Teresa Burrell sells her debut novel, over and over again

Author, attorney and longtime SCWCer Teresa Burrell’s debut legal thriller, The Advocate, draws from her extensive legal background representing abused minors and juvenile delinquents. Telling the story of when one Sabre Orin Brown’s search for her missing brother and her career as a Juvenile Court attorney collide while defending a nine-year-old whose father will go to any length to obtain custody, the book is due August from Echelon Press.

Thing is, because her publisher’s just so damned pushy, Tee also found herself surprisingly selling copies of it at past weekend’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Be sure to check out her site (TeresaBurrell.com) and follow her blog where she’s currently blogging the alphabet.

–msg

Gayle Carline sells her book — 17 of them, to be exact

Author Gayle Carline’s awesome debut novel, Freezer Burn (Echelon Press), is due to be released in July. The awesome L.A. Times book festival took place this past weekend. Echelon’s publisher phoned Gayle two days before with some unexpected news.

For a fine lesson in timing, marketing savvy, and the ability of one writer to keep her wits about her without the benefit of a fistful of pharmaceuticals, check out Gayle’s blog, On the Edge of the Chair of Literature.

–msg

Author Fan Wu in for Irvine

Pushcart Prize nominee and celebrated author Fan Wu is the first of our special guest speakers to be announced. The Asian Review of Books called her 2007 debut novel, February Flowers, “A fresh, original work that strikes a fine balance between intimacy and restraint, and shatters several stereotypes along the way.” The Financial Times Book Review (UK) hailed both how it “turns its eye away from imagined audiences and keeps it trained on the story at hand… (and) the ease with which it shakes off the voiceover of memoir, with all its intonations of latterly won wisdom, and enters the past as it was lived, in real-time and without the props of hindsight.” Beautiful as Yesterday (Simon & Schuster/Atria) is out July 1, Xinran (Good Women of China) calls, “A delicate and brilliant novel on the arguments, triumphs, loves and differences of a Chinese family in America.”

Gayle Carline on her new novel

Columnist and longtime SCWCer Gayle Carline’s Freezer Burn is out shortly from Echelon Press. Here’s a little glimpse into the characters Gayle had to wrestle with in her debut comedic mystery.

–msg

Law & more order in store for Irvine

Winner of two Emmys and two Golden Globes for his work on HBO’s Band of Brothers and From Earth to the Moon, writer/producer Erik Bork joins us for the first time. In addition to introducting at least two new workshops, Erik will be accepting a limited number of screenplay submissions for advance critique, followed by one-on-one consultation. And to help writers better understand some of the most vexing issues we face in today’s ever-changing transmedia publishing world, intellectual property and entertainment attorney Mark I. Reichenthal will is also aboard. No matter what level of writer you are, his will be a session you won’t want to miss. Get all the lowdown at WritersConference.com.

Author Stacey O’Brien to appear with owl

If you’re in the San Diego, CA region on May 20th be sure to visit Stacey O’Brien, author of the NY Times bestseller Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl. An enchanting storyteller, Stacey will be speaking at the beautiful Encinitas Library accompanied by a real live education Barn Owl, provided by SkyHunters, a raptor rescue/rehab facility in Alpine. The event is free to the public and starts at 6:30pm.

Novel Cram and more in Irvine…

Bestselling author Drusilla Campbell returns to the SCWC in Irvine with her popular Novel Cram immersion track, in which participants beat out an entire book, from scratch, over the weekend. Other staffers already confirmed include authors Matthew J. Pallamary, Gary Phillips, Darlene Quinn, Judy Reeves, Raul Ramos Y Sanchez, Michele Scott, Steven M. Thomas and Maralys Wills; trusted freelance editors Jean Jenkins, Mike Sirota and Laura Taylor are aboard, as are Red Hen Press managing editor Kate Gale, agent Alexandra Machinest (Linda Chester Literary Agency), editor Marla Miller (“Location 3 Magazine”), Behler Publications’ editorial director Lynn Price, agent Kelly Sonnack (Andrea Brown Literary Agency) and Sally van Haitsma (Castiglia Literary), and many others still to be announced, including our special guest speakers.

While we’re wrangling the schedule over the next several weeks, it’s safe to say even this early out that SCWC*LA7 will be another stellar weekend for writers who are serious about getting published. Register by April 30th and save a whopping $100 off conference admission. You’ve earned it!

Author’s Guild, Alice and the rabbit hole of copyright collusion

From author/attorney Lawrence Lessig, via his blog:

Amazon has caved into demands from the Authors Guild that it disable the ability of the Kindle to read a book aloud. This is very bad news.

We had this battle before. In 2001, Adobe released e-book technology that gave rights holders (including publishers of public domain books) the ability to control whether the Adobe e-book reader read the book aloud. The story got famous when it was shown that one of its public domain works — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — was marked to forbid the book to be read aloud. (Here’s a piece I wrote about this in 2001).

Now the issue is back. The Authors Guild has objected because Amazon’s Kindle 2 has a function built in that enables the book to be read aloud. So when, for example, you’re commuting, you can plug your Kindle 2 into your MP3 jack and have the book read aloud.

Amazon rightly argued that this did not violate any of the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the copyright owners. In that, Amazon is exactly right. But nonetheless, it will now enable publishers to decide whether the Kindle books they sell will permit the book to be read aloud. And of course, that includes public domain books.

So here we go again — How long till we can buy Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and be told that this book “cannot be read aloud”?

>>read entire article

–msg

An open letter to Amazon.com

Well done:

Open Letter to Amazon Regarding Recent Policy Changes
by Kassia Krozser

Dear Amazon,

Happy Easter (or if it’s Monday morning, happy belated Easter!). It seems the Easter Bunny, while hopping down the bunny trail, left some rotten eggs all over the Amazon site while we were sleeping. Suddenly, many books lost their sales ranking and levels of searchability on the Amazon site.

Somehow, the brain trust of your company has decided to protect the “entire” Amazon customer base by restricting access to content that someone (who?) decided was offensive. In your zeal to protect me from myself, of course, you managed to leave content that I find singularly repulsive online (really, exploring the human condition is bad, but Mein Kampf is just fine?).

>>read rest of letter

–msg

LA5 conferee featured in new anthology

SCWC*LA5 conferee Linda Quinn’s short story, “A Not So Clear Case of Murder,” appears in Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, just out from Arte Público Press. According to the publisher, the book “collects for the first time short fiction by many of the Latino authors who have been pioneers in the mystery genre, using it to showcase their unique cultures, neighborhoods and realities. Contributors include award-winning writers such as Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Rolando Hinojosa, Manuel Ramos and Sergio Troncoso, as well as emerging writers who deserve more recognition.”

Linda will be available to sign the book at the Los Angeles Festival of Books on April 25 at 4:00 PM. And be sure to check out her website, The Writing Game: Growing a Writing Career One Day at a Time.

–msg