn’t my style, nor the soundtrack, I guess.
Which left me with the phone call. A cell phone coffee date with the author.

And I almost cashed in the golden ticket for a chance to grill Ms. Rosenthal about author publicity. Because it seemed, at least from my viewpoint, that she had some pretty creative ideas and managed a fair amount of “buzz” for her book.

It never happened. I stalled at first, not really knowing how the conversation would go, and then stalling soon passed into forgetting fitfully, and then eventually into forgetting completely.

Fast-forward two years.

My youngest daughter now has favorite books of her own, rather than just sitting through whatever her older sisters are being read for evening. And one of her favorites is a book her mom and I like (because it’s short and clever) called Little Pea. She loves the book. She loves the character of Little Pea.

Plot summary: Little Pea lives, plays, loves life with Mom and Dad. Not so big on dinner. Must eat dinner to get dessert. There’s a twist in there that the girls, particularly Youngest, just finds hilarious.

We read this book for months before the hamster in Dad’s brain rouses from its slumber and gets the wheel spinning. Amy Krouse Rosenthal…Amy Krouse Rosenthal…where have I heard that name before. Check author bio…oh!

Long story short (Too late!—a Clue: the Movie reference for you.), Dad goes back into work, finds the Golden Ticket, logs onto the website, and asks a favor.

Years after the fact.

A favor that really involves illustration more than writing.

And the author, who now deserves enshrinement in the Terrific Author Hall of Fame, delivers.

So, thank you to Amy. I want my girls to love reading and let me tell you, getting a letter from a character you love...that's the kind of thing that can make a little girl read for the rest of her life.

Consider Us Flattered

2008-03-10T15:12:00.005-05:00

Bride - 2005

Groom - 2008

Year End Favorites

2007-12-12T21:24:00.001-06:00

These aren't the best of the year. Just some of the best of what I took in.

Books
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo - No, it wasn't his best, but I always love losing myself in his worlds.

Movies
Once
The Bourne Ultimatum
Ratatouille
The only other movie we saw in the theater was Stardust and the book was just so much better.

TV
The Wire - I'm not actually recommending this because it's a pretty hard "R" HBO series...but it's insanely good. Writers on various episodes include folks like Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, George Pelacanos...basically a murderer's row of modern crime writers. I'm through Seasons 1-3 and rumor has it that Season 4 is even better.
Friday Night Lights
Blue Planet and Life in the Undergrowth - Extraordinary BBC documentaries on the ocean and bugs. My kids dig it. And without sounding deviant, the scene of slugs mating was one of the most wonderfully bizarre things I've ever seen.
So You Think You Can Dance

Music
Springsteen's Magic is decent. And he's still incredible live.
Arcade Fire's Neon Bible came close to Funeral. And they're one of the few bands that can even be mentioned in the same breath as the E Street folks for performance. They pull off a crazy hipster-Amish thing and just can blow out a place live.
Fountains of Wayne get a Richard Russo-esque nod for Traffic and Weather. Not their best, but still better than most.
And finally one I missed from 2006 - The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America.

Viral Marketing of Books - Cost/Benefit Questions

2007-11-28T09:25:00.000-06:00

I came across these videos at The Book Design Review. They're for Douglas Coupland's new book The Gum Thief. They're each the first in a series of ad trilogies. You can visit YouTube to see all the rest.

A. In execution, I think they're excellent. Professional, creative, eye-catching, etc.

B. In terms of SELLING the product...which is the necessary outcome of any successful ad...I just am less sure. In purely pitching the story, I thought the third ad caught my attention the most. The first was humorous, but I'm not sure it presents a book I want to read. The second was fascinating but again...I wasn't blown away by what I assume is text from the novel.

C. These trailers are becoming more and more popular for books...for any variety of reasons. As the popularity grows, what we'll see is that the bar is raised for the quality of the ads. And as the bar is raised...you can pretty much bet that the dollars/time/ingenuity required are going to grow as well.

Here's the rub. Are these things selling books? Are they selling enough books to warrant dollars/time/ingenuity? Are you going to buy The Gum Thief? And if not you, then who?

The Editor Who Altered the Literary Landscape

2007-11-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know that these days exist anymore within publishing, but there was a time that one man's vision could alter (for good and/or bad) an entire literary landscape.

Here's a primer on Gordon Lish.

What I See a Lot of In Proposals (and Novels)

2007-08-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

I am well into my fourth year as an acquisitions editor and after all this time I feel compelled to mention that the amount of coffee mentioned in proposals (particularly in contemporary fiction) and CBA novels I've seen is crazy.

And often not just mentions, but eloquent raptures on the drink. Or, quite often, heroes and heroines who can't function without the stuff. Ah caffeine--the evangelical crack.

Don't know why I'm mentioning other than I've just looked at three proposals in a row that should be underwritten by Starbucks. And perhaps to warn you that making coffee-addiction/devotion a character-trait is perhaps not as original as you might think.

In the holy name of Juan Valdez, go in peace.

One of the World's Great Authors...Now at Bethany House

2007-07-31T09:10:00.001-05:00

See more here.

Somewhere Between Hiatus and Sabbatical

2007-07-17T09:01:00.000-05:00

The blog has been silent. It'll probably stay silent a little while longer while I figure out a few things related to how to remain online in a productive fashion. Productive for me, for you, and for the industry.

In the meanwhile, I want to alert you to a cover survey we're currently running. It's for a book called Danny Gospel set to be released in April 2008. It's a book that blew my socks off when it came in-house and I'm excited for it to hit shelves. If you're interested in weighing in with your opinion, head here.

::

In other news, BHP recently picked up three awards at the latest Christy ceremony.

Deeanne Gist won for The Measure of a Lady (Romance)
Jamie Turner won for Winter Birds (Contemporary)
Beverly Lewis won for The Brethren (Contemporary Series)

Other winners included:

Madman by Tracy Groot (Historical)
Sisterchicks in Gondolas by Robin Jones Gunn (Lits)
Plague Maker by Tim Downs (Suspense)
Where Mercy Flows by Karen Harter (First Novel)
William Henry Is a Fine Name by Cathy Gohlke (Young Adult)

After a few years of controversial keynote addresses, Lauren Winner offered a healthy dose of rah-rah inspiration for those gathered. It was a valuable and authentic message, but I do hope the night doesn't automatically become an evening of self-congratulatory backpatting. We need to be challenged, too.

What else?

Tammy Alexander won a RITA award for Inspirational Novel for Revealed.

At ICRS I picked up what turned out to be a remarkable novel called Feeling for Bones by Bethany Pierce. Some startling and wonderful writing. Check it out.

Finished The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Deeply original and surprisingly poignant. I can't really even begin to describe it other than to say it's about devastating grief, and what makes us who we are, and, well, a conceptual shark who feeds on your identity. I wish I'd written it.

Mike Snyder seems to have a book coming out next year. Claudia Mair Burney has a tremendous cover for her newest book (it looks even better in person).

All for now.

2007 Christy Award Finalists

2007-05-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

Congrats to all the nominees!

The Christy Awards 2007 Nominees

CONTEMPORARY (STAND ALONE)

Dwelling Places by Vinita Hampton Wright (HarperOne)
Straight Up by Lisa Samson (WaterBrook Press)
Winter Birds by Jamie Langston Turner (Bethany House Publishers)

CONTEMPORARY (SERIES, SEQUELS AND NOVELLAS)

The Brethren by Beverly Lewis (Bethany House Publishers)
Escape from Fred by Brad Whittington (B&H Publishing Group)
The Proof by Austin Boyd (NavPress)

HISTORICAL (includes four titles due to a tie)

Glastonbury Tor by LeAnne Hardy (Kregel)
Grace in Thine Eyes by Liz Curtis Higgs (WaterBrook Press)
Madman by Tracy Groot (Moody Press)
Pieces of Silver by Maureen Lang (Kregel)

ROMANCE

The Measure of a Lady by Deeanne Gist (Bethany House Publishers)
Monday Morning Faith by Lori Copeland (Zondervan)
The Redemption by M. L. Tyndall (Barbour)

SUSPENSE

The Begotten by Lisa T. Bergren (Berkley)
The Hidden by Kathryn Mackel (Thomas Nelson)
Plague Maker by Tim Downs (Thomas Nelson)

LITS

The Cubicle Next Door by Siri Mitchell (Harvest House Publishers)
Everything’s Coming Up Josey by Susan May Warren (Steeple Hill Café)
Sisterchicks in Gondolas by Robin Jones Gunn (Multnomah)

YOUNG ADULT

Bad Idea by Todd and Jedd Hafer (NavPress)
The Way of the Wilderking by Jonathan Rogers (B&H Publishing Group)
William Henry Is a Fine Name by Cathy Gohlke (Moody Press)

FIRST NOVEL

Watching the Tree Limbs by Mary DeMuth (NavPress)
Where Mercy Flows by Karen Harter (Center Street)
William Henry Is a Fine Name by Cathy Gohlke (Moody Press)

The Winner of the Daily Sacrament Short Story Contest

2007-04-30T13:34:00.001-05:00

The big announcement has been made. The winner of the 2007 Daily Sacrament Short Story Contest has been named at Relief Journal.

Not only that, but we're pleased to announce that a second runner-up story has been accepted for publication in Issue 3 as well. Mark and I hoped that the contest might bring more than one story into the journal and I'm glad that came true.

Now...the only place you can read either (and they're both terrific stories) is by ordering your issue or your subscription to Relief. Your support will open the door to perhaps more contests, more events, more great writing in the future!

Congrats to both authors!

Stories of Merit

2007-04-27T13:47:00.000-05:00

So this was a sample of the stories we received. 60+ total, I think . I wish I could post more but we'll finish up with this last one. And then next week on Monday we'll make the big announcement.

And if you're in Chicago consider the Relief event this weekend.

The Stain by Mary Grabar

2007-04-27T13:26:00.000-05:00

Let me tell you, it doesn't begin the way most people think it does. You see, I was the one to hit him first. I did. I had a saucepan in my hand and would have knocked him out if he hadn't stopped me. My arm couldn't go anywhere once he held it, but when he let go after forcing the pan out of my hand I used my bare hands to pull his hair, scratch him, slap him. The sauce had splattered the wall as the pan had flung backward. It was sauce he made for our dinner on Sunday night, before I would have to leave early the next morning, going against traffic though, out of town. He let me go, but then right there was his bookshelf. I could not stop myself. Those were his books, some from college even. He had kept the textbooks on human sexuality and The Story of O. He bought hard-covers and was careful to set aside the dust covers while reading them. He would let me read them, curious tomes by scientists making order out of evolution, spelling the progress of humankind scientifically and socially, multi-chaptered recipes for human satisfaction and peace. He scolded me if I left one open face down; it would ruin the binding, he said.

They were the next thing to throw and I was still mad from his having said it. I started pulling the books out, throwing them. I threw them all over his apartment, at him, at the desk with the nude reproduction from the Getty, at the file cabinet from where he had pulled out the card, and his new laptop where he kept lists and notes and journals I was not allowed to see. I did not care if some of them were the books I'd given him with my inscription and signature, the Donne for our first Valentine's Day to be remembered for every Valentine's Day until one of us died, the Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I even pulled out the Peter Rabbit from the bottom shelf.

It was because he smiled as he said it. I was screaming, screaming at him you son of a bitch. He had to get me again to calm me down, pull me from behind, wrestle me to the bedroom, put his hand over my mouth. He threw me down on the bed. "You bitch." He looked down into my eyes as he said it. It was the first time he said it. And I was not used to looking so directly at his eyes. This time they remained steady, fixed on me, on my eyes. The brown-gold of them pierced me, rendered me unable to move more so than the hands digging into my wrists. You will say I am crazy but he said the word with love. Yes, love. Love and hate. It was always mixed up. I was crying, spitting. He was calm now. The light that had danced in his eyes as he had geared up to say it was replaced by an animal calm. He held me that way until I stopped screaming, until I was looking at him. He let go of my wrists, leaving brown marks I would wear like bracelets the next morning. "I like it when you get this way," he said, releasing his grip with satisfaction. "A blue-eyed devil." He was smiling a little. He rose from the bed and walked into his kitchen.

He started cleaning. He did not look at me, but worked methodically, putting Mr. Clean into a bucket and swabbing the red-stained wall with it. The sauce was all over the place--the light fixture, the glass-topped table, the Parson's chairs. It came off the cupboards and counters but not off the wall and chairs. I sat in the recliner like a naughty child while he cleaned.

"I should call the police," he said. "Andrew said I should break up with you before the police are called out here and they haul me away. You're lucky the neighbors didn't call the police." Andrew, the MSW he had started seeing in order to deal with his issues and me, was the final arbiter in such situations.

I offered to paint the wall.

I didn't dare bring it up to him again. But this is how it happened: I had said I told you I don't want you talking about her before my arm had raised itself with the spaghetti sauce in it. Her name had that effect on me and after the cards that he showed me, the cards that came while I was in the hospital, I could not bear to hear her name. And he had joked about her, one of his little anecdotes about something I did that reminded him of P. I will not write her name.

In the card she wrote that she was sorry to hear about our loss, but that it must now be a relief to him and that she was still as ever (as she was throughout the whole three months and more) available and waiting for him.

"I am not interested in her, didn't you hear me say it in front of your counselor. She's just a friend. Why are you so insecure.

"That's what he said after he showed me the card. I had torn the other ones up, the other ones that in fact were his, his property as Andrew said, property that should be respected by two individuals in a relationship and that what had gone on between the two of them had nothing to do with him and me.

But after it had happened Andrew had said well it was a good thing maybe after all, given how unstable this relationship is.

I couldn't leave after that. It would have been harder than ever to leave. I wanted to try again, to recoup what was lost and for many weeks I would be told how beautiful I was, how loved, how the love he had for me scared him and that was why. . .

But sometimes I'd come over and he'd find me in that little dining area, press his body, the body whose smell intoxicated me and that I loved even more because it had helped produce the little thing that I had loved and lost, and he'd press his body against mine, glance at that wall with the stain, turn my head toward it, hold it there, force me to look at it: "See what you've done? Hothead."

I had decided by that point not to paint it. I guess I wanted him to claim his part in it.

You are saying I should have been stronger or more virtuous. This is beyond help. Crazy. Leave.

I did. He would find me. Not with threats. But with an invitation to talk, dinner. He could not bear to lose me, plus what else we had lost. The error of his ways. Looking away. Not daring to meet my eyes. The drinks making him sentimental, his voice almost a crack. The stifled emotion later in the night as I was held by him again in the bed where we had made it in a moment of caution thrown to the wind and when he sounded the way he would sound only in the complete darkness, a little boy coming out and saying, "sometimes I think I love you too much.

"That was it. He couldn't handle it. And so he had to turn, turn the other way, back to the place he had been before, back to the way he had been before he first met me, the one who had made him want something permanent. But it scared him.

I do believe he was scared.

Have you ever known a love so intense?

There is the union that goes beyond the rational, that is whispered in the night, and denied in the day. That is what I have known.

He was smiling as he said it and that is what made my arm go up with the pan not caring if I had had a two-ton boulder in it. He had started already and had already mentioned her name and I had said as I had been advised by Andrew please do not say it, that name, it hurts me when you say it. It would have gone down on him and yet he had not struck me. It was the smile. The smile that had charmed me the first time, when he had seen me across the floor and said I could dance and led me, his feet sure, his shoulders and back strong, leading me around between all the others. He said I could do it. And because he said I could do it, I did.

He would smile at me and I would melt. And you see him before you now. He is not smiling. His mouth is turned down. I loved that turn down too.

It was the "Tennessee Waltz" for our first waltz and I should have known right then that it was a sign; it was not the "Lover's Waltz." He reserved that waltz (the first time I heard it with him after we had started dating) for Marla who would not speak to me. On that first night when I met him, I had seen him on the edge of the dance floor talking out of the side of his mouth with Rod and I could tell they were talking about me. At other times, when he wasn't being asked to dance or offering his outstretched hand he was by himself, a tall dark-haired man slightly scholarly looking with wire-rimmed glasses. He had the best body of any of them. But his face was scarred.

He would tell me about it, about how once his face became covered with pustules at the age of 15 the girls no longer showed interest in him. He could not wear a belt. Would not go skinny dipping.

He said it matter-of-factly, though. He offered more about his past than anyone else had. About how he had come to respect his philosophy teacher and write 30-page papers for him, in high school. We were a year apart, and we'd often compare notes: what were you doing in 1973? Remember the Jackson Five?

