No End: Richard Fulco Talks Music, New York and Writing His First Novel

Music blogger and playwright Richard Fulco has recently released his debut novel, There Is No End to This Slope. The book is equal parts love letter and bitter reproach to New York, as seen through the eyes of his struggling protagonist, John Lenza. Richard talks about the unexpected challenges of completing his first novel while balancing work and family.



Elford Alley: For years you were primarily a playwright who blogged about music on the side. What inspired you to switch gears and write a novel?



Richard Fulco: Actors. I'm kidding, of course. Seriously, after my play Get Out of Jail Free was produced at the New York Fringe Festival in 2007, I realized that it might work better as a novel. I also realized that I wasn't such a terrific collaborator and that I needed to work on a project where I was in complete control -- no actors, no directors, just me.



Alley: In recent fiction it seems there's a lot of emphasis on writing relatable and likeable characters. Did this influence your decision to make your protagonist, John, such an unlikeable character?



Fulco: You should have read an early draft. John Lenza was downright detestable. I worked diligently to make him a more sympathetic character. Sure, he's a delusional, pill-popping wannabe writer, but he's also coping with the loss of a dear friend, wrestling with a dead-end job, and struggling with a recent divorce.



John Lenza isn't for everyone. I knew that from the onset. Hate him. Love him. Don't feel lukewarm about him. It was my intention to create a "real" character replete with flaws and shortcomings that might make the reader feel uneasy.



Alley: With Havannah you created a character who seems self-aware and often breaks the fourth wall. Did you see her as a voice for the audience, trying in vain to knock a little sense into your protagonist?



Fulco: I don't quite see Havannah as the audience's mouthpiece, though I could see why you might think she is. Havannah is my version of the Greek soothsayer Tiresias. She is all-knowing, all-knowledgeable, even John Lenza's subconscious. I'm not even sure that Havannah is a person. She might only exist in John's head.



Alley: Music is a huge part of your novel, and John often reminisces about his one gig in high school. Is music a major influence on your writing style?



Fulco: This is such a difficult question for me to answer. Music is an influence on everything I do: my writing, my characters, the way I raise my own children, what I eat throughout the day. Three-minute rock songs have influenced me more than any teacher, preacher or Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist has.



Alley: Many of your characters offer contradicting views of what New York represents, but everyone seems to agree it's a city you love and hate in equal measure. What was the biggest challenge in representing such an iconic city in your novel?



Fulco: I think a true New Yorker has a love-hate relationship with his or her home. As a native New Yorker, I by no means consider it a paradise. It's home. I love the people, the food, the diversity, but the hectic pace of it all can wear you down. Still, it's my home.



The wonderful thing about New York is that it's always evolving. The most challenging thing about living in New York is that it's always evolving. For John Lenza the city's constant evolution can lead to nostalgia. And nostalgia can kill your dreams.



Alley: When you were writing the novel, your life was going through major changes, including the arrival of your children. What was the greatest challenge in completing a novel with newborns in the house?



Fulco: Thankfully, I completed the bulk of the novel before my twins arrived in July 2011. I remember telling my wife, Colleen, that I was racing against time. I felt a sense of urgency that was manifested by my laptop, which was ready to explode. The touchpad on my Mac was cracked down the center, and by the end I couldn't close my laptop entirely because the touchpad lifted up so high and eventually cracked in half.



I worked on the final draft from January to June 2013. Chloe and Connor were a year and a half. I worked full days while a babysitter looked after them. It depleted our savings account and placed quite a strain on the family, but I'm forever grateful to Colleen for supporting our family. She's our rock, and without her spiritual and financial guidance There Is No End to This Slope would probably be my desk drawer.



Alley: The "lost borough" of Staten Island features prominently in your novel. Why did you choose this locale to have such a huge bearing on John's life?



Fulco: I grew up in Staten Island -- born in Brooklyn, but my parents moved to Staten Island as part of "white flight." There Is No End to This Slope was the first time I was able to write about Staten Island in a fairly objective way. There are things you despise about your home, and there are things you cherish. It took me a long time to discover the ways in which Staten Island had shaped me.



Alley: John and other characters often complain about gentrification and the removal of the seedy element from Times Square and Brooklyn, as if something special was lost. Do you think a New York removed from the grime and crime of the '70s and '80s has lost a little bit of its character?



Fulco: Since Mayor Giuliani's administration in the '90s, New York has rather aggressively become a fairly generic city, a playground for rich people and college students. My wife and I think that if some crime crept back in NYC, the Midwesterners would flee. Not that I'm condoning crime, but if the "squeegee guys" came back to the West Side Highway, some of the investment bankers might go home.

Get a Job (or, How My Wife Let Me Quit and Write a Novel)

Recently, I was at a party with my wife, Kate, and we were cheering full champagne flutes, in honor of a friend's success. He had just published his first novel, to great acclaim. We raised our glasses, and introduced ourselves to the other couples around us until someone kindly congratulated me on my book. Because hadn't I just published a book, too? Before I could say one word, my wife -- my very funny wife said when we first met, some twelve years before, my opening line was: "You know, I have a book coming out..."



That's not exactly true, but it certainly feels like it is. For her and me. When we met, I was a writer, yes, but like most young writers I was broke, tending bar, and directionless. I immediately fell for Kate. She was thrilling and alive. She had a fiery presence. Not to mention she was (and is) a real looker. She made me laugh. Predictably, she did not return the sentiment. Not at first. She had a career, an apartment, and a college education. I did not. But eventually she softened. She saw something in me, I know not what, and took me in like a dumb stray.



There is the cliché of women wanting to "fix" men, and that some women want a "project." Maybe that's true, although I've not seen much evidence for it, at least not specific to women. I've known plenty of guys who do the same. I know this much -- I needed lots of work, and I'll forever be grateful to her for tackling the job. Within a year of meeting, we moved to New York City, where I went through a series of crappy bartending gigs, while writing less and less terrible short stories, as she continued to advance an already successful career. More responsibility. Better and better and pay. All accompanied by less and less motivation to explain her boyfriend's life-choice of serving margaritas at an Applebee's in Queens. One day, she wisely stated the obvious: You need go to college.



So I did.



And it was just a few weeks before I realized how right she was. Despite the fact that I was the tallest and the oldest guy in every class, I loved every minute of it. Especially the English classes. I literally took every one available, some of them twice. And then I took a writing class. And before long I found myself applying for grad school writing programs, and was generally having the most intellectually stimulating time of my life. But I never saw my lady. She worked long hours and I was closing the bar at 2 a.m., and then I did homework on the subway home, prepping for class in the morning. At some point, Kate said enough. She told me to quit my bar job and put all my efforts toward school, and my writing. It was scary, for lots of reasons, most of which had to do with my then preferred adherence to "traditional" masculine social roles. Those roles are dumb. I quit. I went to grad school. I started a novel.



Six years later I sold that novel, and a few weeks ago I handed Kate -- my wife, my partner, my best friend, the still-thrilling love of my life, the very person emotionally and financially responsible for the making of this book -- a hardbound copy. The dedication page reads: For Kate, before, now, and after. She cried. She kissed me, and then said, "I always believed you could do this. Now go get a job."

Five things to look forward to in October

The best bits this month from the world of culture

















via Books and Author Interviews http://ift.tt/1v2nwtV

The Paradox of Contemporary Poetry

There is a great paradox in contemporary poetry.



On the one hand, poetry seems to be dwindling -- in bookstore shelves and traditional academic curricula -- so much so that it has become fashionable for journalists to frequently declare it dead. On the other hand, I have but to scroll through my social media feeds to witness an eruption of poetry being written and published online.



Likewise, an offering like Al Filreis' Modern Poetry online course has attracted more than 100,000 students eager to read and learn from great poets of the past. Furthermore, as a poet I know that even though the overall fan base for poetry may have dwindled since the advent of the Internet, that same technology allows me to connect with global audiences many times the size of what some of our most respected poets enjoyed as regional audiences one hundred years ago.



So it would seem that poetry is dying in the real world, only to be reborn into a kind of "Invisible Golden Age" online.



My own response to this paradox is equally dualistic. I acknowledge that poetry may never go mainstream in my lifetime, and aspire primarily for the respect of respectable peers. Yet at the same time, I work hard to bring poetry to new audiences, in person and online. In that vein, I have been gathering my thoughts about the fact that so many people are now reading and writing poems, yet poetry is still perceived as a floundering art. Really, how can this be?



The following diagram illustrates how I see people engaging with poetry today.

