From Fact to Fiction

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10/17/2014 – From Fact to Fiction

I’ve been working on my latest novel, tentatively entitled In the Rembrandt’s Shadow, which alternates chapters set in 1999 with chapters following a painting’s provenance from 1616 to 1930. I feel as though I’m walking in a mine field of anachronisms on every page.

For instance, when were cell phones invented? My characters use them in 1999, and, yes, they were available then, but expensive. In fact, the first cell phones were released to the public in 1983 by Motorola and cost about $4,000. By 1999, they’d become smaller and somewhat more affordable, so it’s reasonable to suppose my characters had them.

HOW TO BE AN ACTIVE READER

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10/10/14 — HOW TO BE AN ACTIVE READER

What do you do when you read a novel? Relax, maybe, leisurely turning pages, lettinghttp://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-man-reading-book-glasses-desk-coffee-cup-pen-pencil-flat-vector-illustration-image43808669 the story sweep you along? If so, you’re likely reading solely for pleasure, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Reading is a lot of fun. Enjoying the story can be reward enough.

On the other hand, what if you want more than entertainment from the novels you read? Good stories have layers, offering ideas, feelings, and meanings. Even fairy tales are more than delightful yarns. Hansel and Gretel learn not to wander off into the woods alone. The three little pigs learn to build their houses with strong materials that will last. If you want to mine the stories you read for greater understanding of the world the writer has created, here are some suggestions you might consider. 

Pen-L Publishing on Changes in Publishing Business

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10/7/2014 — AN INTERVIEW WITH PEN-L PUBLISHING’S DUKE AND KIMBERLY PENNELL

Pen-L_couple_headshotChange seems to be the only constant in the world of publishing these days. In just the last few years, the big traditional publishers have consolidated, most have entered the digital competition, and some have gone to war with Amazon. We’ve seen exponential growth in ebook sales, and thousands of authors are publishing their own work.

Almost unnoticed in the turmoil has been a huge opportunity for small, independent presses. They appeal to authors who don’t want to self-publish and can’t attract the interest of the big guys.

Interview with Janice Holmes

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10/04/14 – INTERVIEW WITH THE ANNAPOLIS BOOKSTORE’S JANICE HOLMESThe Annapolis Bookstore

We so often hear that the age of independent bookstores is over. With the rise of Amazon and other online sellers, we have even seen the fall of the very chains that were supposed to be putting small-town, independent bookstores out of business – putting the future of all physical bookstores, independent or otherwise, into question.

10/1/2014 GUEST BLOGGER HARRISON DEMCHICK

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10/1/2014 GUEST BLOGGER HARRISON DEMCHICKHarrison Demchick

FOR LOVE AND MAGIC.

There was a time when I determined, with absolute certainty, that I would never seek publication for my novel, The Listeners.

It wasn’t always that way. I was still in eighth grade when it clicked with me that writing is something one can do for a living, and from that moment on it was more than anything else what I wanted to do.

9-30-14 OUR OCTOBER 1, 2014, GUEST BLOGGER, IS HARRISON DEMCHICK.

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30 SEPTEMBER 2014 9-30-14 OUR OCTOBER 1, 2014, GUEST BLOGGER, IS HARRISON DEMCHICK.

9-30-14 OUR OCTOBER 1, 2014, GUEST BLOGGER, IS HARRISON DEMCHICK.


Harrison Demchick

Read what Harrison says about the romance of being a writer versus the reality. He knows what he’s talking about. Harrison is an award-winning, twice-optioned screenwriter, and the author of literary horror novel The Listeners (Bancroft Press, 2012), and the editor of novels as diverse as Purple Jesus and Hume’s Fork by Ron Cooper, The Trials of the Core by Michael E. Thies, Renhala by Amy Joy Lutchen, The Understory and The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns by Elizabeth Leiknes, the Young Inventors Guild novels by Eden Unger Bowditch, The Goddess Letters by Vicki Matthews, and a couple dozen more.

