Books Are Great Gifts Wrap-Up December 21, 2009
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We had a night of surprises during our BOOKS ARE GREAT GIFTS auction of signed books last Friday. Thanks to our kind-hearted authors who donated books and the enthusiastic bidders who bought them, we raised $1300 in book sales, plus two individuals gave additional donations that brought the evening’s total to $1360 for our literacy charity The Reading Tree.
Having worked with authors for several years, and knowing their unstinting generosity, the auction’s success probably shouldn’t have been such a surprise. What truly overwhelmed us was how so many of the authors who donated books were right there bidding and buying the books of their fellow authors.
Twitter had been hacked earlier in the day by a cyber terrorist group that shall not be named, creating havoc and dropped tweets late into the night. With the help of many auction supporters who RT’d dropped tweets, we managed to see all of the bids and bring them into action.
The bidding got hot as the night wore on, so much so that the next surprise was learning that each Twitter account is allowed only a certain amount of status updates per hour. LitChat’s account went bankrupt. #BAGG auctioneer and LitChat founder hopped over to her personal account (@CarolyBurnsBass) and continued the action.
Enthusiasm from authors and bidders grew as the night wore on. Several other authors noted the activity and saw the charity benefit and asked if they could throw in one of their books. How could we refuse?
With an already diverse list of superb books on the block we added five spontaneous auctions, including the night’s stellar seller (The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup) from Susan Orlean (@SusanOrlean) whose hilarious crowing for her book (plus a signed photo of her famous rooster, Laura) drew in a sale of $290 (with two additional cash donors on the side).
Julie Klam (@JulieKlam) tossed in a hot title and ignited a bidding war with a spontaneous donation of her memoir Please Excuse My Daughter, which closed at $125. Other extra book donations came from Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, whose debut novel, Thirsty, launched in October; Elyssa East, author of Dogtown, a true crime narrative released earlier this month, and Maggie Dana (@MaggieDana) a #litchat regular whose debut novel Beachcombing released in the UK has just been long listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year award. The complete auction catalog (sans spontaneous extras) can be downloaded here.
Many bidders and donating authors stuck with us through the whole auction, while others popped in and out. What was originally planned as a four-hour auction from 6 to 10 p.m. EST stretched into seven hours, closing at 1 a.m. EST with the sale of Orlean’s The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup.
Each of the winners of our two $25 giftcards from BookSwim that we gave away randomly during the auction chose to donate the gift cards to The Reading Tree, another delightful and large-hearted surprise.
If you were unable to catch the auction action, you can review the complete seven hours of bidding banter in the 2009 #BAGG Auction Tweetscript.
Final thanks to everyone who donated books, to those who bid, to the lucky auction winners, and to the individual donors–you all deserve a standing ovation. We are a dynamic community and together with literacy charities such as The Reading Tree, we can make a difference in the lives of children around the globe.
Holiday Break December 21, 2009
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Open Chat: December 20-January 1, 2009
We’re taking a break from scheduled topics for the next two weeks, beginning December 20, 2009 and ending on January 1, 2010. That doesn’t mean you can’t come into the #litchat salon to chat about books and writing. Got a hot topic idea? This is your chance to throw it out to the #litchat community.
We will be talking about the results of our BOOKS ARE GREAT GIFTS benefit auction and making suggestions of great books for those seeking last-minute gifts.
Joining us on as guest host in the #litchat salon on January 8, 2010 is a name #litchat regulars will recognize: Peter H. Fogtdal, aka @danish_novelist, author of The Tsar’s Dwarf. Written in his native language, Danish, The Tsar’s Dwarf has been translated into five other languages, including English. Watch for more details about Peter and his January 8th appearance as guest host of #litchat.
Food & Family December 13, 2009
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Topic of the Week: December 14-18, 2009
Books Are Great Giftsauction of books signed by authors is December 18, 6-8 p.m. through Twitter using hashtag #BAGG. More auction details at http://litchat.net/litchats-books-are-great-gifts/book-auction/.
