The Writer's Alliance: Write, Don't Edit and 7 other essential tips to producing your boook

- from Medium

If you’re a writer, then there’s a strong chance you pay a lot of attention to getting your work published. And rightly so. It’s important for writers to know their options so that they can make the best choice for their completed work.

But publishing isn’t the hardest part of writing a book. Not even close. It’s the writing.

If you’re not a full-time writer, living in a cabin in the woods, how will you actually write your book?

How will you do the work of writing when the demands of real life threaten to overwhelm your already busy schedule?

I struggled with this for years. As an aspiring writer, I dreamed of one day sharing my words with the world. But the truth is I was kidding myself.

Why? Because I wasn’t writing. I didn’t even know where to start.

Fast forward seven years, and now I’m the best-selling author of four books and living the life I always dreamed of. I haven’t gotten everything right along the way, but I have gathered some helpful advice that has kept me going.

It takes a lot more than a dream to make it as a writer. It takes knowing what you’re doing, or at least knowing the next step.

So here are the first eight steps I take toward writing my first book. This is what I did when I didn’t know what to do next. This is what it looked like for me to move from aspiring writer with a day job to full-time writer and bestselling author. It really is this easy. And this hard.

1. Choose a topic

You must have something important to share before you start writing. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “You don’t write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.” What will you write about?

When I was struggling with this, I went one level deeper and started writing about writing. Turns out, that was the perfect first step for me, because I’m still doing it today.

You need a topic that you care enough about to sustain it for the length of a book, a blog, or newsletter. Sometimes all three, and more. You’re not imprisoned by that first idea, of course — you can pivot without losing your audience — but this gives you an idea of how big your topic needs to be. Here are some ideas to get you started.

2. Develop a premise

You need an angle, a hook. There are no new ideas, but you can do something original in the way you present your idea.

Consider how Seth Godin writes about marketing, or how Ernest Hemingway wrote about bullfighting.

Everything’s been done before, but you haven’t done it before. That’s the difference. That’s your premise.

3. Think about your reader

The golden rule of writing is that you must know your audience. You must know a lot about them and their needs so that when you write, they know you understand where they’re coming from. If you do that, if you meet them where they are, you can lift them up to where you want them to be.

And they’ll be forever loyal to you because of it.

4. Create an outline

An outline often feels like the boring part of writing. Maybe you think it’s limiting your creativity or holding you back from just getting started. But the truth is, taking the time to create an outline will make the rest of your writing go so much faster and more smoothly.

I know from experience. While writing my fifth book this summer, I realized two-thirds of the way through — after writing 40,000 words — that everything was suddenly coming more easily than they had in previous chapters. Why? Because I’d accidentally given myself an outline: Five things, in order, that I wanted to make sure to cover in that chapter. And with that outline in front of me, writing became a simple exercise of filling in the blanks. (Simple, but not easy, of course.)

5. Read, read, read

If you want to be a writer, reading is not a luxury. It is a necessity. You must read widely and frequently both to see how it’s done, and to see how you can do it differently.

There’s no shortcut to this, but I do know of a few ways to get more reading time into your day.

6. Set a due date

When my wife was pregnant earlier this year, we knew the day that our daughter would be arriving. That due date set in motion all kinds of activity for our family and my business. We knew we had to be done by a specific date because ready or not, we would be adding to our family that day. There was no opportunity to procrastinate, no leeway for laziness.

Treat your writing the same way, with the same dedication to a due date.

Once you’ve decided what you want to write and who it’s for, it’s time to be a professional and commit to a completion date. If you don’t, life has a way of interrupting and overshadowing our best intentions.

If an arbitrary completion date isn’t sufficient motivation for you, attach a consequence to not accomplishing your goal.

A friend of mine, a talented writer, did this recently when he wanted to finish a book he’d been thinking about for years. Fearing he might never reach the last page, he wrote a check to a political candidate he hated, and post-dated it for X months in the future. Then he gave the check to a friend with strict instructions to mail it if he had not completed his book by that date.

The result? He’s done with his book.

7. Create a writing schedule

Your season of life will dictate the writing schedule that works for you, so there’s no use in trying to copy what another author is doing.

We can find inspiration in how others structure their days, but the point is this: Find a regular schedule that works for you, and commit to showing up on that schedule from now until the day your book is complete.

There will be days it’s tempting to skip, and those, of course, are the days it’s probably most important that you keep showing up. That’s what a schedule is, after all. It’s a way to remove your own willpower and whims from the work of being an author. Because yes, even a dream job is still a job.

8. Write, don’t edit

We hear this one all the time, but it bears repeating because it’s almost always the thing that’s keeping you from finishing your book.

If you’re obsessing over every sentence as you write it, you’re not just being a perfectionist. You’re actually withholding momentum from yourself; you’re preventing yourself from entering into that all-important state of “flow” where the words come easily and the goal feels achievable.