I would kiss the scarred chin, look up at the wattles starting to form on his neck, run my fingers up the back of his neck through his thinning hair, careful not to mention the bald spot forming like a yarmulke, revealing the baby pink of his skull. He would relax then. We had a private joke about head squeezing, a technique from one of his ex-girlfriends from a therapy workshop or something. I would squeeze his head when he would mention some man who he knew was after me, who had smiled when he danced with me. He would squeeze my head when I got upset about P.

I believe we were both crazy.

But I had never been so in love.

He drew me in. I don't know why. He says we are irrational creatures and that I am more irrational than most and that is part of the appeal of me. So when I would ask him have you been seeing her he would reply no, you're crazy. Crazy. A mental case. The red stain was our visible evidence. He did not paint over it.

He would mention her and I would ask why she called, could he not say please do not call.

"Is this the Grand Inquisition?" he would ask. I knew I wasn't acting the way I had been advised to, the way Andrew said healthy couples should act: allow each other space, privacy. Trust.

She kept calling because she regretted breaking up with him and he could not be cruel to her. It was my issue. I tried to believe. I would not be able to sleep.

So that day I had tried to stop him from talking about her. But, no, he had not struck me and I could have walked out.

But it is not easy to walk away from a voice and a touch and a smell. His ghost would follow me, reminding me of the emptiness that surrounded me. And he would call and reveal that he felt an emptiness too.

I don't know why he had to say it. But he did. And he said it with a smile: "She said she would have had an abortion so fast it would make your head spin."

And the pan went up with my scream that went through the wall: "it's already dead!"

"So maybe she would have. Why does that fact bother you?" Those were Andrew's words. He said it in his office with the little electric fountain trickling, the statue of Buddha beaming down from the bookshelf behind him, the degrees on his wall. I could not explain it.

Andrew waved his foot clad in a thick sock and Birkenstocks. She had offered to have sex with him, yes. Some people are freer with their sexuality. But Michael had refused, didn't you just hear him say it?

And he had been ambivalent. It is better to be honest about ambivalence.

What to do now?

Work on the communication and trust.

I did. I trusted.

I did not come into town to spy on him. It was not our night. I was going to surprise him. I had bought dinners and desserts and a bottle of wine, his favorite.

I put in the card key and the gate lifted. He had told me earlier that he was going to stay in, read and do laundry.

It was a pretty spring night. The dogwoods were in bloom and there was a tree right in front of his building. It had been blooming the first time I had found his building after his directions, when we had made plans to see "Wings of the Dove." I was about to turn in to the lot. I was going pretty slow because of the speed bumps.

I saw him. Then I saw her. She looked like her picture. She was smaller than I was, thin, in high heels and a short dress. She pulled it off in spite of her age.

No, he did not have his arm around her. But he was looking down at her, smiling at her the way he smiled at me.

I had no proof.

The path was clear.

Every cell in my body charged. A green rage started boiling within me. I felt like the incredible Hulk.

I do not remember exactly. That's right. I had no proof.

I had no right.

But I drove that car toward them.

And he saw me.

He put his arm around her.

He pulled her away and saved her.

That's when I hit the car.

If he and she were alone in this room with me they would be laughing at me. He told me how she would laugh about some of my rages. Hothead. He said that to me often.

He would say she did nothing wrong.

That's what he said to Andrew.

In writing she said she would sleep with him.

Still no proof. I admit it.

He saved her. He saved himself.

Always he said that it is important keep oneself in shape and about that he was good; he showed me how to use the machines at the gym. As he had showed all his ex-girlfriends. He was swift and strong and he pulled her away, looking at me first with alarm, then a little smile forming.

It was what he wanted. I realized it then. He pulled her in to him. At the same time he had been willing to go to the edge in order to pull me in. His smile shone even more brightly because his face was red from the exertion. The craters of his skin became more pronounced and that light beamed from his eyes.

This was what he had been working toward. My attempt to kill him. I became dizzy, as if on the edge of a deep pit, from the realization of what I had almost done, of how I had nearly fallen into the place he came from.

Four Feasts by Susan Fish

2007-04-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

Running, unlike the classroom, was within his control. He ran in any direction that would take him away from the school. There was something satisfyingly defiant about pushing back against the gusts of wind as he ran. He loved hearing the wild boom of the surf as it crashed violently against the rocks. At first, his goals were simple: to make it to the next tree, to be able to pant bonjour to anyone he passed, rather than gasping cotton-mouthed as he staggered by. Eventually, he began to be able to run to the third tree, then the bend in the road, and to string these small goals together into something that could be called a run. Each day, he ended his runs by cutting across the beach to stand at the edge of the tide. On days when he was still thinking about school by the end of a run, he found release in throwing stones as far into the gulf as he could, with a grunt or even a yell. Other days, he pocketed pieces of colored glass.

He still wondered who lived in the little yellow cottage nestled along the shore. Despite its brilliant hue, it looked as though it had grown there. The mailbox said Lafontaine and the driveway curved into the cedars that surrounded the house so he could not tell whether there was a car or not, but some evenings he saw lights in the windows.

He was far up the road when he saw a figure carrying bags into the yellow house. The person emerged again as Jason drew closer. It was the artist who taught at his school -- Nathalie. He felt satisfied by this, that this was where she belonged: the house suited her. He waved as he passed and she waved back, although he was not sure she recognized him.

The air was so cold the next day that it sucked Jason’s breath from his mouth as he stepped outside his door but he decided to run anyway, to sustain this good habit as long as he could. Then he ran too far. Even with the scarf and the beard, he felt his face starting to freeze. Nathalie’s cottage was ahead, vivid yellow against the purple and blue shadows on the snow.
She opened the door, a large towel wrapped around her head, her red kimono around her body. She looked surprised. “Jason. Come in. Vite. Vite!”

He stepped inside and was enveloped in sensory bliss. A fire blazed in a preposterously large hearth, brown loaves of bread sat on the counter next to the stove on which something fragrant bubbled and steamed. Nathalie busied herself gathering small pots and jars on the table. “Sit. Please. My mess – excusez.”

Jason’s body was only beginning to believe that the torture was over. His face still stiff with cold smiled. “It’s a still life, Nathalie. My table has breakfast on it. Don’t worry about it.”

Nathalie smiled. She unwrapped the towel from her head, shaking out masses of damp, dark curls. “So, you come to accept my offer of supper?”

“No. I was jogging. And I got too – trop froid.”

“Your French improves. But, will you join me. I have a good meal ce soir – my grandfather’s soup, and bread I make myself.”

“It smells delicious.”

“Donc –stay!” She stepped closer to him, unbuttoned his coat and unwrapped his scarf. She smelled spicy and woodsy.

“I’m interrupting,” he protested.

“I was in the bath, trying to delay the inevitable. I am a coward about the cold so I stay under the water until the bath feels as cold as the air. You have rescued me from the freezing with your timely knock.” She tossed his coat on top of her own on a driftwood tangle by the door.
“Would you desire a cup of wine? Du café?”

“Du vin, s’il vous plait.”

Nathalie gave the mass on the stove a quick turn before moving to the cupboard, taking two glasses, opening the bottle on the counter and filling them with ruby liquid.

“We missed you at school on Thursday,” he said as she handed him a glass.

She shook her head. “My grand-mère, she is sick and I am bringing her the things she needs in the hospital. This is her house.”

This explained the mailbox. “I’m sorry. I hope she is better soon.”

“She is 90 years old,” Nathalie said. “I hope so too.”

“Santé!” Jason offered. “To health!”

“And warmth!” Nathalie said.

They ate at the table covered in shards of pottery and sea glass. After he had eaten, he reached a finger to touch them.

“They’re beautiful.”

“Beau.”

“Beau?”

“Oui! You have it!” Nathalie clapped her hands in the firelight.

He watched her pull small pieces from her bread and run them around her empty bowl before popping them into her mouth. He took a large gulp of wine and decided to take refuge and risk in French.

“Tu es beau.”

Nathalie’s eyes danced. “Moi? Non, a woman is belle.”

“Belle?”

“I am female.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Nathalie threw back her head and laughed. As she reached for her glass, her robe slipped from her shoulder, then fell back into place as she drank the wine.

“How – how do you say – I want to kiss you.”

“Je désire te baiser.” Nathalie leaned over. Her kiss tasted of sweet wine. “Now – you try again.”

Jason repeated the phrase nearly correctly.

Nathalie wiggled her head. “Almost,” she teased.

“Je désire–” and then he stopped, desire mingled with guilt, confusion.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Nathalie asked, biting her lip.

“It’s not you. Je désire – but …” He flexed his hands, lost and confused.

“Then go home. Va. Pense.”

“I owe you dinner. I’ll cook Toronto food for you – whatever that is.” He retreated into jokes. “I should go. But – I’m as bad as you getting out of the bath – is it always like this in the winter?”
She wrapped her arms tightly about herself. “No. In the winter, it gets really cold.”

He wrapped his scarf three times around his face and turned to Nathalie who stood small and dark in her crimson kimono. He could not quite meet her gaze.

“Merci. I’ll see you – vendredi,” he said.

“Stay warm,” she said. “Go home quickly.”

The night was so shockingly bitter that he nearly gagged as he hit the cold air. He broke into a lope across the deserted road, over the ridges of the lone snowmobile tracks. The bright, frosty sky above him was silent, but he could hear a melancholy train whistle in the distance.

***

Most of the people had gathered near the front of the church and he soon saw why – there were electric heaters just below the pulpit. He left his seat near the window and inched cautiously forward, staying behind the rest.

He found himself confused and distracted as the congregation sang. He tried to join in, but just when he thought he had the tuneless tune, it would rise or lower unexpectedly. He could not find his place in the burgundy book they had given him, despite the page numbers listed on a large sign at the front of the church. He found the words foreign and dense – he couldn’t focus on one before another was coming at him.

Then the minister said something about peace and everyone stood up and began greeting everyone else. Jason followed their example although he didn’t think the service was over. Three people shook his hand. Then everyone found seats again and he tried to keep pace.
The Lord’s Prayer was said, and here Jason was thankful: he knew this part and could recite it without thinking. The preaching jangled like a foreign language in Jason’s ear: though he understood the individual words and strained to grasp the meaning of the whole, he could not.
The next thing he knew, the crowds were lining up at the front. When in Rome, thought Jason as he joined the line, wondering if you had to be a regular at the church to take communion. He made it to the front of the small church, standing in line, shifting from one foot to another. He found himself distracted by dandruff on the collar of the man in front of him waiting to take communion. It was funny, you didn’t see people with dandruff as much as you used to. Maybe people washed their hair more often, or maybe shampoos had improved. It was hard to say. And then he was at the front of the church and he knelt on the steps where the minister stood holding a silver chalice of wine. A woman handed him a wafer, giving his shoulder a slight squeeze as she passed.

As the minister held out the cup for Jason to dip his wafer, Jason suddenly knew he could not put the wafer in his mouth. There were no napkins at communion, nothing you could slip a wafer into. The dandruffed man had moved back to his seat. Jason was conscious of the need to dispose of the evidence. He raised the wafer toward his lips, maybe he could, and then, he could not. He slipped the wafer into his breast pocket, rose to his feet and returned to his seat.
An hour later, the wafer was still there. The wine had left a slight crescent of a stain, like a minor bullet wound over his heart.

***

Flames were licking the sky as he made his way to the beach. A crowd of people was already gathered around the fire, some holding hot dogs or marshmallows on sticks. The moonlight made everything look like a black and white movie, dense furry shadows and overexposed whiteness. A flock of snow geese flew overhead, their wings beating the air so that Jason could hear it.

The spring low tide was just before midnight. Jason’s heart quickened at the idea of walking on the tidal floor, where people were not meant to walk, of actually touching the rock that normally was surrounded by water.. Nathalie emerged from the shadows, small and dark, and was standing silently next to him almost before he recognized her. He had run past her house each day, a knot forming in his stomach when he thought of talking to her. Now, he wondered how to begin the conversation. The moon was bright and the tide had receded so that a sandbar curving toward the rock was visible.

“Allons! Allons!” someone called, setting off.

Jason felt an ambition to touch this rock. Wordlessly, he gestured to Nathalie, who fell into step with him, her hands dug deep in her pockets, a gulf between them.

“I have never told you about Steven, did I?” she said suddenly.

He shook his head.

“Steven was a professor of sculpture at Dalhousie. I modelled for some of his classes in my first year to pay for the second year. I listen as I stood there – it was very boring, you know, to be standing so long in one position. But Steven was fascinante – he was older and all the girls adored him – and powerful. In my second year, I change my major to fine arts and then in my third année, we moved in together. I look back now and–” Nathalie shook her head vigorously, her face in the shadows – “but at the time, it was, it seems very natural and beautiful. We lived together in Halifax for five years. I graduate, get a job in graphic design, go to openings with Steven. But he will never come here with me, and he is always angry when I speak French, when I call my mother or my grand-parents. I was happy maybe two years with Steven and then–”

She paused as they negotiated their way across a series of slippery rocks. Jason wondered if she hoped he would let the matter drop. Boule Rock loomed ahead of them now, black even in the moonlight. He let the silence enfold him, feeling the ripples of tide-crests of sand under his feet, and the squelch of icy seawater seep into the holes of his canvas running shoes. He wished he had worn boots as Nathalie did. She wrapped her arms around herself as she walked.

“Un jour, a woman called the apartment and I knew. It was only one phone call but I was sure. It was a beautiful day in October. I was making a soup and des petites biscuits, my grand-mère’s receipt. I made a salade too, after the phone call – a spinach salade with little oranges and slices of onion.

“It’s funny what you remember. I remember pulling the spinach apart – it felt like a paper towel, heavy and wilted. Everything was very clear. I had a tisane – peppermint – and I kept boiling the water and drinking the tea so hot it was hurting my mouth and I wanted to feel it go down my throat, because then I could swallow, peut-être, what I had known, what I knew.

“I made my salade and I thought about holding the secret. I thought about my life, my English life. I had started to feel a bit at home in Halifax. And Steven. And I was very, very afraid and the tisane did not help and I arranged the salade and I took one spinach leaf and I squeezed it between my hands until green juice ran between my fingers and my hands were covered. And then I took more and I ruined the salade and I leave the whole crushed mess in the sink and I put my head in my hands and I cried. And I could smell the good spinach and the onions and the orange, and I feel like I have not smelled anything in years.

“So I rinse it away and there is no salade that night, but I sat at the table with Steven and the soup and the biscuits and every time I took a bite I could smell that oignon and the fresh spinach and it strengthened me and I asked him.”

They were completely in shadows, with the others at the monolith, which seemed so insignificant from shore, but which dwarfed them now. The rock was covered with seabirds, still squawking deep into the night. Jason reached a hand out to touch the rock. It was slimy and pungent with seaweed and guano. In the darkness, Nathalie put her hand on his. The rock echoed with the sounds of hooting revellers and birds.

“He told me everything as if I am his priest. Not guilty. Not bragging. Like I am the lucky one to keep him for a while.”

***

He had opened all the classroom windows and the scent that wandered in was the promise of warmth to come. The students felt it too, though where the breeze soothed and settled him, it energized the students. Jason found himself responding to their collective shiver of life. He felt a strong current of satisfaction as he surveyed the students clustering in groups to study for the exams.

After school, he stuffed his jacket into his backpack and set out walking down the hills toward Nathalie’s house.

She was sitting curled up, deep in thought, at her desk and did not notice his approach. The door stood ajar and he gave it a quick knock as he leaned his head inside.

“Where does a guy go to get some good ice cream around here?”

A smile replaced the look of concentration on Nathalie’s face, and she gathered her papers into a stack on her desk.

Three minutes later, he sat beside her as her old car doggedly climbed the hill to the highway. He had his feet propped on the dashboard and his arms flung open, one behind Nathalie, the other hanging out an open window. As she drove along the curve of highway high above the river, he watched the water idly, solid marine blue, with only tips of white waves far out in the river. He glanced over at Nathalie who had sunk once again into thought. He wondered what she was thinking and whether he should ask.

“I’ve never been here before,” he said as she pulled off the road at Baie de Sables.

“Jamais? It is only a small hop?”

“If you have a car. I can see its lights at night. So where is this ice cream?”

“Can I take you first to one of my favorite places?”

“Of course.”

She drove along a small parkway past a sturdy church with its dull pewter-coloured roof and siding-clad cottages. There were few trees and very few places of evident business. He noted this with surprise: he had imagined the lights he saw to be those of cozy restaurants and bars, but this place was spare.

