WikiDoc

A good documentary produced by Swedish public television on the history of WikiLeaks [via L. Lee Lowe].

More

These drawings show my progress, for what it's worth, over several days as I keep experimenting with Gimp. I've done a few drawings in colour more successfully than the first one above, but thought I'd include it as a sample of how much I was wrestling with the software at first (my version is in Korean, and its script is what appears to be sub-6 point type). Since then, I've focussed more on grey-scale art, though I'll go back to colour eventually.

Truth Marathon

I'm experimenting with Gimp.

Recently Read

Michael Breen on the Youngpyong-do artillery attack.

Michael Pate in Art, War and Literature

WikiRoundup

The Guardian's WikiLeaks coverage.


A must-read from Reporters Without Borders.


WikiLeaks current site.


Incidentally, I've read several articles which quote Hillary Clinton, Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin and others all state or strongly hint that what WikiLeaks did was illegal, and furthermore have read more than one reference in news wire stories to Assange and some of his colleagues as computer hackers. And corporations such as Amazon and Paypal have repeated the illegal activities accusation when justifying their hostile actions toward WikiLeaks. But I've yet to read an article that answers the simple question: were the American diplomatic cables the result of a leak? If so, where precisely was the illegality?

WikiCorporateThink

Paypal defends decency, takes firm stand against journalistic recklessness.

Terrorist News Site

Sarah Palin demonstrates her increasing grasp of the principles underlying civil rights in the 21st Century.

Evan Munday - illustrator, graphic novelist [Quarter-Life Crisis, et al]

Evan Munday of Quarter-Life Crisis and publicist for Coach House Press:

1. Graphic fiction, we are told, is in; it has arrived. Academics talk about it, literary publishers include it -- sometimes -- on their lists. But how accepted is it really? Is it genuinely accepted by the high-brow, and viewed with true objectivity? Or is some of the praise that it is given merely bumpf? After all, MFA programs specialize in writing, not graphic fiction; English departments rarely if ever pay attention to graphic fiction; major publishers do not publish much of it, and major prizes never include it in short lists, even though it can be a form of novel. What needs to change for graphic fiction to gain more acceptance?

I'd say it has arrived, to a real degree. MFA program don't specialize in graphic fiction, true, but I think English departments are paying a lot of attention to graphic fiction. There are graphic novels on several English courses here at U of T. Not most of them, mind you, but I think their prevalence is growing in academia. I think MFA programs and major prized rarely focus on the genre because they don't know what to do with it. It's largely an illustrator-driven genre. Some of the best-known authors in comics (Art Spiegelman, Julie Doucette, Dan Clowes, etc) illustrate their work. And if they go to school for graphic fiction, it's to hone their illustration craft, rather than their writing. But I'm not sure that means graphic fiction hasn't arrived.

I feel that comics are a completely different medium. They come in book form, but I feel they land somewhere between books and movies.

One thing that hasn't happened, though, is the acceptance of all comics. Now, there's a very specific subset of comics that are considered 'worthy' (typically memoir or historical narratives), and the mass of what is published (superhero stuff, manga romance, crime tales) is treated largely as entertainment. There's not the same kind of critical attention given to the Stephen Kings or John Fords of the comics industry, the way there is in literature and film. Not sure if that analogy makes sense ... I hope so!

2. According to critic Alex Good, literary fiction is selling poorly these days and graphic novels are doing better. Is this as far as you know true?

I don't know, but I can say that graphic novels are the one real 'growth sector' of printed books. I wouldn't say literary fiction is not selling or selling poorly. (Hard for me to say, as that and poetry is largely what we sell at Coach House, and things seem to be going as well as they ever have here.) But sales of graphic novels are increasing year after year. So it's the one section of publishing that's doing better and better as time goes on.

3. Canada has produced a bounty of strong graphic fiction artists, including Julie Doucette, Chester Brown, Seth, etc. Any newer names you'd like to add to the list?

Yes. You may already know some of these, but I think Jeff Lemire is an oustanding comics guy. He did the Essex County Trilogy (a series of tales set in Ontario), and more recently has done work for Vertigo (The Nobody, Sweet Tooth).