If you’re trying to write entirely perfect sentences and a perfect book, you’repursuing the wrong goal. Instead, find a strategy that will allow you to write first, and edit later. I use what I call the three-bucket system, and maybe that will help you, too.

What makes a writer is the writing. So you’d better get started.

To get more articles like this, check out my free newsletter

Literature: Unseen Godfather of the "Latin Lit" boom, dies

Gregory Rabassa, a translator of worldwide influence and esteem who helped introduce Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar and other Latin American authors to millions of English-language readers, has died.

A longtime professor at Queens College, Rabassa died Monday at a hospice in Branford, Conn. He was 94 and died after a brief illness, according to his daughter, Kate Rabassa Wallen.

Rabassa was an essential gateway to the 1960s Latin American "boom," when such authors as Garcia Marquez, Cortazar and Mario Vargas Llosa became widely known internationally. He worked on the novel that helped start the boom, Cortazar's "Hopscotch," for which Rabassa won a National Book Award for translation. He also worked on the novel which defined the boom, Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," a monument of 20th century literature.

Garcia Marquez often praised Rabassa, saying he regarded the translation of "Solitude" as a work of art in its own right.

"He's the godfather of us all," Edith Grossman, the acclaimed translator of "Don Quixote" and several Garcia Marquez books, told the Associated Press on Tuesday. "He's the one who introduced Latin-American literature in a serious way to the English-speaking world."

Rabassa's other translations included Garcia Marquez's "The Autumn of the Patriarch," Vargas Llosa's "Conversation in the Cathedral" and Jorge Amado's "Captains of the Sand." In 2001, Rabassa received a lifetime achievement award from the PEN American Center for contributions to Latino literature. He was presented a National Medal of Arts in 2006 for translations which "continue to enhance our cultural understanding and enrich our lives."

Survivors include his second wife, Clementine; daughters Kate Rabassa Wallen and Clara Rabassa; and granddaughters Jennifer and Sarah Wallen.

Books - Indies carve out their retail space

from Lit Hub

A few weeks ago, Milkweed Editions, long established as a literary press, announced it would open an independent bookstore in Minneapolis. Not long after, Curbside Splendor, a relatively young small press in Chicago, revealed its plans to open a bookshop in Chicago’s South Loop.

Suddenly, an increasing number of independent presses are going into the retail book business, morphing into full-service community hubs for book browsing and expanded literary programming. Some see retail floor space as an opportunity to bring more customers and supporters to their front doors. Others see it as an important source of income to support the publishing. All say it fulfills their missions as the literary hearts of their communities.

In 2008, Melville House Publishing moved to Brooklyn and opened a bookstore to sell its own books and to serve as an event space for other local small presses. Two years later, Hub City Press (which published my first novel) opened a bookshop and event space in Spartanburg, S.C., selling not only the books it publishes but general interest books as well.

Deep Vellum Publishing experimented this year with a bookstore in Dallas, though founder Will Evans is now looking for a buyer.

Other literary non-profits are jumping into the act as well. Bookmarks, which hosts the largest book festival in the Carolinas, announced this spring was raising funds to open a downtown independent bookstore in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Tulsa Literary Coalition is opening Magic City Books in Oklahoma later this year. Neither city has had an independent bookstore for years, but both now will have hybrids not unlike the ones that publishers are creating.

Just a few years ago, in the throes of the Great Recession, the traditional publishing industry was in trouble. Independent bookstores already had been written off, and then Borders went under, proving even the big box bookstores were struggling. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple were all competing (and filing lawsuits) over the growing ebook market. Meanwhile, self-publishing was the Next Big Thing. In other words: print was dead, bookstores were passé, and self-published ebooks were the way to connect writers to readers without a middleman. The mainstream media agreed: this was the new reality.

But if this was the new reality, what is going on with all these non-profits and independent presses opening local bookstores? Why would anyone decide to open a bookstore in our allegedly post-retail, post-print world?

In the case of Milkweed Editions, much of the decision for opening a bookstore had to do with space. In 2000, the press joined the Loft Literary Center and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The three organizations were tired of rising rents and living office-to-office in downtown Minneapolis, so they raised several million dollars in grants and donations and bought a building on an under-developed stretch of land near the Mississippi River.

“It’s become one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in Minneapolis,” said Daniel Slager, publisher and CEO for Milkweed Editions.

The neighborhood has revitalized and grown up around their building, so when 750 square feet of street-level space became available in the building, Slager and the rest of the Milkweed team felt a bookstore could thrive.

“We do live in communities, and we want to be part of a coming-together in this place,” Slager said. “We’re trying to bring together readers and writers, and we’re committed to being here in Minneapolis.”

A bookstore is a way to get people into contact with books. Slager said the Milkweed store—which will have a soft launch in July and a grand opening in the fall—will feel more like a gallery than a traditional library-style bookstore. He foresees rotating exhibits related to the publishing process, such as cover designs and manuscript pages to offer insight into what they do as a publisher, as well as a space for literary events.