An Interview with Nina Schuyler

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An Interview with Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler
Nina Schuyler is the most exciting fiction writer I have discovered this year. A natural story-teller who creates memorable, sometimes quirky characters, her novels explore the collision of cultures. Her elegant prose is always a joy to read. She is the author of two novels, The Translator (Pegasus, 2014) and The Painting (Algonquin, 2004). The Translator was the winner of the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book, and was short-listed for the 2014 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. The Painting was named a Best Book by San Francisco Chronicle and nominated for the Northern California Book Award. Her short stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best American New Voices.

INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL J. TUCKER, AUTHOR OF AQUARIUS FALLING AND CAPRICORN’S COLLAPSE

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9/20/14 INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL J. TUKCER, AUTHOR OF AQUARIUS FALLING AND CAPRICORN’S COLLAPSE.michaeltucker

On August 20, I reviewed Aquarius Falling on Late Last Night Books, and  on October 13 Mike will join us here as a monthly columnist..

Q: Most of us have many all-time favorite books. What are a few of yours and why are they among your favorites?

A: It starts with The Talented Mr. Ripley and includes the entire Ripley series by Patricia Highsmith. Her main character, Tom Ripley, is a psychopath, but Ms. Highsmith tells her stories in such a way that you are cheering him on, you want to see him survive and avoid capture. She was an amazingly talented author.

Writers and the Doctor Who Kills

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9/17/2014 – Writers and the Doctor Who Kills

Psycho kept me out of the shower, and Jaws kept me out of the water. The Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, an association of mystery writers and fans, just presented a talk by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Eindra Khin Khin on serial murderers in the health care professions. Now I want to keep away from doctors, nurses, and hospitals.

One chilling bit of data is that serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 17, and Ted Bundy, who killed 30, just can’t reach the numbers that doctors can because doctors can evade detection and punishment so much longer. Convicted serial killer Dr. Harold Shipman of Great Britain killed an estimated 270 people but was convicted of killing 218.

SO LONG, FAREWELL … SORT OF

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13 SEPTEMBER 2014 SO LONG, FAREWELL … SORT OF

9/13/14 – SO LONG, FAREWELL … SORT OF

This is my last post as a regular contributor to Late Last Night Books. The writing has been fun, but my favorite part of the experience has been reader feedback. Whether you left your comment on the LLNB site, one of my Facebook pages, or delivered it up close and personal, I enjoyed the conversation. This last post is a roundup of some of the thoughts you shared, along with a fervent hope that our paths will cross again soon!

LEE SMITH—DISTINCTIVE VOICE OF SOUTHERN DIGNITY

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9/10/2014  LEE SMITH—DISTINCTIVE VOICE OF SOUTHERN DIGNITY

Last month, in my review of Lee Smith’s novel Guests on Earth, I talked about the Lee_headshot_2013 (2)dignity and respect that Smith gives to her characters, not just in her latest novel, but in all her novels. This month I want to tell you more about that particular writing skill and about another of Smith’s strengths, a detailed attention to setting. I also promised to tell you about Smith’s personal connection to Guests on Earth, which is tied to her deep sense of place.

Over the years, Smith has published 13 novels and four collections of short stories. She’s won numerous writing awards, including the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award.

Hawke’s Point; No, You Can’t Have Her Number

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HP_FrontCover_Lo-Res9/7/14 — EVERYONE WANTS TO MEET MARY LOUISE

I should have seen it coming. There were hints, but I made light of them, and took just a few tentative steps to deflect them. It wasn’t enough, and my problem persists: Readers of my just-published novel want to know a lot more about Mary Louise. Or more specifically, they want to know how I know so much about Mary Louise. The men even want her phone number, as though I have it on speed dial.

Mary Louise is a part-time, high-priced call girl who plays a key role in my novel, Hawke’s Point. In the first draft she was a minor character, with just a meant-to-be-funny cameo appearance early in the book.