December is the month of holidays. As family and friends gather to celebrate religious and/or cultural traditions, food is always featured. Ask people about their favorite holiday memories and you’ll find responses tied around food and family: “My grandmother’s butterscotch pie,” “my mother’s baked ham,” or “my aunt’s golden latkes.” Food nourishes both the body and the spirit.
Joining us on December 18th is Suzan Colón, author of Cherries in Winter, a memoir reflecting on food, family and getting through tough times with dignity. When Suzan was laid off from a cushy and lucrative job at the beginning of the recession, luxuries she’d taken for granted, like shopping at pricey gourmet markets, getting expensive haircuts, and even owning a car, were all suddenly out of her budget. She and her husband Nathan quickly realized they had to cut way, way back.
When winter came, Suzan cobbled together freelance jobs while wearing layers of sweaters and trying to type in fingerless gloves, the better to keep the heating bill low. She also saved money by cooking at home, and her mother, Carolyn, suggested, “Why don’t you dig out Nana’s recipe folder?” In a basement trunk, Suzan found the tattered treasure holding the old recipes, some written in her Nana’s nearly perfect script, others meticulously type-written, that went back through two World Wars, the Great Depression, and beyond. Reading them, Suzan realized she had found something more than a collection of recipes; she’d discovered the key to her family’s survival through hard times.
Suzan Colón is an independent writer and editor who has written celebrity profiles, personal essays, and general interest articles for O, the Oprah Magazine; Marie Claire; Jane; Details; Harper’s Bazaar; Seventeen; YM; Mademoiselle; Rolling Stone; and others. She is the author of three young adult novels based on the TV series Smallville, as well as Catwoman: The Life and Times of a Feline Fatale; and What Would Wonder Woman Do? Suzan lives in New Jersey with her husband and two cats.
Follow Suzan on Twitter at: @colonsuzan.
Family Dynamics December 6, 2009
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Topic of the Week: December 7-11, 2009
Books Are Great Gifts
It’s something most people have in common: Family. No matter where you grew up, an only child in a penthouse on Manhattan’s Park Avenue, the middle of five on a cattle ranch in Texas, or the only surviving sibling from the mean streets of south-central Los Angeles, you had a family around you. Some of the finest literature of the ages have family dynamics as a central theme. This week in LitChat we’ll be discussing Family Dynamics in Literature through the ages.
Hyatt Bass
Joining us on Friday, December 11th is Hyatt Bass, whose debut novel, The Embers, was released in June 2009. The Aschers were once the perfect American family, successful parents with a talented son and lovely daughter; a portrait painted in celebrity colors with trust-funded brushstrokes. A posh apartment in Manhattan and a weekend home in the Berkshires can’t keep the edges of the portrait from singeing early in the story. Adultery, betrayal, and finally the death of a child fan the flames, leading to a fiery conclusion that destroys the family, scattering ashes across the remaining Aschers.
The Embers is Hyatt’s first novel. Her award-winning feature film, Seventy Five Degrees in July, released by Vanguard Cinema in June of 2006, marked Hyatt’s debut as a feature film director. She also wrote the screenplay and was a producer on the film. Prior to that, Hyatt wrote, directed, produced and edited the short film, Just Desert, in Los Angeles, where she worked as a production assistant on Sister Act, a camera assistant on Tombstone, and an assistant editor and camera assistant at Roger Corman’s infamous Concorde Films. Hyatt received her BA from Princeton University. She lives with her husband, Josh Klausner, and their two sons and two miniature schnauzers in New York City.
Follow Hyatt on Twitter: @HyattBass.
A Time to Give November 29, 2009
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Topic of the Week: 11/30-12/4, 2009
Tying into our BOOKS ARE GREAT GIFTS campaign, we’re adopting a charity to support for the holidays. Reading Tree is a non-profit organization that collects books–new and used–for schools all over the world.
Phase one of LitChat’s multi-faceted BOOKS ARE GREAT GIFTS (#BAGG) campaign began with the creation of a “twibbon” (http://twibbon.com/join/Books-Are-Great-Gifts) created especially for Twitter users to adorn their avatar as a show of support for book sales. Adding to this phase, LitChat has issued a challenge to give $1 to its adopted literacy charity (The Reading Tree) for every Twitter user who wraps the #BAGG ribbon on their avatar (up to $250).
