[contextly_auto_sidebar id="sx5hfk7MoWchhQaW7wXbDMvKVh3UKnXl"] HERE at CultureCrash, we're longtime fans of the Los Angeles literary magazine Slake, which put out four smart, handsome, forceful issues full of art, fiction, memoir and poetry. Editors Joe Donnelly and Lauria Ochoa -- both formerly of the LA Weekly -- did something not easy to pull off in sprawling LA: They galvanized a community … [Read more...]
How Do Writers Make Their Living?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="7bGpqAdbG8eEXFCQfCXKxBmqMplgXX5l"] AFTER a long period in which authors and other scribes shied away from going public with their finances -- perhaps not wanting to seem like they were "in it for the money" -- the economics of the literary life have become more transparent lately. This is partly, I suspect, because of the greater concern for economics that arrived … [Read more...]
The False Promise of Digital Publishing
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="qUIajYbX9hto2gQVHqpXSXAzUoXDE0A8"] WHAT does it mean to be a digital bestseller? We continue to hear that removing the middleman and getting rid of the expenses of print will be good for readers and writers. The experience of Tony Horwitz, a first-rate writer of narrative nonfiction like Confederates in the Attic, shows it doesn't always work out that way. He calls … [Read more...]
The Amazon Fight: David Carr and Malcolm Gladwell Weigh In
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YGdDfwFUtQGZuwNoz6622v9UXTfsCNmw"] THIS fight between Amazon and the Hachette publishers doesn't seem to be going away. And it may be damaging the online booksellers' "brand," says David Carr in the New York Times. As the uproar grows, Amazon is learning that while it may own the publishing industry with a 40 percent market share of all new books sold, according … [Read more...]
Amazon vs. Hachette Fatal to Non-Superstar Authors
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="8GbWVEDH47AifqGz31d8Z6pNMkmzPLRY"] SO far most of the coverage of the battle between Amazon and the Hachette publishers has looked at the impact on bestselling authors like James Patterson and J.K. Rowling, whose work becomes harder to get or impossible to pre-order during the current feud. But a new story argues that the writers really hurt by this are lesser known … [Read more...]
The Savage Brilliance of Jo Nesbo
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="862z7etB0M2rQ0o5trkD8bwrkhOQ67rT"] THE Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo is being read and discussed on our shores these days, with a new novel, The Son, out earlier this month. (The book, set in Oslo, is not one of those built around troubled detective Harry Hole. I spoke to Nesbo when he and his publisher were making a big push into the U.S. market in the wake of … [Read more...]
What Literature and Rock n Roll Have to Say to Each Other
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="8lG1gx076ac8sMEbh9E4fK0epPYBWHeb"] THERE is a great new-ish journal out of San Franscisco that not only has the right idea, it has the follow-through. Radio Silence includes work by established elders (peerless short story writer Tobias Wolff), an interview with Lucinda Williams, and appearances by Carrie Brownstein, Rick Moody, even F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's all … [Read more...]
The Struggle of Creative Professionals, and a Gay Bookstore Down
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Qq27kwhxLk22LnK6cMR3w47aN5iOTjFn"] WITH the national unemployment rate falling, and the persistence of digital utopianism, which tells us that we live in the best of all possible worlds, we've put that nasty recession stuff behind us, haven't we? The struggle of the creative class, which has not much abated, continues to be obscured. A new funny and poignant essay in … [Read more...]
Is the Novel Dead? Plus, Art Auctions and Green Composer
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="crb2maHtqit51P5E7CQQCJm9upqvoZsh"] TODAY in Oxford, Will Self gives a speech about the death of the novel that many of my friends and colleagues have responded to with hostility and disbelief. Self's piece is at times over the top, and his persona is that of an ornery crank, but his speech -- reprinted here in the Guardian -- is essential reading. The story's … [Read more...]
A Return in Minnesota, and Kushner and Rodrick in Paperback
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="9ERXa4nuBab6v5CPcvsEksqMFVDobHPt"] ONE of the unpleasant recent developments in classical music -- the 16 month (!) lockout of the musicians in the Minnesota Orchestra -- may be resolving. But it may not go entirely smoothly. A report just today from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune describes newly restored music director Osmo Vanska. “We are terribly behind and must do … [Read more...]