I got some good news, and I got some bad news . . .

Bad news first: Amazon is laying off, and Borders is – wait, Borders is still around? Not for long, it appears.

With Borders set to declare fourth-quarter results next week, expectations are grim: more multi-million dollar losses, store closures, payroll slashings and, with shares currently trading at 64 cents per share, potential de-listing from the NYSE. Shareholders will hear more about the company's strategy, including plans for a reverse stock split to satisfy NYSE conditions, next Wednesday when CEO Ron Marshall hosts a conference call with analysts and investors.

One turnaround expert tells the Detroit Free Press that Borders seems to be one of buying time and hoping economic recovery is just around the corner. "They are figuring their brand name is going to carry them," said Ken Dalto ."Brand names mean less with the inroads of technology. The brand name is Amazon." Managing partner of Bingham Farms-based McTevia Associations Jim McTevia points to a possible Chapter 11 filing, but says even that wouldn't solve Borders' problems. "Depending on their ability to get debtor-in-possession financing, they could easily file for Chapter 11," he said. "It is much easier to facilitate the sale of a troubled company under bankruptcy protection."

Ready for some good news? Or at least some not-horrific news?

Samsung gets into the e-reader business with their new Papyrus. Comes with a touch-screen, and the price point will be lower than either the Kindle or the Sony E-reader.

You know, it's interesting. I'd thought that one brand of e-reader would rise above the rest (think: Ipod) and the other brands would either disappear or become the mark of irredeemable dorkhood (think: Zune). But is it possible there will be many, many e-readers, just as there are many brands of DVD player? I'll admit that I don't know if all these devices operate on the same tech platform, but if they're all compatible, I have to think that competition will be good for innovation and price-squashing.

And finally, something I'm not sure how to explain: In times of trouble, writing workshops flourish.

A Quote That I Stole From the Daily Beast

There is a great article about the resurgence of short fiction by Taylor Antrim called The Year of the Short Story. Here is my favorite quote:

"Novels are easier to read, easier to recommend to friends, but a good short story is much, much harder to get out of your head."

Google to Supply 500k Public Domain Books for Sony Reader

Yesterday Google and Sony reached a deal to distribute half a million titles, all published before 1923 and in the public domain, through the Sony Reader at no cost. "We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform and making it easy to find as much content as possible - from our store or others - whether that content is purchased, borrowed or free," said Steve Haber, president of the Digital Reading Business Division at Sony Electronics, in the accompanying release. "Working with Google, we can offer book lovers another avenue for free books while still providing a seamless experience from our store."

The NYT notes in a loaded phrase that Google "is aiming to gradually increase the number of copyright-free books in the Google Book Search catalog available to Sony and any other e-book distributor that shares its goals of making books more accessible." The books that are being supplied to Sony have been converted to ePub, which represents significant support for the standard. The WSJ updates the number of Sony Readers sold worldwide, saying the total is now 400,000.

MobileRead reports the service went live a little before 9 PM yesterday, accessible through the Sony eBook Library software, on the main eBook Store page, over to the right about halfway down, by way of a link reading "Unearth a Classic."

So Google has placed its bet with Sony, instead of the far-better-selling Kindle, eh? Which begs the following questions:

What does Google know about this e-reader duel that the rest of the world doesn't?

Will this give Sony any appreciable boost?

And how long before Google morphs from beloved search engine into a Microsoftian evil empire? Power & popularity aren't natural bedfellows in the tech community, and Google is gaining more power all the time.
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UPDATE ON SIMIC READING: Earlier, Book Choy reported that Charles Simic canceled his appearance at Butler because he was engaged in an armed stand-off with police in Juarez. Apparently, that report was incorrect. Or, at least, unsubstantiated (I still have my suspicions).

Word is that his reading has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 21st. (Thanks, Rob)

Big week next week on the Indy lit scene. Jane Hamilton rolls into town, and Jesse Lee Kercheval, AND, if that's not enough, there's also "The Live Nude Girl in the Devil's Territory" Tour.

It's at Marian College on Tuesday night (for full details, click on the Calendar of Lit Events up there to your right). The event is clothing-optional, but please leave your pitchfork at home.