And personally, I'm a fan of some of the more fun, unapologetically entertaining work, so I'm really into Bryan Lee O'Malley's video-game hipster romance Scott Pilgrim, Kate Beaton's historical web comics (Hark! A Vagrant!) and James Turner's justice-driven librarians (Rex Libris).

Also, he just has one book out so far, but I think Ethan Rilly is extremely talented. He just put out a short book called Pope Hats that I really like.

4. Can you tell us a little about marketing and distribution in the self-publishing world?

I haven't done a great deal. If I weren't working full-time, and if I could devote more of my self to my self-publishing endeavors, I'd have different answers. As it is, I don't have much in the way of time, and also, it's a strange line to tread. I do the same thing in my day job, so I'm hesitant to spend too much time publicizing my own book (when I'm employed by Coach House to publicize their/our books).

I printed the books at Coach House. I got estimates from Coach House Printing, worked out how many books I'd want printed, and what I had to sell those books at to make anything resembling profit.

In terms of distribution, I haven't done too much. I go around to local comic and bookstores and some take them on consignment. Others buy them up front. I've had a lot of luck at stores like The Beguiling, who have reordered several times. It helps that I know a lot of the booksellers (comic and otherwise) in Toronto. I also sell through my website (mail-order) and at a lot of events -- comic conventions, festivals, readings.

I haven't really done much in the way of marketing, mostly because it's a weird area for me, as it crosses over with what I do at Coach House. But I did send out some review copies, mostly to Toronto publication and websites and had a few reviews. Other than that, it's trying to get my face out at fairs and conventions, along with some other Toronto comic illustrators (we've formed a small collective called SketchKrieg!).

Giller scandal ... and more

Nigel Beale responds to Susan Swan's accusations of insider trading by 2010 Giller jury member Ali Smith.


Alex Good shakes the dust off his feet and moderates a panel discussion of the GG shortlist for poetry, with Jacob McArthur Mooney and Brian Palmu.

Michel Lavoie - C'est ma seigneurie que je reclame [GG winner for non-fiction, French]

L'edition Boreal blog on Michel Lavoie, winner of the GG for non-fiction for C'est ma seigneurie qu je reclame.

Allan Casey Lakeland -- [GG non-fiction winner, English]

Winner of the GG for non-fiction, Lakeland by Allan Casey.

Dianne Warren - Cool Water [GG fiction winner, English]

At the lit-site Kevin From Canada, a review of English GG winner Cool Water, by Dianne Warren

Kim Thuy - Ru [GG fiction winner, French]

Noteworthy

Kerry Clare talks to Zoe Whittall, who most recently has written a short novel for Orca Press's Fast Reads.


Gaspereau Press subs a best seller.

Korean houses

Venerable Korean publishing house Jimoondang -- responsible for the excellent Portable Library of Korean Literature -- releases THE FOG OF WAR.

A Brief History of Time at Work 2

Dan Wells refers to the recent James Grainger review of Alexander MacLeod's collection, Light Lifting.


In and Out of the Working Class by Michael D. Yates, Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

Green Thang, Red Thang

Books go eco-friendly ... I mean, more eco-friendly than they already are.


Nathan Whitlock on Mordecai Richler.


Jacob Russell on Afghanistan.


Zach Wells reads two for Remembrance Day. Incidentally, one of my German co-workers told me that the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is the beginning of Carnival in Germany. This isn't merely an example of cultural difference, it is, to my mind, an example of cultural difference crying out for semiotic/sociologic/psychoanalytic meta-analysis. On the one hand, a war in which a nation-state whose foreign policy was still beholden to an imperial power managed to prove [add irony quotes] itself on the battlefield, and thus, more or less in time for the next global conflagration, establish itself as truly sovereign, while another nation state, eager to prove its mettle/anxious to build an empire of its own/confused as to how to disentangle itself from a world-historical policy blunder, launched into a war that chewed up an entire generation of its young men (along with same for the war's other belligerents), lost, and ... set the stage for the political fanaticism that would trigger the next major war.


