Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
November 26, 2015

Who’s up next . . .

December 1: Lisa McDougal (chapter 44-45, Tebow Family Secret), Cindi Dyke (chapter, North Road), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Judith McNeil (???), Millie Mader (poem), and Bob Kralapp (short story, part 3, “Letters”).
* First-and-third meets at Alicia Ashman Branch Library.

December 8:
* Second-and-fourth meets at The Chocolaterian Cafe.

December 15: Lisa McDougal (chapter, Tebow Family Secret), Pat Edwards (???), Cindi Dyke (chapter, North Road), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Bob Kralapp (???), and Jerry Peterson (short story, “The Three Kings of Kansas”).
* First-and-third meets at Alicia Ashman Branch Library.

Christmas gifts for writers . . .

This from Sandra Beckwith of Build Book Buzz.com:

With Black Friday in the U.S. almost here, it’s time to think about creating your own gift wish list for this holiday season.

Wouldn’t you love to receive a gift that represents one of the biggest loves of your life – writing books? How cool would it be to have a gift that acknowledges all of the hard work that goes into becoming an author?

Now’s your chance. I’ve scoured the Internet to find the best gifts for authors so I could compile this year’s article featuring 29 outstanding and affordable gifts for authors. It took me hours to come up with this list, and even then, I had to force myself to stop as I kept uncovering more products I know you would love!

So… whether you want to print this article, circle your favorites, and leave it on the table for your Santa to see or whether you want to buy something on this list for an author on your list, let the shopping begin! You won’t want to miss this week’s article: 29 awesome gifts for author

Interesting articles from Poets and Writers Magazine

Against Pandering, Interactive Fiction, and More

DAILY NEWS Online Only, posted 11.24.15

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

“I have been writing to impress old white men. Countless decisions I’ve made about what to write and how to write it have been in acquiescence to the opinions of the white male literati. Not only acquiescence but a beseeching, approval seeking, people pleasing.” At Tin House, fiction writer Claire Vaye Watkins argues against writing that panders to a white male audience and for writing stories that refuse categorization. “Let us, each of us, write things that are uncategorizable, rather than something that panders to and condones and codifies those categories.”

From novels with accompanying apps to interactive sites that upload novels in progress, theEconomist takes a look at the future of interactive fiction.

Last week, a court in Saudi Arabia ordered the execution of Palestinian artist and poet Ashraf Fayadh for renouncing Islam. The Guardian reports that Fayadh is a “key member of the British-Saudi art organization Edge of Arabia.” The court order was said to have been prompted by his 2008 poetry collection, Instructions Within, which Fayadh said was  “just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee…about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God.” Fayadh has thirty days for an appeal.

Following the recent attacks in Paris, writer and critic Luc Sante discusses his new book about the city’s radical tradition, The Other Paris, and what the effect of terrorism might have on the country. “I wanted to tell the story of what Louis Chevalier calls the ‘working and dangerous classes.’ Those are my people—my forebears on both sides all the way back, Belgian in my case but with many cultural points of similarity—and it also happens to be the aspect of Parisian life that American readers know the least about.”

The Believer features an interview with filmmaker, performance artist, and author Miranda July. July’s debut novel, The First Bad Man, was released this past year.

“The past appears overcrowded with public intellectuals, while in the present they seem scarce.” At the New York Times, writers Alice Gregory and Pankaj Mishra debate the fate of the public intellectual in the current “age of specialization.”

Alaskan Native poet Joan Naviyuk Kane talks to PBS NewsHour about how writing poetry in her Native Inupiaq language is a tool “against the misconceptions that exist about Native people in the U.S.—those that do not account for the reality of diverse, thriving Native cultures.”

Audiobooks.com Debuts Self-Publishing Tool

By Dianna Dilworth on Nov. 19, 2015 – 2:40 PM

Audiobooks.com is getting into the self-publishing business.

Aiming to be what Smashwords is to audiobooks, the site has created a audiobook distribution service called ‘Author’s Republic’ which will allow self-published authors to sell sell audiobooks through more than a dozen distributors and retailers.

Author’s Republic will submit titles to Audiobooks.com, Audible, iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, Downpour, and tunein, as well as library providers such as Findaway and Overdrive. Most of these platforms will pay authors an average of 35 percent royalty on what their titles are sold for. iTunes and Amazon will pay a 25 percent royalty.

“With the explosion in self-publishing and the simultaneous growth in the audiobook industry, getting the right tools in place will help both industries grow together,” stated Sanjay Singhal, Audiobooks.com CEO. “ACX is doing some great work, but there are a lot of issues there that our service was built to address.”