Periodic SCWC staffer and prolific features contributor to the San Diego Reader, Thomas Larson (The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reader and Writing Personal Narrative), addresses the state of faked memoirs (post-James Frey) and its impact on writers, readers and the publishing world as a whole in this essay for the New English Review:
Fiction, Fact, and Faked Memoirs
by Thomas Larson
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story is the claim every storyteller is admonished to believe. What our ten-thousand-year-old tale-telling tradition (most of it oral) instructs us to do is to be good dramatists and let the story have its sway. This law of the tale, and our drama-loving DNA, is why the Bible has survived so long: its well-told stories were the means by which its morally sound messages were delivered and, tellers and scribes hoped, stuck. When disputes about a story’s authenticity arose, the Bible authors were less keen to preserve history or embrace veracity than to make the drama central, via legend, fantasy, parable, and the fictionalized life, based on Egyptian mythology, reified as well as purified, of Jesus Christ. The Bible is a work of narrative literature and a work of fiction. But, the problem is, its fiction has almost always been thought of as fact.
Against the tradition of fictionalizing fact is a counter-tradition: those who disbelieve the Bible’s authenticity, those who question the moral claims of mythic and fictional literature, those who find truth only in existential doubt. Dethroning literature of its moral supremacy—that Bible stories and other mythic dramas, whether in epic poem or realistic novel, illustrate what’s true—is giving way to a more adaptive literature, one where claims of mythic and dramatic truth are questioned, attacked, dismantled. Its form today is the memoir, which in storming the Babel of literature has knocked the good-story notion on its head. Trumpets raised, the memoir heralds that the truth should get in the way of a good story. That truth can only be deceived by drama and, thus, become its victim. We need look no further for evidence that the memoir is dethroning fiction’s reign than to look at the surprising celebrity accrued by the faked memoir.
From Ode, “The Online Community for Intelligent Optimists,” is this fascinating little piece posted by Keri Douglas…
Cairo bookstore promotes diversity through literature
Often when I travel, I look for a good local bookstore. I am curious to know what people are reading and what is the role of the bookstore in the community. Plus, I have found that books can be treasures that transport you back in history or possibly forward in time to events yet to take place.
In Cairo, I discovered Diwan Bookstore in Zamalek. It is a special bookstore featuring books in Arabic, English, French and German. When I entered, they had on display front and center their recommended books, among them:
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama in Arabic
The Map of Love: A Novel by Ahdaf Soueif
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World by Sharon Waxman
The Naqib’s Daughter by Samia Seregeldin
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
A bookstore is always a healthy reality check on society. Here the recommended reading list includes two books by a U.S. President (note one is in Arabic); a frequently banned or censored book in the US; a well-know Egyptian woman author; a book challenging the notion of who owns the antiquities; and, an Italian murder mystery set in the year 1327. The notion to include all of these books in one section is brilliant, in my opinion.
My personal favorites from this visit include:
The Son of a Duck Is a Floater: An Illustrated Book of Arab Proverbs by Primrose Arnander and Ashkhain Skipwith
The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry, New Edition edited by William Kelly Simpson
Cairo is healthy, diverse, opinionated and educated.
Go visit Diwan Bookstore, enjoy their excellent selection of books and discover a new world of thinking over a cup of tea in their cafe.
Diwan Bookstore is on Facebook. Join them and read their latest news and special events.
Seriously, this is the start of an email I received today from somebody promoting his new book:
I’m not a professional author. I don’t have a publishing company or literary agent. In fact, I had my mother-in-law proofread my book because I couldn’t afford a professional proof reader…
The annual BookExpo America took place a couple of weeks ago in New York. Did you miss it? I did. Went right by without me even noticing, but that’s okay because, well, it usually does.
I think I posted something or another about Paul Constant’s coverage of the event because I was hard up for material. And that’s probably the same this year, since I haven’t shown my face around this blog since February. As to that, I’ll spare you the gory details and simply say that yes, I know feeling sorry for myself isn’t an excuse. My sincere apologies.