ALERT: Charles Simic's reading -- Thursday at Butler -- has been cancelled. No word yet as to why. At least not that I've heard, anyway.
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A funny thing happened as electronic readers have become more popular: So have regular books.
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This New Yorker article is occasioned by a new annotated Dracula, but I'm linking to it here because it includes the finest reading of Bram Stoker's work I've ever seen. Here's a taste:

Most of this tale of the irrational is filtered through minds wedded to rationalism. “Dracula” has what Noël Carroll, in “The Philosophy of Horror” (1990), called a “complex discovery plot”—that is, a plot that involves not just the discovery of an evil force let loose in the world but the job of convincing skeptics (which takes a lot of time, allowing the monster to compound his crimes) that such a thing is happening. No people, we are told, were more confident than the citizens of Victorian England. The sun never set on their empire. They were also masters of science and technology. “Dracula” is full of exciting modern machinery—the telegraph, the typewriter, the “Kodak”—and the novel has an obsession with railway trains, probably the nineteenth century’s most crucial invention. The new world held no terrors for these people. Nevertheless, they were bewildered by it, because of its challenge to religious faith, and to the emotions religion had taught: sweetness, comfort, reverence, resignation. . . When Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the venerable Dutch physician who becomes the head of the vampire-hunting posse, suggests to his colleague John Seward that there may be a vampire operating in their midst, Seward thinks Van Helsing must be going mad. “Surely,” he protests, “there must be some rational explanation of all these mysterious things.” Van Helsing counters that not every phenomenon has a rational explanation: “Do you not think that there are things in the world which you cannot understand, and yet which are?” Throughout the novel, these self-assured people have to be convinced, with enormous difficulty, that there is something beyond their ken.
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Just stumbled upon this series from Granta: "Portrait of my Father."

Indiana writers Patricia Henley and Dana Roeser Host Summer Weekend WorkshopMay 29, 30, & 31, 2009

--Join novelist and short story writer Patricia Henley and poet Dana Roeser for a long weekend of advanced fiction and poetry workshops at the lovely Artists Colony Inn in Nashville, Indiana.Do you need to kick start your writing habit? The workshops are perfect for writers who’ve completed an MFA and miss the workshop, and for advanced writers without post-grad degrees. All the information and registration details are available at therighttrackforwriters.com.
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The storySouth 2009 Million Writers Award for Fiction

The sixth annual Million Writers Award is now open, and you can nominate your favorite stories. The reader and editor nomination process, along with regular updates on the award, will appear through the blog and website of Jason Sanford, who runs the award. The list of notable stories of the year, and the top ten stories, will appear on this storySouth page.

Thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, this year's award features the following monetary prizes:
* Overall winner: $500
* Runner-up: $200
* Honorable mention (third place): $100

Please consider Freight Stories when you cast your nominating vote!

(Thanks, Andrew and Victoria)

Sparks, Sharks, and Shirky

--The Indianapolis Star interviews Nicholas Sparks about his upcoming appearance. And because I can't say anything nice about Mr. Sparks or his . . . (hard swallow) . . . work, I won't say anything else at all.

--I just discovered Query Shark, this great site where an agent critiques query letters. If you want a peek inside an agent's head, check it out. Expect enlightenment and cringing in equal portions.

--From the Paper Cuts blog:

"Clay Shirky — the charismatic, articulate N.Y.U. Internet guru who explores the current communications revolution the way Margaret Mead explored Samoa, or Thorsten Veblen explored the leisure class — knows how to get your attention. “The Gutenberg revolution is over,” he likes to say. “It’s going from a world of ‘filter, then publish’ … to ‘publish, then filter.’ “

I'm not going to lie: 'publish, then filter' scares the tar out of me. What interests me, however, is thinking about the new filters.

In the past, it's been agents, editors, marketing departments (deciding how much money to invest in publicity and deals for table-space with the chain stores), reviewers, and prize committees. Probably I'm missing a filter or two, but you get the idea.

