It Was Nevertheless a Colorful Event

Authors Dan Pirasak, Roberta Edgar (IWOSC Veep), and Gerald Everett Jones at the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) booth, Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, April 21, 2012. Photo by Marvin Wolf.

Marv Wolf, author of The Tattooed Rabbi and President Emeritus of IWOSC, decided on a retro B&W treatment when he stopped by the booth to take this happy snap. The event was a delight, as ever, and it's truly encouraging that so many Angelenos not only read but also made the effort to make the trip to USC instead of the beach.

During my two shifts in the IWOSC booth on Saturday, I chatted with a lot of folks, including Lance, who goes by only his first name. Lance at first glance looked like a homeless person who had wandered over accidentally from somewhere east of Figueroa. His clothes had a decidedly used look, and he was incredibly soft-spoken. So much so that I had to ask him to repeat several things he said. Come to find out, Lance is not an aspiring author but a fully published one. He gifted me a copy of his book Confessions of a College Football Rules Violator, which he said was about "sex, drugs, and rock n' roll." My kinda guy, and he autographed it. The book is a not-so-whimsical memoir about big-time cheating at a big-money NCAA campus. It's written in confessional, diary style. And it's a revelation. Find the purchase link below, and thanks, Lance, for seeing through my suspicious gaze and reminding me that the democratization of media is fully under way.

Let's Meet Up Saturday at LA Times Festival of Books

 

On the USC campus. Drop by Booth #76 Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) this Saturday. I'll be working the booth from 10 - 12 and 4 - 6. http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/

MP3: Reading from Farnsworth's Revenge: Rollo's End

Gerald Everett Jones reads from Farnsworth's Revenge: Rollo's End. Courtesy Flo Selfman, IWOSC

March 11, 2012 - Barnes & Noble - Santa Monica Promenade

7min Audio Clip MP3

The author reads from the third comic novel of the Rollo Hemphill misadventures. The life-sized replica of soap-star Monica LaMonica has mysteriously disappeared from Hugo Farnsworth's yacht off St. Tropez. Rollo has set himself the task of conducting an investigation, as a favor to the old man. His inquiries lead him to the palace of Attaboy Pasha, an eccentric art connoisseur in Istanbul who has a passion for realistic dolls. Attaboy says he doesn't have the Monica doll but dearly covets it. And he says he has something to trade.

It's Read an E-Book Week and Rollo Bares All

March 4 - 11 on Smashwords - Rollo's Misadventures are Free!

Pick your fave ebook format - They're all here.

My Inflatable Friend - FREE - Slacker car jockey Rollo Hemphill tries to make his girlfriend jealous by driving the life-sized lookalike doll of a famous soap star around Hollywood.

Rubber Babes - Use coupon code RE100 - Rollo gets the girl and a lot he didn't bargain for when he fails continually upward to head a charity that's laundering money for the Secret Government.

Farnsworth's Revenge -  Third in the series, forthcoming. Rollo gets his just desserts. I'll be reading from it on Sunday, March 11, at 2pm at Barnes & Noble on the Santa Monica Promenade.

Guest Post: On genre in fiction and why it's not very important

So what's a nice literary fiction gal like me doing blogging at a dangerous place like Boychik Lit?  Am I at the wrong party? No, I don't think so.  The way I look at it, good writing is good writing and when it's happening, a genre label is probably little more than something publishers use for marketing purposes and readers use to make sure that the book they're about to read isn't going to bore, bother, upset, or irritate them.  When a novel is superbly written, and the characters are distincitive and 'true', then the reader won't get bored, bothered, upset or irritated no matter whether you call the book chik (or boychik) lit, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, or literary fiction.  Here are two reasons why I don't believe genre really matters:

Few novels stick perfectly well to genre conventions, especially when they're employing the elements of good fiction writing, such as the character arc, a powerful setting (whether that setting is Stavromula Beta or, as in my new novel Black Cow, a remote farmhouse in Tasmania), an exciting dramatic plot, a rich theme, and a unique concept. In fact, the only time that genre conventions are crystal clear and 100% conformed to are when stereotypes are in play and the overall result is cliché laden. I've never written a story or novel that didn't have elements of romance, horror, historical fiction, and even sci fi.  It's all part of the complex spectrum of human experience. Yes the overall tenets of genre may apply and give the story it's distinctive feel, category, set of parameters, and these can add important flavour, but if the story is good, I'll enjoy reading it no matter what the genre, and especially if there is no obvious discernable genre but rather a blend of elements that make up different genres. 