But this isn’t about me. How many times have I said that? Oh, right ….
It’s strange that the only sign of growth at this BEA was in the number of journalists present, and that the people running BEA somehow seemed to think that the presence of more journalists was going to save them, considering that journalism just saw its most terrifying year in memory, too. It felt like the two industries were clinging together out in the ocean, drowning together. Since most of the bloggers were new to the party, none of them were asking any of the hard questions. No one was asking editors why they didn’t think twice before tossing out seven-figure deals for books based on zany blogs that anyone with half a brain could read for free on the internet. No one seemed to notice that major presses like HarperCollins weren’t asking booksellers what they wanted to sell or what their readers wanted to read. Instead, there were well-attended panels about making an insignificant amount of money off of Twitter. A sizeable number of booksellers were unwittingly attending their last BEA, because their bookstores are likely about to downsize or close. A bunch of people tried to hustle another bunch of people into buying something they didn’t want. Some of them succeeded, but most of them didn’t.
After the convention, MobyLives, the blog for indie publisher Melville House, published a postmortem titled “BEA Is Over… for Good?” I’m not so sure that it was the last one, but it was certainly a milestone: By the time next May’s BEA rolls around, at least one of the major publishers probably won’t be around to see it. The age of the giant conglomerate publisher is over. Publishing has always been an industry that has seen razor-thin profit margins if it saw profit at all, and the corporate model isn’t satisfied with a business model that optimally remains 1 or 2 percent above zero growth. The only way that 2009 will be considered a good year for the publishing industry is in comparison with the unprecedented disaster of 2008. People will tsk-tsk at the numbers and write endless, boring blog posts about it, which won’t be read by anyone except other people writing endless, boring blog posts about it. Here we were in the epicenter of publishing, at publishing’s big yearly event for insiders, and it was almost completely crushing any belief I had in the future of publishing. I don’t enjoy attending funerals, so unless things drastically change, I’ll probably never go back to BEA.
The second and third special guest speakers joining September’s SCWC in Irvine have been confirmed. Friday night, nearly 18 years after the release of his densely atmospheric debut novel, Down by the River, author Monte Schulz’s follow up, This Side of Jordan, is out hardcover September as the first of five books he scored deals for in the past 12 months. Written for his father, the late cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, and taking place on the eve of the Great Depression, Jordan is the first in his “Crossing Eden” trilogy of Southern-gothic literary prose to be published by Fantagraphics Books.
Saturday evening, none other than Robert Ward will be with us. Author of the NEA Award-winning Shedding Skin, and Los Angeles PEN Award for Best Novel of 1985, Red Baker, Bob is also a celebrated writer/producer for such ground-breaking TV series as Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and New York Undercover. He’s back in books with his highly anticipated latest release, Total Immunity, out July from Houghton Miffin Harcourt.
Author/workshop leader Darlene Quinn was just named winner of the 2009 National Indie Excellence Awards for Fiction for her novel, Webs of Power, while author/workshop leader Maralys Wills’ Damn the Rejections and Full Speed Ahead nabbed Best Nonfiction award . . . Also, just this past weekend, the 15th annual San Diego Book Awards were announced. Look at all the SCWCers — both staffers and conferees over the years — who were honored:
• THEODOR S. GEISEL AWARD >> Laurel Corona
for The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice
• HISTORICAL FICTION >> Laurel Corona
for The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice
• MYSTERY/THRILLER >> Chet Cunningham
for The Mystery of Hamlin Springs
• BIOGRAPHY >> Laurel Corona and Michael Bart
for Until Our Last Breath: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance
• HEALTH and WELLNESS >> Karen Ronney
for Proud Parents’ Guide to Raising Athletic, Balanced Kids
• SELF-HELP and INSPIRATIONAL >> Jill Badonsky
for The Awe-Maniac: A Daily Dose of Wonder
• UNPUBLISHED POETRY CHAPBOOK >> Claire Hsu Accomando
for Evaporation
From the SCWC archives, here’s MSG chatting with NY Times bestselling author James Redfield about adapting his breakthrough novel, The Celestine Prophecy, into a movie.