If the roles of the gatekeepers are minimized in Publishing 2.0, and book reviews continue to go the way of the polar ice caps, who will be the filters? It's possible, I guess, that there won't be any. Or, rather, millions of individual filters, like you see with YouTube. Look at "The Shack" – this rose on a groundswell of readers, without the help of any prizes, serious reviews, or even blurbs (to my knowledge). But I think this will be an anomaly. We've always needed filters, and I think the need will only increase if there's a tsunami of crap.

Will prize committees assume an even larger role? Librarians? Bloggers like Maud Newton and Jessa Crispin? Will Oprah's role as the literary finger of God be even greater?

But let's say the book supply increases ten-fold with the rise of e-books: how will even these people sort out what to read?

--First, some vague news on the Google book-scan thing:

"Among the interesting topics on which Drummond (David Drummond: Google VP for corporate development and chief legal officer) did not have particularly illuminating answers were the prospects for reaching agreements with publishers in other parts of the world on orphan works and the estimated size of the market for the electronic collection of books Google will market after the settlement is approved ('I think it should be substantial'). Queried about whether Google will be a direct competitor with Amazon within three years for the sale of book content online, Drummond maintained that 'a lot of this will be driven by publishers in terms of what you would like us to do.' Direct selling isn't foremost in their plans, as Drummond noted, 'I don't know that we want to open this platform and sell.... Entering it just for the sake of entering is not really our plan,' particularly since 'linking to Amazon is a perfectly good user experience.'"


If you live north of Indy . . .

Call for Entries, Tippecanus Rex (Lafayette, IN)
Purdue University Galleries and Tippecanoe Arts Federation invite artists, writers and performers of all ages from the area to participate in a community-wide project of creativity, imagination, myth and tall tales called "Tippecanus Rex". "Tippecanus Rex" will highlight the invented history of the Tippecanoe County region, through visual, performing, musical, and literary art. Please visit www.tippecanusrex.com for more information. Deadline for entries is March 25, 2009.

And if you live south of Indy . . .

Call for Entries, Greer Artist Fellowship (Bloomington, IN)
The Bloomington Area Arts Council (BAAC) in partnership with the Jason Sheppard Greer and Lucy Kim Greer Foundation for the Arts invite creative writing and ceramic artists to apply to its 2009 fellowship program. Artists must reside in Brown, Greene, Lawrence, Morgan, Monroe or Owen Counties. Four awards in the amount of $1,000 each will be awarded to mid-career artists whose work is of exceptional artistic merit. For program guidelines and application, please email Katherine Paschal, BAAC Director of Arts Outreach at Katherine@artlives.org or call (812) 334-3100 ext. 106. Artists are asked to submit application and support materials by April 24, 2009.

If you live IN Indy . . . well, this is all I have for you today.

You're WELCOME.

Mid-Week Roundup

--"If I'm going down, I'm taking all you jag-bags with me."

"Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's book about his journey that led up to his being ousted from office, promises to expose 'the dark side of politics that he witnessed in both the state and national level.'"

--Story Prize taken by Wolff, Lahiri, and Meno.

"For a literary honor that didn’t exist before 2004, the Story Prize — which recognizes the best story collection to be published each year — has quickly established itself as a nifty jewel in a writer’s crown. Its top award ($20,000 and an engraved silver bowl) is the richest available for a single book of fiction, and the prize ceremony is a congenial, clubby affair reminiscent of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”: the three finalists read from their work, then cross the stage to sit in leather armchairs and take questions from the prize’s director, Larry Dark.

"At this year’s ceremony — held last Wednesday at the New School’s Tischman Auditorium — Larry Dark cast his vote for renaissance. Anyone who thinks the story is dying, he said, need only read the work of the three finalists: Tobias Wolff, Jhumpa Lahiri and Joe Meno."

Joe who? you’re asking.

--"College Students Read Crap" That's what WaPo might as well title this article. It's what the writer means.

"In 1969, when Alice Echols went to college, everybody she knew was reading Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver's new collection of essays. For Echols, who now teaches a course on the '60s at the University of Southern California, that psychedelic time was filled with "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," "The Golden Notebook," the poetry of Sylvia Plath and the erotic diaries of Anaïs Nin.