The store will feature an abundance of titles from independent presses, he said. “We want to create a physical space to showcase some of the amazing books coming out of excellent smallish publishers.” He likened the store to the taproom for a local craft brewery, explaining, “We want to be a taproom for all these great indie press publishers so we can say to readers, ‘Hey, do you know about Wave Books? Do you know about Tupelo Press?’ I can’t wait to see the shelves covered with indie press books from all over North America.”

This notion of curating small literary presses is also driving Curbside Splendor with its new book and record shop, set to open this summer in Chicago’s South Loop. Editor-in-chief Naomi Huffman said she anticipates the store will be highly curated and will focus solely in books from independent presses.

“Indie publishing is about discovery,” she said. “We are going to have an educational component, because people don’t necessarily know about indie literature. Our focus is on delivering literature to people who don’t know what they’re looking for, and maybe don’t even know it exists. Indies are publishing the best literature today, so the opportunity to tell more people about it is very exciting.”

Founded in 2009, Curbside Splendor has been publishing books “to rewrite the tradition of Midwestern publishing.” The press has published numerous books about Chicago or by Chicago authors, providing a uniquely local flavor.

In many ways, the bookstore continues what Curbside Splendor is already doing with the press. “We’ve built a reputation in Chicago for being out and about,” Huffman said. “We hold a reading series in Logan Square. We do popup book fairs across the city. We’re trying to establish a connection with readers, and we view the bookstore as an extension of that.”

The bookshop will be housed in the Revival Food Hall inside the National building downtown, amid numerous restaurants and other shops. Huffman said that each neighborhood in Chicago has its own beloved bookstore, and that Curbside’s bookshop, with its programming and educational focus, should fit nicely in the South Loop.

“What we’ve been discovering over the past few years is that publishing is no longer just about publishing books. It’s about delivering literature to people. The best way to do that is not just selling a book—which a bookstore will do—but creating a community that people want to be involved in. We’re very excited by the opportunity.”

The Hub City Bookshop in the upstate of South Carolina now has six years of operation under its belt as an offshoot of the non-profit Hub City Writers Project and its Hub City Press. Southern Living magazine recently named it as one of the best bookstores in the South.

For more than 20 years, the Hub City Writers Project has served as an important literary hub, not just in Spartanburg but in the South at large. The press has been quietly publishing some of the South’s best new literature—fiction, poetry, history, memoir, and more. They also run a national writers residency, a summer writers conference, multiple writing contests and now—thanks to the bookshop space—nearly 100 readings, workshops, and other literary events annually.

Betsy Teter, founder and executive director, said establishing a retail store was both a brainstorm and a necessity. In 2008, Spartanburg’s sole independent bookstore (and Hub City Press’ largest customer) went out of business. “It was a survival thing for us,” Teter explained. “Without a place for people in Spartanburg to buy our books, we were going to have trouble.”

At the time, Hub City was crowded into an office with another arts organization. The board and staff believed downtown Spartanburg needed a bookstore, so they raised $300,000 in less than three months as the community got on board with the idea. “In the beginning it was a much smaller idea than it ended up being,” said Teter. “We sell Hub City Press titles in the front of the store, but we also have thousands of other titles as well.”

Opening a bookstore in 2010, when the media seemed to be taking an almost pornographic interest in the demise of traditional publishing and independent bookstores, was perhaps a counterintuitive idea, but the great news for organizations like Milkweed, Curbside Splendor, and other presses forming bookstores today is that the risk paid off big-time for Hub City.

“We have more than doubled the number of people making charitable contributions to our organization since opening the bookshop,” said Teter, adding that sales at the bookstore help bring in revenue for Hub City’s press and programming. The bookshop, located in an old Masonic Temple, now serves as a kind of Grand Central Station for downtown.

“Our mission is to ‘nurture writers and cultivate readers,’ so we’re providing a place in our downtown for people to peruse books, interact with writers, and to talk about books with people who are knowledgeable,” said Teter. “I like to think of our bookstore as a literary center.”

Perhaps this is the new reality for publishing. As New York publishers and tech companies continue to vie for market share and boost quarterly returns, local literary communities are taking matters into their own hands, building unique book cultures across the United States and continuing the old-fashioned task of bringing together writers and readers.

Lit: LA Times snags Booker winner Marlon James as Critic-at-Large

The Los Angeles Times welcomes the new critics-at-large and one of them is Jamaican

novelist Marlon James (top left in photo strip), author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, and whose debut novel "John Crow's Devil" wasa finalist in the LA Times Book Award . Congratulation! [The other critics are Laila Lalami, Susan Straight, Viet Thanh Nguyen, David Kipen of Libros Schmibros: Lending Library, Alexander Chee, John Scalzi, Rigoberto González, Rebecca Carroll, and Adriana E. Ramirez.] Here is an excerpt from the article:

Meet the new Critics-at-Large for our books pages. These 10 writers have beautiful voices, brilliant minds, critical insights and strong opinions. We are delighted that they will share them with us.