A BREAK FROM NOVEL READING

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9/4/14 – A BREAK FROM READING NOVELS – BAD MISTAKE!

I have to take long breaks between writing novels. This summer, though, I went a month without reading one. Don’t let me do that again.

Late Last Night Books’ guest bloggers round-up

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9/1/14  A ROUND-UP OF OUR FIRST YEAR’S  1ST-OF-THE-MONTH GUEST BLOGGERS

To read their full posts, click on “guest bloggers,” above. A biographical sketch appears at the bottom of each blogger’s full post.

CarolynSienkiewiczCarolyn Sienkiewicz, October 1, “I have a particular attraction to mysteries translated from another language. When I see an author’s name that is clearly not English in origin, I’m inevitably enticed to pick up the book. The draw for me is that I know that there, between those inviting covers, will be a story that comes from another culture.”

roncooperheadshotRon Cooper, November 1, “If you prefer stories about laid-off sheet metal workers driven to sell weed to pay rent on their roach-infested shotgun shacks, bankrupt farmers trying to figure out how to commit suicide yet have their families still collect double indemnity life insurance, and out-of-work grocery store clerks living out of their cars and who convince themselves they’re really not whores as they blow another stranger for the price of a shot of cheap liquor, rather than another NYT best seller about Hartford suburbanites swapping neuroses, you now have choices.”

LATE LAST NIGHT BOOKS HAS A NEW LOOK

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8/29/14 — IN ANTICIPATION OF ITS SECOND YEAR, AND IN ANTICIPATION OF ITS FIRST TRIP TO THE BALTIMORE BOOK FESTIVAL, SEPTEMBER 26-28, LATE LAST NIGHT BOOKS HAS A NEW LOOK AND WELCOMES NOVELISTS GARY CRAIG POWELL AND MICHAEL J. TUCKER AS NEW MONTHLY COLUMNISTS. 

EXCESSIVE. VIOLENT. TENDER.

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23 AUGUST 2014 EXCESSIVE. VIOLENT. TENDER.

8/23/14 EXCESSIVE. VIOLENT. TENDER. by Sonia Linebaugh

EXCESSIVE by Sonia L“It is all excessive, violent, and at the same time full of tenderness.” These words are used by Lizelle Reymond to describe a landscape in Bengal, India, in To Live Within. Excessive. Violent. Tenderness. Individually and as a powerful chord the words express not only the land, but the essence of being alive in the 1969 memoir.

 

In a book published last month, Robin Black uses the word power itself. “I always wanted to be powerful. In this decade, finally, I look powerful. I feel powerful. And I feel alone.” The repetition of the word establishes strength before the counter melody intrudes in Life Drawing: A Novel.

Book Review: Aquarius Falling by Michael Tucker, reviewed by Gary Garth McCann

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AQUARIUSFALLINGcover8/20/14 REVIEW OF THE NOVEL AQUARIUS FALLING BY MICHAEL TUCKER

“It’s easy to see how to do away with what we call crime…It can be done by giving the people a chance to live, by destroying special privileges…Nobody would steal if he could get something of his own some easier way…Jail is an evidence of the lack of charity of the people on the outside who make the jails and fill them with the victims of their greed.” The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow, Larson and Marshall, Eds., Modern Library, 2007.

The transition from childhood to adulthood is difficult.

On Interpretation

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On Interpretation

8/17/2014 – American essayist Susan Sontag once wrote that, “The urge to interpret is the compliment mediocrity pays to genius.” Are these are fighting words?

She adds that, “We approach works of art in order to interpret them. Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world-in order to set up a shadow world of meanings….Interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone.”

Of course, this falls in the face of all the analysis of subtexts and symbols I struggled through as an English major. Should we simply experience a work of art or literature as it is? Does interpretation result in distancing oneself from the work itself, as if the work had been disinfected and sliced and now lay dead on a slide under the microscope?