• 
  


• At the bottom left we have the non-participants, who read and write little. Often, somewhere in the course of their primary education, usually from a teacher they disliked or who disliked them, they got the message that poetry was difficult, irrelevant, or both.


• 
  


• At bottom right, we have the self-expressionists, who write much but read little. Many of us entered into this phase in adolescence, when what Wordsworth called the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" turned in to our first attempts at poetry.


• 
  


• At top left, we have fans of poetry. Here we must distinguish between those who, like the students in Al Filreis' class, are reading historical poetry, and those who read living authors as well.


• 
  


• In the upper right, we have living poets. Reading and writing are the in- and out-breath of a life steeped in poetry, and the most prolific poets I know are also among the most voracious readers.


• 
  

The boxes in blue represent the behaviors most likely to help usher us out of this "Invisible Golden Age" into, well, a visible one -- that is, reading contemporary poetry as a fan and both reading and writing it as a poet.



It is pretty easy to see why the health and longevity of the art depends on these things happening. So how do we encourage such behavior?



Think of the diagram as a board game. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is help usher people from the gray areas into the white, and from the white areas into the blue. Fostering some appreciation of historical poetry, as well as providing some early creative outlet for trying one's hand at writing the stuff, is usually best begun in primary school. Initiatives like California Poets in the Schools do a fine job of this. They move people into the white.



From here, the sheer volume of poetry being written, and the speed at which it races around online and even in print, can be daunting for new readers. What poets who write much and read little really need are mentors -- poets who can read what they are writing and say, "Here, try this established contemporary poet. You might learn something from them about the kind of poem you are trying to write." MFA programs are one place where this happens, but workshop groups and tame poet-friends can do this too.



Likewise, readers of historical poetry need encouragement, based on their current tastes, to branch into contemporary poets. Like John Donne? Try Christian Wiman. John Keats? Try Li-Young Lee. For me, this started at university, but it is really never too early or too late to try contemporary poetry.



We may not be able to hit a "home run" by ushering people straight from the grey zone of non-participation into becoming overnight poets in the blue. Yet by first opening the doors to reading and writing poetry of any kind, then by acknowledging that contemporary poetry is largely a matter of taste, and trying to accommodate the tastes of newcomers with useful recommendations, we may well do our part to break contemporary poetry free of its current double-bind.



There is all kinds of evidence for the benefits of engaging more deeply with poetry -- psychologically and even physiologically. Like every other contemporary poet, I know this to be true from my own experience. If, like me, you have been looking for ways to help others to find their way to poetry, I encourage you to have a look at the board, roll the dice, and join me in playing the game.

Food Tank's Fall Reading List: 20 Great Books About Food

Food Tank has selected 20 books that entertain, inform and reaffirm the importance of food and agriculture. From sustainable seafood to ethical eating to field guides for food activists, these books highlight innovative and creative methods that are creating a better, more sustainable food system while educating and informing eaters and consumers.



The authors and editors that have contributed to this list make up some of the world's leading experts on food justice and sustainable eating. Food Tank hopes the facts and information in these books will not only inspire people already involved in the food movement but also encourage readers to share and educate others.



American Catch by Paul Greenberg

In 2005, five billion pounds of seafood were imported into the United States. Greenberg takes a deep look into the seafood hubs of the U.S. and attempts to explain why 91 percent of the seafood North Americans eat is, in fact, imported. Through analyzing current crises, oil spills and mining projects, Greenberg present solutions for a more sustainable future.



EAT UP: The Inside Scoop on Rooftop Agriculture by Lauren Mandel

This book has compiled case studies, resource checklists and interviews with experts in order to help readers transform their rooftops into a fully functioning green space and a way to feed their family. There are three sections covering rooftop gardens, rooftop farms and the rooftop agriculture industry that cater to various scales, goals and skill levels. If you have ever dreamed of transforming your roof into a green space, this is the expert guide for you.



Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World by Yuson Jung, Jakob Klein, Melissa Caldwell

Buzzwords like organic, free range and local have gained popularity, and eaters are focusing more on how food is produced and cultivated. This book explores the concept of "ethical food" and how the movement started in postsocialist and socialist societies. More specifically, it covers food systems and consumption of food in Bulgaria, China, Lithuania, Russia, Vietnam and Cuba.



Feeding Frenzy: Land Grabs, Price Spikes and the World Food Crisis by Paul McMahon

McMahon traces global food trends throughout history to identify patterns that may have contributed to current turmoil in the global food market. In some countries, obesity is rising at alarming rates while food is scarce in others. McMahon outlines the patterns that exist in a "feeding frenzy" and presents actions to create a more sustainable food system.



Food Between the Country and the City by Nuno Domingos, José Manuel Sobral and Harry G. West

This book analyzes how the concepts of country and city in relation to food have changed the dynamic of how food is produced and sustained. This book looks at food on all production scales using ethnographic studies of peasant homes, small family farms, urban gardens, community gardens, state food industries and large corporate supermarket chains.



Food Consumption in Global Perspective: Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody by Jakob Klein and Anne Murott

Honoring the 1982 work of Jack Goody and his book Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology, this book looks at the evolution of food in a global context. As food is becoming more homogenized across the world and more restaurants and corporations are becoming transnational, there is a dramatic shift in the food people consume. This book compares locally and culturally specific methods of cultivating and eating food with transnational processes.



Food for City Building: A Field Guide for Planners, Actionists, & Entrepreneurs by Wayne Roberts

After serving as the manager of the Toronto Food Policy Council for ten years, Wayne Roberts chronicled his experiences and interactions with local food experts in the Food for City Living guide. Roberts has helped improve public health and environmental awareness in his community, and now he shares his experiences with readers.



Green Chefs: The Culinary Creatives Changing How We Eat by Brooke Jonsson

This three-volume electronic book was compiled by chefs who are using innovative methods to integrate new and exciting local foods into their established cuisines. Jonsson pairs personal recipes with in-depth interviews with expert chefs. Readers can begin to understand the passion and intrigue behind the dishes they will soon create.



Green Kitchen Travels: Vegetarian Food Inspired by Our Adventures by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl

Frenkiel and Vindahl journeyed around the world with their daughter Elsa in search of delicious, nutritious vegetarian and vegan food. From hunting for vegetarian restaurants in Beijing to bean sprout pad thai for lunch in Thailand, this book is a compilation of their experiences with easy-to-find ingredients and simple recipes.



In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker's Odyssey by Samuel Fromartz

From Berlin to Kansas, Fromartz searches for the perfect loaf and shares his love for bread. He chronicles his experience in France working at a boulangerie, where he created a deeper understanding of bread from seed to table. During his travels he met with historians, farmers, sourdough biochemists, millers and more. This book is a result of his journey and takes a deep look into the story of handmade bread.



The Big Pivot: Radically Practical Strategies for a Hotter, Scarcer and More Open World by Andrew Winston

According to Winston, the way companies currently operate will not allow them to keep up with the current and future challenges of climate change, scarcity and transparency. He suggests companies need to make "the big pivot." Winston provides ten strategies for leaders and companies to be sustainable and successful for the future using stories from Unilever, Nike, Walmart and other major companies.



The Carnivore's Manifesto: Eating Well, Eating Responsibly and Eating Meat by Patrick Martins with Mike Edison

It can be difficult for meat-eaters to find ethically produced meat. Factory farms and fast food restaurants offer quick meals, but at what cost? Patrick Martins, founder of Slow Food USA and Heritage Foods USA, has much to say about sifting through all the packaging nonsense and determining whether or not meat is sustainably produced. With this knowledge, Martins encourages readers to engage in more sustainable consumption.



The Handbook of Food Research by Anne Murcott, Warren Belasco and Peter Jackson

This book is a collection of essays from sociologists, researchers and academics discussing food psychology, politics, history, geography and economics. It contains some of the most recent and groundbreaking research in food science. Experts investigate topics such as the way globalization affects the food supply, understanding famine, the social meaning of meals and more.



The Market Gardener by Jean-Martin Fortier

Les Jardins de la Grelinette is a 1.5-acre farm in Quebec, Canada run by Jean-Martin and Maude-Helène Fortier. Through their low-tech, high-yield cultivation practices they provide produce to more than 200 families. This book focuses on their methods of growing better rather than growing bigger.



The Political Economy of Arab Food Sovereignty by Jane Harrigan

Harrigan researches the global food price spikes from 2007 to 2011 as a trigger to the Arab Spring Revolution in 2011. This book provides a political and economic analysis of the history of food security in the Arab world, including the geopolitics of food. Harrigan examines food sovereignty in the Arab world and how it has driven domestic food production as well as land acquisition overseas.