We see books as being more than something that sits on a shelf (although they are that, enduringly). Books are the keystone in how we define and understand our contemporary moment, our world.

With these 10 writers, we will investigate our culture through the conversations that books anchor, in deep dives and in real time. We will explore the mysteries of reading and writing; consider the achievements, acknowledged and under-acknowledged, of the writers who have come before; question the roles of race, heritage, class and gender in what we read; take on the vagaries of the publishing industry, and more.

These writers have won dozens of prizes, from a lifetime achievement award to a prize for an unpublished first book. They hail from four different nations and have lived all over the world. [. . .]

Marlon James: James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his novel “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” a fictionalized account of the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley. He received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his prior novel, “The Book of Night Women,” a story of 19th century Jamaican slaves. Born in Jamaica in 1970, James now teaches at Macalester College and lives in Minneapolis

Poetry: Rankine's "Lyric" gets a UK Forward

 Claudia Rankine. Photograph: John Lucas/Graywolf Press

A book described by one critic as eavesdropping “on America and a racism that has never gone away” has won the top award at the 2015 Forward prizes for poetry.

Claudia Rankine has already won the National Book Critics Circle award in the US for Citizen: An American Lyric. On Monday night at a ceremony in London she was named winner of the Forward prize for best collection.

Citizen was described by the jury as a “powerful book for our time”. The chair of judges, AL Kennedy, added: “This is writing we can recommend with real urgency and joy. It’s a stylistically daring poetic project about the dehumanisation of those deemed outsiders ‐ we found it exhilarating and genuinely transformative.”

Kennedy said she and other judges had individually “pressed this book on others with real fervour. It will, we know, raise questions about the nature, purpose and importance of poetry.” Citizen is published as poetry but some have described as more of a lyric essay.

Kate Kellaway, reviewing in the Observer, wrote: “[Rankine’s] achievement is to have created a bold work that occupies its own space powerfully, an unsettled hybrid – her writing on the hard shoulder of prose. She eavesdrops on America and a racism that has never gone away.”

Citizen includes extracts from documentary film scripts, screengrabs of Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi at the 2006 World Cup, JMW Turner’s painting The Slave Ship and an essay on Venus Williams.

Rankine, who was born in Jamaica and now lives in California, teaching at the University of Southern California, wins £10,000.

Two other winners at the awards, now in their 24th year, were Mona Arshi, who won the £5,000 Felix Dennis prize for best first collection, and Clare Harman, who won the £1,000 prize for best single poem.

Arshi drew on her 10 years as a human rights lawyer – including her representation of the right-to-die campaigner Diane Pretty – for her debut collection Small Hands. The jury praised the collection for its “imagination, sensuality and beguiling playfulness”.

Harman won for a poem first published in the TLS, The Mighty Hudson, a biographical sketch of a strongman who overreaches himself.

Books: HBO "Contracts" James' 'Seven Killings" for series

HBO has optioned screen rights to Marlon James’ novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld), for a series adaptation.

James’ novel, which was published last year, takes inspiration from the real-life incident when gunmen attacked Bob Marley’s house in 1976. Spanning three decades and crossing continents, the story chronicles the lives of a host of characters, from slum kids to drug lords and the CIA. The book won both the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize for books that contribute to our understanding of racism and cultural diversity and the OCM Bocas Fiction Prize for Caribbean Literature.

HBO plans to produce an ongoing series, with award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth penning the script. Roth’s credits include adapting books into screenplays for Oscar-nominated films such as “Munich”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Forrest Gump”, as well as acting as the executive producer of Emmy-winning series “House of Cards”.

Oneworld is releasing the paperback edition of A Brief History of Seven Killings this June. It will publish James’ debut novel, John Crow’s Devil, in November, and it has also published his second novel, The Book of Night Women.

Culture: Small Axe vs big Empire, a look at reggae's role in deconstructing colonialism

 

Prof Bill Schwarz

The last time this writer heard Bob Marley described as the "saviour of a generation" it was from an Anglo-Jamaican who had grown up in Brixton and who actually placed the Gong just behind "Crown Prince" Dennis Brown in that regard.

So it was especially poignant to hear, on Thursday evening last, a similar description, coming from a white British academic. Prof. Bill Scwarz, who studied English and History at York University, before going on to the Centre for Contemporary Studies at Birmingham. 

Speaking at a Lecture organized by the Institute of Caribbean Studies at the UWI Mona, Schwarz was even more pointed, stating that Marley had "saved a generation of Black Britons from suicide" owing to pressures heaped upon them by the white racist power structure in the two-decade aftermath (up to Marley's time) of the mass migrations of the 1950s and early 60s.