Then, as Nathalie pulled in front of a house facing the water, he was forced to entirely re-evaluate his assessment of the town: most of it was spare, but this one house made up for it, as if any ornament or decoration from the other houses in the community had been magnetically pulled off by this house. He was put in mind of a gingerbread house.

“It’s une musée,” Nathalie explained.

“A museum of what?”

“Of art.”

Jason stuck his tongue out behind Nathalie’s back as he followed her to the house.

“It looks like it used to be a house.”

“It is a house. Raymond lives within his creation.”

He followed Nathalie through the narrow passageways in the house. She explained as they went that Raymond had made everything from materials he had found on the beach across the road from his house. There were faces made of dented hubcaps, driftwood geese, mosaics of sea glass, gargoyles of old bicycle wheels and twisted metal grids. The effect was overwhelming to Jason who could not imagine living in such a place – it would cause perpetual indigestion, if not nightmares. Nathalie, however, looked around fondly with interest.

“Do you like this stuff?” he finally asked. The art was so different from Nathalie’s art and her own mosaics or even the driftwood tangle she kept on her porch. “You aren’t going to end up like this in twenty years, are you?” he teased.

Nathalie looked up. “Moi? For me, it is about twenty years ago. My grandfather used to play cards with Raymond and sometimes when I stay with my grandparents, he will bring me along. I never like the smell of their pipes and M. Raymond, he always tell me ‘Va en haut!”, “Va en haut!” and I would prowl up here, looking at it all. It wasn’t a musée then. M. Raymond was the first artist I knew, and the first to show me I didn’t need to follow some style, I could just go to the sea to make something. Quelque chose beau.” She spoke as in reverie. Jason could not resist – in the yellow light of the dusty landing, he kissed her. She smiled then bit her bottom lip thoughtfully before leading him down a flight of stairs hidden behind a tall cabinet.

As they descended, he began to smell a pungent odor. The stairs wound into a small, dark kitchen where a man stirred a pot on the stove in the shadows.

“M. Raymond. C’est moi – Nathalie Dubé.”

The small man, remarkably normal in his plaid shirt and work pants, responded with a torrent of French and almost a jig. Nathalie reached for his hand.

“Mon ami, Jason Ward – un professeur. Il est anglais.”

Raymond shook Jason’s hand. Wizened raisin eyes shone brightly in the man’s face.

“It is my pleasure.” Raymond said, forming the English syllables carefully.

“Votre art,” Jason attempted, “C’est, c’est merveilleux.” He was conscious of Nathalie’s smile.

Over the next few minutes, Jason, Raymond and particularly Nathalie engaged in a round of conversation, with Nathalie running translation and commentary both ways, while Raymond stirred pots like a wizard.

“He is inviting us to share his supper.”

“What is it?”

“Soup. Dandelion greens.”

“Les premiers de printemps,” Raymond said proudly, thumping his chest and making muscles with his arms. “Pour la fortitude.”

“It’s not seaweed, is it?” Jason asked dubiously.

Nathalie rolled her eyes and they followed Raymond to a small table. As Raymond ladled out bowls of steaming green stew, Jason was conscious of meals he had not finished, and those he had not even started. He looked at Nathalie who was crossing herself and then at the soup. It did look curiously like seaweed, like something harvested from the depths. Seeing Raymond watching him, Jason raised a spoon to his mouth. The soup was curiously bitter and the pumpernickel bread was dense and chewy, but Jason was conscious of this man whose strange hospitality lay before him in the bowl. He swallowed, smiled and took another mouthful as he watched Nathalie gesture, explaining to Raymond about a painting she was working on. He became used to the strange taste of the dandelions, enough to ask for a second bowl, and felt its freshness move in him like new life after winter. Nathalie was pleased as she danced between languages and her colliding worlds. Sometimes she forgot to translate but Jason did not lose his place in the conversation.

Author Website Contest

2007-04-25T14:03:00.000-05:00

Relief Journal is hosting an event this weekend in Chicago. (If you're around, be sure to check out the details.)

But regardless of whether you can attend, if you have an author website, think about entering their "Author Website Contest." Winner will get a nifty T-shirt and a mug, but considering that entering consists of sending an email and might get you some nice publicity for your site....why not?

Details at the end of this post.

Dark House by Renee Ronika Bhatti-Klug

2007-04-25T14:02:00.000-05:00

Let him who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord
and rely on his God.
But now, all you who light fires
and provide yourselves with
flaming torches,
go, walk by the light of your fires
and of the torches you have set
ablaze.

–Isaiah 50:10b-11

In archways, I’ve always wondered what to do with myself. But in his archway, the one I had known since I was a girl, I knew to touch the highest point of the arch with the tips of my fingers before passing through. It was a rite my brothers and I performed to initiate the warm afternoons. Our mother would scold us for being impolite at someone else’s house, but what she meant was her in-laws’ house—the house my grandparents had been saving to buy since they came here from India before our dad was born. Our father didn’t mind our entrance ritual. I think he saw it as his father’s gift to us. All my brothers and I knew was every Saturday, while at our grandparents’, it became easier to reach the arch. After a while, we didn’t even have to jump.

Ravi, who was born a year, a week and a day before me, on a Sunday, had fourteen pimples on his cheeks and our grandmother kept reentering the living room to tell him she found another. “Ravi, look! There is now one growing from your ear. Give it to God, boy, otherwise you will have spots.”

Ravi slumped into the couch and gripped the Atari controller, steadying his glare on the fuzzy TV. Sim, who was almost out of high school, smirked. “I guess we know who lucked out in the gene pool, hey Rav?” Ravi’s animated frog hurled itself under an oncoming car. Sim leaned over the couch and untied a ribbon on my braid. I scowled and huddled closer to Ravi, who I knew wouldn’t give me any trouble. Ravi didn’t give anyone trouble. He was our grandfather’s favorite and, if it weren’t for all his pimples, he would have been our grandmother’s favorite too.

He was my favorite. Sim was too old for me. What did I care if a Lamborghini could outrace a Testarossa? Ravi would follow Sim around the house, holding up sketches of different cars he had drawn. Sim would turn around, snatch them from Ravi, and evenly state, “Testarossas don’t come in that shade of red.” Ravi would find the right shade and redraw the car until Sim was content.

I was content staring at my movie posters of American and Indian actresses. Nancy McKeon was my favorite American celebrity and Rekha was my favorite Indian star. When Rekha danced, her black hair wisped in waves across her shoulders. My hair unraveled in strings of muted dark brown. Mom hated that I adored Rekha, who she claimed was a professing witch. Mom was a professing Catholic who believed witches belonged on one side while saints belonged on another. On which side of what she didn’t specify.

Dad was hardly around. He was a pilot and had six fingers on his left hand. He said the sixth, which was just an extra pinky, was for luck. Our father, to our mother’s dismay, was without religion. Our mother, to our father’s dismay, was without faith. He couldn’t agree with the stoicism of the Catholics, or any other religion: Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist. “The mindless chatter of chants and rehearsed reading of scripture is not what God intended.” He didn’t say what it was that God intended, although Dad was content with the religious watching of Bollywood movies (for which I was content). On the weekends our Dad was home, he piled a stack of movies on the Beta and we would search our way through them, circling our eyes around the gilded love songs and recycled plots.

Ravi and Sim, like me, avoided religion altogether. Our grandfather didn’t push it, so Ravi didn’t notice it. Sim was too good for it and I had no clue what to make of it. There were so many religions to choose. My friend Rebekkah said God chooses us so it was easy for her to believe in Jesus. My other friend Mara was Jewish and said that was only because of her family. “Even though I’m getting Bat Mitzvahed,” she said, “when I turn eighteen I’m not going to be Jewish anymore.” When she was eighteen, Mara hit an oncoming truck while driving in her hatchback and spent the next four months in a coma before finally passing away.

But when we were twelve, everything seemed like a grandiose choice. Even Rebekkah savored the opportunity to select from sticky or rock candy when she came to my house for sleepovers. It didn’t matter that she believed in Jesus; I in Rekha; Mara in turning eighteen. We knew to survive seventh grade, we would have to rely on our ability to be arbitrary just to avoid getting crushed.

For the fall formal, two boys asked Mara to the dance, one asked Rebekkah and I ended up asking Sim what I would do if no one asked me. “You crawl in a hole and die, kiddo.” For Sim—a Michelangelo effigy of obdurate muscles and sienna skin—the extent of conflicts in his pretty world was whether to splash on Drakkar or Polo before going to the football game.

When a boy did not ask me to the dance, I approached Henry Wheeler—the fattest kid in school—and asked if he wanted to go. “Can’t dance,” he mumbled under his raspy breath, and I didn’t press him further.

I cried in a lump on my bed the entire week before that Thursday night. I wouldn’t go to my first dance. This was something I saw happen in John Hughes’ movies to ugly, smart girls or geeky, frizz-headed boys. I was a cute kid. Our parents let me take my braids out after sixth grade, so I had long hair that landed just above my waist that I sometimes pulled back into a side ponytail. I had deep set almond-colored eyes, like our dad’s, a normal nose and only one crooked tooth. I was average height and I wasn’t too chubby. I got mostly Bs, some As, one C. I just didn’t get asked to the dance.

Ravi came into my room that Thursday after school and I asked him if Talia, the girl he asked to the dance, said yes. He nodded and sat on the bed. “I don’t think she would mind if I cancelled and went with you, though. Ryan can take her.” Ravi’s eyes counted stray strands on the olive shag carpeting.

“You would do that?” I asked, readjusting my head on the down pillow.

He shrugged. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“I’m your sister.”

He looked over to me and smiled, “Yeah, I know.”

“Your face looks better.” He had started using a new medicine, some sort of industrial strength cream, that school year. Although he was darker than Sim, and had a baby face, I knew Ravi would age into a stunning and unassuming beauty. I hoped to turn out the same way. He didn’t seem convinced there was hope for either of us. “I’m serious, Rav. There are hardly any pimples left.”

“Yeah, but I bet you on Saturday Bibiji will still count the spots.”

“And then Dhadha will come to your rescue.”

On Saturday, as Ravi and I stretched to touch the arch and Sim thumped it with a finger, the dance was behind us, behind me.

It didn’t take clever convincing to sway Ravi into keeping his date with Talia, and then he had the brilliant thought to ask Ryan to take me instead of pawning off Talia. The four of us must have looked like a misguided rainbow walking into the crepe-dripped gymnasium. Ryan had dark blonde hair that stuck out like bird feathers; Talia’s hair was Garfield orange; Ravi’s hair was jet black; and I had my gloomy mess of string. When Rebekkah and Mara joined us with their dates, we danced and danced—forgetting any of this was ever an ordeal.

**

Ravi charged to the back room of our grandparents’ house, where he woke Dhadha from an afternoon slumber. The rest of us convened in the dining room, salivating over the scent of Bibiji’s aloo rotis—spiced mashed potatoes, onions and peas spread between homemade whole wheat Indian bread. We loved Bibiji’s Saturday treats and looked forward to them after a humdrum week of bologna sandwiches for lunch and whatever our mom would defrost or reheat for dinner. Unlike Bibiji, Mom didn’t see cooking as her gift. She worked at a law firm, typing depositions and answering calls, and wanted to recline in her La-Z-Boy and watch “Wheel of Fortune” when she came home. Once Sim could drive, we ate a lot of fast food and pizza.
Mom, like Dad, was a first generation American. I can’t remember her parents, but she said they were Guyanese Indians who wanted to check out entrepreneurial pursuits in the States. Our parents met twenty years later, the only two Indians at the state college. They traveled as hippies for a while, surfacing for funerals and Sim’s birth. Once he arrived, our parents moved into this house with Dhadha and Bibiji. They moved out once they had Ravi.

**

“Nina, beta, go get the yogurt from the refrigerator,” Bibiji turned to look at me after laying out placemats. “No more hamburgers for you. You will become plump.”

Our mother chuckled. “Panji, she’s a healthy young girl—slender even.”

“Yes, now,” Bibiji mused, “but in two years she will thank God for her Bibiji’s sound advice. Right, beta?” She pinched Sim’s chin and he nodded. “My beautiful Simjit. See? He does not eat high-flying American food too much and he is spotless and slim.”

I wanted to tell Bibiji that Mr. Spotless and Slim has pimples all over his back and in five years would be fat because he was the one who took me to burger joints. Instead I said, “Bibiji, Ravi’s face doesn’t have spots anymore.”

She snorted. “If he continues to surround himself only with your Dhadha, and refuses to listen to me, the spots will return.”

I think Sim was glad to hear that, but it made me want to leap at Bibiji and whack her with a flyswatter. I was also mad at Ravi for abandoning me with Sim and Bibiji; at Mom for her neglect; at Dad for his absence; at Dhadha for loving Ravi so much he couldn’t see me.
I wanted to know what they did together so, that day, I excused myself from the table, pretended to enter the bathroom, and detoured down the hall to crouch in front of Dhadha’s study. I could hear him speaking, his voice inflected in subtle rhythms of wheezes and accented words, “Ravi, you must learn to be quiet, even when you are in pain. Another’s life must come before your own. You must not let the corruption of other men influence you to do what is not right.”

Ravi asked him then what was not right.

Guilt, like a plague, passed over me and I stood to run down the hall. Once I turned, I gasped when I plowed into a shaded figure.

“Spying?” Sim was grinning in that dark hallway.

“Shut up, Sim. I was just going to tell them lunch is ready.”

“So why didn’t you tell them?”

I rasped against the door. “Lunch is ready.” I faced Sim. “You were spying on me, so don’t think you’re so great.”

Sim walloped me on the head and walked toward the dining room. I waited for Dhadha and Ravi to emerge from the room. After a while, they still hadn’t appeared so I burst through the door and threw myself onto Dhadha’s lap. He flung his head back in laughter and hugged me as I plopped on him in the plushy recliner. Ravi stood and pressed the chair so it tilted, while the attached ottoman sprung out. At that, the chair tipped back, leaving the three of us sprawled on the carpet—groaning through giggles—as we made sure each of us was unharmed.

**

For the next five years, on every Saturday our fingers would smell of wrought iron and our evenings would end with the three of us laughing.

By then, Sim had gone off to college, graduated and married a girl he got pregnant senior year. They moved into a four-bedroom house on the opposite end of town, where he found a job as a senior accountant for a local company.

His son was born that fall. Little Simmy was a wonder to Bibiji and she offered to baby sit regularly. Sim’s wife Natalie resented motherhood—and Sim—and allowed Bibiji to have the time she offered with Simmy.

Ravi packed for college the week before I began senior year of high school, where I would serve as Student Body Treasurer. In their days, Sim was President and Ravi was Historian. I stood in the doorway of his bedroom while he paired socks. “Are you ready for a big city?” I asked, peering over his shoulder to glimpse his face.

“I think so.” He turned to me. “You should consider applying next year.”

I chuckled. “Sim went Ivy League; you’re going Big Ten; I’ll probably end up at some state college with a degree in marketing.”

“Well,” he gestured with his hand, “what do you want to do?”

I puckered my lips and shrugged.

“Yeah, me too.” He finished packing his socks and faced me. “Just don’t go getting yourself knocked up and married.”

“Aye, aye.” I reached to lift an old lantern Dhadha had given Ravi for his thirteenth birthday. “Does this thing work?” It had tiny jewels in deep shades fastened to the base.

He looked over his shoulder. “Needs oil.”

I set it back and reminded Ravi to pack it. “I know,” was all he said.

Our grandfather had the second in a series of strokes that winter. Ravi was going to college with one foot planted here. Dad and Dhadha urged Ravi to pursue his dream of becoming an architect, despite Dhadha’s fading health. Even Sim spoke to Ravi about not feeling guilty by going away. Ravi must have implied that Sim wouldn’t understand his apprehension since Sim wasn’t as close to Dhadha, because Sim refused to come to our grandparents’ house the last Saturday Ravi was here.

“He is busy,” Bibiji argued, “a man of his position is occupied even on Saturdays.”

But Dhadha, Ravi and I knew it was because Sim didn’t mind admitting Ravi’s absence wouldn’t cause him much grief.

Ravi departed the next day, Sunday, and left the lantern on my dresser with a note tucked beneath: “Take care of this while I’m away.”

I moved the lantern to my nightstand and pictured Ravi when I looked at it. If I stared long enough, my mind’s image of Ravi juxtaposed with a shadow of our grandfather. They had the same eyes: round and devout. Ravi’s emotions were betrayed by his eyes, and Dhadha’s eyes misted often.