Remembrance Day is celebrated in Canada as a rather solemn event honoured primarily by school-kids led into gymnasiums where they are read "In Flanders Fields". World War One, not World War Two, remains the ceremony's focus (at least, that's how it was for me in grade school). In Germany, apparently, it is the beginning of a beer-centric bacchanalia whose purpose is a forgetful fun. Neither national culture quite wants to face the post-millennial reality: militarism is alive and well, and all the poppies and all the Becks cannot neutralize that fact that treating history as a museum piece or just obliterating it altogether with litres and litres of top-quality brew don't alter that one of war's main roots is cultural acceptance of militarism.


Round three, anyone?


  

Recently Read

Shelley Shaver's Rain: A Dust Bowl Story 


James of Workblogging on being canned by text.


Kanneth J. Harvey's  Walmart Sucks

A Brief History of Time at Work 1

Above is one of the less iconic photos from the Great Depression. Of course, while the style -- from the fashions people wore to the method by which employment agencies marketed themselves -- has changed, a lot remains the same. I remember first getting work through an employment agency, located around the corner from my shared house on Callandar Street, when I was spending my first years in Toronto. It was a small storefront that managed to exude a hopeless quality far out of proportion to its size. 

One goes to an emploment agency for obvious reasons, but one also goes out of a sense of desperation -- the uneasy feeling that while others have it all figured out and know how to land the really plum jobs, one is missing something, is a bit clued out, is de-looped. The rationalizing thought that occurs is this: at least one is doing something. But this something is being performed in a feckless, inefficient manner.


The agency is the one making the real money. The man or woman who works for it for a few days -- or weeks, or months -- is the vehicle that supplies profit; a profit that goes primarily to the organizers of the agency, not the one who does the daily labour ... not the worker.

John Reed

My interview with John Reed on TALES OF WOE is now up at Literary Kicks.

Loveography: Inside Haemi Fortress

EXT. A SMALL KOREAN VILLAGE. AN EARLY SUMMER EVENING, MID-WEEK.

A WESTERN MAN is walking down the city's main street. To his left is Haemi Fortress, a medieval Korean fort. Its wall is built of unevenly-matched stones, each lightened by age to a gentle ochre, as if the stone itself has softened.

Adam Bellow - publisher, writer [part one]

Adam Bellow of the New Pamphleteer and HarperCollins:

Note: This is the first part of a longer interview which I previously posted. An abridged version of it appeared at The Brooklyn Rail.

Truth Marathon

Added

The following publishers have been added to my links section, after having conducted interviews with them. (I began interviewing francophones earlier this summer; I hope to branch out to Korean publishers as well.) Given the cultural divide that exists between English and French literatures in Canada, their sites are well worth checking out:

Marcel Broquet, La Nouvelle Edition

Guy Saint-Jean, Editeur

Kerry Clare -- critic, lit-blogger

Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This

1. When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

Jacob Russell - poet, lit-blogger

Jacob Russell of Jacob Russell's Barking Dog and the poetry scene in Philadephia

1. When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

Unspooling thread

More chronicles of the warz.

Recently Read

Rain: A Dust Bowl Story

Malcolm X, Triple X, Puritan X

Zachariah Wells' "C'mon, Goddammit, C'mon"

Paul Wells inadvertently provides evidence to the argument that the selection system in AngCanLit is dysfunctional

Recently Read

Steven Beattie on the temporary (this time) decimation of democratic principle in Toronto.

Michael Bryson interviews T. F. Rigelhof

Peter Darbyshire begins touring The Warhol Gang

Loveography 1: Inside Haemi Fortress

EXT. A SMALL KOREAN VILLAGE. AN EARLY SUMMER EVENING, MID-WEEK.

A WESTERN MAN is walking down the city's main street. To his left is Haemi Fortress, a medieval Korean fort. Its wall is built of unevenly-matched stones, each lightened by age to a gentle ochre, as if the stone itself has softened.

The MAN walking beside this wall has a peaceful expression on his face. But from his body language we can tell he's lonely.

VO: Those were the days before I met you.

SFX: A light breeze.



EXT. THE INNER COURTYARD OF THE FORTRESS. MOMENTS LATER.

The Western man sees a group of CHILDREN. They are giggling and playing with each other. Then one of them spots the man.



CHILD: 의국인! [Foreigner]

SECOND CHILD: [sing-songy] Hello!