Phase two includes a section of the LitChat website devoted to book recommendations with links to book publishers, bookstores, book blogs, and reader reviews.
Phase three brings everything together with an auction of books donated and signed by authors. The auction will take place through Twitter on December 18, 2009, beginning at 8 p.m. EST. All proceeds from the Twitter auction will go directly to LitChat’s adopted charity, The Reading Tree.
Read more about how you can promote literacy while also promoting books, authors and publishing here.
On Friday, December 4, John Barger, executive director of Reading Tree will be our guest host. He’ll tell us about ways we can help promote literacy in our own communities, as explain the methods Reading Tree uses with recycling programs to get books into the poorest schools in America, Canada and several third-world countries. It’s exciting work.
Follow John on Twitter: @ReadingTree.
Topic of the Week: Breaking Through the Stereotypes November 23, 2009
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Topic of the Week: November 23-27, 2009
Join the campaign to promote book sales this holiday season. Go to http://bit.ly/W8DsW and drape your Twitter avatar with a BOOKS ARE GREAT GIFTS twibbon.
We’ve all read books where characters seem cut from cardboard, their settings interchangeable and their plots over used. Publishers crank out books like these by the dozens and while they are read and appreciated by many, these titles and their authors rarely rise to the top. This week in LitChat we’ll discuss books that break those stereotypes with memorable characters set in distinctive places; books that would be swept away by the tides of banality except for their fresh voices.
Tish Cohen (with Ryder)
Joining us on Friday, November 27, is bestselling author of tween, teen, and adult fiction, Tish Cohen. Tish’s first novel, Town House, was optioned for film before the novel was sold. She followed that success with a series for tweens featuring the spunky know-it-all Zoe Costello, aka, the Zoe Lama. In her recently released YA novel, Little Black Lies, Tish explores the rich girl/poor girl world of private schools and how far a person will go to fit in.
Tish writes with a magnifying eye for detail, yet her heart for people bleeds through her words. Her second adult novel, Inside-Out Girl, had already been finished and sold to Harper-Collins when she met a young girl with the neurological disorder suffered by one of her characters in the novel. After learning about the challenges this young girl faces daily, Tish pulled back the manuscript for a massive rewrite that addressed the bullying encountered by children who don’t fit the mold.
Tish has been a media buyer at an ad agency, a decorative painter, an art gallery manager, an illustrator, a proofreader, an editor. It was while an editor that she fell in love with “playing with words.” While perusing Oprah’s website on a day she was feeling particularly mopey about the zigzagged direction her career had taken, she happened upon this Anais Nin quote: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” She walked into her office and began writing her first adult manuscript.
All of her zig-zagged experiences are synthesized in the characters Tish creates, the world in which she places them and the zany situations they get into.
Follow Tish on Twitter: @TishCohen.
Topic of the Week: The Craft of Writing November 15, 2009
Posted by litchat in fiction, weekly topics.Tags: Renni Browne, writers, writing
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Join the campaign to promote book sales this holiday season. Go to http://bit.ly/W8DsW and drape your Twitter avatar with a BOOKS ARE GREAT GIFTS twibbon.
Writing is more than just lining up words on a page in the attempt to convey an idea, reveal a fact or tell a story. Good writing is more than just grammatically perfect sentences one after another. Writers worth their ink know that behind every good book is great editing. The editing process begins with the writer. Some writers self-edit as they compose, while others concentrate on the flow and concept as they complete their manuscripts. No matter their writing habits and preferences, the successful writer knows that writing needs editing and it begins with oneself. This week in LitChat we’ll discuss the craft of writing and self-editing.
Renni Browne
On Friday, November 20, Renni Browne joins us as guest host of LitChat. Renni is co-author (with Dave King) of the writing handbook, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. There are many good books on the writing craft, but few tackle the nuts and bolts of what to cut, what to keep, and how to make it better.