The lantern was antique brass, brought from India, and it was uniquely ornate and simple. The intricacies of the jeweled base contrasted with the dim glass of the hurricane-shaped body. I could fall asleep calmly, without waking, knowing it was by my bedside.

The Saturdays of my senior year were spent at the hospice, where our grandfather laid in a coma after a third stroke. Ravi called at two on those afternoons and we talked to him on the speakerphone. Little Simmy would add new words to the conversation as the months progressed.

Ravi came home the following summer and virtually slept in the hospice room. His eyes were bloodshot by day and melancholy by night. Bibiji brought food; our mother brought in a TV; our father stayed up with Ravi to discuss the school year; Sim brought Simmy by to divert Ravi’s attention away from our grandfather’s body attached to tubes and bags.

I came and went according to the mood I sensed from Ravi. Sometimes I could feel his loneliness as he watched Dhadha, so I stayed. When Ravi spoke to Dhadha, I waited outside and tried not to eavesdrop. Ravi had met a few girls, none of them very charismatic: some had obnoxious giggles; others relied too heavily on finding a boyfriend. Ravi was dissatisfied with his math professor, who was obtuse; but he loved his linguistics instructor, who also taught his Faulkner class. I smiled as Ravi gushed over Absalom, Absalom! “I struggled, but it was an eye-opening course. Most people thought I was crazy for taking it my first year. Dhadha, this author is really something.”

He was even taking a theology course and wanted our grandfather awake so he could share discoveries. “Dhadha, you’d be amazed.”

I remembered Rebekkah, whom I still saw but not as much. She joined the newspaper and while she was at staff meetings, I was planning events or decorating the gym. I thought of her whenever I heard the word “amaze.” She liked that word and used it when she discussed her beliefs.

I jerked my head back from the door when Sim arrived in the hallway with a squirmy Simmy. Natalie peeked in the room to say hello and hug Ravi, then me in the hallway, and dashed out the back entrance before Sim could object.

When I joined my brothers in the room, I noticed Ravi’s shoulders had broadened beyond Sim’s. Sim slouched while Ravi leaned forward, monitoring Dhadha’s breathing, pressing his wrist for his pulse. Simmy crawled on the floor so I swooped him into my arms. “Sim, I’m going to take little one here downstairs for a snack.”

“You should go with her, Ravi. You need a break.”

Ravi did not divert his eyes from Dhadha. “No, he looks better. He actually has some color.”
Sim offered Ravi his clunky cellular phone. “Look, I’ll call you from here if he wakes up. Go—get something to eat.”

Ravi glanced at me. “Will you bring me back some soup?”
Sim fumed. “For crying out loud, Ravi, when are you going to get over this obsession? He’s our grandfather too.”

I stepped forward. “Sim—”

Ravi stood. “No, Nina, that’s alright. You’re right, Sim. I’ll give you some time.” Ravi tucked the phone into his hand and ushered Simmy and me downstairs. We sat for a while, alternating between sprinkling crackers into soup and feeding bits to Simmy.

“You think he’ll be okay? The doctor said if his color returned he could wake up.”

Ravi looked at me. “He’s going to die.” He clambered out of the booth and rushed upstairs. I snatched Simmy and followed.

When we reached Dhadha’s doorway, we could see nurses huddled around the bed. One yelled for another to call the doctor and Ravi surged forward. I followed, panting with the weight of Simmy, and gasped when I heard the flatline shrill of the monitor. Ravi kicked the chair he had been sitting in and looked around for Sim.

Sim stood motionless in the corner—dulled by the white walls—staring at Ravi, whose chest began to heave until he asked, “What happened, Sim?”

Sim shook his head and glanced at me.

“Sim?” I repeated. Sim snapped out of his trance, lurched for Simmy, and bolted to the parking lot, running Ravi’s and my shouts into echoes.

**

The house was hollow when I approached it that afternoon, not bothering to touch the archway as I stepped onto the porch. I entered our grandparents’ house and found our father, mother and grandmother sipping tea in the dining room. I halted. Tears, in blades of fear, gouged my cheeks. “He’s gone.”

Our father stood. “Was Ravi there?”

I shook my head. “Just Sim. We had gone to get something to eat.”

Our father groped for his chair and our mother leaned to adjust it. Our grandmother covered her mouth with her chuni as it draped her head and torso.

Mom and Dad held each other while Bibiji wept. I stood still on the step where the rooms met. I didn’t know where Sim had gone, or why he left so suddenly. I wondered if Ravi was still in the hospice room with Dhadha, void of color and strength.

The walls felt lopsided and the carpet groaned. It seemed as if a hundred years had passed when the hospice called for our grandmother. She asked to speak to Ravi and, after prolonged moments, they reported he was not there.

Our mother kept calling to Christ, who I think heard her because she fell asleep shortly thereafter, perched in grandfather’s chair.

Rebekkah once said the shortest passage in the Bible was “Jesus wept,” after Lazarus, whom Jesus later brought back to life, had died. Rebekkah said Jesus wept not because Lazarus died but because people didn’t believe Jesus could resurrect him. My mother worshipped a man on a cross who wept when his followers denied his power. Yet Jesus himself did not weep while he was on that cross. He looked asleep whenever I observed crucifixes. Although my father forbade them in the house, I noticed them in hospitals or friends’ houses. Rebekkah wore crosses absent of the slain Jesus. She said she refused to carry around a corpse when the Jesus she worshipped was still alive.

Everything I knew was dead. I called Natalie and she listened as I cried. Sim came home and, when Natalie put him on the phone, I could hear his languid breath. I waited for Ravi while our parents and grandmother finalized paperwork at the hospice. I went home to a bleak room, not knowing where Ravi was, and fell asleep—without changing my clothes or washing my face—alone in my bed, in my damp and empty space.

I woke up the next morning and wondered if God was there. I could not feel Him; I had never heard His voice and yet, within me, I needed a reconciliation between life and death. My entire life it felt as though Sim were death and Ravi, life. Yet they were both my brothers. I couldn’t depend on one, and the other became my salvation. But now he was not there. Ravi had vanished and my indignation blazed because Dhadha was my grandfather too. I had lost him too.

I dragged my arm across the bed to brush the lantern on the nightstand. It felt cold and I wrapped myself into the comforter. I lumbered throughout the house that day, waiting for the phone, wanting someone to step through the front door. Trounced in silence, my thoughts began to ricochet against the floorboards. I pulled on Ravi’s college sweatshirt, slipped on my sneakers and twisted my hair into a tight bun.

After driving around, I mingled mindless tasks with errands I had been postponing: I bought a cup of coffee; I peered into a bookstore; I picked up a hammer at the hardware store; I stopped at a candle shop.

I somehow steered myself to our grandparents’ house, where I saw Sim flailing his fist against the door. I bounded from the car and barreled toward the porch, halting in the archway as Ravi flung open the door.

Sim drew back as Ravi lurched forward. I shouted and Ravi jolted, recollecting himself, looking at me. “Do you know what he did?”

I couldn’t find words, so I searched the yellow mums in the flowerbed and imagined clouds shaped like question marks. I shook my head.

Sim turned to me. “Dhadha woke up while you were downstairs.”

“Why didn’t you call us?” I specifically remembered Ravi taking that hideous phone. “Did Dhadha say anything?”

Sim cowered his head. “He asked for Ravi.”

Ravi slid to sit on the doorstep. He buried his fingers in his rumpled hair. “Tell her what else was said, Sim.”

Sim stuttered through a disjointed sentence.

“Sim?” I leaned against the gate.

“I told him Ravi didn’t want to see him.” Sim closed his eyes. I could feel the air evaporate from the neighborhood. Sim looked to me in the archway and then at Ravi on the doorstep. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was—”

Ravi stood. “You were out of your mind, Sim. You know how important it was for me to see him one last time.”

“And it wasn’t important to me?”

“Sim, don’t be a jerk. You deliberately made sure I wasn’t going to be there.”

“Ravi, how was I supposed to know he’d wake up? If you think I’ve got that kind of power, you have a lot of growing up to do.”

“Quit your condescension, you—” Ravi gripped the doorframe. “Never mind. He means more to me than this—you’re not even worth it.” He went inside the house and closed the door.
Sim scraped past me and I wanted to shout at him, but words wedged within me as I watched him squeal off in his car. I squinted as he pulled away from the curb.

In the house, Ravi had turned off all the lights.

Outside, I was still in the archway when I remembered my bag and felt through its contents. I knocked at the door.

Ravi answered it after I had left and, sometime later, he told me he was grateful I had returned Dhadha’s gift. There in the doorway, after an eternity, Ravi kindled a flame.

Stories of Merit - Daily Sacrament Contest

2007-04-24T14:55:00.000-05:00

The latest short story contest is in the books. This year the terrific people at Relief Journal (who've announced their roster of authors for Issue Three) were kind enough to lend a hand and will be publishing the winner of the Daily Sacrament Short Story Contest.

I'll be posting some of the other stories that I found interesting here over the next couple of days. Next Monday we'll make the big announcement.

Thanks to all who submitted.

Smith and 9th by Elizabeth Ann Osborn

2007-04-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

White ceramic pieces are set against square aquamarine tiles. These tiles make the station logo. It reads SMITH 9TH ST. More tiles, these ones rectangular and mint green, border the sign. Parts of the mosaic are chipped, as if bullets hit them, and the glaze on some of the lower tiles is peeling off like the kind of nail polish I used to get at the toy store, in those safe-for-kids cosmetic kits.

The cast iron platform is rusting, and the whole thing might look better if the weather would just finish stripping the white paint off of it. The electrical piping is rusting; the white chain link around the otherwise open, glassless windows is rusting. Even I’m rusting, just standing here, waiting for the train.

You’d think with the Ikea store that just opened in Red Hook, this old train station would get a little bit of love. But I guess that’s not how things work. Maybe if Brooks Brothers and Saks and Cartier decided Red Hook was the place to be and moved their stores to this old shipping section of Brooklyn, maybe then this station would get a scrub-down.

But if that happened, the locals would gripe. We don’t mind the hike to the station, or the two flights of stairs and two escalators from the mezzanine to the platform. We don’t care that these long, almost-abandoned platforms feel as if they’ll tumble like Jericho if the right wind comes off New York Harbor. We all belong to this station, and this station belongs to us.

This stretch of the IND, all the way down to Coney Island, is aboveground, but it’s considered the subway. This station is 91 feet above street-level, and is the highest point on the IND. It was built in the 30s. The reason it’s so high up is because the Gowanus Canal passes under it, and the Gowanus Canal is a tall-mast shipping route. The Gowanus Canal stinks to the highest of heavens because the sewer treatment plant overflows on a regular basis, and the combined sewer outlets, when overworked, pour into the canal. One of my friends grew up down here, and in the summers, when the heat made the stink stink so bad that his breakfast threatened to make an encore appearance all over his secondhand Air Jordans, he would run as fast as he could to get from one side of the canal to the other without inhaling.

I’ve learned to breathe out of my mouth when I’m up here, and I don’t really remember what the canal smells like. Just that it’s awful.

You feel the train before you hear it, and you hear it before you see it. And the big, lit F with a circle around it screeches its brakes and you wonder if the train ever wishes it had wings so it could flap backwards the way big birds do when they’re landing too fast.

The doors fake me out every time, by starting to open, then not opening, then a second later opening for real. In the summers I like to stand close to the doors to feel the cool blast of the air conditioning, but on a temperate day like today it doesn’t really matter. Two people get off. I get on. This car is almost vacant: just a little girl, maybe three years old, with short cornrows, sucking her thumb and hanging onto her mom’s arm, and her mom can’t be much older than me, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five. Mom has cornrows that are neater and tighter and longer than her daughter’s. It’s them and me, and a middle-aged Latino man in a rumpled blue jumpsuit whose head lolls and eyes flicker open, only to close again before I even sit down.
I find an ugly orange seat just like all the other ugly orange seats. On the F train, and some of the other lines, there are seats that face forward and backward, not only lining the sides of the trains. I’m a traditionalist, so I choose one of the seats facing a window, and then I put my bag down in the seat next to me.

“This is da Queens-bound F train. Next stop Carroll Street. Stand clear a’ the closin’ doors.” The conductor sounds adequately bored. “Stand clear a’ the doors.“ The doors half-close, then open up, then half-close, then open up again, then close for real. I sink a bit more into my ugly seat and the train rocks into motion. I close my eyes until my cones or rods or whatever it is that tells me that it’s light or dark, even with my eyes closed, tells me that it’s dark. That means we’re underground now, and about two minutes later the train stops again.

At Carroll Street, a few older women with big bags get on and spread out around the car. One pulls out a crossword book, another pulls out a magazine, and the third runs her thumb around the smart dial of her iPod while her other hand messes with the thin white wires trailing up to her ears. This appears to be an old habit, but earbuds haven’t been around too long.

A Hasidic Jew got on at Carroll Street, too, and remained standing, leaning against the car’s end rail for support as he read a newspaper. I didn’t look at him, but I made out his black felt fedora, his dark suit and his rekel all out of the corner of my eye.

“This is da Queens-bound F train. Next stop Bergen Street. Stand clear a’ da doors. Stand clear.”

And we’re moving again.

The little girl with cornrows is crying.

I have no idea why.

Mom moves her purse from her lap and pulls Girl into its place. She wraps her arms around the little thing, and the little thing keeps her little arms close to her own chest, but burrows her head in her mamma’s shoulder. The little shoulders jump when the little thing gulps air into her little lungs. Mom strokes Girl’s nape, the soft, sable patch of skin just above the zippered neck of Daughter’s khaki sundress. She strokes the one spot with just her fingers moving, just her fingertips massaging the girl. She’s as aware as I am of her manicured red nails with the rhinestone stickers, and she doesn’t want to scratch the little thing.

I am not the only one watching this.

The lady with the magazine reaches into her bag. I hear the rustle of plastic over the sound of the train, and then the sound of plastic tearing. The lady pulls out her hand, then moves her bag and stands up. She grabs hold of the steel rail above her and takes a few steps toward the pair.

“Hi, baby,” she says, and her accent is strong and southern, but not southern like you find down by the docks. Real southern, like Georgian or Carolinian or something.

The little thing doesn’t look up. That doesn’t put the woman off. She holds out her hand, opening her fingers for Mom’s inspection.

Chocolate.

“It’s like oil, for annointin’,” the woman says. “Whatever the matter is, it won’t be quite so bad, at least for a bit.”

Mother laughs. “She’s got a sore throat, and we gotta go to the clinic. She ain’t happy about it.” She pulls the little thing away from her, but does it so gently that I’m stuck wondering if anyone was ever that tender with me when I was a little thing. “Rikiya, look. The lady’s got something for you.”

Rikiya rubs her big, pretty eyes and turns her tiny, pretty face up to the lady. She recognizes the gold foil wrapper, then sniffs and puffs and smiles. “Thank you,” she says clearly, and takes it.

She takes it without hesitation.

She doesn’t feel guilty about taking something offered by someone else. Even if that other person deserves it more.

She doesn’t think it’s frivolous or immature to accept something nice.

She doesn’t worry about the calories or the cavities.

She just smiles and takes it.

Her mother unwraps it and hands it back to her.

The lady sits back down and returns to her magazine.

Rikiya doesn’t cry again. They get off at Jay Street-Borough Hall, and I’m left thinking about healing and receiving and letting other people be kind. I think about these things in the tunnel under the East River, and through all those stops in Manhattan, and then back across the river to Queens. And I don’t once chide myself for taking the local and not the express.

Daily Sacrament Story Contest

2007-04-11T15:04:00.000-05:00

For those seeking an update on the story contest...here you go.

All the entries have been read. A final decision has been made. No gauntlets were thrown nor were any challenges to duels offered between Mark and I. (To his great disappointment, I'm sure. He has quite the gauntlet collections to go with all those ascots and monocles.)

I'll likely be posting some of the "honorable mention" stories here the week of April 23rd. I think Relief will be making the formal announcement of the winning story either at the end of that week or Monday, April 30.

And likely I'll be posting some reactions to the stories in general and the contest overall in the days afterward.

Pop Culture Snipes Back

2007-04-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

Stephen King has an opinion column in EW this week (Harry Potter on the cover) that's worth reading if you have access, though I can't seem to find it online.

In it, he praises a new novel called Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski but absolutely blasts its publisher Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for how it's handled the book--what King calls a kind of "elitist" publishing which includes refusing to put "popular" looking covers on novels, using portentious titles, etc. PW writes up a little article on FSG's response, which seems to be: "Errrr....thanks?"