Schwarz eloquently added that in reggae and Rastafari, the black community found a "new mode of memory" one that was indeed critical given the given the trend towards a massive "forced forgetting" imposed by the demands of a then fading imperialism.
He cautioend however, in the ensuing question and answer session, that the memory and the nostalgia toward empire had hardly faded in Britain and that old modes of thought still resonated, even among the youth. 

As a corollary, he urged the audience not to construe multiculturalism - a social phenomenon first advanced and argued for by the late Jamaican academic, Stuart Hall - to mean racial or cultural harmony or some kind of "Obama post-racial" kind of society in Britain. He pointed out that violence against Black youth remained at alarmingly high levels, and - in answering another question - posited the view that in the post-Marley msuical era, there did not seem to be another obvious saviour (nor the obvious desire for one) emerging.   

His expansive discourse also touched on the role of religion and various belief systems in the Deconstruction of Colonialism ( or in the preservation of it, depending on one's view)

Prof. Schwarz has also taught Sociology and Politics at Warwick, Cultural Studies at the University of East London, and Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, and arrived at Queen Mary in 2004. I am an editor of History Workshop Journal.

Performing Arts: The Journey of "Doodu-san" from Pit to Peace

At no age or stage in life would most human beings contemplate or envisage the consequences of falling chest deep into a pit latrine (think faeces, toilet paper and giant cockroaches and rats).

Little wonder then that Stefhen (no longer Stephen, he remade himself even a his father worked on a "replacement" ) Bryan has a certain skew on life: he lived through just such a nightmarish ordeal while still in what we refer to as "short pants,"

That rude entry into life's potential for adversity became the opener and theme for his excellent and mostly compelling one-man show, "Doodu Boy" (doodu of course being slang for feces) which had a special one-night only preview performance at New Kingston's Theatre Place.

In that well-executed piece we meet young Steve, the typically curious, hyper-imaginative young Jamaican kid mired in poverty and at the mercy of an overbearing, Scripture-quoting mother with a more than free hand when it comes to dishing out beatings to her son.

The situation is of course so dire that Steve has violent fantasies of killing his mother and moving to "'Merica" to live with his absentee Dad. that latter dream eventually comes true at age 15, but the underside of Steve's American Dream and "life in Paradise" comes up all too quickly as he discovers that his father, a mercurial, materialistic yet somehow successful engineer, was even more disdainful of him than his mother.

Faced with this greatest rejection, Bryan heads west, first to family in Denver Colorado and then on to California, where a latent predilection for Oriental women is given  free rein and expression - much of which ends up in his book "Black Passenger, Yellow Cabs" (check back in a couple days for our review of the book).

When an attempt to visit his father for a reconciliation goes awry - his father calls the cops and reveals that he has in fact, fathered another son - to whom he has also given the name "Stephen" - the crushed Bryan responds to a call to teach English....in Japan.

There, he furthers his own education in Oriental delights, but also learns the language and  - as is often the way of such things - falls in love. Even this is an occasion for Jamaican-style bawdiness, as the love of his life is revealed to him as the first girl with whom sex is - for a lengthy initial period anyway -impossible, owing to what he describes as her "monster hymen."

In the wake of losing his mother to cancer (after an intervening heart to heart of sorts while on a home spell), Steve, with his new wife, attempts one last bid to reconcile with his Dad. The latter proves taciturn to the end, but two strokes, and the travails of loneliness (the younger "Steve" has since grown and moved out) have softened him to the point where even an awkward conversation is possible.

Bryan's stage presence and visual communication skills are highly evolved and his total lack of self-consciousness while sharing details which might floor lesser mortals make the play a very engaging experience, one which even Jmaaicans, accustomed tothe ensemble presentation, will be held rapt by

Literary Arts: The Poetic Icon, by the Poet Laureate

PROFESSOR Mervyn Morris, Jamaica's Poet Laureate, launched his latest book, Miss Lou: Louise Bennett and Jamaican Culture, at Lecture Theatre 3, University of the West Indies, on Tuesday.

It is a mini-biography on the legendary folklorist Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley who died in 2006.

Morris, who was a close friend of Bennett-Coverley, said while Miss Lou's performing skills are evident in the range of her work, he noted there was formidable opposition to her work.

"Although her work was mainly African heritage, Miss Lou always mingled in different streams...she was not excluding people," he explained. "Miss Lou was trying to redress cultural imbalance. She was not trying to reject standard English."

He pointed out that Miss Lou was religious and deeply spiritual. He closed by reading from his book.

Three of Jamaica's outstanding poets -- Mutabaruka, Oku Onuora and Jean 'Binta' Breeze -- performed at the event. Each testified to Morris' influence on their careers.

"I am a dub poet without apology because the process I deal wid is straight dubbing," said Onuora. "Mervyn is influential in that there is a upsurge in dub poetry in Jamaica. Mervyn, you helped to signal a new trend in poetry...dubbing is a process that can't be limited."