Renni has edited fiction and nonfiction at several prestigious publishing houses, including a stint as senior editor at William Morrow. Citing a lack of time to effectively edit the titles she acquired, Renni left mainstream publishing in 1979 and founded The Editorial Department in 1980.
In 1991 she and Dave King wrote Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, now in its fifth printing and second edition from HarperCollins. She has written book reviews and magazine articles and appeared on NPR.
Over the years Renni has given lectures, workshops, and seminars around the country on self-editing, dialogue, getting published, and other topics of interest to writers. She’s originally from Charlotte, NC, and now lives in Asheville with two cats. Hobbies include old-time music festivals, walks in the mountains, and reading fiction. She especially enjoys Elizabeth George’s and Lee Smith’s fiction.
Renni will be tweeting during LitChat as @EditorialDept.
Topic of the Week: Latino Literature November 9, 2009
Posted by litchat in Latino literature, fiction, literary fiction, multi-cultural fiction, weekly topics.Tags: Latino literature, literary fiction, Luis Urrea, multi-cultural fiction, writers
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No matter on which side of the border it’s produced, there’s no argument that Latino authors have produced some of the greatest works of literature in recent history. Despite its invasion by Europeans, Latin America maintains much of the cultural identity and heritage of its native peoples, providing a colorful tapestry for storytelling. Many Latino authors draw on that culture with remarkable stories of survival, conflict, love, mystery, spiritualism and humanity. Authors such as Carlos Castaneda, Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel, Sandra Cisneros and Jorge Luis Borges brought Latino literature into the homes and hearts of readers worldwide. We’ll discuss these authors and other Latino authors on Monday and Wednesday during LitChat.
Luis Urrea
Luis Urrea joins us as guest host on Friday, November 13. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, Luis grew up on both sides of the border. He compeled his undergrad work in writing at the University of California, San Diego, then went on to study writing at the graduate level at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Nominated for a Pulitzer for The Devil’s Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, Luis has been widely published in literary journals and has 11 books in print.
Publisher’s Weekly said this about Luis’s recently released novel, Into the Beautiful North: “Urrea’s poetic sensibility and journalistic eye for detail in painting the Mexican landscape and sociological complexities create vivid, memorable scenes.”
Alan Cheuse of the Chicago Tribune said, “Awash in a subtle kind of satire… A funny and poignant impossible journey… Into the Beautiful North is a refreshing antidote to all the negativity currently surrounding Mexico.”
After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Luis moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He has also taught at Massachusetts Bay Community College and the University of Colorado and he was the writer in residence at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.
Books Are Great Gifts
Luis’ other titles include The Hummingbird’s Daughter, By the Lake of Sleeping Children, In Search of Snow, Ghost Sickness and Wandering Time. His writing has won an American Book Award, a Western States Book Award, a Colorado Center for the Book Award and a Christopher Award. The Devil’s Highway has been optioned for a film by CDI Producciones.
Luis lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Follow Luis on Twitter at: @Urrealism.
Topic of the Week: Alternative Avenues in Publishing November 1, 2009
Posted by litchat in grit lit, self-published authors, self-publishing.Tags: self-published authors
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As publishing continues to morph into an uncertain new model, many authors are taking their careers into their own hands through smart choices in self-publishing. Self-publishing is not to be confused with independent or small press publishers, POD printers, nor is it a true form of “indie” publishing. Self-publishing is when an author pays or shares in the costs for the printing, distribution and marketing of his or her book. A self-published author may use one of the established self-publishing houses (also known as vanity or subsidy publishers) or create a publishing corporation of his/her own.
Print on demand (POD) technology, along with the new wave of ebook formats, plus the marketing muscle of the internet, has simplified the self-publishing equation.
Many self-published books suffer from poor content editing, abysmal copy editing and proofreading, bad covers and interior design, and/or egotistical authors who believe their products to be the undiscovered work of this century’s Shakespeare. This may sound harsh, but those in the field–particularly book reviewers–know it’s true. It’s the proliferation of these self-published books that mire the field and leave reviewers and readers with bad impressions of self-publishing.