Having just returned from Mt. Hermon, I've spent five straight days hashing over a side of these issues, so I'm not going to jump in once more.

I agree with King that the cover does little for the book. (Though the ARC cover featured in the PW article is no better, and perhaps worse.)

Elitist publishing is an interesting notion because in a lot of ways it goes against all practical business sense. How can a book cover be "popular-looking"? Isn't that the point of a book cover? Is there really a "right" kind of reader you want for your book?

That said, I'm sure the fine folks at FSG (who really do publish some of the finest fiction in the country) would say that their "core" audience--the ones that they need to pick up their books--have an aesthetics and a formal design taste that eschews common cover treatment. (And a recent foray into popular cover design failed atrociously.)

What King seems to want is just an acknowledgement from a cover that, above all us, "This story will be entertaining." FSG wants its covers to imply, "This is important to read." And right now, even when a book is both entertaining and "important" it seems ne'er the two will meet.

BHP Summer Internship Program

2007-03-28T14:34:00.000-05:00

Are you a junior or senior in college with an interest in learning more about publishing--particularly Christian publishing--and strong, hopefully practical, experience with written language? Or do you know someone like this?

If so, we're accepting applications for our summer internship program through mid-April.

Just thought I'd throw it out there. For more info...

Mt Hermon

2007-03-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be at Mt Hermon at the end of this week, thus putting a halt on my blistering number of posts here in recent days. Anyway who wants to say "hi" or scold me for letting this site go fallow for a few weeks is more than welcome.

Last Call

2007-03-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

This week marks the end of the submission period for the Daily Sacrament short story contest.

Please, please, please get your stories in so we can find a wonderful one and put it in the next issue of Relief Journal.

Newberry Kerfluffle - (Warning! Contains Anatomically Correct Language)

2007-02-21T09:24:00.000-06:00

You've heard about the most recent hullabaloo surrounding the Newberry Award, right? The winning novel, The Higher Power of Lucky, is being passed over by children's librarians because of the use of, well, an anatomically-correct word. A dog's anatomically-correct word.

In one of the more impressive and diligent displays of research I recall, a site called Gelfblog has shown that such an uproar may be a bit overstated as a wide number of children's fiction titles already use that word. Click here for the list: but be warned, there's anatomically-correct language.

***

On a related note:

I once took part in a conversation trying to suss out the ugliest sounding word--regardless of meaning--in the English language. For most of us, this anatomically-correct word topped the list, but I admit we were slightly prejudiced by denotation. One friend wasn't.

"The word I really hate," she offered quite seriously, "is scrod."

And then we all acknowledged that "scrod," in fact, is the ugliest word in the English language.

***

In what's likely to be the best line on the entire deal, Neil Gaiman, where this post launched from, expresses his frustration with what he assumes must be rogue librarians, but then admits:

Then again, I'm English, a country in which "the dog's bollocks" is an expression of approbation and unconditional approval.

Relief Journal: Issue Two

2007-02-19T14:23:00.000-06:00

Congrats to the folks at Relief who are on the brink of publishing their second issue. If Issue One is difficult, I'd think Issue Two would be nearly impossible. And yet they've made it through...and I have to say, from the line-up of authors, it looks darned impressive.

Some folks whose names you might know from these parts include Jeanne Damoff, Mike Duran, and Christopher Fisher. Congrats to all!

(And don't forget to try and carve your own piece of Relief immortality by entering the upcoming Daily Sacrament contest. Money, publication, and all the glory you can handle await.)

Some Late Valentine Audio Links

2007-02-15T08:30:00.000-06:00

This American Life offers some stories of "Star Crossed Love." You can download for free until next Monday. (This is a free podcast I highly recommend subscribing to at iTunes. The stories they highlight are invariably fascinating.)

The Current offers a playlist of the Greatest Break-Up Songs Ever.

April Fool's on Me...

2007-02-14T11:25:00.000-06:00

Long ago I joked that I was quitting f*i*f for a more lucrative assignment...

Turns out, I was just thinking in the wrong medium. Check out the later-half of this interview.

Terrific Cover

2007-02-12T10:35:00.000-06:00

Surveillance by Jonathan Raban. There's something about that jagged band of light trailing down to the car... I really like this one.

Meanwhile, I just had two books land on my desk here that I think are really striking as well.

The Heir by Paul Robertson. This one you need to see in person. There's subtle foil treatments on the title/author name that get lost on the screen.

In High Places by Tom Morrisey. Not to play favorites, but I think this is my favorite overall book design-wise that I've been able to work on. I like the back cover image and LOVE the image of Tom we were able to use on the back inside-flap. Plus there's unique chapter headers and illustrations....

:::

Dave?

Hey, Disembodied Voice! It's been a while.

Well, whose fault is that? I'm spending way more time at Mick Silva's and Bertrand's and Charis these days because, well, there's not much going on here.

Right...

And then when you do post, it's not very substantial. Just cover images.

And reminders about the upcoming short story contest!

True, we do want people to remember to submit their stories about daily sacraments for the upcoming short story contest. The deadline is fast approaching. But, well, are you ever going to post anything worthwhile here again?

Thanks for your concern, DV. Yes, I am. In fact, we're in the midst of some exciting things behind-the-scenes here at f*i*f. That's not much consolation when there's no new material upfront. But we'll press on...and soon. And hopefully you, and others out there, will be willing to come back.

A Cover Survey

2007-01-30T13:30:00.000-06:00

On occasion we like to take surveys of readers' opinions for cover designs of upcoming books. If you're interested, click here to check it out. Also, we're trying to get a little wider reach on this survey than some others, so feel free to post a link on your blog/site/weblist. Wherever may be appropriate.

The book is Ann Tatlock's upcoming novel Every Secret Thing. Ann's an excellent novelist who's been writing quality novels with us for a number of years. All the Way Home won her a Christy Award. You can check out an interview I did with Ann quite a while ago here.

Also, please ~~don't~~ comment here about the covers. ~~That won't help us all that much...~~ But if you would take the survey, too, that'd be helpful.(Edited, obviously)

The Endless Debate Pushes On

2007-01-25T08:12:00.000-06:00

More thoughts on "popular" vs. "literary" fiction.

First a bevy of well-known CBA novelists weigh in at Charis.

Mark Bertrand offers his thoughts.

It seems a lot of the steam has gone out of the argument. There are a lot of carefully constructed arguments paying tribute to both sides. Nobody too willing to get LOUD. Which, as Mark points out, is really the only sane way to approach a question as vague as "Which is better?"

I don't really have anything new or helpful to contribute. As writers and publishers, I think our biggest concern right now is that the CBA readership prove itself able to sustain a breadth of fiction (both pop and pop-lit) from a depth of writers or the above debate will be moot for books emerging from CBA. Evidence is mixed at the moment and depending on the day I'll either be hopeful or deeply worried. Unfortunately some of the strongest current indicators seem to be against it (the Wal-Mart effect being the primary one), but we'll see how they play out.

Beware What You Read

2007-01-24T11:39:00.000-06:00

I found this group of linked articles interesting...and frustrating. The Christian community does this sort of thing with regularity too (remember the Onion article about Harry Potter that got passed around as gospel?) so I'm not throwing stones.

Doonesbury cartoon about Grand Canyon/Creationist controversy.
eSkeptic article about the same controversy.

eSkeptic correction to its previous article.
Neil Gaiman's post that started the whole thing off for me.

There's so much noise out there that to be heard these days you need to say something LOUD. And when LOUD and true aren't given equal weight or when LOUD simply means incindiary...we're in a bad spot.

Leif Enger's Second Novel

2007-01-17T08:43:00.000-06:00

Publishers Lunch is announcing news of Leif Enger's follow-up to Peace Like a River.

Leif Enger's second novel SO BRAVE, YOUNG AND HANDSOME, a tale of passion and adventure in early 20th century America, about an aging train robber, pursued again after years of obscurity, seeking to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, to Elisabeth Schmitz and Morgan Entrekin at Grove/Atlantic, for publication in early 2008.

It's funny, we've been talking about Enger's PLaR for so long in "Christian" contexts (and I've seen him speak at two Christian Arts conferences) that there becomes almost a slight assumption (given lack of information otherwise) his next would follow in slightly the same path. Which is ludicrous since Enger, I'm sure, doesn't see himself at all through the lens I'm forced to see fiction.

Instead, we see him following PLaR mostly in its heart-on-the-sleeve nostalgia for Americana. We'll see how it plays out in tone. And we'll see if he pull off the nearly impossible--follow-up on a beloved and bestselling debut novel.

Daily Sacrament Short Story Contest

2007-01-10T15:08:00.000-06:00

Last year we announced the next short story contest. The gates are now open and things are off and running. FiF is partnering with Relief Journal to invite you to create and submit a story tackling the theme of "daily sacrament."

As always, we're not going to completely pin you down on what this means. It could be the daily made sacred (like Andre Dubus) or the sacred explored in terms of daily life (as Marilynne Robinson does so eloquently in Gilead. The full list of rules are here including information about submission. Thanks to Coach at RJ, we've got a spiffy new submission system that's really quite slick.

We're accepting stories through mid-March. Please don't wait until the ides to submit, but also GIVE US YOUR BEST WORK. Fun things can happen if you do.

(To wit: Michael Synder, winner of the editor's choice at RJ--and finalist in the conversion contest here--just got a 2-book deal from Zondervan.)

And please, please, please pass this on to those you know. We'd love to hear from as many new voices as possible.

-----
(And hooray to me for finally posting an image here--a lovely logo design by Allison Smythe at ArsGraphica. Only took me three years!)

Congrats to Michael Snyder

2007-01-09T16:53:00.000-06:00

Michael Snyder (of dubious toad-licking fame) may now become "Michael Snyder, of dubious drunk bassett hound fame" as his first novel (tentatively titled) My Name is Russell Fink has been contracted by Zondervan. More here.

The Death of the "Written" Word

2007-01-09T10:12:00.000-06:00

Turns out National Book Award winner Richard Powers didn't write The Echo Maker. But not in the way that sounds. (And having read most of Powers, this essay doesn't surprise me in the least.)

He makes some interesting points here, though I'm sure a very similar case, with correspondingly high-powered literary names can be made for the glory and power of noodling on a keyboard or scratching with a pencil.

I would say the one take-away here is that your work should be read aloud at some point during its creation. There's things, particularly in rhythm and voice, your ear will pick up that your eyes skip over.

The Hippocorn Lives As Well

2006-12-27T10:35:00.000-06:00

A few weeks after Relief Journal launched, the Ankeny Briefcase offers its debut issue. It's a thick little publication with quite a number of stories in it, so I'm excited to see what folks out there are doing with short fiction.

Mark Bertrand, always worth reading, has a story ("Strings") in the journal. A woman named Faydra Stratton who I've been fortunate enough to read placed a story. And somehow I bamboozled the editors into picking up a work of mine called "Copyright." It's a romance set amid the world of copyright law. And there's robot ducks, too. C'mon, you know you can't turn that down.

The good people of Relief and Ankeny would greatly appreciate any support you could lend them, whether by mentioning them and passing on links to their site, submitting your work, or especially by purchasing an issue or subscription.

Pledge drive over, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Library Journal's Best Christian Fiction of 2006

2006-12-27T10:11:00.000-06:00

Library Journal recently announced their "Best in Genre" list for 2006. A trend emerged...

CHRISTIAN FICTION

Rekindled - Tamera Alexander - Bethany House
Set in the 19th-century American West, Alexander's impressive debut follows Kathryn and Larson Jennings as disappointment and separation lead them on a journey of spiritual discovery.

Grace in Thine Eyes - Liz Curtis Higgs, Liz Curtis - WaterBrook
Following up on her heart-wrenching “Lowlands of Scotland” trilogy, Higgs proves once again that she can write tortured romance like nobody else. This moving tale draws its inspiration from the biblical story of Dinah.

Waking Lazarus - T. L. Hines - Bethany House
Hines' intricate thriller about a man declared dead several times offers plenty of twists and turns without sacrificing character development. Supernatural suspense that pushes the envelope.

The Brethren - Beverly Lewis - Bethany House
Lewis concludes her absorbing “Annie's People” trilogy (The Preacher's Daughter, The Englisher) about an Amish girl's struggles between her traditional life and her forbidden artistic talents and budding romance with an outsider.

Things We Once Held Dear - Ann Tatlock - Bethany House
Tatlock hones her sparkling prose into a memorable story about artist Neil Sadler, who tries to reconnect the pieces of his past and understand the path he has chosen. An unforgettable homecoming tale of tragedy, choices, and forgiveness. )

Free Book, Sorta

2006-12-26T12:42:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure why I didn't know this before, but The NYTimes is running a serialized Michael Connelly novel. So you can check it out if you want.

It's a fun idea but I can't get the nagging idea out of the back of my mind that if Connelly thought this was his best work, we'd probably be getting it in hardcover. We'll see; I've not yet read it and don't want to cast aspersions prematurely.

::

In other news, I hope you had a nice Christmas. I didn't get the My Little Pony I wanted, but my daughter did and she's promised to let me play with hers.

::

Two addendums to my year-end review

1. Born Into Brothels - We're in a strong age for documentaries. I think access to portable, high-quality digital video is making it easier for folks with a passion to cover a subject. This one is well worth your time. I'm pretty sure there's any number of lessons to Christians in here on how to live.

2. Superman Returns - Snuck it in under the wire, but this is absolutely my least favorite film of 2006. Wow, I disliked it.

Free Audio Book

2006-12-21T08:42:00.000-06:00

If you want a free audio book, head on over to iTunes to get John Hodgman's (known mainly as the anthropomorphous-"PC" in those Apple commercials) The Areas of My Expertise.

It's got a Poor Richard's Almanack meets McSweeney's kind of feel to it. No clue how it'll do in audio, but free is enough to sell me.

Picks of 2006 - Books

2006-12-14T16:41:00.000-06:00

Fiction

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke - Like Azkaban, a sequel that trumps Book 1. Her character of Dustfinger is one of the pinnacle creations of recent years. Wonderful, engaging fiction--and the audio versions as read by Brendan Fraser are exceptional. (Start with Inkheart of course.)

U.S.! by Chris Bachelder - More muck-raking! This time with the most famous muck-raker of all--Upton Sinclair. Poor Upton's resurrected corpse gets stuck being the sacrificial metaphor in this pretty incisive look at how we've abandoned our outrage.

The Zero by Jess Walter - Interesting not only for its stylistic quirks (the narrator blacks out in the middle of scenes only to come to in the middle of new scenes) but for its examination of our post-9/11 landscape. Absurdist and satiric in some ways, deeply grieved and dumbstruck in others, it was a solid read.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - One of the better books I've read this decade. Haunting is such an over-used word in these little blurbs, but it really is beautiful and lingering. The only thing that annoys me is that the author looks like he's about 24.

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Non-Fiction

Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington - A number of years old at this point, I only recently took the opportunity to read this. Our talk of "faith in fiction" should realize it has a fair amount to learn from "faith in non-fiction" as well. This is an interesting case study as it explores religious ecstasy/being overcome by the Holy Spirit both from a third-person and first-person perspective. This is one of those fragments of Christianity I will never understand but it's an interersting glimpse inside the church's front door.

Feeding the Monster by Seth Mnookin - Perhaps the most lucky/timely sports journalist ever, Mnookin got the opportunity to sit inside the Red Sox organization as they made their run to the World Series in 2004. If you're a baseball fan, the access you get into the operations of a front office is unparalleled. If you're not a baseball fan, this would bore you to death.

Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger - Let me get this straight: You have, in your family history, a connection to a notorious killer (the Boston Strangler) that may link him with a crime attributed to another person. And somehow this becomes Book 2?! Because you have to go write The Perfect Storm? Most authors would kill for either of these--I'm not sure it's fair for Junger to have this in his back pocket.

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Picture Book

Flotsam by David Wiesner - I've always like Wiesner's stuff. This one rates pretty near the the top of his impressive list.

Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean - Meta-fictional fun with a pig who's annoyed that you've interrupted his story before he's completed it.

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Scariest

High School Confidential by Jeremy Iversen - A 24-year-0ld gets permission to go undercover as a student at a So-Cal public high school. What he reports nearly made my eyes bleed.

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Disappointing

The Ruins by Scott Smith - Twelve years in between books shouldn't leave me with Little Shop of Horrors set in Mexico.