MAN: [smiling] Hello.

ALL CHILDREN: [gleefully] Hello! Hello!

MAN: [speaking slowly] Can you speak English?

The CHILDREN suddenly start to giggle uproariously. But their amusement is more a symptom of shyness than a desire to carry the game any further. They run away, still laughing.

The MAN continues walking. He makes his way through small, sad, empty streets.




V.O.: Chris Marker once asked how we can remember thirst. What I want to know is, how can we remember loneliness? It penetrates not just oneself but the world. Reality itself appears changed. The side-streets suck themselves empty, their noise vacuumed behind shuttered store-fronts. The sky pulls itself as taut as a blue drum. The clouds starve themselves and harm themselves, like self-loathing anorexics.

And as the world seems to change, so does the self: feel lonely enough, and that juncture of soul and body that comprises what you think of as you becomes as parched as cracked soil. The lonely individual is ancient, he is dirt.


INT. AN EVANGELICAL CHURCH. TEN MINUTES LATER.



The MAN enters. He is somewhat surprised to see a CROWD OF WORSHIPPERS. They are very involved in their prayers.

The MAN walks cautiously forward.

A MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN spots him.

CUT TO: CLOSE UP of MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN.

MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN: 하느님! 하느님이 자를 사랑하습니다! [God! God loves you!]

The MAN pulls back, alarmed.


EXT. A STREET. MOMENTS LATER.

The MAN is walking by himself again. He looks even sadder than before. A DIFFERENT CHILD spots him.

DIFFERENT CHILD: [especially enthusiastically] Hello!

V.O.: I don't know what it is was about that kid's voice. It went to my heart -- pierced it, like an exquisitely fine spear, the sharp end of sweetness. And it was this strange combination of sensations -- the needle's prick and the blood's sunny melt -- that suddenly transported me (there's no other phrase) to a different time. It was a time in the more recent past, when I still felt the residual parch of loneliness. But it was a time when I started to feel.

I mean, it was a time when I started to feel again.

Recently Read

Corey Redekop on Rabindranath Maharaj.

The Puritan fills its pews.

D. Harlan Wilson - writer

D. Harlan Wilson - writer (They Had Goats Heads)

CBT: When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing – especially of literary fiction – was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread – and possibly unstoppable – phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

What is your take on the current depressed state of literary publishing? Is it a passing phase? Or is it an intractable problem – in other words, it is the new normal? And if the latter, what can be down to counteract it?

DHW: Practitioners and readers of literary fiction often romanticize its history, but it’s never been that popular, unless we go far enough back in time to a point where the only thing being published could be quantified as “literary,” at least retrospectively, in which case we’re talking about poetry. By “literary fiction” I mean fiction that’s stylized, allusive, and structured in a figuratively and melodically resonant way. There are exceptions, but what sells is writing with crappy prose, round characters, suspenseful plots, and variable quantities of sex and violence. Genre fiction, mainly. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, etc. Part of the reason has to do with the movie business. Novelists are encouraged to write in such a way that their books can be easily adapted into films, and special effects are used mostly in science fiction, fantasy and horror. And special effects are what sell; they’re what people want, above all. More, though, is the fact that people don’t read that much, and if they do read, they don’t want to be challenged intellectually, which is what literary fiction does. Readers want mindless entertainment in the form of thrillrides, or sex/love, or some combination of the two, with the occasional witticism or would-be apothegm thrown in here and there. So that’s a problem. For me, anyway. Another problem is that literary fiction nowadays is mostly written by MFA hoity-toits who are visibly affected by their MFAness in their writing and think “good writing” (i.e., non-genre writing) has to be written in a certain clever look-at-me-I-have-an-MFA way. I hate that shit. So the main problem is that most writing, whatever it is, isn’t very good. Again – for me. Name-calling is of course a subjective thing.

CBT: How much potential do you think the Internet has as a vehicle of publishing? It's clear that there is a place for online criticism; the lit-blogosphere is dominated by it. The blogger Dan Green has even coined a phrase for this form of critical writing: the crit-blogosphere. But the crit-blogosphere's logical partner – the fic-blogosphere – is marginalized. Not many people read short stories or novels online.