With the release of her dazzling debut novel only weeks away, praise for DeAnna Cameron’s The Belly Dancer (Berkley) continues to mount. Lynette Brasfield (Booksense pick Nature Lessons: A Novel) calls it, “A beautifully written page-turner… transports readers into an exotic and sensual world within a world.” Brenda Rickman Vantrease (Illuminator and The Mercy Seller) raves, “The characters in this novel will dance right off the page and into your imagination! Cameron’s representation of late nineteenth century Chicago is rich and evocative, and the whispered echoes of old New Orleans in Dora’s fragmented memory left me hoping this author goes there with her next novel.”
And from the author herself,
“I’m a former attendee of your Los Angeles & San Diego writers conferences, and the novel I was working on will be published by Berkley Books on July 7. I thought I would pass along the good news because I received some great help at both conferences, particularly from Drusilla Campbell, Bob Mayer, Laura Taylor and Mike Sirota on writing, and Gordon Kirkland on treating your writing like a business. The support and guidance I received helped keep me focused and motivated, and I’m happy to recommend your conferences to anyone who’s seriously pursing a writing career.”
Along with Teresa Burrell (The Advocate) and Gayle Carline (Freezer Burn), DeAnna’s release makes for the third successful SCWCer to get published this year. See more of The Belly Dancer at DeAnnaCameron.com.
Originally self-published, now released by Grand Central, SCWCer Raul Ramos Y Sanchez’s International Latino Book Award winning novel America Libre, which describes a coming civil war where Hispanics and Anglos battle each other in the American Southwest, has been tagged for the USA Today Summer Read list.
Raul will, of course, be with us for the Irvine conference. If Lou Dobbs shows up, he’ll be promptly pencil-whipped and excused.
From the Washington Post, author Colm Toibin (The Master, Mothers and Sons, Brooklyn) offers insight on the sometimes very long labor a writer must sometimes endure when giving birth to a new novel…
The Origins of a Novel
By Colm Toibin
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
In the summer of 1967 when I was 12, my father died. For a month or more the house in the evening was filled with people, but by September, when I had gone back to school, things were quieter. People called in ones, in twos, to express their sympathy to my mother. They usually came in the evening, stayed for an hour or so, then left. My brother and I wanted this to stop because the television was in the room where they sat talking. I hardly ever went into that room while there were visitors. But one evening I did, and heard an interesting story being told.
A woman was talking to my mother, talking on and on, about Brooklyn where her daughter had been. I began to listen. She’d never been to our house before and was never, as far as I remember, a visitor again. I saw her on the street sometimes; she was a small, stout, dignified-looking woman who always wore a hat. It was almost 40 years later before I took what I had heard, just the bones of a story about her daughter who had gone to Brooklyn and then come home, and began making a novel from it.
With the release of her dazzling debut novel only weeks away, praise for DeAnna Cameron’s The Belly Dancer (Berkley) continues to mount. Lynette Brasfield (Booksense pick Nature Lessons: A Novel) calls it, “A beautifully written page-turner… transports readers into an exotic and sensual world within a world.” Brenda Rickman Vantrease (Illuminator and The Mercy Seller) raves, “The characters in this novel will dance right off the page and into your imagination! Cameron’s representation of late nineteenth century Chicago is rich and evocative, and the whispered echoes of old New Orleans in Dora’s fragmented memory left me hoping this author goes there with her next novel.”
Originally self-published, now released by Grand Central, SCWCer Raul Ramos Y Sanchez’s International Latino Book Award winning novel America Libre, which describes a coming civil war where Hispanics and Anglos battle each other in the American Southwest, has been tagged for the 