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst - It's an interesting glimpse behind the world of an Amazing Race-like TV show but the actual novel itself was pretty weak. And it was such a suprise to see a "repentant Christian homosexual" turn out to be a hypocrite. Who could have predicted?

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(And by request, for Mark Bertrand)

Chair - This one?

Cologne - Don't wear the stuff. But staying at the Denver Marriott hooked me up with Bath and Body Works Orange Ginger lotion/shampoo/etc. That scent is working nicely for me.

Holiday Cheer from Neil Gaiman

2006-12-14T10:28:00.000-06:00

I've posted a link to the text of this before. Now you can hear Gaiman himself read it.

It's called: "Nicholas Was..." and it still makes me laugh.

Picks of 2006 - Movies

2006-12-12T15:25:00.000-06:00

In past years I always forgot what I'd seen, so I kept a list this year of the films (nearly all on DVD) that I watched. Looking back through I realize why I forgot most of the films. Anyway, here's my favs.

Documentaries

Mad Hot Ballroom - More dancing, you ask? Yep.

The Stone Reader - If you read or care about books, this should be of interest to you.

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Muck Raking

The Constant Gardener - Poke the drug companies with John LeCarre

Good Night and Good Luck - Liked the film...and got into Diana Reeves from the soundtrack.

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Blast From the Past

The Insider - This movie engrossed me. Paired with GN,GL above I felt like becoming a journalist just so I could get up on some high horse.

Metropolitian - Jane Austen-esque comedy of manners set amid the NY debutante scene. Mostly people in tuxes and dresses talking...but it entertained me greatly.

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Smaller Films

Brick - For me, this "high school noir" worked so much better than Veronica Mars. Adjusting teen slang to become hard-boiled patois, I think that was genius.

Tristram Shandy - A film about filming an unfilmable 18th century novel. I laughed.

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Liked it More Than I Expected

Cars - The people at Pixar...well they entertained me even in a story involving NASCAR and Larry the Cable Guy.

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90% of a Good Film

The Inside Man - The ending was weak.

16 Blocks - The ending was weak.

Murderball - The ending was weak.

Picks of 2006

2006-12-11T14:39:00.000-06:00

As always, this isn't a "Best of" because my sampling of these categories is far too limited to make such a designation.

On TV

The Office - Who has two thumbs and likes The Office? This guy! Season three has been a little hit/miss but any show with Dwight K. Shrute on it is worth watching. (Did you know you can get Dwight to call your friends and taunt them about lupus?)

Project Runway - I once rated myself on a sexuality continuum. Let's knock that rank down one. Don't care; enjoyed this show, though the wispy little blonde woman should have won. (Also, it reminds me of this festival which I saw out of the blue in New Zealand.)

So You Think You Can Dance? - Crap. Knock me down another point. Downside to this show? It's the reason they made TiVo. Ten minutes of dancing (maybe) crammed into an hour-long episode.

Arrested Development - Inducted into the Dave Long Sitcom Hall of Fame after concluding season three in the spring.

:::

Theater

Reeling - Children's Theater Company - A world premiere production of physical comedy and silent-film shenanigans. I'm biased, as I got to be in a few productions.

Hamlet - Guthrie Theater - This was the sixth stage production of Hamlet I've seen and likely my second favorite.

:::

Music

Guster - Lost and Gone Forever - Their new album was okay, but I tracked down this older offering and it's pure pop gold. Yay!

MuteMath: I'm still just so-so about their lyrics but I saw them live and they're really, really talented. Their drummer is other-worldly and their lead singer was channeling Sting from The Police, circa 1981.

Springsteen - "Oh, Mary Don't You Weep" - My favorite from the new Creole-tinged offering from Bruce.

Joseph Arthur - Nuclear Daydream - Probably what I've been listening to most lately.

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Cheese

Parrano - It has its own website.

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Restaurant

Broder's Pasta Bar - If you're ever in the TC, especially during the winter, and you're looking for a bite...this is the place you should go.

The New Yorker on Bible Publishing

2006-12-11T10:56:00.000-06:00

The New Yorker tackles the business of Bible publishing.

Power to the People

2006-11-30T16:00:00.000-06:00

Sara Nelson, editor of PW, has an editorial about the latest OJ Simpson book-kerfluffle.

Her last few paragraphs are interesting, including this:

It used to be that publishing declared its morality, its values, its world view by the books it chose to publish. Now, it seems, the business declares itself by what it refuses to publish.

Mick Silva could probably write up a new version of the 95 Theses based off that quote alone. (I'd be interested to see to what publishing house door he nailed it...I'll come in next week and there'll be a huge parchment spiked to my office door.)

The problem with the quote, of course, is that it took a massive public groundswell for a publisher to "declare its morality." If you'd heard crickets chirping, the book would be out there. Or in CBA's case, if books with leaky, prosperity theology under-pinnings are not just tolerated but turning into proverbial hotcakes, well....

And what does it say about our fiction.

Sure we have our "list" of things that won't fly in CBA.

But do we turn down a book because the violence is gratuitous?

Or the message is trite?

Or the worldview too cynical?

A Quiz on Book Titling

2006-11-29T15:14:00.000-06:00

The New York Times runs a quiz on the business, art, and science of titling books.

Titling a book is a bizarre deal. You have so many interested cooks in the kitchen--the author, the editor, agents, marketing, sales, and even buyers. It can be a torturous process.

Or it can work like in the case of River Rising. Athol's proposed title, A Mountain Moved captured the theme of the novel but not the evocative setting. So I worked with a colleague and came up with a title I liked a lot: Waters Rise Up. I pitched the book under this name, signed it...and then our VP of Marketing ended up in a conversation with Athol's agent, couldn't remember the title, and kept saying how excited he was for River Rising.

And it stuck.

Missing the Target

2006-11-22T13:07:00.000-06:00

Target Corp. seems to be one of the slickest, most laser-focused companies when it comes to brand managament and marketing itself. How else could the chain grow and thrive while Wal-Mart was busy taking over swaths of the world?

This Thanksgiving, however, Target has launched a campaign linking its stores with one of the biggest tools around--David Blaine. Was Paris Hilton not available? Was David Hasselhoff booked? What in the world?

Thanksgiving

2006-11-22T11:57:00.000-06:00

Enjoy. Be with family and friends. And don't eat green-bean-casserole--it's a palate-numbing monstrosity foisted upon us by purveyors of Campbell's condensed soups.

Till next week.

A Question of Taste

2006-11-21T12:10:00.000-06:00

I attended some training last week. The buzz-word of the weekend was "long tail." (And the best line of the weekend went to Michael Cader, creator of Publisher's Lunch, who said "They use the word 'long tail' now. They used to just call it 'back list'." Seriously folks, that's good publishing humor.

Anyway the "long tail" and the Internet paired with nearly unlimited selection have fundamentally altered our culture. One speaker put up a quote I found interesting:

"We are now a nation of niches. There are still blockbusters...but fewer capture the communal pop culture spirit. The action is elsewhere...." LA Times critic, Patrick Goldstein.

What this immediately brought to mind was Veronica Mars. Of course.

Veronica Mars is a TV show. The titular character is a high school (now college) student who solves crimes. It's a bit like MTV crossed with Nancy Drew. I like mysteries and the show has perenially received fairly good reviews, so I was always interested in viewing it, but never tracked it down.

Then the DVDs swept through BHP. A handful of co-workers watched it, loved it, and assured me I would, too. I took Season 1 home and sat with the wife. Long story short: We didn't like it. At all, really.

And here's a few observations:

1. The "nation of niches" thing also means nation of devotees. Sure, most of America will watch and chat (tepidly) about Pirates of the Caribbean, but the most rabid discussion about pop culture now most often occurs outside the "mainstream." And so finding another person who drinks the same Kool-Aid as you about The Decemberists or NewsRadio or Richard Powers somehow feels doubly important. Like two nearly-extinct animals finding each other before slipping off into oblivion.

Or like a small outpost besieged by invading forces. And so like every outpost, people get a bunker mentality. They entrench in their position and neither reason nor entreaty will budge them. (Even cancellation sometimes doesn't end their ensconcement. There are TV fans (like me a Freaks and Geeks) who are the equivalent of those mythic Japanese soldiers still fighting WWII into the 1950s.

2. Even as my co-workers turned deaf ears to my rationale for disliking the show, I noticed something interesting/disturbing in myself.

I began focusing in on the things I didn't like in VM. The best thing would've just been to stop watching--but since we didn't do that, every episode became an exercise in picking things apart. The objective or even appreciative eye had been replaced--not by the critiquing eye but by the critical eye.

The critical eye seeks, first, failures in a work. And, if they're like me, then they fixate on them and aren't able to look past them. And so we become as blind to a work's positives as those devotees are to its weaknesses. There's no common sense analysis. You're either, in the inimitable words of our Prez, "for us or against us."

3. We are in a nation of critics now. Amazon.com gave voice to everyone with an opinion to share in a way that I don't think was seen before. I think it's created a din, an ever-increasing din leaving us with three options.

1. Shout louder than everyone.
2. Stay quiet.
3. Say your piece and hope you're heard.

I've tried all of them at various times--and frankly they all have their place. Number three seems the most sane, though. And I think it's where I'd like to spend most of my time moving forward.

The Unigriff Lives

2006-11-21T09:04:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to the fine folks over at Relief Journal. I received my issue yesterday and was impressed. I need the long weekend to sit down with it and see if the content matches the packaging, but it seems like a fine start.

Launching any sort of venture like this is daunting and making it to printed volume is an accomplishment. No more unicorns and hippogriffs any longer--they're real. And I urge you to give them a visit.

Next up: The Ankeny Briefcase.

Book News

2006-11-16T09:05:00.000-06:00

Richard Powers won the National Book Awards for The Echo Maker. I'm about to open the first page so now I'm nothing more than a bandwagon jumper. Nuts.

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Regan Books, recently mentioned for their crime contest and lauded for the very fine NBA-finalist The Zero by Jess Walter, loses all good will with me because of this. Seriously?

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Actually we'll play a game: Which is the more irritating book? This one (which FaithWords is now pubbing) or the OJ book?

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(Edited to add: When Rupert Murdoch is suddenly the arbiter of "too far" that doesn't say much about our country. But the News Corp. chief bowed to public pressure and pulled both the show and the book surrounding OJ. )

Book Advertising Goes Hollywood

2006-11-15T15:35:00.000-06:00

Dean Koontz's fun/interesting Odd Thomas character is being highlighted in ads being run, apparently (according to PW) during CSI. Right now, only the first of the three ads is viewable.

I'd assume CSI ad-space is about the most valuable real estate on TV today so this isn't some fly-by-night half-try. This cost serious dollars.

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In related but other news, FSG has created probably the best "trailer" for a book I've seen yet. Watch it here.

Buzz Kill

2006-11-15T15:30:00.000-06:00

Those of you who've known me mostly as a shaggy-haired editor should know that those days are over.

The hair, hopefully without latent Samsonic-properties, is gone. We're now nearly down to skin. Think Lance Armstrong...with slightly larger ears. And less Sheryl Crow.

Writing Yourself Into a Corner

2006-11-09T13:41:00.000-06:00

In 2004, Lost debuted. To pretty much universal acclaim. I watched the first season and when it ended, I decided never to watch another episode. By choosing, for the most part, to only raise questions and never answer them, the writers seemed to be playing mostly with smoke and mirrors. To me. Now in Season 3, it seems to have lost it's status as a cultural touchpoint, though that may be as much about our societal ADD than anything the show's done.

In 2006, Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip debuted. To wide acclaim...though poor ratings. I've watched the show mainly because I was a fan of Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night. Ignoring for the moment, that Sports Night is a far better show told in half the time, there's one looming problem for Studio 60--its titular cutting-edge, hilarious sketch show (a SNL stand-in) is not all that cutting-edge and usually the opposite of funny. This is a problem.

In 1999, Lemony Snicket offered A Bad Beginning to a Series of Unfortunate Events. For the first four or five books he mostly repeted jokes and mock-gothic tropes in a clever but wheel-spinning series. Then suddenly the wheels caught and readers were launched into a labyrinthine chase for answers mostly surrounding a "schism" in the V.F.D.. The witty premise of the book is that this tale is ultimately going to end poorly, so you should just stop reading.
But, can you really end a wildly popular series "poorly"? Would Daniel Handler have the guts? Last night I finished the end of The End and in lieu of spoiling anything I'll say that I think he, also, uses smoke and mirrors.

If I remember correctly, in The World According to Garp, Garp is a mildly acclaimed writer..and one of his stories (about a bear) appears in the text. I didn't exactly love the short story and so Garp's "fame" seemed puzzling and slightly dubious to me. (I read this one a long time ago; if I'm wrong and the story was heartwrenching I apologize to John Irving.)

In 2007, J.K. Rowling unleashes Harry Potter and the Something of Something Else. Has she left herself room to maneuver?

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I don't have some grand point to make here. Just that writing is hard. And the choices you make in your stories can create fences and boxes that you need to be aware of. Writers can be their own worst enemy sometimes in the things they choose to include in a story, the unwieldy structure they set for a story, or even by picking the wrong POV.

(In The Lovely Bones, I didn't care all that much about who killed the dead narrator...because she was already in "heaven.")

My only advice is, as best you can, be aware of the limitations and roundblocks your choices will make for you as early as you can in your writing process. And then work around them or bridge them. But I wouldn't just expect them to go away. Even with all the smoke and mirrors in the world.

A Movie I Am Predisposed to Hate

2006-11-09T11:23:00.000-06:00

I saw a movie trailer the other night that provoked me to speak back audibly--and not kindly--to the little flickering faces on the television.

It was for a movie called "A Good Year." It stars Russell Crowe.

Here is the premise, as I could glean from the trailer...

A very, very rich and successful Wall Street trader still feels no satisfaction with his sad lonely life and so, to find meaning, he moves to Europe (Italy? France?), ensconces himself at what amounts to a castle, and has sex with a gorgeous twenty-something. And thus he is happy.

We get what we deserve, I suppose.

Story Contest: The Third!

2006-11-01T09:29:00.000-06:00

Of all the things I get to do at this blog running the story contests is the one I love the most. My daily work wraps fiction up in a lot of questions about market and content-concerns and saleability...and while those all pay the bills, sometimes it's nice to find a space away from that. Where writing, for its own sake, can be valued and enjoyed and celebrated. And your words have offered that chance.

So...I'm extremely pleased to announce a third iteration of the contest. And I'm also pleased that it has grown. In fact, if I may say so, we're to the point where this thing is almost downright legitimate.

The winner selected will be published. In print.

The winner selected will receive a cash award. Nothing you can retire on, but it'll keep you in books for a couple of months. Or tuna fish. Or whatever small staple you're missing in your life.

I am extremely pleased to be partnering with Relief Journal for this contest. I dig the spirit of what they're doing and am honored that they let me ride their coat-tails a bit. Big thanks to Mark Bertrand (whose thoughts on the contest you should definitely check out) and the entire editorial board for taking a chance on this venture. We all are going to be looking for your best work, so take advantage of the writing window offered and show us what you've got.

And so, with great pleasure...here's the official announcement!

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Relief Journal/F*i*F "Daily Sacrament" Short Story Contest

Andre Dubus writes of cooking an omelet and it becomes a holy moment. Marilynne Robinson takes the acts of baptism and communion out of their churchly garb and gives them new resonance and depth. Inspired by examples like these, the "Daily Sacrament" short story contest will challenge you to explore the everyday in light of the eternal--or the sacred in the surroundings of the commonplace.

Reading Period: January 1 - March 15, 2007
Prize: Winner will receive $250 and publication in Relief Journal.
Runners-up: Published on the faith*in*fiction blog.
Word Limit: 10,000

To find out more about the kind of fiction Relief Journal publishes, we encourage writers to visit our site at www.reliefjournal.com and order a copy of the publication.

Relief will accept submissions online at a new contest site that will be unveiled when the reading period begins.

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Finally, if you have questions post them here and we'll take a stab at answering them.

Gaiman in NYTimes on Halloween

2006-10-31T13:56:00.000-06:00

An Op-Ed Piece from Neil Gaiman.

I've always, always, always hated costumes so Halloween has never held that much appeal to me. Probably my happiest memory of childhood Halloweens is being hugely creeped out by the Disney animated version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Relief Journal Interviews

2006-10-30T16:10:00.000-06:00

I am neglecting you, it's true, but it is not intentional. And certainly not personal. I still like you all. I miss you even. I think longingly back to the times when I could post with diligence and regularity. But, alas, I am busy at the moment. I am hoping to be slightly less busy in the future however I am not sure when that will be.