DHW: Yes, it makes sense that nonfiction lives larger online than fiction. People who read nonfiction are often more business-oriented, loosely speaking, not to mention that most people who read anything read nonfiction. Unless you’re a literature professor, creative writer, etc., fiction is mostly for entertainment, and readers of fiction, if they aren’t a different crowd than nonfiction readers altogether, regard it differently than they do nonfiction.

It seems that people who read fiction generally like in-print books, magazines, etc., actual things they can touch, with pages they can turn and smell. This is certainly the case with me. I hate reading fiction online, unless it’s flash fiction, which is mainly what I publish in the magazine I edit, The Dream People. I have a short attention span as it is, and I don’t like to spend long periods of time staring at a glowing screen. I like my online fiction quick and pointed. I also have a big library and collect books. Many avid readers feel and do likewise. Granted, the Kindle and other e-readers are becoming more and more popular, but I think that’s mostly for the sake of money. My wife Christine, for instance, reads a lot of trashy novels, mass market paperbacks, and she rips through them at lightspeed, unlike me – I read very slowly. Kindles are great for people like Christine who read quickly and in large quantities. But the quantity of fiction readers who own Kindles is still marginal.

CBT: Will the Internet really become the medium in which serious people both publish and read fiction? Or is this a technological pipe-dream, and is it more a question of using the Internet as an effective means to sell and distribute printed books?

The Internet will become a more prominent medium for reading fiction and nonfiction in online formats. But printed books won’t go away. Not anytime soon. And there’s no question at all, in my mind, that the Internet will continue to become a more effective medium not only for selling and distributing printed books, but for promoting them, too.

CBT: It is arguable the Internet isn't effective as a medium for publishing long works of fiction because very few people can stand looking at regular screens for the necessary length of time. But e-ink provides a solution to this. It eliminates eye strain. How much potential do you think e-ink and e-book technologies have? Do you see e-books catching on with the public? And do they provide a reasonable business model?

DHW: I definitely don’t think e-books are good business. There is money to be made, but nowhere near as much as in the print market. This will change somewhat, I suspect, especially with the merger of image/animation+text online. But I still don’t see the print market taking a back seat in the near future.

CBT: In the past few years, articles and blog posts (for example, at LitKicks) have appeared criticizing the pricing of books. Are books too expensive? Has this been a factor in reducing the size of the book-buying audience over the last twenty or so years?

DHW: Yes, books are too expensive. I don’t know what’s to be done about it. There’s a lot of factors to take into consideration, ranging from inflation, to declining readerships, to the cost of a printing press. For example, many small presses use the same printing press (e.g., Lightning Source) and the printing press makes most of the money. Larger presses, though, print their own stuff, so most of the proceeds funnel directly to them. Admittedly I don’t know much about the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the publishing industry. One technique I often see is to offer books for free or at discounted prices, for a limited time, as downloads, in an effort to create a buzz and pique consumer interest. I imagine this works well, in some cases, for bigger publishers, but probably not with small presses, and small presses are the ones who mainly do this. I guess I’m just not that optimistic about the future of publishing. Small presses have proliferated in recent years, but they often die quickly, because to compete you have to charge so much per book, at least if you want to offer comparable quality of narrative and presentation of narrative.

CBT: Staying with the same theme: Literary novels were once published in hardcover and then, several months later (and a spot on the best-seller lists willing), they were available as affordable pocket-sized paperbacks. However, in the 1980s this practice ceased and literary paperbacks started being published in North America as pricier trade paperbacks. Only genre fiction retained the pocket-book form. In retrospect, was this a prudent decision by publishers of literary fiction? Or should the literary pocket-book make a return?

DHW: I certainly would like to see the literary pocket-book make a comeback. But that’s just not what readers want. Market forces adjust accordingly. In my experience, contemporary readers who buy mass market paperbacks like their fiction absolutely un-literary, i.e., they want action, suspense, easy-to-understand prose, characters they can relate to, etc. In other words, like I said earlier, they don’t want to be intellectually challenged; the capitalist grind of everyday life is too much of a pain in the ass as it is, and when they curl up with a book, they want to lose themselves, quickly and cleanly and without (linguistic) incident. I can’t blame anybody for that. But we are collectively the authors of our own subjugation. Culture becomes increasingly stupider, and we all produce culture, and culture in turn reproduces us as social subjects. The flows of our desires changed significantly in the postmodern era. This is largely due to electric technologies and image-based media. But it also says something about the basic human condition. Ultimately we don’t want to be cerebral creatures; it’s hard. We want to be dumb animals; it’s easy, and it feels good.