"Forty years later, on today's college campuses, you're more likely to hear a werewolf howl than Allen Ginsberg, and Nin's transgressive sexuality has been replaced by the fervent chastity of Bella Swan, the teenage heroine of Stephenie Meyer's modern gothic 'Twilight' series. It's as though somebody stole Abbie Hoffman's book -- and a whole generation of radical lit along with it."

I'll confess that my knee-jerk reaction is to think, argh, dang kids! But then I think back to what I was reading in college: beer labels. And the student paper, but that was mostly to see what beer was on special. Seriously, there was about a two-year period there where I read nuh-thing. And then, the summer before my senior year, the summer that I got serious about this girl who later became my wife, I wandered into the IU library and checked out The Sun Also Rises and American Psycho.

An odd pairing, to be sure, but those two books kind of fit together, too, like love and reading.

Look, I don't know why college students read Harry Potter. Maybe it's due to an extended adolescence, like WaPo suggests; maybe it's because students have had so much "serious" required reading. Or maybe it's because, as a society, we've equated "easy" with "entertaining." But you know what? I'm mostly glad they're reading anything besides Twitter. And I have to think that if they just keep reading, they'll eventually get hungry for something a little meatier.

--Lastly, here's a quick update from The Mystery Company about an author visit tonight. That's right: tonight. I just got it today. And you'll notice the blurb doesn't say what time she'll be there. Can someone talk to The Mystery Company about the basics of promotion, please?

"Wednesday, March 11, Rosemary Harris visits to talk about and sign copies of her books Pushing Up Daisies (St. Martin's, $23.95 in hardcover; $6.99 in paperback) and The Big Dirt Nap (Minotaur, $24.95), the first two books in her engaging and delightful gardening mystery series. Daisies is an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel of 2008.

"Rosemary will also talk about how she and her husband built a library in Tanzania; visit Rosemary's website at http://www.rosemaryharris.com/chalula.htm to learn more about this exciting and inspiring project. We will donate a portion of sales of Rosemary's hardcovers (now through March 15) to the Chalula Library."

Retreat to the Underground

Midwest Writers Workshop – accepting fellowship applications until 3/23.

"This spring, MWW will select another group of Midwest Writers Fellowships for its fifth Writers’ Retreat. The writers – three general fiction, three mystery and three non-fiction – will spend Friday and Saturday writing and revising manuscripts in progress under the direction of three veteran writing coaches. The fellowships will pay the writers’ retreat costs, other than travel and incidental expenses.

"'This retreat experience has been an extraordinary event for the previous Fellows. We are very happy to continue this intensive opportunity for writers with serious works in progress,' says Jama Bigger, Midwest Writers Workshop director.

To participate, writers are to submit approximately 1,000 words from their work in progress together with a one-page synopsis to Midwest Writers Workshop at the Department of Journalism, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306. Entries must be postmarked by March 23. Winners will be announced Saturday, April 4. Winners of the fellowships are to arrive at the retreat with at least 20 pages of their work in progress and laptop computers. Information is also on web site www.midwestwriters.org."

And here's a little narrative from Jim Walker about the Indy Underground reading coming up this Friday:

"Two entertaining Indianapolis writers and an eclectic musical trio are supporting the efforts of The Second Story with a fundraiser event this Friday, March 13 at the Harrison Center for the Arts. Young adult fiction author John Green, whose novel Paper Towns debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times best-seller list this fall, will read his work as part of an evening of literary fun complete with live music, conversation and food — as well as beer and wine for those over 21. Fiction writer and journalist Sarah Layden will also share her words. And Tonos Triad, a local classical- and jazz-influenced trio will provide music while the audience mingles."

Mark Friday on Your Calendar!

Since we forgot to mention it on the poster there will, in fact, be beer and wine. The beer has been generously donated by The Union Jack Pub and the wine is subsidized by Kahn's. See you there!

"Who says a farmer can't be a gangsta rapper?" -Stone Face Tilla

--The New York Times adds a graphic novel bestseller list. And, like their traditional bestseller list, it's mostly filled with goofy stuff.