We’re pleased to introduce two authors whose work is a pleasant exception to the negative expectations of self-published books. Each of these books could hold its own against others of like genre produced by any of the big, traditional publishers. They are well written and plotted, their covers are attractive, interior design is easy on the eyes, they are relatively free of typos and publishing style errors, but most of all they carry you along from opening to closing. Most interesting of all, both of these authors never pursued traditional publishing with these manuscripts, opting for self-publishing from the start of their projects.
Gint Aras
November 4th will feature Gint Aras, author of Finding the Moon in Sugar. Gint chose to go directly to self-publishing as a means to circumvent big publishing and get his work before the eyes of readers in his own time. His novel, Finding the Moon in Sugar, is a gritty tale of post-teenage wanderings, those years in between closing the past and opening the future. Written in a voice raw from toxic love, readers can’t help but side with Andy, the hapless main character, as he stumbles through one adventure after another in the exotic streets of Vilnius, Lithuania.
Gint Aras (Karolis Gintaras Ukauskas) was born in Cicero, Ill. to immigrants displaced by World War II. He attended the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign and earned his MFA from Columbia University. To support his writing, he has worked as a hearse driver, fast food guy, hotel houseman, pasta cook, actor and delivery man. He currently teaches English and Humanities at Morton College and lives in Oak Park, Ill.
Donna Carrick
On Friday, November 6, guest host will be Donna Carrick, author of three novels, all of them self-published. Donna’s most recent novel,The First Excellence, follows Fa-ling, a young, adopted Canadian Chinese woman on a journey into the heart of mainland China where she was born. While traveling through Zhuang province with a group of Canadian couples adopting Chinese babies, Fa-ling encounters murder, kidnapping, political intrigue and organ theft.
Donna grew up in Canada’s military and now resides in Southern Ontario with her husband Alex and their three children. Along with their beloved family pets, the Carricks spend most of their free time in Ontario’s north country. The First Excellence draws on her experience in adopting a child from China. Here other two novels are Gold And Fishes and The Noon God.
Follow Donna on Twitter at @Donna Carrick.
Follow Gint Aras on Twitter at @Gint_Aras.
Topic of the Week: Grit Lit October 25, 2009
Posted by litchat in fiction, grit lit, literary fiction.Tags: grit lit, Monte Schulz
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Monte Schulz
Literary fiction covers the gamut of human expression. Within its bounds you’ll find stories with subtle romance, intriguing mystery, smart suspense, savvy humor, fantastical escapes, futuristic forecasts, and time-past historicals. It’s not what the novel is about that labels it literary, but the whole storytelling package, from prose to plot. This week in LitChat we’re discussing edgy, gritty literary fiction. Think about ambiguous characters and dark or dangerous settings, then join us for open chat on Monday and Wednesday (October 26 & 28) for Grit Lit.
Read the chatscript from Monte Schulz’s guest host interview here.
On Friday, October 30, Monte Schulz joins us as guest host. His new novel, This Side of Jordan, inspired this week’s topic with its gritty, prohibition-era setting and trio of reprobates, rascals, and rejects. The novel grabs your sympathy for hapless farmboy, Alvin Pendergrast, but twists it into a knot of ambivalence as Alvin stumbles along a turbulent path with a sociopathic gangster and a beguiling dwarf—all of them refugees from social, cultural or physical bondage.
This Side of Jordan is Monte Schulz’s second novel. His first, Down by the River, was published by Viking in 1991. Library Journal raved that Down by the River compared to Stand by Me and Twin Peaks, and seemed “ready-made for Hollywood.” Monte spent ten years writing Crossing Eden, from which This Side Of Jordan is drawn as the first of three interconnected novels; the second and third, Fields of Eden and The Big Town, will be published in 2010 and 2011.
Schulz received his M.A. in American Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He lives in Northern California. He is the son of Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts.
Monte tweets under the name: @ArthurBurtnett.
Moderator during Wednesday’s open chat is Darrelyn Saloom (@ficwriter). Darrelyn is co-writing a memoir with and about Deirdre Gogarty, the 1997 WIBF Champion from Ireland. She also guest blogs for Writer’s Digest editor Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) and is a frequent contributor to #LitChat.