The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson

This book focuses on soil, an often overlooked resource. According to Ohlson, 80 percent of the carbon in the world's soil has been lost. This book argues that soil is "our great green hope" and that by reestablishing carbon-fixing microbes in the soil, the Earth has a chance at reversing some of the effects of global warming.



To Eat with Grace, a selection of essays and poems from Orion Magazine

Orion Magazine has selected past articles and poetry that best exemplifiy what eating with grace truly means--staying connected with fellow humans. Personal relationships and connections can sustain eaters just as much as the food one eats. To Eat with Grace shows how there are many different ways food can nourish the body.



Waste Matters edited by David Evans, Hugh Campbell and Anne Murcott

An alarming 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted globally each year. The authors of this book look at waste through sociological, economic and cultural lenses in order to give the reader a full understanding of the current waste problem. The book explores issues such as social practices, the way food and waste are circulated in society and dumpster diving. It highlights various initiatives and programs that aim to decrease the presence of food waste globally.



What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Dr. Danny Chamovitz

People do not often consider plants as having "awareness" of the environment around them, but Dr. Danny Chamovitz, a biologist, would disagree wholeheartedly. By analyzing plant biology and diversity, Dr. Chamovitz is able to ascertain parallels between humans and plant species. He concludes humans may be more similar than the reader would think.



Why We Eat, How We Eat: Contemporary Encounters Between Foods and Bodies edited by Emma-Jayne Abbots and Anna Lavis

This book explores the intersection between food and body. Why We Eat, How We Eat recognizes eating as a tool for building relationships, silencing hunger and more. This multi-disciplinary approach to how people eat may illuminate new ideas and perspectives that readers have ignored in the past.



Previous Book Lists:

Food Tank Summer 2014 Reading List



Food Tank Spring 2014 Reading List



Food Tank Fall 2013 Reading List



15 Books for Future Foodies

When Your Intuition Is Right

Things started to go wrong in the summer of 2011. We had just built a beautiful house by the beach in our coastal town of Westport, Connecticut. I was at culinary school, taking the train in to the city every day, and continuing to write novels that were selling all over the world.



I had been diagnosed with ADHD a few months prior, and the medications were life-changing. I felt calm, focused, and when they wore off at lunchtime, the doctor prescribed more. Then more.



I got skinny, and stopped sleeping. I would stay up all night and was was edgy, and angry. I had tons of nervous energy, and didn't stop talking. Months of this, and our marriage was suffering, my poor husband bewildered by his speedy wife.



We went to see a therapist, who was also what they call in America a psycho-pharmacologist. Which means he is licensed to diagnose and dispense medication.



A few weeks went by. He announced, one day, I had Bi-Polar Disorder. Not Bi-Polar I, he said, but Bi-Polar II, which was less serious, but required medication to prevent the mania. In his opinion, I was a classic case.



'Do you not think this has anything to do with the fact that I am taking vast amounts of amphetamines?' I frowned in disbelief, jiggling my leg.



He shook his head. 'I am a professor at Yale,' he said, smiling, patronizing. 'And I've been doing this a very long time.'



He took me off the amphetamines and straight on to Depakote, an anti-psychotic. I gained two stone in a matter of weeks, and couldn't get out of bed. He added Nu-vigil to try and keep me awake, Phentermine to try and curb my now-insatiable appetite.



I would sit in his office on the brink of tears. I had no energy, cared about nothing, and was growing to pregnancy size, but without a baby. I kept saying I really didn't think I had Bi-Polar, that prior to the ADHD meds I had never had a problem with sleep, or mania, but he didn't listen. I didn't have the strength to fight.



After six months he switched me to Lithium, with Topamax and Perphenazine for weight loss, and Pro-vigil to try and keep me awake. I was rarely out of bed. I didn't have the strength or the inclination to do anything other than bury myself under the covers and wait for life to pass me by.



He told me I would be diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but in his opinion it was psychosomatic. I was too fatigued to much care about the name, or indeed anything else.



It took a year and a half for me to wake up. One morning I looked at my puffy, bloated face in the bathroom mirror, saw the deadness in my eyes, and realized this was no life; I couldn't carry on like this anymore.



My new doctor took me off everything. I did a two week cleanse. And still I couldn't get out of bed. There were days when I could only manage two steps, sinking onto the stairs in exhausted tears.



This doctor found a host of auto-immune diseases: Hashimoto's Disease, Raynaud's Syndrome, and odd things like neuropathy, where the nerve endings in my hands and feet had died. It was this that alerted him to the fact that it might be something else; that the body doesn't break down in the way mine clearly was without something bigger going on.



I was tested for Lyme Disease. Positive. As was the test for Anaplasmosis, another tick-borne disease. Living on the East Coast, my neurologist explained, it was nigh-impossible to avoid being bitten by a tick and thereby infected with Lyme. However not everyone is going to get sick. He believes that stress: pharmaceutical and/or emotional stress -- kicks off an auto-immune response in our body once we have been bitten by a tick.



A year of antibiotics, cutting out all sugar, carbohydrates and alcohol, and I am in remission. I have lost the weight, and remember what normal feels like. I don't have the energy I used to, and tire easily. Most days see me napping during the afternoon.



The wonderful thing about being a writer is that everything that happens is grist to the mill. It turns out that 95 percent of medication for things like ADHD and Bi-Polar Disorder, are given in America, yet America only makes up 5 percent of the world's population. Nowhere else in the world are people being diagnosed with mental illnesses at a rate like this, then given the kinds of medications that are enormously beneficial when you are truly ill, and devastating when you are not.



I created Grace Chapman, in Saving Grace, and I gave her my story. Not all of it, and not the Lyme Disease, but what it feels like to have your life taken away from you, to feel that you are slowly going mad. What it is like when no-one listens to you, because a doctor thinks he is God, and you no longer have the strength to fight.



I wrote about it because we have to be our own advocates, we have to find that strength, and we have to trust our instincts when we know the diagnosis is wrong.



Saving Grace is published by Macmillan, priced £14.99.

Strong Land

"Writing a great thriller is like assembling a puzzle," explained author Jon Land recently when he called me from his home in Rhode Island. "When the reader first starts a book they should understand something about the pieces but not where they all fit."



"You have to remember you're a storyteller," added Land, whose books I not only find entertaining but highly informative as well. Land is fond of letting his heroine Caitlin Strong fire her sidearm more frequently than Dirty Harry, and in his latest effort, Strong Darkness, when his female Texas Ranger is confronted by an angry mob he puts her behind the wheel of a bulldozer. Land uses the book's quieter moments to enlighten his readers with relevant, interesting and frightening facts -- like part of the internet known as the deep web.



Land learned of the deep web from a Time Magazine cover story and he explains it as "a secret internet." It's a part of the internet that exists only for people who know how to navigate it and when they do so it's for nefarious means, and in the case of Strong Darkness, internet pornography. Land uses the deep web as a puzzle piece to connect his readers to the rest of the story as well as a plot device that ultimately helps destroy the villain.



"The mark of a great thriller is a book that makes you believe something doesn't exist when it really does," said Land, after I mentioned the deep web. "It happens when something seems so convenient plot-wise that you can't believe it's real." Land came up with the plot line for Strong Darkness after watching an episode of 60 Minutes that focused on Shinzen, a company in China that built the 4G cell phone network. Land created the fictitious Yuyuan Corporation, a new 5G network and he was off and running.



"All the things in this book that go bump in the night are real," said Land. "With a thriller I try to scare people by making them think, and that's what I do in Strong Darkness with the deep web. When I encounter something for the first time I try to write about it in that manner. I also added a subplot from the year 1883 while the railroad was being built with real historical figure Judge Roy Bean and had him hunt for a serial killer." Land parallels Bean's quest with a hunt for a similar present day serial killer and the back and forth keep the pages turning at a brisk pace.



Many great thriller writers use recurring plot devices and locations and so does Land, but his additional combination of history and new technology makes for a unique reading experience in this genre. Simply put, Jon Land is a great storyteller. "I don't want to give the reader too much information and overwhelm and numb them, said Land. "They stop caring about the book when you throw more and more at them so I try to strike a balance by not adding another two or three hundred pages with minutia that destroys any dramatic allusions."



When you read a novel by Jon Land, you're going to learn things and come to grips with facts about the world that you weren't aware of before you opened the book.



Land has a passion for storytelling as a reader and a writer and it shows. Strong Darkness brings two worlds -- old and new -- together brilliantly.

Lena Dunham Says She'll Pay Acts On Book Tour

This is what happens when you call out Lena Dunham. The "Girls" star, who is kicking off a huge book tour in support of "Not That Kind of Girl," was criticized on Monday after it was reported she was not paying artists who are performing during her tour events. In response, Dunham confirmed via Twitter that she is now compensating all the performers and also took a shot at Gawker for posting an article that revealed how much she was making on the tour.



After writing "some good points were raised" and she would ensure "all opening acts would be compensated for their time," Dunham posted this:

The fact that Gawker pointed this out really proves Judd Apatow's saying that "a good note can come from anywhere."

— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) September 29, 2014

Before announcing that performers would be paid, Dunham had gathered a variety of opening acts through an open call on her website. The New York Times reported the acts were originally performing for free.



In the end, Dunham seemed pretty sympathetic to the whole situation:

As an artist raised by artists, no one believes more than I do that creators should be fairly compensated for their work.

— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) September 29, 2014

Season 4 of "Girls" premieres in 2015 on HBO. Dunham's book is out now.

The 'World Enough and Time' of The Wire

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary the first known use of the word serial was in 1840, as would seem appropriate to an industrial era beginning to mass produce parts to assemble into new kinds of wholes. The first definition reads: "relating to, consisting of, or arranged in a series, rank or row," and the second, "appearing in successive parts or numbers" as in a "serial story." Two later definitions suggest in their examples how seriality has been valued: a series of similar acts over a period of time, as in a serial killer, or a serial murder.



To a culture that values originality as the quintessence of autonomous artistic expression, seriality has been devalued. Linked to rote, compulsive (or even criminal) repetitions, stories told in parts have been associated with comic strips, soap operas and other low generic forms of mass culture. The very fact that such works were produced and consumed in "parts" proved how little they could stand up to the traditional classical values of an original whole.



And yet, many artists and consumers have recognized that serial "parts" have a power and expressivity beyond the limits of mass-produced, genre-driven storytelling, even if many of these works rely on familiar genres as frameworks. As we are beginning to learn through the example of the "quality" television serial, serial storytelling may now form an essential component of contemporary American life. But quality, in this sense, does not mean the transcendence of mass culture or of television itself (as in HBO's slogan, "It's Not TV. It's HBO"). Rather, it exploits the two qualities that television has always had in abundance: world (the very term tele-vision means far-seeing -- access to far flung worlds); and time (unlike movies and discrete television episodes, these serials can go on for 60, 90 or more hours spanning years of narrative time).



World and time: Television has always had the possibility of both, but has never before put them together so well. The news can flit from one crisis location to another. The soap opera can leisurely linger in just one convoluted fictional world (usually a small town). But putting multiple worlds and abundant time together is the key innovation of contemporary serial television. In his lovely poem, "To His Coy Mistress," Andrew Marvel imagines an ideal access to both world and time to woo his lady: "Had we but world enough, and time,/This coyness, lady, were no crime." Coyness, however, is a crime when lover and mistress have neither. In contemporary cable television, in contrast to Marvel's highly compressed poem, there can be "world enough and time" -- for love, for sex, for birth, for death, for maturation and for all the slow changes of identity through duration in time. In their rich diversity of storyworlds and abundance of narrative time, our contemporary television serials can do what the poet could only dream of.



Soap operas had too much time but not enough world. They squandered time -- on soap commercials, on household rhythms, on narratives that meandered but rarely added up. In contrast, the alpha male mid-life crises that figure in serials as diverse as Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015), The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007), Six Feet Under (HBO, 2001-2005), Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi Channel, 2004-2009), Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013), The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008) and House of Cards (Netflix, 2013-) work hard -- sometimes too hard! -- to disavow their connection to the feminine and never-ending soaps. With a better balance of "world enough and time" these stories offer a new kind of viewing experience that is much faster than the old pace of soaps. And perhaps now, with the popularity of Orange Is the New Black we may finally be seeing an important shift to a female-centered world and even a female way of "doing time."



Serial television, especially the less interrupted versions on cable, is replacing film in popularity because of its capacity for greater world and time. The more inherently serial medium of television, based as it is on both segmentation and flow, once seemed inferior. Film, we thought, was the medium of auteurs; now it is serial television that attracts the best writers and directors. Unlike movies they have world and time for greater complexity. Unlike soaps these stories will end.



This is not to say that all serial television is by definition great. There are many tedious serials that reach their convoluted ends and leave us saying so what? Heroes and Lost, to choose two network examples, wore thin after their initial novelty. And even the shorter cable serials can fail to fully exploit their world and time. Big Love, a much-acclaimed HBO series was an intriguing exploration of religious cults and Mormon polygamy that lost focus, but then gathered itself together for a decent final season. Homeland, a spy melodrama still unfolding, was intriguing to begin with but may have set back Arab-American relations as much as the execrable 24.



The one serial that has fully realized its potential of "world and time" is David Simon's The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008). This serial did not just end, it completed itself. It is the model of excellence for a new kind of uniquely American story that goes to the jugular about what's wrong with our cities, our economy and our very culture even while, like any good melodrama, it roots for justice. I am not alone in admiring this serial. Many television critics and journalists, not to mention the president of the United States, have cited The Wire as the best television series ever. Literary critic Walter Benn Michaels, in a lament about the failure of the American novel to tell stories that matter about the problems that beset the nation, has called it the most "serious and ambitious fictional narrative of the twenty-first century."



In my book, On The Wire, I argue that before making such exalted literary comparisons we should understand that if The Wire is exceptional, its exceptionality does not transcend mass culture, nor does it transcend television or even what is its most fundamental nature: melodramatic serial storytelling.



The Wire is serial, it is television cop show, and it is melodrama, by which I do not mean that it has simplistic "black and white" victims and villains like our old fashioned clichés of that form but, rather, that it is made up of an amalgam of popular genres, all of which belong to the pervasive larger mode of melodrama in its most modern form. The work of melodrama, in contrast to the work of, say, classical tragedy, has fundamentally been that of seeking a better justice. Where tragedy typically operates to reconcile tragic victims with fate, melodrama, no matter how sad the tale, differs from tragedy's acceptance of fate in its belief that good ought to prevail, even if and when it does not. Tragedy is about the knowledge that the gods are against us and that there is no altering grim fate. Melodrama seeks to recognize the good, it wants good to prevail, even when its endings, like so many of the endings in The Wire, are sad. In the especially ambitious case of The Wire, which seeks to recognize not only individual personal good but social and institutional good as well, melodrama becomes the dramatic convention by which social problems and controversies are addressed.



Unlike so many of the other serial melodramas which tell personal stories on a wider canvass of world and time, The Wire remains the best of the best because its world of police connects so directly to the world of drug dealers and these two worlds then connect with unions, city government, schools and media. In doing this, The Wire recalibrates the very meaning of the traditional melodramatic recognition of virtue to an institutional and a personal level.



In The Wire the social canvass is so broad and deep and takes place over so much time, that we come to understand why drugs continue to plague us, why police cannot stop them, why unions no longer offer the hope of better life, why reform fails, why schools fail, and why media can't really tell us about these related stories of people and institutions. And yet at the same time, we also understand the hope that each separate institution has to solve the problems it faces. This hope, in the face of such a deep exploration of failure, is what makes The Wire the best example of serial, television melodrama.



Linda Williams's book, 'On The Wire,' has been published by Duke University Press

The Politics of Women's Writing About Food

Cooking and dining with others train us in modes of feeling and behavior that are the foundation for democracy itself.



While writing my food memoir, Tasting Home, I avoided reading anything analytical about women and food. (I had been a professor for most of my life and didn't want to write like one in a personal memoir.) Only after I finished my book, did I begin to read critical work on women's culinary reflections and to see recurring political projects in their writing, projects in which, it turns out, I had also engaged. These projects included the construction or reconstruction of individual identities, of community identities, and of a larger civic identity as well.



1. Women's Food Writing and Individual Identities



In Aesthetic Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Women's Food Writing, Alice L. McLean explores the ways in which M.F.K. Fisher, one of the most famous food writers of the 1940s and 1950s, drew upon both masculine and feminine traditions of writing about food. A female tradition, dating from the nineteenth century, had focused on domestic cooking and on writing cookbooks for the home kitchen. A masculine tradition had produced cookbooks for professionals or had described in elegant detail the artfulness and pleasures of dining in public or social spaces. In works like The Gastronomical Me, McClean suggests, Fisher moves between the worlds of home cooking (recalling strawberry jam-making with her grandmother, for example) and the male-dominated public world of dining out in Paris and other exotic settings. In combining traditions, Fisher creates a new kind of food writing and a new version of herself as a modern woman.



Like many women, Fisher seeks emotional connections and finds them in dining with others: "When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and the warmth and richness and fine reality of having it satisfied." At other times, food pleasure is bound up with erotic discovery. As a young woman, Fisher attends a Christmas party at Miss Huntington's school for girls. She consumes her first oyster, a sensuous dish, and then stumbles upon a moment of eroticized tenderness in the pantry as the head house-keeper, "one arm laid gently" over the shoulders of the school nurse, places oysters on a platter while the latter eats them.



Fisher also enjoys the adventures which cooking and dining provide, whether they come from her own home cooking--a lip-blistering dish of Hindu eggs to which she added too much curry- or from the most "exciting" meal she ever ate at the Café de Paris, a "rich, winey spiced cuisine" that induces her to feel that "we had seen the far shores of another world." In writing about food, Fisher identifies herself as a woman who seeks emotional connections, as many women are wont to do, but she also represents herself as a woman who asserts her appetite for adventure, physical pleasure, and erotic sensation. In so doing, she breaks from long-standing norms which assigned middle-class women to the home and downplayed their capacity for bodily pleasures.



2. Women's Food Writing and Communal Identities



Arlene Voski Avakian's Through the Kitchen Window is a multicultural anthology of female culinary writing that focuses largely on women's cooking in the home. Although, the essays and poems in the book construct particular kinds of individual identities, they often imagine and celebrate specific forms of community as well. In her 1976 poem "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" Marge Piercy invites us to see home cooking as something imposed upon, and oppressive to, women. The "smell" referred to by the poem comes from women, as an imagined feminist community, burning family dinners in protest: "All over America women are burning food they're supposed to bring with calico smile on platters glittering like wax."



Many pieces in this anthology, however, emphasize the way in which home cooking, while historically-imposed, can also function as a form of artistry, a source of pleasure and authority, and a way of preserving a specific community. Gloria Wade-Gayle, in "Laying on Hands' Through Cooking: Black Women's Majesty and Mystery in Their Own Kitchens," writes about herself and her female forebears, from the times of slavery on, as women who resist their own and their people's social marginalization by exercising authority and influence in their cooking. They are seen as women who perpetuate their community's racial and cultural identity by cooking traditional foods, and their community, in turn, is imagined as being strengthened and healed through eating it: "It is like the 'laying on of hands' we talk about and testify to and about in the black community; the healing hands touch us through the food they prepare."



3. Women's Food Writing and Civil Society



Janet L. Flammang's The Taste for Civilization also looks at cooking in the home but gives it broader social and political influence. Although Flammang recognizes that more men cook at home than ever before--a trend she would like to encourage-- she rightly points out that home cooking is still largely the province of women in this country and around the world. While restaurant cooking, a field dominated by men, is lauded as art, as heroic performance, and as worthy of historical attention, domestic cooking, traditionally associated with women, has largely been invisible, regarded as insignificant, or dismissed as what "real" history is not about. Yet, cooking the family meal, Flammang argues, has enormous historical importance in that it lays a groundwork for civil society itself.



Home cooking, for example, has characteristically brought people together, involved them in daily expressions of generosity and care, and maintained a continuing expectation that dinner conversations will be civil, that individuals will not just put their own needs above those of the group. Cooking for, and eating with others, produces a sense of common cause and creates reservoirs of good will which groups can draw on later in times of stress. Cooking and dining with others train us in modes of feeling and behavior that are the foundation for democracy itself.



Women writing about food have many projects, but when they call attention to the political potential of cooking and dining in these ways, they define themselves as part of a struggle for social change. Such writing invites readers to the table and to a civil conversation. How do we create a more fully human and equitable world though just, thoughtful, and pleasurable practices in growing, preparing and consuming what we eat?

Ben Affleck Talks About Going Full Frontal In 'Gone Girl'

Fans awaiting the release of "Gone Girl" may be surprised by one particular inclusion in the film: a full-frontal shot of Ben Affleck.



"Is this the debut of Ben Affleck's penis on-screen?" MTV's Josh Horowitz asked the star during a recent interview.



"I try to get it in every movie," Affleck joked before talking about the importance director David Fincher placed on letting it all hang out, literally. "There may be some very brief nudity," he said. Watch the interaction below.



“Gone Girl” opens in theaters on Oct. 3.

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Your Author Platform Is Not Your Social Media Following

I've spent the past five or six years not only educating authors about how to build an author platform, but about how to position themselves in such a way that the platform they already have truly shines.



So this week, when I received multiple emails and links asking what I thought about an article on Creative Nonfiction called "Platforms Are 'Overrated,'" my response was that I was bummed out about it because the author, in equating platform to social media, is so incredibly limited in her scope and understanding of what a platform actually is, and she's promoting a defeatist attitude around the importance of building one.



Back in May I wrote a post called "Author Platform: Here's What All the Fuss Is About," in which I broke down the components of a platform like this:



social media: 10 percent

previous media: percent

previous books: percent

personality: percent

existing readership: percent

contacts: 10 percent

expertise: 25 percent

ability to execute: 15 percent



As you can see, I allotted only 10 percent to social media. The author of the Creative Nonfiction article is not alone in her misunderstanding about what makes a platform. But book industry professionals are not clueless. They don't believe that a book can be made or broken on social media alone. I'm sure there are a few exceptions, like the book Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern, which exists because the author had an extraordinary Twitter following. But this is not the norm, and it's a total impulse-buy book. Novels and memoirs and serious nonfiction will never get book deals based on an author's brilliant Twitter feed, I assure you.



I'm not sure where the idea got seeded that author platform equals social media, but it's time to dislodge that from your head if you believe it to be true. Social media alone is pretty ineffective at moving people to action. What moves people to action is content, and touching them again and again with really good content -- and not ONLY on your social media feeds.



I gave expertise such a high percentage of the pie because your expertise dictates your content. Personality is in there because your personality shines through in your writing. Your blog is part of your expertise, but also part of your existing readership. If it's popular great, but blogs also DO NOT make or break book deals. They're kind of like icing on the cake, or if you have a hugely impressive blog then that can carry a lot of weight. What's infinitely more valuable than how many followers you have on social media is how many people are in your database, and believe me, publishers know this, and they want that data. After all, those are your true followers, people who have actually given you their email addresses to hear from you. A big vote of confidence.



In my May article on platform, I wrote about how certain parts of your platform can tip the balance for you, and this is true. I wrote about two authors I've worked with who got huge advances, who had zero social media presence when they got their book deals. They got their deals solely based on other parts of the platform equation. I still come into contact with authors all the time who are getting book deals regardless of what I would call their very modest platforms.



One thing the author of the Creative Nonfiction piece and I agree on is that you continuing to write is paramount. I've written extensively about the fact that publishing a book is part of building a platform. Many authors today are in need of finding alternative publishing options (self, hybrid, etc.) because the barriers to entry to traditional publishing are so high. For authors struggling to break through, a first book is a calling card, and if it does well it will open doors to those of you who dream to publish traditionally in the future.





My two cents here is this. If you want to traditionally publish, platform is not at all "overrated" because it matters to the publishing industry -- to marketing and sales folks especially. To say it's bullshit is to take an entitled attitude. (Read this article by Steve Almond if you want a better understanding of what I mean by this.) And it's not about how many followers you have. Platform is about how many people you can reach and how authentic your connection with those people is. There are innumerable vehicles for reaching people (teaching, speaking, performing, interviews, multimedia, articles, guest posts -- and yes, social media and blogging too).



But how you get your message to people will vary, and the publishing industry is very savvy to this point. What you need to focus on is engaging your readership and audience in conversation. When you have a message people care about, and you present it consistently and well, people get hooked. They listen and they come back for more. This, my friends, is the simplest definition of "platform" there is. Be the voice your readers care to listen to and you will succeed.

Peek Inside the Lives of Travel Writers With the New Novel, The Junketeers

In the gripping and hilarious novel The Junketeers, Marin Flynn has toiled for years as a food magazine editor living in New York City. For Marin, art lies in food. For example, she obsesses over salt. "If I could take only one thing to a desert island it would be salt. It improves the taste of every single thing," she explains. "I had half a dozen kinds of salt at home, using pinches of lavender salt or pink Himalayan or Maldon flakes, depending on my mood. I was such a proponent of big-grain salt that I'd thrown out my salt shaker, preferring to grind it."



Marin's real dream is to to be liberated from her cubicle, travel to far flung places and taste gastronomic wonders along the way. As she says, "I wanted to try duck tongues in China instead of Flushing, bulgogi in Korea instead of Koreatown, green-lipped mussels in New Zealand."



When Marin finds herself suddenly unemployed, she finally gets her wish. A series of freelance writing assignments have her zigzagging the globe: writing about vodka and perogies in Poland, covering an exotic sacred island in Pama Pama, Fiji, reporting on Scotch and castles in Scotland and penning a wine story in Argentina.



It's a fantasy-fueled life for Marin, but also filled with a fair share of hijinks. Marin is not alone on these dreamy trips. She travels with fellow journalists who are also on assignment. And the crew is motley one -- a mishmash of snobs, complainers, wackos, and know-it-alls.



And then there's the Countess.



Enter the ever stylish, chic and salty-tongued Countess Jacqueline de Beaumont who covers sex and wine for glossy magazines. Her edict? "Moderation? It's really overrated. My life has been about pursuing passion. If you practice moderation, how can you ever follow your heart?"



Earning her fancy title though a short, short tumultuous marriage, she's as bold as her perfectly lacquered blood red nails. Armed with a degree from Barnard and a knack for tying a pareo 35 different ways, Countess Jacqueline de Beaumont is always game for a good time -- especially when it comes to the local guys she encounters along the way.



A fearless veteran of some 70 trips for story assignments, the Countess takes newbie Marin under her wing. As the Countess declares, "I always follow my fantasy, creating my life like a novel." And hers is a page turner.



As the Junketeers unfolds, the two women traverse the globe with a series of hilarious, colorful--and sometimes insufferable-- wacky bunch of characters. Part Sex and the City, part armchair traveling, this work of fiction was co-authored by talented writers and story-tellers Julie Besonen and Sheri de Borchgrave.



Besonen talked to me about co-writing the Junketeers.



Q: Marin and Countess Jackie offer some biting and funny wisdom in the novel. What are some of your favorite quotes?



JULIE BESONEN: From Countess Jackie:

"Whining about your marital problems is the type of thing only your mother has the energy to listen to."

"Bright colors help keep people awake when they have jet lag."

"You can tell a lot about a man if he likes his mother. If he doesn't, he's not worth pursuing."

"To look younger than you are, buddy up with older people. You look younger by comparison."

From Marin:

"No man wants to hear the 'M' word at the beginning of a relationship, no matter the reference."

"Displaying framed photos of yourself with celebrities is equivalent to name-dropping."

"Garlic juice on my fingertips is perfume to me."

"'I almost had to wait,'...my favorite Louis the fourteenth line."



Q: I know this is a work of fiction. Are these wacky characters based on real people?



JULIE BESONEN: The characters are largely composites. We've traveled with some really brilliant, funny, successful writers. We've traveled with some people who were frauds and with some people who were just, pills - demanding, obnoxious and having diva-like behavior. It runs the gamut. But there are always some people on each trip who I've really enjoyed getting to know.



Q: How did the cuddle party make its way into the book?



JULIE BESONEN: For a long time Sheri was a sex columnist for Cosmopolitan Magazine and also wrote racy stories for other publications. She was asked to cover a cuddle party in Manhattan. Apparently people get together and hug and cuddle and roll around on the floor. But as soon as she got into the living room where the cuddling was to take place, she noticed that there was a snake in an aquarium in the corner and she just ran out screaming and never did the story. She's terrified of snakes.



Q: Where did you find your inspiration for the hilarious section about the island in Fiji?



JULIE BESONEN: Sheri went to a deserted island in Fiji and just assumed that there would be other journalists joining her. But it turned out she was the only person on this island, and it was haunted and she had to stay in a hut by herself. She had a man servant, but every day he was always trying to shake her down for cigarette money. The island was owned by a Fijian princess who was harassing her about the kind of story she was going to write.



Q: What inspired you and Sheri to write the Junketeers?



JULIE BESONEN: Meeting Sheri (who is actually a real-life Baroness and was married to a Baron). We first connected on a trip to Poland. I gravitated towards her because I thought she was so funny and so interesting. We would stay up late after the rest of the group had gone to bed and sit in the hotel bar. She told me one hilarious story after another. I started to tell her some of the stories of different journalists I knew and crazy and bad behavior. Then we realized we had something. We told the stories that made us laugh. When we sat down to write the book we would turn on a tape recorder and tell each other stories. If it really cracked us up then we knew it was something we wanted to put in the book.



Q: Tell me more about Marin.



JULIE BESONEN: Marin is a woman who's turning 30 and remaking her life from scratch because she's just been laid off from her job. She's trying to make it as a freelance writer and wants to travel the world, have a life of adventure and experience everything through food. She gets sucked into the world of the Countess who's much more sophisticated than she is and leads her down many wrong roads with her bad advice.



Q: Do you still travel like this for stories?



JULIE BESONEN: No, not for several years. When my writing career took off I had to stay home and work. And then a few years later I signed a contract with The New York Times that forbids trips, and I've honored that contract. Sometimes I miss them because there's this intense camaraderie that happens when you're traveling with a group of people and you start to have all these inside jokes.



Q: In the book, you talk about cocktail writers versus wine writers.



JULIE BESONEN: The cocktail writers were full of laughter and easygoing. They weren't picky about what they drank. They were cheerful, smart and liked the history of drinking and were very fun-loving people to be around. Wine people were more academic and disdainful of someone like me not having as great a palate. Their interests are more esoteric. They like to know the percentage of the grapes which are estate grown, how high the fences are in the field, the age of the oak barrels. I've never enjoyed that kind of information. And I got in a lot of trouble for not spitting. I was pulled aside and told I wasn't being professional because I was swallowing the wine. And I said, 'that's how I taste the wine -- by swallowing.' They even tried to teach me the proper method of spitting. But I really didn't want to spit. I wasn't driving and I really enjoyed the finish of the wine. I like to just drink the wine with food and say, 'oh, this is delicious.'



To learn more about the Junketters visit, http://ift.tt/1wVs0UE.



Julie Besonen







Baroness Sheri de Borchgrave





(All photos used with permission.)

Jamaican poet Kei Miller wins £10,000 Forward Prize

Kei Miller wins the 2014 Forward Prize for poetry collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion

















via Books and Author Interviews http://ift.tt/1v1IjO8

Paul Ryan Says He Disagrees With Ayn Rand's Philosophy

On the most recent episode of "Last Week Tonight," John Oliver asked a simple question: How is Ayn Rand still a thing? And during a HuffPost Live interview on Tuesday, noted Rand devotee Paul Ryan saw part of Oliver's segment and distanced himself from the Atlas Shrugged author.



The "Last Week Tonight" piece -- which included a clip of Ryan saying that Rand "did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism" -- questioned why conservatives continue to idolize Rand. When host Marc Lamont Hill showed Ryan a clip from Oliver's Rand takedown, the congressman said the last time he read the author's work was "years and years ago."



"This is why I'm not an objectivist," Ryan said, reacting to Oliver's piece. "This is why I disagree with her philosophy. But I think her novels are great. I loved her novels when I was a kid. They triggered my interest in economics."



See Paul Ryan explain his feelings about Ayn Rand in the video above, and watch the full HuffPost Live conversation here.



Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

Kei Miller wins Forward poetry prize

Judges praise Millers distinctive voice as The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way To Zion takes £10,000 prize Continue reading...

'The Lost Key': A Talk With Catherine Coulter

Photo: Charles Bush



Catherine Coulter has written 73 novels in various genres and has topped the New York Times bestseller list 67 times. She's written historical romance novels, contemporary romance, and FBI suspense thrillers. Her new series, "A Brit in the FBI," features Nicholas Drummond, a British citizen who works with the FBI. The second installment in this series is The Lost Key, coauthored with J.T. Ellison.



In The Lost Key, during Nicholas Drummond's first hours as a newly-minted FBI agent, Nicholas and his partner, Michaela (Mike) Caine, are called to investigate a stabbing death on Wall Street. The victim, John Pearce, was much more than he at first seemed. He was known as the "Messenger" for a secret organization. Drummond and Caine must navigate a maze of deadly secrets, dating back to World War I, and as far back as discovering a 1903 Nobel Prize winner's potentially deadly secret. The fate of the world could be at stake.



There's a fascinating story about how you came to write your first novel. Will you share it with us?

My husband was in medical school and I was working as a speechwriter on Wall Street. I was reading about ten books a week because my husband was so busy, I'd see him at dinner and that would be it. One night, I was reading this awful book. I got so bored, I just threw it across the room and said to my husband, 'I could do better.' He picked up the book and said, 'Why not go for it?'



So, I began writing. It was a Regency romance novel. I picked that genre because I grew up reading Georgette Heyer, and just loved those books. My Masters degree was in the Napoleonic era of England and France. Novel-writing was new for me, and I figured by picking a setting and time period I knew very well, I would limit the unknowns. Instinctively, I knew to write what I would love to read. I hired a free-lance editor and we plotted the book.



The editor had connections to the three top publishing houses doing Regency romance novels. I submitted the manuscript, and after three days, an editor called me, took me to lunch and offered me a three book contract. I was extraordinarily lucky.



I must say, the years during which I've written were the golden age for publishers. But, the publishing world has changed. It's wonderful for writers because there are so many more options than there were in those days. There were no choices at that time. Everything was focused on paperbacks and hardcovers, and there was a big audience out there starving for books. Book tours were fun back then, but now, wearing three inch heels eight hours a day gets to be a bit much. (Laughter). Besides, that's all in the past. Now, social media is what's driving book sales.



After having written so many novels, what made you and J.T. Ellison decide to collaborate on the Nicholas Drummond series?

By February 2012, I realized I was getting bored. It was the same old, same old. I thought of my friend, Clive Cussler, so I called him and said I'd like to write a book with somebody. He told me exactly what he did to get a co-writer. I basically followed his model. My husband and I each read about twenty suspense-thrillers, trying to see which potential co-writer would work well with me. We took our time because I knew this person would become very important in my life. Of all the people we read, we both independently picked J.T. Ellison. I did not know who she was, and I'd never read her before. I had no idea how the collaboration would work out.



I called J.T. and went through the same process Clive did. It turned out so well because both J.T. and I are Type-As. We're both very disciplined, and she's got a wonderful personality. You know, you have to have a bus driver, and she knew I drove the bus. I had the idea for the first Nicholas Drummond book, The Final Cut. We were able to get on the same page about the characters and the novel's direction. In this series, I always write the scenes about Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, because these are two characters from my earlier books, and I know them very well. It was really interesting because I'm very heavy on dialogue, whereas J.T. calls herself 'an introspective navel-gazer.' So, J.T. had to make lots of writing style changes in the Nicolas Drummond books to copy my style of writing. But every sentence in both The Final Cut and The Lost Key has my toes, fingers and feet on it.



There seems to be plenty of attraction between Nicholas Drummond and his FBI partner, Michaela Caine. Do you have plans for them as a couple?

Probably down the road. You know, The Lost Key takes place over a mere two days. That makes it difficult for things to happen. But, we'll see.



The Lost Key is filled with compelling details about nanotechnology, biotechnology, computers, FBI procedures, and history. Tell us about your research.

The fact of the matter is that J.T. is a technological wunderkind. Did I luck out on this? It was a total shot-in-the-dark picking a co-author, and I ended up with this incredible woman. She loves to do research. She's the technophile and a wiz on the computer. What each of us brings to the table makes for more than the sum of its parts. I could never find anyone else as wonderful to work with as J.T.



You've written novels in many genres. How do you manage to shift from one to another?

Until a couple of years ago, I was writing one FBI thriller and one historical romance each year. I'll tell you, it really keeps you from getting writer's block because it unconstipates your brain. (Laughter). They're two such disparate genres, and now, doing two FBI thrillers each year is not as much fun. So, I'm writing my very first novella. It's a historical story and it's getting my synapses hopping around again.



After 73 novels, what has been your biggest surprise about writing?

I must preface this by saying, I've always written without an outline. I've flown by the proverbial seat of the pants. J.T. has always written that way, too. We sat down across from each other when we began working on The Final Cut, and we realized that when collaborating, we had to do things differently because when it came to devising a plot, we were wandering all over the place. We were forced to become more organized to get to a more cohesive narrative thread. So, we went chapter by chapter and plotted each one in the book. It turned out very well.



I always thought that if you outline a novel, you lose the spontaneity. But no, to my surprise, that didn't happen. By outlining, we could see for instance, that we needed another character here; or an action scene there. I was amazed to see that outlining a novel opened up a whole different part of my brain. Outlining was very different and it worked for both of us doing a Nicholas Drummond book. It was a huge surprise for me, but I'm not sure it would work when I'm writing without a co-author. The other big surprise for me about writing over all these years is that it doesn't get easier. Each book is so different from every other one. And each one presents a new challenge.



What do you love most about being a writer?

I love the fact that there's always a reason to put your feet on the floor in the morning. Because there's something you're going to do. I also love that you don't have a jerk-face of a boss, because if you're a jerk-face, you're your own boss, so who cares? And there's something else I recognized from the very beginning: no other person except a writer has this--you never know what's coming in the mail. It could be a new contract for an audio book, or a letter from a reader forwarded to you by the publisher. You have this strange relationship with the postman. (Laughter).



If you could have dinner with any five people, living or dead, from any walk of life, who would they be?

Georgette Heyer, a British author who died in 1972. She's the one who invented a sub-genre called the Regency romance. She was an absolutely brilliant writer. Then, I'd love to have Agatha Christie for dinner. I would love to have dinner with Charles II. And I'd want to meet the modern Plato--the same philosopher, but brought into contemporary times. And then, maybe Edward I. He's very much alive in my books--he's a character for me--and I'd just love to ask him questions about how he deals with my other characters. He lives on in my own private little realm of ideas.



What advice would you give to writers starting out today?

Read everything you can get your hands on. Memorize Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Buy two copies of it, one for under your pillow, and one to sit by your computer. And, plant your butt in your chair every day at the same time. If you're not disciplined, hang it up. If it's a hobby, you're not a real writer. You've got to have these basic attributes to be a success in anything.



What's coming next for Nicholas Drummond and Mike Caine?

J.T. and I are mulling over four or five titles for the next one. It's going involve a character who's very much like Carlos, the Jackal. There will be plenty of action with very high stakes.



Congratulations on penning The Lost Key, a thriller that takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride from Wall Street, to England, Scotland and Paris, and touches on the history of the early 20th century.



Mark Rubinstein

Author of Mad Dog House, Mad Dog Justice and Love Gone Mad

Chanels Karl Lagerfeld cheered and jeered for feminist fashion statement

Fashion press hails catwalk models mock demo but critics accuse designer of co-opting feminism to sell costly clothes

On Tuesday 30 September 2014 the unthinkable happened: feminism entered the realm of high fashion. In the finale to the most anticipated show of Paris fashion week, Chanel models strutted down the catwalk brandishing placards demanding womens rights, in a faux protest that was simultaneously hailed as a breakthrough for a new wave of feminism and decried as consumerist claptrap.

Under the soaring roof of the Grand Palais, along a catwalk fashioned to look like a chic Parisian boulevard, Karl Lagerfelds models swapped handbags for banners; pouts for protests against machoism. The worlds highest-paid models Gisele Bündchen and Cara Delevingne shouted through megaphones encased in lush leather padding, and heavily branded with the Chanel logo but when they used the traditional rally cry: What do we want?, the answer, according to those in the audience, was indistinct.

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The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles

It was still hot in Los Angeles, the Santa Ana winds were blowing in from the desert. I went up to the studio and opened the windows. The smell of the restaurant downstairs drifted up, the traffic moved slowly on the boulevard and I stood there watching the lights change for a long time.



What this town needs is a good map, one with every location from Raymond Chandler's books, one that shows everything from the Sternwood Mansion and Gieger's bookshop to Union Station and the spot where Romanoff's used to be, from Puma Point to the Lido Pier where no one is really positive about who killed Carmen's chauffeur.



I called up an old friend, Ben Olin, he works at a place that makes maps and guidebooks. His voice was relaxed and cool. "Herb Lester Associates."

"Hello Ben, what this town needs is a good map, one with every location from Raymond Chandler's books, one that shows everything from the Stern-"

He cut me off, "Yeah, sounds good. How much is this going to cost me?"

"I get $50 a day plus expenses."

"You don't put up much of a fight"

"There's not a lot of money in this business if you're honest."

"Are you honest?"

"No." I lied.

"What about a design that looks like one of those Dell Mapback books from the 1940s?" Ben was on the right track, as usual. He was talking about a series of cheap paperbacks that had a map on the back cover that showed the locations from the story. They had a nice quality to them and the style was a perfect fit for this new map.



"I'll send you something in a few days." I hung up.



I went home and started re-reading Chandler's novels, and making a list of every location in every book. Some were actual buildings that were still standing, others were long-gone, some spots were real places but had fake names; private-eye Philip Marlowe's office building on Hollywood and Cahuenga is still there, Florian's Nightclub was a fictional joint down on Central Avenue, Bay City stands in for Santa Monica. I watched every movie made from the novels and also made a list of important locations from Chandler's life.



I was going to need some help on this job. Someone was going to have to write the text for the back of the map, someone who knows these mean streets but who is not themselves mean, a writer who is not tarnished or afraid. A complete man and a common man, yet maybe someone who is not a man at all. A writer who writes with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.



"Kim Cooper." She answered her own telephone.

"What this town needs is a good map, one with every location from Raymond Chandler's books, one that shows everything from the Stern-"

She cut me off, "Yeah, sounds good. Is there any money in it?"

"I think my client can cover your expenses, maybe enough for a couple of gimlets." She laughed into the phone. "Send me your list of locations and I'll see what I can do."



Kim is a historian and novelist, she and her husband Richard Schave run a nice little racket called Esotouric taking people around the city on bus tours of historic and literary locations. She knows some things about Raymond Chandler that nobody else does. She knows that Mike Mazurki, the actor who played Moose Malloy used to run a restaurant in the Elks Building across from MacArthur Park. Jack Smith also knew that, but he's dead.



The map doesn't include everything, no map could. We probably missed one or two important spots, we left off some of the joints that are only memories; drive-ins with gaudy neon and the false fronts behind them, sleazy hamburger joints that could poison a toad. Los Angeles has changed a lot since Chandler's day when it was just a big dry sunny place with ugly houses and no style, when people slept on porches and lots offering at eleven hundred dollars had no takers.



But you can still make the drive down Wilshire all the way to the ocean, you can still poke around the alleys and side streets of Hollywood, and the eucalyptus trees still give off a tomcat smell in warm weather. You can't get a drink at Victor's any more but Musso's is still open. Park out back, only tourists and suckers go in the front door.




























The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles is available from Herb Lester Associates, Oct. 1

Kei Miller wins Forward poetry prize

Judges praise Millers distinctive voice as The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way To Zion takes £10,000 prize

The Jamaican poet Kei Miller has won the prestigious Forward prize for the best poetry collection of 2014 for his standout book based on dialogue between a mapmaker striving to impose order on an unfamiliar land and a Rasta-man who queries his project.

The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way To Zion took the £10,000 prize, with judges relishing Millers ability to defy expectations and set up oppositions only to undermine them.

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Irvine Welsh 'not impressed' with George Osborne 'ripping off' Trainspotting

Irvine Welsh, the Trainspotting author, is unimpressed with George Osborne's "choose jobs" speech

















via Books and Author Interviews http://ift.tt/ZoWbsF

Lionel Shrivers tale of Kenyan calamity wins BBC national short story award

Kilifi Creek, which tells of a gap-year travellers near-death experience, beats stories by Zadie Smith and Rose Tremain

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'The Penguin Book of Witches' (EXCERPT)

The word "witches" may cause modern minds to leap to Harry Potter and the fantastical world of Hogwarts, but witches and witchcraft have a real and troubled place in our history. A new anthology, The Penguin Book of Witches, edited by Katherine Howe, takes a close look at that history, compiling shocking excerpts from a number of influential anti-witchcraft screeds and guides from previous centuries. Below is an excerpt from the anthology, taken from William Perkins's 1608 text “A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft.” The passage includes Biblical justifications for the persecution of supposed witches, as well as analysis of what qualifies a person as a witch. In her introduction to the excerpt, Howe notes that Perkins's writings on witchcraft "can be credited with importing widespread Continental beliefs about witchcraft to England" and "were widely read among religious Puritans in the North American colonies" -- no small thing given the witch hunts that plagued Puritan communities in the ensuing years.



[TO THE READER]



Exodus 22.18. Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live.



This text containeth one of the judicial laws of Moses touching the punishment of witchcraft, which argument I have chosen to entreat of, for these causes:



First, because witchcraft is a rife and common sin in these our days, and very many are entangled with it, being either practitioners thereof in their own persons, or at the least, yielding to seek for help and counsel of such as practice it.



Again, there be sundry men who receive it for a truth that witchcraft is nothing else but a mere illusion, and witches nothing but persons deluded by the Devil. And this opinion takes place not only with the ignorant, but is holden and maintained by such as are learned, who do avouch it by word and writing that there be no witches but as I said before.



Upon these and such like considerations, I have been moved to undertake the interpretation of this judicial law, as a sufficient ground of the doctrine which shall be delivered. In handling whereof, two things are distinctly to be considered. The first, what is a witch. The second, what is her due and deserved punishment. And both these being opened and handled, the whole meaning of the law will the better appear.



For the first. To give the true description of a witch is a matter of great difficulty because there be many differences and diversities of opinions touching this point; and therefore that we may properly and truly define a witch, we must first pause a while in opening the nature of witchcraft, so far forth as it is delivered in the books of the Old and New Testament, and may be gathered out of the true experience of learned and godly men.



Touching witchcraft, therefore, I will consider three points:



What witchcraft is.



What is the ground of the whole practice thereof?



How many kinds and differences there be of it?





CHAPTER I





Of the Nature of Witchcraft.



To begin with the first. According to the true meaning of all the places of holy scripture which treat of this point, it may be thus described:



Witchcraft is a wicked art, serving for the working of wonders, by the assistance of the Devil, so far forth as God shall in justice permit.





SECTION I





I say it is an art, because it is commonly so called and esteemed among men, and there is reason why it should be thus termed. For as in all good and lawful arts, the whole practice thereof is performed by certain rules and precepts, and without them nothing can be done; so witchcraft hath certain superstitious grounds and principles whereupon it standeth, and by which alone the feats and practices thereof are commonly performed.



If it be demanded what these rules be and whence they had their beginning, considering that every art hath reference to some author by whom it was originally taught and delivered, I answer that they were devised first by Satan and by him revealed to wicked and ungodly persons of ancient times, as occasion served, who, receiving them from him, became afterward, in the just judgment of God, his instruments to report and convey them to others from hand to hand.



For manifestation whereof, it is to be considered that God is not only in general a sovereign Lord and king over all his creatures, whether in heaven or earth, none excepted, no, not the devils themselves; but that he exerciseth also a special kingdom, partly of grace in the church militant upon earth, and partly of glory over the saints and angels, members of the church triumphant in heaven. Now in like manner the Devil hath a kingdom called in scripture the kingdom of darkness, whereof himself is the head and governor, for which cause he is termed the prince of darkness, the God of this world, ruling and effectually working in the hearts of the children of disobedience.



Again, as God hath enacted laws whereby his kingdom is governed, so hath the Devil his ordinances whereby he keepeth his subjects in awe and obedience, which generally and for substance, are nothing else but transgressions of the very law of God. And amongst them all, the precepts of witchcraft are the very chief and most notorious. For by them especially he holds up his kingdom, and therefore more esteemeth the obedience of them than of other. Neither doth he deliver them indifferently to every man, but to his own subjects, the wicked; and not to them all, but to some special and tried ones, whom he most betrusteth with his secrets, as being the fittest to serve his turn, both in respect of their willingness to learn and practice, as also for their ability to become instruments of the mischief which he intendeth to others.



If it be here asked whence the Devil did fetch and conceive his rules, I answer, out of the corruption and depravation of what he is possibly able, against God and his honor. Hereupon, well perceiving that God hath expressly commanded to renounce and abhor all practices of witchcraft, he hath set abroach this art in the world, as a main pillar of his kingdom, which notwithstanding is flatly and directly opposed to one of the main principal laws of the kingdom of God, touching the service of himself in spirit and truth.



Again, the reason why he conveys these ungodly principles and practices from man to man is because he finds in experience that things are far more welcome and agreeable to the common nature of mankind which are taught by man like unto themselves than if the Devil should personally deliver the same to each man in special. Hereupon, he takes the course at first to instruct some few only, who being taught by him, are apt to convey that which they know to others. And hence in probabilities this devilish trade had his first original and continuance.





From “A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft” by William Perkins, 1608.



From THE PENGUIN BOOK OF WITCHES edited and with an introduction by Katherine Howe. Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Introduction and selection copyright © Katherine Howe, 2014.