--Aaaand, speaking of goofy stuff – no, wait, strike that. That's just mean. I'll let you decide for yourself what to call this:



"With books like "The Lucky One," "Message in a Bottle" and "The Notebook," author Nicholas Sparks has been pulling at readers' heartstrings for more than a decade.



"On March 20, Sparks will discuss his work during the 2009 McFadden Lecture at North Central High School. Admission to the 7 p.m. program is free."

Sex, Drugs, and Peanut Brittle

--Michael Chabon is (possibly) on drugs.

"Today started with an 8 a.m. walk around the grounds of the Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven, where, on top of the Mound of Heaven (a kind of tiered wedding cake of white marble) you can stand at the exact Center of the Universe. That was pretty exciting.

"Then my second meeting with the Master and Fish. (“The Master and Fish” — a failed spinoff of “Barney Miller,” starring Abe Vigoda and Pat Morita?) They seemed to get deeply tangled up in prior drafts of the script. I don’t know, maybe they were feeling nostalgic. I admit I often feel that I have absolutely no idea what the M. really thinks about anything."

--Why you (and everyone you know) have such a hard time being "in the moment":

"Elsewhere, U.S.A. offers two big concepts to diagnose modern society's ills: the 'elsewhere' society, and the 'intravidual.' 'Mrs. and Mr. Elsewhere,' workaholic professionals, always feel they should be somewhere else than where they currently are, and so they betray those around them as their mind races ahead to the next encounter, or they look around for a more desirable interaction. The intravidual is the reciprocal of this dissociated society: Rather than an integrated self, the modern person is internally fragmented."

But even as your consciousness begins to resemble the peanut brittle at the bottom of the holiday tin, society seems to be stabilizing and improving, at least in some respects:

"Today's parents, despite dual careers, actually spend more time with their children than did those of the 1950s. Has residential mobility risen? No, it has decreased throughout the past century. Although divorce spiked after the 1960s, marriage has stabilized for the college-educated. And jobs 'have actually gotten broader' as routine tasks are left to computers."

My question: what the hell were parents doing in the 1950's? Really, I want to know. Driving their Edsel? Hanging out at the Moose Lodge? Or, given that it was the baby boom, were they too busy making children to spend any time with them?

--What's on Roth's Ipod?
Sometimes the Paper Cuts blog asks writers to make playlists. This one from Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee's not exactly new, but it's funny and sweet and filled with some great songs. Here's one cut:

7) 20 Minutes of Oxygen, the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. (LEV) Unlike Dylan, as far as I know, T.D.O.T.H.T. mostly do pop-metal songs about the works of H. P. Lovecraft. (”The Innsmouth Look” is a good one.) Which makes “20 Minutes of Oxygen” a bit of a departure for them. It’s off their album “Spaceship Zero: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack,” which as far as I can tell is a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t actually exist. The song is about a man who’s made a terrible mistake and is fantasizing about building a time machine to go back and warn his younger self not to make it: “When you’re trapped in that airtight room/Flick the red switch but not the blue.” Who hasn’t wanted to do that? Though my therapist says that kind of thinking is unhealthy.

But How Are They Going to Ban E-Books? (Plus They Smell Horrible When You Burn Them)

--Don't ask, don't tell, or read, or think, or . . .

"The library's board of trustees voted 5-3 Thursday evening in favor of restricting minors' access to 'Sex for Busy People,' 'The Lesbian Kama Sutra,' 'The Joy of Sex' and 'The Joy of Gay Sex' because they deemed the material 'harmful to minors.'"

Why is it always the books about sex that are deemed "harmful to minors?" Not that I think any books should be banned, or "restricted" (though there are more than a few that I think shouldn't have been written) – but why doesn't anyone go after the ones that glorify violence, like the Left Behind series? Or polemic, like, um, anything by Ann Coulter? On a related note, isn't this a weird society where "shut up," maybe the ultimate effacement in the English language, isn't an obscenity, but the f-bomb is the king daddy of curse words?

