An exciting new deal announcement, via GalleyCat:

 "MySpace and MTV sensation Tila Tequila's HOOKING UP WITH TILA TEQUILA, no-holds-barred thoughts on love, fame, happiness, and success and the remarkable story of how the child of Vietnamese immigrants singlehandedly harnessed the web to become a popular sex symbol, to Brant Rumble at Scribner, for publication in December 2008, by David Vigliano and Michael Harriot of Vigliano Associates (world)."

 No-holds-barred! Love! Fame! A remarkable story!

Of course this won't be in the $1 Barnes & Noble discount section a month after it pubs. Why would anyone assume something like that?  Remember, Tila, if round one doesn't work out, you can always launch a follow-up season--er--sequel. Aren't second chances wonderful?!

5/13/2008 6:04:00 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Sometimes, alt-weekly dreams really do come true! Remember back in November, when we were obsessing over Sloane Crosley, Vintage/Anchor book publicist extraordinaire, who had a much-hyped, uber-blurbed book of personal essays coming out this spring?

I Was Told There'd Be Cake has arrived. And, as Galleycat reports, it actually hit #19 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list on April 20. A few weeks ago, when we spoke with Crosley during her lunch break one afternoon, we were surprised to learn that she really was pleasant, charming, funny, smart, and nice, and, in her spare (?!) time, builds cool dioramas. Basically, we kinda sorta maybe totally want her life -- who doesn't wish a book of essays about their own comic disappointments would be the sort of thing a lot of people would actually want to read? -- and wish we had her poise, but we can't have it all, can we? No, we cannot. Check out our "Backtalk" interview with Crosley in this week's fishwrap, if you want more, and take note -- she'll be reading from and signing copies of I Was Told There'd Be Cake Tuesday evening at the Brookline Booksmith.

4/14/2008 11:43:19 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Everyone is all in a huff over the "Margaret Jones" scandal. Her True Life story, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival, was a fraud. She is not part Native American. She was not an abused foster child living on the streets of L.A., or a member of the gang the Bloods. She grew up with her biological parents in Sherman Oaks, CA, and went to a private Episcopal high school. While she did work with inner city kids, she interviewed a lot of them in L.A. coffee shops and pawned composites of their stories off as her own. Margaret Jones isn't even her real name. It's Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer.

So anyway, the main things that seem to be erupting from what has been deemd the Worst Week Ever in Publishing are:
1. Memoirs sell better than fiction (just like reality TV gets networks better advertising and bigger ratings). This, apparently, is something writers have caught on to. So they turn "novels" into "memoirs." Even if they aren't exactly true.
2. Publishers don't do deeper fact-checking because it could ruin the author-editor relationship.
3. Love and Consequences wouldn't have gotten the reception it did in the first place if it wasn't for the Charles McGrath connection.
4. Er, James Frey is still publishing a new book.

Frowny faces all around.

We think it would be nice if fiction wasn't so hard to sell anymore, if every woman writing about their coming-of-age experiences wasn't immediately categorized as chick-lit and designed a book cover featuring pink sparkly heels and a Cosmo, if publicists could somehow, magically, control positive hype before it resulted in hundreds of bloggers hating on talented writers, if writers could be championed without having to be Diablo Cody for it to happen, and if classic books we love weren't repackaged with stupid cartoons that look nothing like real characters just to appeal to new audiences, because it really undermines the intelligence of buyers!

These are just a few of our complaints. Margaret, we are sure, will be feeling the heat for quite some time.

3/5/2008 12:10:30 PM by Sharon | Comments [2] |  

Oh, we love oddly theme magazine issues. MediaBistro's GalleyCat alerted us to the fact that the literary magazine Barrelhouse is seeking your best roller derby writing for an upcoming issue. Some details to bear in mind:

Barrelhouse wants: "Fiction, essays, poems, whatever you got. Barrelhouse will select one winner who will receive original art created by Cory Oberndorfer, a genuine roller derby artist. Finalists will be published in our Very Special Roller Derby Section, which will be included in our next print issue."

Barrelhouse will give: "The one we like best (aka, "The Winner") will recieve original artwork from Cory Oberndorfer, who creates (among other things) roller derby related art. Cory's piece will take it's inspiration from your work. This essentially means that you will become immortalized in two formats: your roller derby writing will appear in the pages of Barrelhouse, and will also be celebrated in or serve as inspiration for Cory's work. Which will also be the cover of the next issue of Barrelhouse. So essentially we're offering to make you a stone cold Mona Lisa style roller derby literary god or goddess whose roller derby writing will live on for all eternity. Other stuff that we like will appear in the Very Special Roller Derby Section, thus making it's authors a form of lower deities."

Barrelhouse asks: That your submission be spanking-new! "Sorry, no previously published work" will be accepted.

Go here for more submission info and further details. Literary Derby Dames, take note!

1/29/2008 4:09:10 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

I just finished Diane Vadino's amazing debut, Smart Girls Like Me, last week. In preparation for the review I've been assigned to write, I Googled around and found her also-amazing and mouth-wateringly delicious fashion-and-shopping blog, Bunnyshop. (Bookmark. This. Now.) For a few days, I've been thinking about all the things I adore about Smart Girls while trying to figure out a way to discuss and justify the fact that it's packaged in a baby-pink cover with a picture of a rack of designer clothing. Because, you know.

What I couldn't understand was why I was forcing myself to care. A good book is a good book is a good book, even if the jacket art suggests something that will probably result in many incorrect snap-judgements. Because while Smart Girls is being marketed toward girls who love In Her Shoes and The Devil Wears Prada, it isn't anything like either of those novels. It's kind of like the fake-Chanel necklace I was staring at on the Forever 21 website today. I'm going to buy it, and I'm going to love it, and wearing it is going to make me exceedingly happy. Still, there will always be someone out there with the real Chanel necklace who thinks I'm a varnished fool. Oh well?

Earlier today, I was catching up on GalleyCat when I found this posting, "Don't Let the Pink Cover Faze You." It establishes just why Smart Girls is neither chick-lit nor "trick-lit," Seth Godin's lit-term-of-the-month.

Trick-lit, according to Godin: "A chick-lit novel that pretends to be something else, hoping to rope people in with an interesting premise. 30 pages later, you discover that you were deceived, that it's just another piece of genre trash." Godin's definition kind of makes my skin crawl. Like, God forbid someone recommends a novel is of a lighter fare than James Joyce! You've been completely HAD! Alert The Paris Review! Have David Remnick revoke this person's library card IMMEDIATELY. Tell NANOWRIMO! They shouldn't be allowed to participate anymore. I could keep going, but I won't.

I'm glad that GalleyCat brought this up, and I think I can write my review now. Perhaps more people will read Smart Girls and realize how lovely and good it is, and that sometimes the best writing can be a story about friendship and New York City and BOYS that someone has always wanted to tell, and is actually very, very astutely observed and witty. I love Diane Vadino so much more now, which is to say, a lot a lot a lot, and mostly that extra dose of lovin' is due to one of the things she said to Ron GalleyCat:

"I don't want to be too serenity prayer about it, but there are things I can control, and things I can't," Vadino said as we sat down to lunch in Brooklyn Heights, shortly after she had returned to New York City from an extended stay in London. "I just don't care anymore. I hate to be reductive about it, but I can choose to be obsessive or I can choose to just let it go."

Yes. Exactly. I'm buying my necklace. And I hope Diane Vadino comes to Boston on her book tour, because I would like to give her a really big, dorky high-five and maybe ask her if she wants to go boot shopping.

 

11/5/2007 4:52:25 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |