Klaw on Voices

A nice bit of good press for me: Locus Online has just published Artistic Insights: A Review of Two Non-Fiction Titles by Rick Klaw, which reviews two non-fiction SFnal books, one of which is mine.

Each interview is preceded by a brief introduction from Blaschke. The interviews often have unique quirks and associated stories associated. In these pieces Blaschke, laments the inherent problems with email interviews, mentions his love of the comic book character Green Arrow, and chronicles Harlan Ellison's generosity. His forewords offer a glimpse into the role of an interviewer in relation to the subject and eventual publication.

Now Playing: The Smithereens 11

Am I missing something here?

Being a journalist myself, I've been following this story with all the fascination of watching an ongoing train wreck in slow motion: Time Inc. will hand over subpoenaed notes--Reporter threatened with jail over story on leak of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. For those of you who don't remember, this case revolves around a CIA agent's cover being blow in the media--supposedly by the Bush administration as retaliation against the agent's husband, who was and is a harsh critic of the Iraq war.

Time Inc. said Thursday it would comply with a court order to deliver the notes of a reporter threatened with jail in the investigation of the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s name.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is threatening to jail Matthew Cooper, Time’s White House correspondent, and Judith Miller of The New York Times for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources.

It is, of course, illegal to compromise an agent, the identity of who was a classified secret. It harm's America's interests, and puts that agent and agent's family in jeopardy. But I am utterly and totally flabberghasted and the vehemence investigators are going after these Time reporters--since they aren't the ones that broke the story or revealed the agent's identity!

Meanwhile, columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to identify CIA officer Valerie Plame in print, told CNN he “will reveal all” after the matter is resolved, adding that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.

Novak, who has not been held in contempt, has not commented on his involvement in the grand jury leak investigation.

So essentially, what we have here is conservative columnist Robert Novak, a staunch supporter of the Bush administration, who by all accounts aided and abetted this felony by publishing this classified information, illegally given to him by a "leak" is not being prosecuted or threatened with jail time, even though he is the first-hand source, the epicenter, if you will, of the whole scandal and illegality. Instead, the investigators are targetting reporters who merely followed up on the story, one of whom never even wrote or published an article:

Cooper wrote a story subsequently about Plame. Miller did some reporting but did not write a story....

Robert Bennett, representing Miller, told the judge in asking for more time that “it’s a big step to put two people in jail who have committed no crimes.”

So explain to me what I'm missing here, because right now it looks as if the administration is bending over backward to protect Novak, who has proven himself to be a loyal footsoldier...

Now Playing: Dire Straits Money for Nothing

This is just too cool

What an age of wonders we live in. Dust devils on Mars. Whoda thunk it? Screw downloading the new Star Wars movie or War of the Worlds, the MER Spirit dust devil movie page is what the internet was created for!

Now Playing: Emerson, Lake and Palmer Return of the Manticore

The lengths I go to...

I'm a neanderthal when it comes to computers and programming, and that includes blogs and HTML. As I couldn't figure out what was causing the glitch that caused the long scroll in posts, I abandoned my efforts to solve the problem. Instead, I found a new blog template. For two days I've been locked in mortal combat with it, and have managed to beat it into a reasonable facsimile of my blog. There may be bugs that crop up, but for now it looks to be a slight improvement over my previous template: to wit, the page doesn't spill over the right side of the screen anymore. Hip hoorah.

Now Playing: Emerson, Lake and Palmer Return of the Manticore

On writers and workshops

Sunday's writers workshop started out promisingly. Despite the extremely late night before, what with all the suite parties and good skiffy conversation, I managed to make it on time for the 9 a.m. start, in somewhat coherent fashion. I brought along copies of the Turkey City Lexicon and Vonda McIntyre's guide to manuscript preparation to hand out. It wasn't long before I felt I'd made a faux pas, as out of the half dozen folks assembled, two were Clarion grads and the rest seemed to have a bit more experience than I'd anticipated. Fortunately, only one already had copies of both, so the handouts were greeted with much interest.

The stories themselves were surprisingly competent overall. Nothing was publishable at this point, but a couple of them impressed me with distinctive voices right off the bat, and two others had the germs of good stories lurking beneath some superfluous verbage, and might emerge after some serious rewriting. There was one story, however, that was downright bad. Horribly over-written, every sentence had at least one "eyeball kick" which was bad enough, but then there was the "idiot plot" elements, the complete disregard of rational science and an utterly passive protagonist. Those weren't the worst of sins, however. The worst were the cliches--the maverick scientist that nobody listens to, and the evil child with superhuman powers that might as well have been named "Bill Mumy" from that old Twilight Zone episode It's a Good Life.

Now, the trick with writers workshops is to weigh the critiques before making any changes. What works for one reader may not work for another, and the author must judge which one understood more clearly what said author was attempting to accomplish with the story. Get 10 people reading the same story, and you can get 10 different opinions on what works and what doesn't--many of them diametrically opposed. I've seen this many times at Turkey City. What should raise red flags for the author is multiple readers of different tastes and opinions identifying the exact same problems in a story. This is what happened Sunday at Armadillocon. Six people all were tripped up by the cliches, bad logic, worse science and purple prose. How should an author respond to such comments?

Well, if you're this particular author, you start out by declaring everyone in the group morons. Then you insist that every "problem" with the story is there by author intent, and that cliches sell--that editors want cliche stories, because readers are familiar and comfortable with them. Jeff Goldblum's wacky scientist schtick is what made Jurassic Park and Independence Day mega-million-dollar blockbusters--precisely because that character is cliche. And, since that bit of unassailable wisdom wasn't enough to drive the point home, the writer goes into a spiel about how the workshop wasn't what they expected--they were looking for advice on how to get the story sold to major markets, not petty negativity. As proof, this professional author ("professional" being stressed repeatedly) who only sells stories for money, began challenging the group's credentials. "How many of you have even made a professional sale?" When several hands went up, the stakes were raised: "Were they professional markets? Have you made more than 40 sales? Well I have, so I think I know better than you what editors want." I declined to enter into this literary pissing match, because this boorish fool was beyond any help or reasoning. But I had my suspicions.

Later, during a Q&A with the convention's GoH, boorish "professional" writer let slip the URL of their website whilst bragging about an upcoming short fiction collection being published by a "small press." A check of said website effectively confirmed what I already knew: all the short fiction sales bragged about earlier were in fact to obscure, non-paying e-zines. I think I recognized one that offered a quarter cent a word. The forthcoming collection isn't from Publish America or iUniverse, which surprised me a bit. The publisher isn't that far removed from the bottom of the barrel, though, and if the writer sells more than a dozen copies to folks who aren't blood relatives, I'll be more than a little taken aback.

And, lest you think I'm withholding names to protect the guilty, let me assure you I'm not. It's true I don't generally engage in online mudslinging, but in this case I'm so annoyed at this boorish writer that I'm not about to give them one iota of free publicity. Simple morbid curiosity would drive a few people to said writer's site, and my penance would be unfathomable were I responsible for even one misguided soul wasting money on this hack's ballyhooed volume of drek. So there.

Now Playing: Electric Light Orchestra Afterglow

Books in the Barrio revisited

I missed this story while in Houston, but think it's still worthy of pointing out after the fact. Hard to believe that it was just a year ago that I wrote about the new Waldenbooks opening in south San Antonio, but a year it's been since the Books in the Barrio project bore fruit. And wow, what do you know--the people in south San Antonio are buying books now that they have a bookstore!

For more than six years, South Side residents fought to get a bookstore so they wouldn't have to travel to the North Side for reading material.

Last June, their hard work paid off when Waldenbooks moved into 3,000 square feet of space at South Park Mall. And during the store's first anniversary celebration Thursday, a Waldenbooks official said sales have exceeded projections by more than 21 percent.

"A year later, this has been a great success," said Lidia Castaneda, district manager of Borders Group, which owns Waldenbooks. "We can tell others this has been a profitable endeavor. It's a shame we don't have more (bookstores)."

Castaneda said the company hasn't given up on the South Side and could plan a freestanding Borders a year or so from now.

That just goes to show that if stores pay attention to their customer base rather than faulty "common knowledge" they can build up successful businesses. Who cares if the majority of people in south San Antonio are Hispanic, folks who supposedly don't like to read? A quarter of a million potential customers are still a quarter of a million potential customers. There's a tremendous literary heritage in Latin America, and that extends beyond Cervantes and Marquez. With talk of a full-blown Borders superstore floating around now, it appears that the Borders group has finally figured that out.

Now Playing: Various artists Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection

Blogger hijinks

I swear I didn't do anything to my template coding last week. Scout's honor. But, you may well be asking yourself, why is it that either the text of the blog entry, or the "Posted by..." tagline at the end is appearing waaaaaaay down the page, after the end of the links sidebar to the right? I do not know. The problem manifests itself differently in different browsers, but there is definitely a glitch at work somewhere. I've got a call in to Blogger tech support. We shall see what comes of it.

Now Playing: Tears for Fears Tears Roll Down