--Nathan Bransford posts the "Ten Commandments for a Happy Writer." Well worth a read, but if you don't have time, here's what it all comes down to:

"10. Keep writing. Didn't find an agent? Keep writing. Book didn't sell? Keep writing. Book sold? Keep writing. OMG an asteroid is going to crash into Earth and enshroud the planet in ten feet of ash? Keep writing. People will need something to read in the resulting permanent winter."

--Man, this e-book stuff moves fast. One big piece of news every day? How about two? Amazon launches a Kindle app for the I-phone on the same day that a Morgan Stanley analyst predicts that one million Kindles will be sold by Thanksgiving. In related news, we're working on making Booth, our new literary journal, Kindle- and I-phone-compatible -- and I think we just about have it figured out.

Harper Collins launches a new imprint.

"This fall the company will publish 21 new hardcover and paperback original titles under the It Books imprint, focusing on pop culture, sports, style and content derived from the Internet, like a planned collection of Twitter posts called “Twitter Wit.”

Derived from the internet? Who proudly announces they're trying to be derivative? Besides, isn't this kind of like your dignified Grandmother showing up at your house in sweatpants and Uggs, calling you "grand-homes?" No, Grandma! What we liked about you was your Grandma-ness. Also, no one's said a variation on "homes" since 1992. But we like the boots. Those are nice.

Ever claim to have read a book when you actually, um, didn't? You're not alone.

"George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four comes top in a poll of the UK's guilty reading secrets. Asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they had not, 65% of respondents said yes and 42% said they had falsely claimed to have read Orwell's classic in order to impress. This is followed by Tolstoy's War and Peace (31%), James Joyce's Ulysses (25%) and the Bible (24%)."

Read the Bible. It will blow your everloving mind. You may think you know that book, but – check it out. I've been listening to an audio version in the car. I almost crossed the median when I got to Genesis 6:4:

"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

In the King James version, "Nephilim" is translated as "giants." I had to back the tape up on that one.

Aaaaand, Freight Stories #4 is out. Has been out for a little while, but I'm not sure if I mentioned it here. And if I already have, two mentions won't hurt.

Tuesday Round-Up

• File this one under: A Glimpse of the Future of Publishing, Take 6 (a category that, by the way, I find infinitely more interesting than the "death of publishing" articles that still periodically surface like glum sea cows. Yes, we all KNOW the old party is over. Lament quietly. In the corner, preferably. You're disturbing the people who are figuring out Publishing 2.0)

Six years after its founding, Morgan James Publishing is making its first appearance on PW's fast-growing small press list. The “entrepreneurial publisher” operates under a model that's becoming increasingly common: no advances and high royalties. Yet Morgan James makes an extraordinary effort to help its authors to grow their own business—whether an author is a self-help guru or a financial advisor—through promoting their books (the house specializes in business, self-help, inspirational and health books).

Founder David Hancock, a former mortgage banker, says the company helps its authors sell books by hosting educational events. “Our book sales are up 52% over last year, and that's because we try to teach authors how to market their books. It's had a significant impact on book sales.” Advertising and marketing are generally the authors' responsibility; Morgan James markets to bookstores and an e-mail list it has. But ultimately, publicity and promotion is up to the authors, “and we teach them how to do it,” Hancock says. Plus, if authors use a public relations firm that Morgan James approves of, the publisher will pay a percentage of the cost.

• Toward that end of self-promotion, here's an interview I did with Erin McGraw on Hobart Pulp (nifty segue, eh?).
  
• What do you do when faced with dozens of inaccuracies and errors in your "memoir?": "I respectfully disagree." (I've already read this book. Back when it was called Ball Four by Jim Bouton. Look into it.)
• March selections are up at Andrew's Book Club.

The Second Story Publishes First Book

A group of 4th grade students at IPS School 15 gathered in the cafeteria last Monday for the book signing of their newly published observations on Indianapolis called, "Hot Baked Cheetos." Bryan said that I am allowed to be cheeky in this posting but there was absolutely nothing in this effort that wasn't 100% heartfelt, from the volunteers that worked with these kids to the insightful stories that the kids submitted. If you would like to purchase a copy they are for sale now at amazon.com and soon at Big Hat Books for $13.50. I highly recommend this feel-good read!

Linda Brundage, Second Story Board Member