In the meanwhile, here's some fine folks talking about why they're launching a Christian literary journal.

Kimberly Culbertson (Editor in Chief) and Heather von Doehren (Assistant Editor)
J. Mark Bertrand (Fiction Editor)
Karen Miedrich-Luo (Creative Nonfiction Editor)

Here's the website if you want to submit or subscribe. Without getting all PBS-ish on you, think about sending some support their way. These ventures are good for the market of ideas.

How You Know You've Made It

2006-10-24T08:39:00.000-05:00

There are a ton of ways you know you've made it as a hot-shot literary author. A National Book Award nomination, for instance. Some obscure grant for a lot of money. A cover designed by Chip Kidd.

Here's another way: Your author photo is taken by Marion Ettlinger.

I did just okay playing "Name That Author." Spotted Tom Wolfe (not terribly hard), Richard Powers, John Irving, Sebastian Junger, Richard Ford, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Haruki Murakami. And, of course, Andre Dubus--who I love. And Ray Carver--who looks like he'd rip off your arm and beat you with it if given half a chance.

Busy Fall Season for Books

2006-10-23T10:12:00.000-05:00

NYTimes has an article about the "superauthor" crush at the bookstore this fall.

There's a throw-away line in the article about some disappointments, one of which is Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder. Last week, the Wall Street Journal had an article about Henry Holt and Co. putting a lot of their eggs into that book's basket. It was a sobering piece about our "ability" to create a bestseller. The book got an $800,000 advance and huge marketing campaign, strong sales push...and has so far bombed. In part because of this book which B&N decided to throw almost their entire weight behind earlier this fall.

If you can track down the article I recommend it highly. (I think it was from Oct. 16.)

Unpublished Crime Novelist Contest

2006-10-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

Court TV is partnering with Regan Books to discover the next big crime writer. At first I was appalled at this...thinking they were soliciting true-crime stories. That just seemed horrific. But it's actually a fiction contest.

I guess that should've been obvious since the judges are Lisa Scottoline, Jonathan Kellerman, Judith Regan, and Faye Kellerman. An impressive group...though Scottoline's video reminds us, once again, why most authors should be read and not heard.

If you're writing crime fiction and aren't published...why not?

WestBow is No More

2006-10-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

Well, it's actually not that dramatic. PW announces that Thomas Nelson has just decided to drop all of its imprints and consolidate under the name Thomas Nelson so I'm assuming that means WestBow, too.

I actually liked the name WestBow a bunch. And the logo. It was certainly better than a lot of the other imprint names that have been announced recently.

A Book You Didn't Know You Wanted

2006-10-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

We'll get back to this topic this week. In the meanwhile, I came across a book that seems like the ideal (if somewhat extreme) example for what I'll be talking about.

Giraffe by J. M. Ledgard.

I can't imagine anybody clamoring for this novel. And yet here it is. From a very legitimate publisher.

More Richard Powers Love

2006-10-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

Is Richard Powers the new Richard Russo of this blog? Based on how many times I've mentioned him recently, the answer is undoubtedly "Yes."

Anyway, it's not just me that likes him. Slate.com does, too. And they explain why here.

Criticizing Lisa Samson

2006-10-12T09:29:00.000-05:00

I found this hilarious.

National Book Award Finalists Announced

2006-10-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

The NBA finalists were announced today...thoroughly confusing basketball fans around the world.

The fiction line-up looked like this:

Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Revolutions (Pantheon)
Ken Kalfus, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Richard Powers, The Echo Maker (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Dana Spiotta, Eat the Document (Scribner/Simon & Schuster)
Jess Walter, The Zero (Judith Regan Books/HarperCollins)

I'm pulling for Powers for what should be obvious reasons at this point. If you ever want to have an experience that leaves you shaking your head check out Danielewski.

Two Paths to Sales: Books Readers Want

2006-10-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

Most of what I try and write about here (and most of the conversation at many other writing sites) is about perspective. What are the various ways/angles we can look at this world of publishing and writing so we can, hopefully, understand it better? As I progress through a number of these conversations I’m finding out that some perspectives seem more helpful than others.

For instance, we’ve kicked around the old literary vs. commercial fiction horse here. And that very often gets us nowhere. We’ve talked about plot-driven vs. character-driven fiction. Books with high internal stakes vs. books with high external stakes. I’ve probably set up about half-dozen more dichotomies for us to sort through and one of the main problems we’ve always come up against is that the “versus” in these comparisons becomes too much of a temptation—and we set up our camps on behalf of one book or the other.

What I hope will be slightly different about this approach is that—for the most part—the book is neutral in this perspective. Instead, this becomes less a matter of writing and more a matter of marketing, promotion, and reader expectation. It’s a crucial perspective for publishers, too, because it puts the emphasis on the positive idea of a book finding a reader.

So, moving forward…

::

Here are some random books that readers know they want:

Lemony Snicket’s Book 13 in his Series of Unfortunate Events. (Due Friday, Oct 13, natch.)

Whatever letter Sue Grafton is up to.

The new book excoriating Ann Coulter.

The new book excoriating Hillary Clinton.

And the grand-daddy of them all….

Harry Potter 7. (Which, frankly, may be one of the most anticipated books of all time.)

These are no-brainers. Two are on my own list. But, so are a number of books, that may not be quite so obvious.

For instance, I just saw that Richard Powers has written a new novel. It’s due October 17 from FSG. It’s called The Echo Maker, (which means nothing to me) and it has a boring cover (which wouldn’t otherwise catch my eye at a store). Despite those “problems,” (which might affect finding readers who didn’t know they wanted the book—foreshadowing to a later post) I’m his audience. I’m on board. Currently it’s #1307 at Amazon, so obviously some other folks are onboard, too.)

Simply put, these readers are the engines that drive publishing. Without them everything would be guesswork and dart throwing.

This is all Publishing 101 stuff, I realize. Future posts, hopefully won't be quite so obvious. What I want to point out about here is that while we're all readers with our own lists, our most common reaction to each other is usually to stare at each other in blank horror aghast at the books the other is allowing to get published. I mean do we really need more Nora Roberts? Or another over-intellectualized tome from Dave Eggers? Hasn't John Grisham essentially been writing the same story over and over? And Richard Russo, too?

Those are arguments you're welcome to fight out somewhere else because in this context this simple answer is a definitive: "Yes." We need the authors. We need the books. We don't have the luxury (for the most part) of denying readers what they want.

Time on Prosperity Theology

2006-10-05T11:49:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit late coming to this article.

Remember back in high school when you had to practice writing journalism articles? How you were supposed to be objective and not overly editorialize, but could get your viewpoint across by the details and quotes you chose to use?

[Osteen speaking] "I think he wants us to be a blessing to other people. But I don't think I'd say God wants us to be rich. It's all relative, isn't it?" The room's warm lamplight reflects softly off his crocodile shoes.

Two Paths to Sales

2006-10-04T15:05:00.000-05:00

Publishing, even Christian publishing, is a business. It's not just a business but at the end of the day we don't have some benefactor handing out oversized checks just so we can fill the world with books, wonderful books. The things need to find a readership; they need to sell.

And that's not a bad thing. Just as you can question whether a tree falling in an empty forest makes no sound, so too you can question the purpose of a book, boxed and tucked away in a publisher's warehouse, unable to find its way to a shelf. A book, we sappy-hearted believe, is more than an object. It's a message and only in the reading does it achieve its purpose. An unread book is no better than an uncorked bottle of wine or a toy still hermetically sealed in plastic (see Toy Story I and II). Books merely as decoration is as vain and bubble-headed a facade as I can think of...reminiscient of Jay Gatsby's library where all the books are real...but uncut.

So, there is no shame in selling books. The shame always seems to come in what kind of books you sell.

Because there's two different "kinds" of books you can sell. One is acceptable and one is looked at askance. And we'll spend the next couple of days talking about these two types of books and the dangers of lifting one too high on a pedestal or demeaning the other.

The two types we'll talk about?

Books readers know they want.

And books they don't know they want.

The Year in Book Cover Design

2006-10-03T13:37:00.000-05:00

AIGA celebrates the year in book and book cover design (2005) with this slick website. (Click on the 50 Book/50 Covers link.) Among these, I like the Tom Wolfe, Charlotte Simmons cover and the Paris Review Picador image.

(via NYTimes Book Covers.)

State of the Industry

2006-10-02T16:19:00.000-05:00

Two and a half years ago I gave a five day tour of the industry. Here’s a very brief summary of all that’s changed since then in Christian publishing. (And this is at the corporate level. Even more has shifted at the personnel level.)

Unchanged

Zondervan – Still owned by HarperCollins…and somewhere up the pyramid, Rupert Murdoch. They have a new director of fiction.

Baker Publishing Group – This includes Bethany House, Revell, and Baker Books.

Harvest House – I think there’s a new VP of fiction here, too.

Tyndale – Steady as she goes…though Left Behind is waning.

Barbour Books – Not much new here.

Moody – Nor here.

NavPress – Their fiction line has taken some blows on the personnel side but I think it’s still up and running.

Steeple Hill – Though they always seem to be adding small lines/imprints.

Changed

Thomas Nelson – Used to be publically traded. Now owned by a private equity group, InterMedia Partners VII. Also, they just bought Integrity Publishers. I’d bet on Integrity’s fiction line simply being wrapped into WestBow (Nelson’s fiction imprint.)

Waterbrook – Still owned by Random House who also just bought Multnomah. I don’t think anything definitive has been announced regarding plans but word on the street suggests that the two fiction lines may be merged under a new, as yet unnamed, imprint.

Howard – Now owned by Simon & Schuster.

Cook Communications – Had a fiction imprint called RiverOak. Shut it down. Hired a new staff (including most of NavPress) and looks to be completely revamping their publishing program. Fiction will likely be part of that.

Warner Faith – Now is FaithWords and is owned by Hachette Livre in France. Still has Center Street imprint as far as I know. Recently lost publisher Chip MacGregor to the agent world.

HarperSanFrancisco – High-end spirituality line is launching an inspirational romance imprint with fellow sister company Avon.

Penguin – I thought they launched an inspirational imprint. I can’t find any record of it though.

Relevant – I think they’re out of the book business.

Realms - I've heard they're now publishing only spiritual warfare fiction.

::

Industry colleagues: If I've mispoken or miscast your publisher or forgotten anything do let me know.

Comics 101

2006-09-27T08:58:00.000-05:00

Comics savant Scott Tipton introduces you to one of the most absurd comic book characters. Ever.

Having dipped first a toe and perhaps now a foot or calf into the pool of comics and graphic novels, I've found this weekly column to be one of the most knowledgeable and helpful introductions out there to the world of people in tights. Also it doesn't require scouring comic book stores or eBay for back issues or compilations. And, yes, I am an adult.

(The archives will give you a glimpse into just how much Tipton actually knows.)

The View from Dallas

2006-09-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

Those interested in recaps of ACFW (from an f*i*f perspective) should probably start with Mark Bertrand's thoughts. He's also linked to a number of others in the community who've written up their experiences.

::

It's hard to know what to answer when folks ask me how the conference went.

Are you asking from a pure acquisition's perspective? If so, my hopes are pretty tempered and I really won't know until possibly even months from now as ideas I heard trickle in.

Are you asking from a more general work perspective? Because at ACFW I was able to chat with BHP published authors Deeanne Gist, Kim Sawyer, Cathy Hake, Elizabeth Musser, and soon to be published Paul Robertson. Plus I spent time talking with a number of agents. It's personal face time that can't necessarily be quantified. But is extremely important.

Finally are you asking about my own personal perspective? I'm beginning to worry that I'm actually making "friends" in this industry--among fellow editors, published authors, aspiring authors, and perhaps even agents. Comraderie is not what I'm paid to establish when I attend one of these things. And it can't dictate the business decisions that need to be made at the end of the day. But it certainly keeps me sane.

Making the Most of Your Reading

2006-09-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

The NYTimes has an article about a few new titles that explore how to get the most from the time you spend reading.

Integrity Publishers Bought By Thomas Nelson

2006-09-20T11:46:00.000-05:00

PW reports that Nelson has purchased Integrity Publishers.

There's been so much change in the last year, I'm going to have to do another tour through the industry.

::

BTW: I'll be at the ACFW conference the remainder of this week. If I blog, it'll be from there. See many of you shortly.

More on Violence

2006-09-14T14:04:00.000-05:00

It's been a hectic week, folks. (Likely to be hectic next week, too, as I prepare to join, well, apparently 90% of you in Dallas at ACFW.) So posting's been light.

Mark Bertrand, who's apparently too high and mighty to post comments here decided to post his thoughts at his own blog. So here's a link to them. The thing that sparked in my mind is that the novels that stand out in my mind as being the most "violent" are both representative of genre fiction--and yet somehow felt more dangerous/real/close than much of the genre fiction I've read.

For instance...you take a serial killer novel like The Bone Collector which has some pretty brutal moments in it. I think it's the last in that style that I read. On the surface, the point of the book was a mystery behind the identity of the serial killer...but in the end I felt the real point of the book was the flair and creativity with which people could be could be killed. (I believe rats played a part.) That's what the genre seems to lead to in the end. Upping the ante on death. You see it in procedural shows like C.S.I. and all the crime shows all the time. The point of the narrative becomes getting the viewer/reader to go "Wow...never seen anybody use a lamprey to desanguinate their victims before."

I think there's something troubling about pursuing the "wow" factor.

Meanwhile, as everybody has stated, there's real power in exploring the shattering effects of violence, the existence of evil, etc., etc. Otherwise it's just "pop" violence. It becomes affectless...or worse, numbing. I remember the one fight I had in middle school. "Numb" isn't how I left it. I left in pain. Violence should hurt.

All that leads to the two novels that "hurt" me. (This has probably gotten a bit overstated at this point...but bear with me.)

One I've mentioned before: Scott Smith's A Simple Plan. This a novel that shows there's consequences for your actions. And without repentence, remorse, accountability...yikes.

The other, appropriately enough, is called Violence by Richard Bausch. I read it a while ago, so I can't even fully describe the plot. All I know is I put the book down feeling like I'd be in a boxing ring. It beat me up like a thug in Hell's Kitchen and said, "You think you wanna read your little suspense novel with stabbings and killings and everything, punk? Here's what they don't tell you." (And, yes, it sounded a little like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.)

These are not reading experiences I recommend lightly. I'm not 100% how good they are for the soul. I do think they were better for my soul than The Bone Collector though. Sure evil was conquered in that book...but horrific violence became almost mechanical. Set pieces to scamper through until the big unveiling. And I was left untouched. Unharmed.

Violence in Christian Fiction

2006-09-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

Jana Riess, religion editor at PW, recently tackled this topic in an editorial piece for her magazine. She was gathering opinions from folks in the industry so we chatted about the topic while at ICRS and frankly it's been in the back of my mind ever since.

If you want to blow past supposed CBA guidelines, you'll have a hard time with sexuality and (pretty much) and impossible time with language. But blood and guts seem okay...as long as there's righteous justice. Nihilism won't fly but bullets certainly can.

Jana ends up coming down softer than I thought she might on the topic. The point she does make is important...at least to me. She wants awareness and intentionality in the content choices made by publishers. Doing something simply because we can get away with it seems a recipe for bad news.

A few other thoughts:

1. As a country, I think we've long held a double-standard between "acceptable" sex vs. "acceptable" violence--especially on TV and in movies. Unfortunately, the push of some folks seems to be as permissible with sex rather than showing restraint with both.

2. Christian men like them their blood. I know so many guys for whom Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, and Gladiator are all in their top ten films. It is the message of these films that I know men love—but they are messages that I don’t think can easily be extricated from the violence. Heroism in the face of puppy kisses is not the same as storming the beach at Normandy or facing the lions for the sake of Jesus’ name.

These things also demand “villains”—which isn’t so hard in a historical setting, but becomes more problematic when we cast our stories in present day or the near-future. Because then the question essentially becomes: “Who is it acceptable to kill?” I hope we see how thorny that question is.

3. This is a crucial topic to me because I’ve acquired books with body counts. Children are threatened in Waking Lazarus. Folks get all sorts of mangled by the powers working in Relentless. Next spring’s The Heir is one-part murder mystery.

None of these books can be called explicit, I don’t think, but is that my defense? And what do I say to the proposals reaching my desk now? Which are just a little more explicit. Where the context between message and violence seems a little more tenuous.