Even the notion of genre is a moveable feast.  Have you heard of "medical-romance"? "Airport fiction?", "beach reads", "steampunk", "squid-lit"? They're all relatively new genres coined by marketers to try and attract a particular audience, based on broad but sometimes (when everything is working well) nebulous criteria.  How about the distinction between "Young Adult (YA)" and "Adult" fiction?  One of my favourite novels The Life of Pi is sold as YA in the US and adult fiction in Australia.  The same goes for The Book Thief.  Sometimes parents use the genre "YA" as a means for ensuring themselves that the book will be suitable for their teenagers.  But some of the best, most sophisticated (and disturbing) adult novels I've read have been tagged as YA.

The best novelists don't get too caught up in genre unless they're writing to a very clear specific spec - and that may well hold true for Harlequin staff writers, but most of us just get on with the writing.  Maybe when it's all done, some canny soul in the marketing department (or the author under duress) will decide that it fits into one or more genre categories. Maybe the cover will hint at a certain type of escapism which will appeal to a certain type of reader.  If these things open new markets to the work, then everyone wins. 

Magdalena Ball is the author of the newly released genre free novel Black Cow (actually some people have called it "Recession-lit", "contemporary fiction", and "literary fiction". If any of those appeal to you - go with them!). Grab a a free mini flip book here:  http://www.bewritebooks.com/mb/BlackCow/BlackCow.html
Check out Gerald's review of Black Cow right here at the blog. Or dive straight over to Amazon now for some instant gratification. 

Rollo Makes Cents - 99 to Be Exact

A recent white paper circulated by Vook publishing advanced the idea that 99 cents is the ideal price point for ebooks. And "free," they say, is best for short-term promotions.

A lot of author-publishers tried this approach, but apparently Amazon is not thrilled with the zero-dollars option.

However, 99 cents is just fine with everybody, so now Rollo Hemphill's two misadventures, My Inflatable Friend and the sequel Rubber Babes, are at the magic price point in the Kindle library:

Read Rollo on Kindle for .99

But wait - as they say in those tantalizing TV pitches - there's more! The Kindle versions are also available now on SmashWords, where free is free. So My Inflatable Friend has been knocked down to zero bucks, for now and for how long, go figure:

My Inflatable Friend - Kindle and all other versions - free on SmashWords

Rubber Babes - in all formats - at the magic 99 cent price, all on SmashWords

So if you're gifting ebook readers for the holidays, finally treating yourself to one, or have one and just plain bored and craving a laugh, catch up on where Rollo has been and where he's going.

Because... his third misadventure Farnsworth's Revenge: Rollo's End is coming out in a big way sometime soon, and you'll want to know why on Earth you'd bother to pre-order that one, much less fork over its cover price.

Audio preview of Farnsworth's Revenge

Book Review: "From Russia with Love" by Ian Fleming

From Russia with Love was the fifth of Ian Fleming's 007 books, published in 1957. Apparently he wasn't sure whether he wanted the franchise to continue, and you have to read the sequel, Dr. No, to find out how some of the plot points in this one were resolved.

Interesting, I think, is that the movie Dr. No (based on the sixth book) was the first James Bond film, and From Russia with Love was the second. Swapping the order of the plots actually necessitated some changes to the stories. In the movie, Dr. No is part of an international crime syndicate, SPECTRE. However, the Russian coding machine (based on the German's WWII Enigma device) was called Spektor in the novel and apparently renamed Lektor in the movie. SPECTRE is nowhere mentioned in either of the novels. In the novel From Russia with Love, it is the Russian assassination bureau SMERSH that hatches the plot to kill Bond using the Spektor and a beautiful woman as bait. In the movie, the planner Kronsteen instead works for SPECTRE, which intends to steal the Lektor along with luring Bond, then kill him and return the machine in return for a big SMERSH ransom payment.

Bond is a somewhat anachronistic character now, a gentleman bad boy back when most heroes played nice. Now they're all bad boys, and worse. And he was an unabashed male chauvinist. I'll leave it for the reader to marvel at rather than explain too much, but Tatiana Romanova is a rake's pipe-dream of a character, like all of the Fleming babes. She lives to serve the fantasy image she's created of Bond in her mind, and she commits the spy's cardinal sin of starting to believe her own cover story.

This book starts very slowly, with much more expository heavy lifting than you'd expect from a spy thriller. The action only accelerates about two-thirds of the way through. Fleming's literary predecessors included Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, and his slow storytelling pace seems like a throwback.

Also odd, it seemed to me, were his opinions of Istanbul. Fleming hates the Turkish food and finds the city dirty and under-lit at night. Contrast this image with today's Istanbul, which has a population of fifteen million and growing (larger than Los Angeles) and world-class amenities.

[Cross-posted on Goodreads.com]