CBT: Agents now have enormous power, effectively controlling which writers get access to acquisition editors at major houses. Furthermore, agents find themselves under enormous pressure, acting as the line of first readers who have to sift through avalanches of submissions. Is this tenable over the long run? Is it good for art? Or should large houses be accepting both agented and unsolicited submissions?

I’ve never used an agent. Nor have I really tried to solicit one, for my adult writing anyway. Only recently have I contacted agents for a few children’s books that I’ve written. I’ve had some positive feedback but who knows what will become of it.

I think agents are definitely useful. It depends on what kind of writer you want to be. And if you want to make money. If money-making is your thing, an agent is indispensable. I make a decent living as an English professor, so I have the liberty of writing more or less what I want, and publications with small presses as well as more prestigious venues bolster my scholarship. I would not encourage folks who want to make a lot of money to do as I do. My writing is, for lack of a better term, experimental, stylistically and conceptually, and that sort of thing doesn’t sell, and editors don’t really like it, for the most part, and readers don’t either. But fiction that takes chances and breaks rules is what I’ve always liked to read and what I’ve always wanted to write.

In terms of “good art,” the best published writing I’ve read has been put out by small presses who take on authors sans agents. At the same time, the worst published writing I’ve read has been put out by small presses. It’s a crapshoot.

CBT: Literary prizes have also grown in power. They have arguably replaced the glowing review as a marketing tool. But are they as effective as criticism in building a contemporary canon? After all, critics can express nuance, prizes can't. Do book prizes give the message: this book is worth reading and all these others aren't?

I was just talking about literary prizes with another author and friend of mine. We concluded that they’re mostly a bunch of bullshit. I’ve read award-winning books that are so awful I couldn’t believe they had ever been published in the first place. And I’ve read incredible books by totally unknown and/or fledgling authors that were published and went out of print without the slightest recognition. The latter is usually a problem of exposure and lack of (publisher) funds for publicity. The main problem with prizes is subjectivity. Subjectivity fucks up everything, really. But it’s not only subjectivity; it’s quality of intellect and perception, too. Some prizes are dished out by committees of “professionals” or “veterans” who have a certain idea about what constitutes, again, “good writing.” Which, of course, doesn’t mean it’s good. But sometimes it’s good. Other prizes, like the Bram Stoker Award, are voted in by anybody belonging to, in this case, the Horror Writer’s Association, so you get authors lobbying for their books, asking all of their friends to vote for them, and it becomes a popularity contest more than a quality contest. But I suppose that has to be the case with the Stoker – most genre horror is crap (mind you, according to my subjectivity) – even if some of the best books I’ve ever read fall into the category of genre horror.

All venom aside, there are certainly exceptions to what I’m talking about. I mean, a Pulitzer or PEN/Faulkner winner might bore me to death, sure, but who can discount its literary merit? Only a goddamned idiot. The point is, like you say, prizes, more and more, are becoming marketing tools. I’ve won awards for my writing for this very reason. It’s a shitty way to build a canon. Canons are inherently flawed anyway – compliments of subjectivity. And historically they’re a white male bourgeois patriarchal project. Thankfully, that’s been changing.

CBT: Thinking of your own site, what sorts of changes do you foresee in it? Are blogs destined to become the new magazines? Will you start using a format (and possibly working with partners) in a magazine-type way? Or is blogging as it's currently defined how you want to keep posting work on the Net?