Onuora performed from Echo, his collection of poems which was written while he was incarcerated.

Breeze drew laughter with a humorous swipe at Onuora, whose 'set' went overtime.

"Mervyn taught me not to use two words (with the same meaning) in a sentence when one can do. Apparently he didn't tell Oku."

She performed some of her work including The Simple Things In Life, Repatriation and Third World Girl before saluting Morris, whom she said legitimised myself and others in the university".

Mutabaruka recited Call Me No Poet or Nothing Like That, Nursery Rhyme Lament, Haiti and Dis Poem.

- from the Jamaica Observer

Literary Arts: March is "Fully Booked"

Members of Jamaica’s book industry are gearing up for the 4th annual Kingston Book Festival, which will turn the city’s attention towards all things bookish over eight days. The festival takes place March 1-8, 2015. The Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) has promised that the 2015 festival will feature over 24 events including the return of fan favourite as well as new events.

Kingston Book Fest opens with the return of Love Affair With Literature featuring Tanya Shirley and Roland Watson Grant. Love Affair With Literature has become an event featuring some of the best Caribbean writing.

Key among festival events will be the Kingston Book Fair, which after being on hiatus in 2014, will return to the lawns of Devon House on March 7, 2015. The fair will feature mini book launches, readings and, of course, books from publishers, booksellers and writers.

Mini-launches set to take place at the fair include Twin of Twins’ The Road to Zion (Ghetto People Publishing), Basil Dawkins’ Hot Spot and Ash the Flash (Carlong Publishing). The day will also feature readings and other activities geared at children including a Geronimo Stilton event.

Authors will also have an opportunity to pitch stories to publishers with the ‘Sell Me A Story’ event during the fair.

Book launches will not be limited to the fair as noted comedian Owen Blakka Ellis will debut his first full collection of poetry Riddim and Riddles (Blouse and Skirt Books) onTuesday, March 3.

KBF 2015 will also feature tours to primary and high schools as well as an opportunity for emerging poets to have a session with Poet Laureate Professor Mervyn Morris, hosted by the National Library of Jamaica on Tuesday March 3. Prisoners in the Women’s Correctional Facility and the General Penitentiary will also get an opportunity to connect with the word courtesy of readings being staged by Pelican Publishers.

The BIAJ will also be hosting a Book Jam on Thursday, March 5, focusing on magazine publication as well as offering a networking opportunity for writers, editors and publishers and will look at both digital and paper publications.

The rise of digital publishing will also take centrestage during Digital Day (Friday, March 6), hosted by the new start-up iPublish Jamaica. Digital Day will feature multiple sessions including focusing on making the move from Blog to Book, social media for authors and publishers as well as a website bootcamp.

The Kingston Book Festival is slated to take place at multiple venues across Kingston.

For the original report go to 

Literary: Coming Soon

Black History Month may yet escape us, but just in time for March and the Book Industry Month presentations, here comes my 2nd volume of poetry, "Garvey's Ghost" inspired partly by the two recordings of that name,  the latter by Burning Spear, and the 1st by the late, great Max Roach.

Cover design: Therese Morris

Cover piece: "Tribute to Marcus Garvey" by Lady Jaquelyne Hussey

cover photo:  the author

Escape to A Dark Room: My Movie Blog Book

OPENING CREDITS

"Dedicated to all who know the joys of a dark room – who know what it means to be wrapped up in watching a great movie."

And a special dedication to Sidney Myrie ( - 1982) aka “Papa”, my grandfather, and the greatest storyteller I have ever known.

Acknowledgements

If you’re anything like me, you absolutely hate to miss opening credits (though many movies these days begin the action without them), so I hope you’ll pay attention to the brief but sincere acknowledgements:

To Therese – if all you were was the most wonderful, exciting, open-hearted and pragmatic woman I’ve ever met, that would be more than enough. But, on top of all that, you’re my one-woman book production team. Your input is impeccable, your contribution is indelible; living without you – impossible.

To my family, including – but certainly not limited to – my Mom, Melrose Edwards, Dad Michael, brothers Kurt and Rico, Uncle Eric, my four fantastic children, Aaron and Israel and Zachary & Gabrielle and my former wife, Jacqueline Chin Depass

To my former colleagues on the board of the Cinematograph Authority of Jamaica (essentially the Film Ratings Board), and in particular, to former Chairman, Mrs Joyce Archibald.

The staff and management of The Palace Amusement Company, in particular Mr Lincoln Forbes, a living repository of knowledge on the history of the Jamaican cinema business – and an exemplary human being.

To Mrs. Jean Lowrie-Chin, Founder and Managing Director, and all my former colleagues at what was initially PRO (now PROCOMM),where my reviewing career took wing.

The editorial staff – past and present – of the Jamaica Observer, where Mike@the Movies came into being.