4. Part of the reason I think the boundaries have shifted for violence rather than sexuality is that the books are so obviously not for what’s historically been the most important CBA customer—romance/women’s fiction readers. While Janette Oke readers continue to buy books and exert their influence on the market, Ted Dekker has (assumably) generated a readership apart. His books look different; they read different. A historical romance, meanwhile, continues to be marketed to roughly the same readership as before…where the chance of irking a more conservative reader is far higher.

5. Finally I just want to offer a quick comment on how we’re viewed by the world. I know a number of secular reviewers who, when they cast their eye toward the Left Behind series commented on the casual slaughter of the enemies of God. This should be on our minds. Voices who speak so strongly in favor of life in some areas, I don’t think, should so dramatically change their tune. Any death represents the last chance a soul had to find redemption. To celebrate a soul gone to hell strikes me as merciless.

Download of the Week: II

2006-09-07T10:11:00.000-05:00

Frisbie's "Shine."

Wicked-good power pop song from an indie band out of Chicago. This is one of my favorite songs of the last ten years. Reminiscent of Big Star.

Download of the Week

2006-09-06T16:29:00.000-05:00

Fountains of Wayne's "Monster House."

Far, far from their best work (i.e."Hey, Julie", "Red Dragon Tattoo", "Maureen") but they're always entertaining. (Dekker and Peretti should totally co-opt this song for their novel....)

Unsatisfied

2006-09-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

I'm not happy with the post below. I just re-read it and while I agree with much of it, it's also pretty pie-in-the-sky. It doesn't reflect the editing work I've done so far at BHP nor does it define most of the author/editor relationships we have at BHP. I make it sound like editing is more like bonsai carving as though changing a single sentence or deleting a scene will suddenly make a manuscript explosively more exciting to a readership.

There's much, much more collaboration in all the editing at BHP than what I wrote below.

So...

I'm not sure. I still believe much of what is below but most of the editing I've done and witnessed has ALSO incorporated critique and back-and-forth discussion of what the heck should be in the book.

Does that make sense?

What’s an Editor For?

2006-09-01T13:38:00.000-05:00

“Dave?”

“Yes, disembodied voice?”

“So, if I take your advice from yesterday and I really, really work hard on my manuscript and turn it in clean and polished and in excellent condition…well…”

“Spit it out.”

“Well, why would I need you? Sure a proofreader, but if the book is great why do I need an editor?”

On the outset in might look like a Catch-22. An editor demands a polished manuscript…but if they get one, they don’t have anything to do.

A few thoughts on why you shouldn’t plan on getting rid of me quite yet:

1. Really, couldn’t every manuscript use yet another polish?

2. An editor is able to edit to industry. A strong editor in any genre (romance, mystery, CBA, etc.) should know all the fine tuning, all the tips of the trade that are invisible to general readers but might promise broader appeal for the book.

3. An editor edits to your career. Does book 2 sound too much like book 1? Are there brand carry-overs that can help link this book with those that came before?

4. An editor stands in the gap. You on one side, readers on the other. We should be an arbiter between what you’re trying to express and what readers are hearing or what they want to hear.

In many cases, the editorial process takes the place of both things I suggested yesterday. There’s risk in that. Perhaps instead of editing to career, an editor is simply trying to patch plot holes. Or perhaps timelines and schedules mean no “agnostic” readers are approached. And your novel fails to find new readers because of a tone problem.

I don’t want to become Tony Robbins here, but it seems logical that—with an industry as unpredictable as publishing—you want to place yourself in the best position for success. And in my opinion, I think that comes from using the critique, review, and the editorial processes to their fullest potential.

**

And now a story.

Last year I stumbled backwards into the opportunity to ask a few questions of Jonathan Galassi, publisher of FSG…home of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. Galassi apparently also served as the editor for the book.

My query of him went something like this: “How in the world did this book come to be?”

His answer was simple. He didn’t really know. The reason? It came in that way.

**

I know many writers are terrified of the editorial process. The easiest way to sail through it smoothly? Turn in an untouchable manuscript.

Writers Beware: Protecting Potential Authors

2006-09-01T12:57:00.000-05:00

The new Writer's Beware! blog gives advice, tips, warnings, and reviews on all the sketchiness out there in publishing-land.

The Evolution of a Cover

2006-09-01T10:14:00.000-05:00

Robin Parrish posts on the cover design process for his novel Relentless.

(Dee Gist could do a similar one for A Bride Most Begrudging with early covers that would make your eyes melt. It was my first acquisition and I remember looking at these cover possibilities thinking: "My career is over." And yet a month later we end up with one of the more acclaimed covers of recent years. Folks have noted that I'm going gray...well guess why!)

The Minnesota State Fair

2006-09-01T09:47:00.000-05:00

I am always amused when the national media casts its eye toward this spectacle...because it always treats it with the same "stranger in a strange land" tone normally reserved for describing conception rituals from Haiti or the religious rites of East Timor.

My parents were delighted that the summer I moved here the Great Minnesota Get-Together made it into National Geographic.

I've never been the hugest fan of the fair (heat and crowds don't mix) but in upcoming years I think even I will be nostalgic for the yesteryear of, say, 1997. This thing is a cash-cow and like anything that generates the Benjamins it's slowly being corporatized and prices are maxing-out. Last year I was so annoyed after three hours of jostling the obese, emptying my wallet, and a diet of sugar and fat that I couldn't even enjoy the unexpected spectacle of a non-descript average Joe absolutely killing on karaoke version of Styx's "Lady."

We're not going this year.

Making Your Submission Better

2006-08-31T12:02:00.000-05:00

Whether you're submitting a contracted draft to your publisher or a proposal in hopes of being published you should (hopefully) want to turn in the best work you can. So I have two practical tips for doing that.

1. Have two or three other writers you know, respect, and trust critique your work in-process. This doesn't have to be every chapter (though I know writers who find that helpful), but perhaps at 1/3 done, 1/2 done, and then after first-draft. Always take what they say with requisite grain of salt, but this should help you avoid any massive structural/narrative problems before they become unsolvable.

These need to be people who understand story, craft, and writing because they should be responding in part to the mechanics of the story. They don't need to love your genre--they just need to know how a novel goes together.

After you've completed that draft and are satisfied, you need to find readers.

2. I recommend a minimum of three different kinds of readers, though you can obviously have multiple readers of each type.

A.) Someone who loves you unconditionally. This is generally just for your morale, though if they hate the book, you might be in trouble.

B.) Someone who has liked your work in the past but isn't a great friend or a blood relative. This person is on your side. They'll go in optimistic. They're your "ideal" reader in some respects.

C.) Someone who has never read you before. They're the agnostic/skeptic you need to convince.

B. and C. should be well-read folks with opinions to share. It's best if they do like the genre you're writing in. You're basically just getting "market feedback." The sample size of opinion will be small, so again you need to take critique with a grain-of-salt but hopefully there will be feedback that helps you refine and tighten your novel.

At that point, your story will be better than it was at first-draft. Guaranteed.

Next time, we'll talk about the role (or lack of role) of editors in the life of your book.

Download of the Week

2006-08-31T11:51:00.000-05:00

Heiruspecs "5ves".

Some Writing Advice

2006-08-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

Not from me. From people who write. As compiled by the Atlantic.

I like John Kenneth Galbraith's words on page 2...though I wish he'd used the word "cobbler" rather than "shoemaker." We don't see it enough in that definition. The word has simply by tyrannized by proponents of fruity desserts. (That is: desserts made with fruit, not desserts with stereotyped homosexual mannerisms.)

Where It's At?

2006-08-29T14:27:00.000-05:00

Unlike Beck, I have neither two turn-tables nor a microphone. I've got this blog and about six tons of work. So let's just say I'm back in body if not yet in mind here.

I'll try to get to something soon or at least post interesting links to things around the web that relate to our topic.

A Nice Honor for a BHP Author

2006-08-29T14:03:00.000-05:00

Beverly Lewis' The Preacher's Daughter was selected as one of five finalists for the 2006 Quills Award for Romance. This is a general market award so, in theory, every book is a potential candidate...so it's a nice distinction.

Does Speed Matter?

2006-08-10T15:28:00.000-05:00

Athol Dickson asks the question of whether speed of writing--sometimes imposed on authors by CBA publishers--affects quality.

Athol Dickson, you ask? He's the author of the Christy Award-winning River Rising, a book you should really check out if you haven't yet.

Peter Leithart on Why Evangelicals Can't Write

2006-08-08T07:54:00.000-05:00

Not to show my utter lack of church history comprehension, but Zwinglians sounds far more like a race of extra-terrestrials from a Douglas Adams novel than an actual subset of the church.

Anyway, Peter Leithart explores the lack of a grand literary tradition among Protestants.

Cover Weirdness: Design Echoes

2006-08-07T16:24:00.000-05:00

If this cover and this cover had a child, it would look like this.

Am I right?

(credit to NYTimes Book Covers for linking the Kalfus and Lethem covers.)

Cover Weirdness: CBA Garden Edition

2006-08-04T09:35:00.000-05:00

Patti Hill's Always Green

Annie Jones' April in Bloom

If there's any consolation, our cover came first.

Multnomah Acquired by Random House

2006-08-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

Here's the (expected) conclusion to this news. (From the Christian Etailing newsletter.)

After almost a month of industry-wide speculation, Random House Inc. announced it has purchased Multnomah Publishers. The Sisters, Ore., publisher will become Random House's second evangelical Christian imprint, following the 1996 creation of WaterBrook Press, an editorially autonomous division of Random House's Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.
Multnomah will be “integrated operationally with WaterBrook,” and will relocate to WaterBrook's offices in Colorado Springs, Colo., Random House said in a statement. The two imprints will together form a new WaterBrook Multnomah division within Doubleday Broadway, with each imprint “maintaining its distinct editorial identity,” the statement said.

I wish those of my colleagues at Multonomah (and Waterbrook) the best as things shake out.

Why the Word "Sucks," Rocks

2006-08-03T08:51:00.000-05:00

Slate defends the intransitive verb "suck" from detractors and those who say its vulgar.

It's actually quite an interesting little piece and explores our apparent discomfort with such straight-forward, unabashed verbs.

There's times for erudition, the author explains, on why something fails to please, and then there's times when economy of phrase rules the day: "Yankees suck."

The Ascendance of Message-Driven "Art"

2006-08-02T14:12:00.000-05:00

Mark Cuban, a man I find fascinating, is a billionaire who blogs. He's got his hands in quite a number of pies these days (owns the Dallas Mavericks, HDNet, etc) and one of those pies is the movie industry. A week or two ago, he put forth a challenge: Figure out a way to GUARANTEE 5 million people show up at a movie and he'd give you a job.

His challenge got 800+ responses. (If you're in the promotion game at all, I encourage you to read some of them because the ideas of how to get people to a movie are not unlike, in the end, getting people to buy a book. The basics are all the same.)

Cuban's post today analyzes those responses and offers some rationale why many of the solutions don't quite work. One of his points was interesting:

(Here he's talking about rewarding people somehow for going to a movie. And all errors in spelling, punctuation, etc are his. He's the one person on the net who self-edits less than me. Or "less than I." Whatever.)

This has been done before, but isnt done often enough, including by our film companies HDNetFILMS, Magnolia Pictures and 2929ent. The perfect examples are religious, political and social groups who drove viewers to Passion of the Christ, An Inconvenient Truth and other movies that entertain or try to educate with a message that supporters of that message go out of their way to support.

Its interesting to me how supporters of the various messages feel they are having their message reinforced with boxoffice success of the movie they are promoting. That desire to do well at the box office as a message itself, often leads to a lot of hard work by the groups organizers and followers to get people to the theater. In fact, the grassroots efforts of these groups can actually bring millions of viewers to a movie. The problem is that this doesnt apply to every movie. Only a select few. Its an approach we will use with a new Mag Pictures movie we have coming out called Jesus Camp, but wouldnt apply to 90pct of what we do.

So many of the calls today (admittedly here and elsewhere) are for "less propagandistic message" and "more craft." But Cuban points out that there's real strength, real usefulness in having such a one-sided message. And that usefulness is that others will come alongside and say, "This is what I feel, too. And I want others to know I feel that way so I'm going to support this "art" with my dollars.

I don't really have any point here. I guess it just seems like another example of how we're all shouting at each other in various and sundry ways. "Christ is Lord!" "Our planet is doomed!" "Cowboys can be gay!" "$#&%# Bush!" "We love penguins!"

Is there even any room for conversation amid the din?

A Virtual Merger

2006-08-01T09:17:00.000-05:00

The Ankeny Briefcase, a literary magazine that doesn't officially exist, has merged with Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression, another literary magazine that doesn't officially exist yet either. You can read about it here.

In related news, unicorns are now mating with hippogriffs.

Talking Through Books

2006-07-31T15:29:00.000-05:00

We talk a lot about books here. (Not so much recently but that's because it's been, like, 197 degrees for the last month and I'm all melty. Go back to Houston, Bertrand, and take your dang heat out of my upper midwest.) Anyway, so we talk a lot about books. But for a day, maybe two, I want to talk about talking about books. Because if anything is going to keep this site vibrant (and keep the power of reading alive) it isn't our writing, I don't think, but our reading.

Anyway, I was in Denver and a friend recommended a book to me in one of those sort of baffled "I love this, nobody else has read it, and I really want other people to like it, but if they don't, a small part of me is going to die because I like it that much" recommendations. And so I read it. (It was The Book Thief.) And, unsurprisingly--because this is not a woman I envision giving indiscriminate breathless recommendations out like tic-tacs--the book really was good. Excellent, even. And so no little pieces of anybody have to die...and in fact she has talked to me through the book.

We are social creatures. We crave understanding and being understood. One of art's great functions are to pursue communication. But we talk to each other in recommending the art that speaks to us. I doubt there's many among us who hasn't made a well-intentioned (but often ill-conceived) mix tape for that certain special someone. Or tortured a friend with a favorite movie they'd never got around to seeing. Even among acquaintances we seek places of common ground.

"I've read The Book Thief. You've read The Book Thief. That is a thing we share."

So somehow I'd like to get back, a little, to not only talking about books... but standing together as we talk. Not necessarily from shared opinion (though you're out if you dislike Richard Russo) but at the very least from shared experience. I read this, you read this. Let's talk.

To do so, however, is going to require, well, a kind of commitment on your part to at least join in. If not always then at least now and again. Is this something you are interested in? (All ye vast sea of lurkers... would ye unlurk for something like this.?) Vote aye in the comments and we'll see where we're at.

Sucker

2006-07-25T16:12:00.000-05:00

There are a few things for which I am a huge sucker. Olives and dark chocolate (though not together.) Non-fiction involving sharks. And movies dealing with meta-fictional stories. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was incredible. Adaptation rocked--at least the trailer, which may be my favorite preview ever.

And now this... Stranger Than Fiction.

Diversion: the Wonder and Power of Story

2006-07-24T16:23:00.000-05:00

In my spare time at home I read a fair amount of children's fiction. Some of it I read for myself, some out-loud to my children. One subtext that's stuck out to me lately in a couple of works is the meta-theme of the power of story, the power of words, the power of reading.

The books that spring first to mind (though I'm certain there are many more) are:

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
Inkheart and Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

All five books cover completely different ground and genres but one thing they have in common is a reflexive examination of the power of books.

When I first noticed it, my gut reaction is that there was the slightest hint of desperation to this. We talk about the use of propaganda all the time and here these books are "selling" themselves, trying to coax little minds into drinking the Kool-Aid of reading. That's a cynical response and one I'm not overly proud of. And it dissippated almost instantly because the next thing to catch my attention was the enraptured face of my girls, sitting waiting to hear what a little mouse with big ears might do next.

The power of story to transport you isn't theoretical to children. It's obvious and immediate and above discussion. Of couse a mouse can become a knight. Of course a boy named Stanley can be pressed flat when a bulletin board falls on him. Of course a swan without a honk can learn to play trumpet. The world and what it can contain is endless.

So those themes on the glory and power of story...they aren't for the kids, I don't think. I think they're for the authors, or (occasionally) for the cranky sour-puss adult reader like me who dares to pick up the book. They're a declaration that says, "You know what? Bag it...I'm throwing my lot in with the kids. They had it right in the first place."

Tony Hines Gets Props From PW

2006-07-20T08:39:00.000-05:00

Marcia Ford at Publishers Weekly caught wind of T. L. Hines innovative publicity and promotional strategies and was so impressed that she wrote an article about them. (I'm not sure if this will open for you or not. Let me know.)

To warn you, I'm quoted and am effusive so be prepared for a little bit of author love.