To all the people who, in person, by mail, and online, have offered commendation, criticisms, good wishes and argument – all of which have strengthened me over this journey.

And to anyone whose name is not on this page, but should be, know for a certainty, you are in my heart

About The Author

Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Michael Edwards has parlayed an innate curiosity about a wide range of topics into an accomplished and diverse media career. He has been reviewing films - in print, and on radio, TV and the Internet - for over 20 years, and has also contributed numerous music, visual and performing arts reviews to several publications.
He now lives in Portland, on the island's east coast, with his wife, food critic, designer and writer Therese Edwards.

 CURTAIN-RAISER: The Back Story

From Drive-In to Hard Drive: My Movie Journey (thus far)

I grew up five minutes’ drive (or a considerably longer walk) from a drive-in movie theatre. This one had the added allure of being a seaside drive-in, so the pounding Caribbean surf was often a welcome counterpoint to the score and soundtrack of the particular film being shown.

Sadly, the seaside location that was such a boon for the aesthetics, was also the key element in its downfall. Deadly Hurricane Gilbert, which ravaged the island in 1988, did not spare the property, and with the cinema world moving toward the multiplex and - inexorably - to the digitally produced and displayed films of today, the owners, who then enjoyed (and still do) a virtual monopoly on commercial film exhibition, decided against reviving the drive-in.

Thus died an important element of my enduring passion for watching movies. Thankfully, the Harbour View Drive-In was far from the only movie house back then, just the closest. So there were other places,  - and most of them covered - where I could go to get my movie fix. Again, the vagaries of the media and entertainment business have subsequently claimed many of them. The Carib, once the grandest single-screen cinema in the Caribbean (now a five-screen multiplex), and the dual-screen Sovereign Cineplex are all that remain in the metro Kingston area.

But whilst they remained, the city's cinemas rivalled the local libraries and bookstores as "2nd homes" for me; within their walls, I would while away many an hour absorbing single, double and triple bills, depending on the day and time (Saturday mornings and afternoons inevitably meant triple bills). In my early cinephile days, I was an omnivore, indiscriminately devouring thrillers, comedies, westerns, dramas, period pieces and Kung Fu movies with equal relish.

Truthfully, I can't remember the first movie I ever watched. I can however, remember the first one for which I wrote a review - that honour goes to John Boorman's lush re-telling of the Arthurian legend, "Excalibur" (1981). Curiously, the review was written in Spanish, part of an assignment for my 10th grade (fourth form as we knew it) Spanish class. My then limited facility with the language meant, of course, that I kept it quite simple, but it made enough of an impression on my teacher to earn me a B.

My English-language reviewing career had a bit of a false start some years later when I attempted to publish a review of Abel Ferrara's "King of New York". I had sent it, admittedly unsolicited, to a local magazine with the unimaginative title of "Lifestyle"(long since defunct). Ego notwithstanding, I don't believe that the rejection was a matter of inferior writing or formatting; more inferior PR; up to that point, my "body of work" consisted of a few poems and a Letter to the Editor published in the then sole daily newspaper, and the magazine’s editor was clearly loath to grace the publication with the work of an unknown. Happily, I was subsequently tapped by said editor to write a couple of essays, just not film review.

Publication would come in the early 90s, via an entirely new rag, and one in which I had a more direct hand. I was then working with a PR firm ( oh, the irony) and the CEO of said firm had been commissioned by the aforementioned daily newspaper to create a new pull-out aimed at luring teen and young adult readers. The publication, called "Chill" would prove to be the forerunner of the teen-oriented publications run by both daily papers today. It included, inter alia, a drama serial and a film review (both written by me). My choice of films were unfortunately, determined by the local monopoly exhibitor, so the merits of my first review, Martin Scorcese's "The Age of Innocence" for a youth publication were dubious at best (needless to say, I rather enjoyed the movie).

The reviews continued regularly thereafter, but the publication - or more specifically the PR firm's directorship of it - was relatively short-lived. With The Gleaner firmly in control of the editorial, my services were apparently no longer required.

My next regular reviewing opportunity would come by even greater serendipity. I was walking the row of shopping malls in Kingston's midtown area when I passed Susie's, then an already popular coffee bar and brasserie. Normally, I would have avoided the place as it's prices were generally way outside my then meagre earnings (I was then "self-employed" as a features writer) but I decided 'what the heck, one coffee and pastry can't hurt.'

It turned out to be quite a profitable decision, as there I encountered a journalistic colleague who at the time was moving out of the Lifestyle department at the rival daily paper which had by then been established. Our conversation invariably led to the paper and I enquired, quite casually, about the absence of their regular film reviews. The writer had gone off to start a family, he pointed out. Then, without any further prompt, my colleague suggested that I should seek to replace her.

Long story short, within a couple of weeks of that meeting, I was the regular film reviewer for the Jamaica Observer. (I did many other features over the course of a ten-year tenure at the Observer, but that's another book.) I was reunited with the said local film exhibitor, Palace Amusement, which at the time still hosted (rather parsimoniously, I might add) screenings for media and other " invited guests" in advance of the films' commercial opening. There was a certain camaraderie in those sessions, and the post-screening discussions were often rowdy affairs, with much cross-talk.

Because of its monopoly position, the exhibitor had a tendency to balk at unfavorable reviews of its offerings, which tended to fall squarely in the Hollywood mainstream. In the face one too many such reviews (whether from my hand, or otherwise, I don’t know), they decided to suspend the preliminary screenings, thus putting paid to my regular review practice - but only temporarily, of course.

The Cinematograph Authority

I interject this here because not only does it encompass a great leap forward in my reviewing career, it also, ironically gave rise to a strange and sometimes strained, reunion with the folks at Palace Amusement or, as I’m fond of referring to them, the monopoly exhibitor.

In early 2008, shortly after the previous year’s general elections, I was invited by the then Minister of Culture (on the recommendation of the then Prime Minister, no less) to join the Board of the Cinematograph Authority, an organization which I had previously heard of only in passing. Ninety-five per cent of Jamaicans have never heard of the Cinematograph Authority (my estimate, down from at least 99% prior to my tenure), but it is essentially, a Ratings Board – NOT a Censorship Board – for films shown commercially. Its basically the equivalent, in Jamaican context, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) though nowhere near as well funded.

My tenure as a member lasted three years, which is the mandated life of each Board, although one individual did not make it through the entire three years. It involved meeting twice weekly (most cases) at the head offices of the monopoly exhibitor, located in a kind of “fringe” area (not quite the heart of Downtown; and too far south of National Heroes Circle to be lumped into “Cross Roads”). There, beginning around 11, we would view usually two films, but sometimes one and, on rare occasions, three per sitting. For that we (the five members) were paid a stipend too pitiful to even mention here, and even that was held up for the better part of TWO YEARS, thanks to a callous and inefficient bureaucracy who felt it ought not to be beholden to a bunch of people whose only public service consisted of watching films and deciding who else could – or could not – watch them.

Still, for a movie buff like myself, that’s a high exposure on a consistent basis, and even though it was mostly Hollywood drivel, these were first-run features. Even though I don’t – yet - derive direct income from my blog (www.mikethemovies.blogspot.com), with movie tickets running as high as the equivalent of USD13 a pop, the savings from viewing over 150 films without charge (plus a crappy but filling lunch)  adds up to a decent bit of passive earnings.

More valuable, ultimately, is the positioning it provided for me – and still does. Despite the work of the bootleggers, I was seeing some of the films before the general public got a chance, and before the public in several overseas markets (including the UK) got a chance. This helped to give my posted reviews (some of which constitute the next section of this book), an added currency and credibility, provided of course, that I didn’t allow too much time to elapse between “ view” and “review”.

My tenure ended, quite abruptly (not to mention ironically) in June of 2011, at the hands of the said Prime Minister who so enthusiastically initiated it. I can take some amount of poetic justice in the fact that events elsewhere in the political arena meant it would prove to be among his last acts in that office, but my own life was also moving into a dynamic new phase of its own, including a departure from Kingston – where I’d lived for the better part of 44 years, to Portland.

By the time of my “ascent” to the Cinematograph Board, the film landscape was already dominated by the Internet, DVDs and multimedia, thus somewhat reducing my dependence on the local exhibitor (not withstanding the aforementioned ). In particular, 2005 saw my advent as a blogger, though initially on jazz - one of my other passions - rather than on film. It soon followed however, and despite technical glitches, and varying levels of access to technology, I have remained a movie blogger ever since. At the time of this writing, the blog has attracted just over 27,000 total pageviews – maybe not a staggering figure, but really quite commendable, all things considered.

Why do I do it?

That is of course, the big question, and the answer is stunningly simple:  I love it. To elaborate, there's something deeply resonant in the use of moving images to tell stories. Storytelling is what it's all about, and beneath the costumes, special effects and action sequences, the best films, like the best books, are the ones that tell stories in a compelling manner, you know -"Once upon a time....." and take it from there.

Granted, even the best movies leave less to the discretion of the audience than the best books, but the best of them leave one with a feeling of having been transported, of one's disbelief having been suspended. Now, just as water reaches a boil at varying temperatures according to altitude, so different persons have different points at which they allow their disbelief to be suspended.

The basic premise, however remains: movies help to remind us that we're alive (and as redundant as that sounds, we need it). For that reason, I'm grateful to have been associated with them as a reviewer for the past 20 years and counting.

On the following pages, I humbly present some of the fruits of that association. It's a mixed bag of toppers and turkeys, blockbusters and obscure indies, covering a wide range of genres. Except where indicated, the reviews were initially published on my blog, The Emx blog (www.theemxblog.blogspot.com ).

As with any great story, you'll enjoy it a whole lot more if you sit still.