DHW: I don’t like blogs and I don’t read them. I only recently started a blog because I’m an author and I have to have one, right? Despite not liking book promotions at all, I do a lot of promotions. I don’t harbor fantasies about one day becoming a famous author, before or after my death. But I wouldn’t mind landing a few monstrous paydays while I’m alive. Frankly, though, I’m happy right now with some of the recognition I’ve gotten from other authors, reviewers, etc. who I hold in high regard. That means so much to me. For instance, blurbs for my writing that I’ve gotten from Alan Moore, Kim Stanley Robinson, Mike Resnick, Barry Malzburg, Steve Aylett, John Shirley, Larry McCaffery, Robert Venditti, Lance Olsen, Mike Arnzen and others remind me that I might not be as much of a hack as I think I am sometimes. Like I said, my wife and I make a comfortable living as English profs. She’s a writer, too, and any monies that come in from writing are superfluities. Welcome superfluities, no doubt, but they are what they are.

Anyway, blogging is ok. The name of mine is “Goatheads Anonymous,” which calls attention to my upcoming fiction collection, They Had Goat Heads. I call it a flashblog to cater to the short attention span of online readers. I post stuff about my writing and publications, but also ephemera, general observations, information about other authors and filmmakers and artistic figures that I like, bits I find funny on, say, YouTube, and that sort of thing. And I also run The Dream People, which gives me an additional presence online, but I’m more interested in the magazine to showcase authors, artists, etc. that I like and that I can give exposure to.

Bio: D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, literary critic and English prof. Visit him online at www.dharlanwilson.com and dharlanwilson.blogspot.com.

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Brenda Schmidt - poet

Brenda Schmidt of Alone on a Boreal Stage:

CBT: When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

What is your take on the current depressed state of literary publishing? Is it a passing phase? Or is it an intractable problem -- in other words, it is the new normal? And if the latter, what can be down to counteract it?

BS: I suspect literary publishing has entered a new phase, a downturn well beyond anyone's control. I should state right off that I just started reading Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton, a book that was mentioned in a post on That Shakespearean Rag a while back. I took courses in analytic criticism and critical theory in the 1990s, which I absolutely loved, and now with three books of poetry under my belt and a couple manuscripts in the oven, I thought it might be a timely and enlightening read as I weigh the publishing options. And it is enlightening. I first paused in the chapter titled "The Rise of English." There Eagleton reminds us that "[l]iterature, in the meaning of the word we have inherited, is an ideology. It has the most intimate relations to questions of social power." It, like religion, is a kind of "social "cement"", as he calls it. Well, it looks like the cement is breaking down. While I was considering all this, I happened to read in The Globe and Mail a review of Jaron Lanier's book You Are Not a Gadget and upon learning that Lanier thinks the digital world is a kind of religion, I thought yes, it is the freshly poured social cement in which we're currently sitting. And setting. Needless to say, I promptly ordered the book. It's on its way.

CBT: How much potential do you think the Internet has as a vehicle of publishing? It's clear that there is a place for online criticism; the lit-blogosphere is dominated by it. The blogger Dan Green has even coined a phrase for this form of critical writing: the crit-blogosphere. But the crit-blogosphere's logical partner -- the fic-blogosphere -- is marginalized. Not many people read short stories or novels online.

Will the Internet really become the medium in which serious people both publish and read fiction? Or is this a technological pipe-dream, and is it more a question of using the Internet as an effective means to sell and distribute printed books?

BS: So many serious people are already heavily invested in this digital reality. A solid web presence is necessary to sell books these days. At least that's what we're led to believe. You can learn a lot about what works by watching other authors and publishers. For instance, I've been following Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven journal ahead of the Canadian release. His Wednesday March 17, 2010 entry speaks to all this far better than I ever could.

Things are evolving so quickly. More and more publishers are offering eBooks. It's hard to say where publishing will go. As far as fiction is concerned, it's my understanding that less and less people are reading short stories and novels in general. I hope it's just a temporary situation and that people will learn to better manage their online time, but a big part of me thinks there's no going back.

CBT: It is arguable the Internet isn't effective as a medium for publishing long works of fiction because very few people can stand looking at regular screens for the necessary length of time. But e-ink provides a solution to this. It eliminates eye strain.

How much potential do you think e-ink and e-book technologies have? Do you see e-books catching on with the public? And do they provide a reasonable business model?

BS: Given the hype surrounding the unveiling of the iPad, I think these technologies are the way of the future. People get excited about shiny new gadgets and some of these gadgets make perfect sense. You can pack so many worlds into the digital world. How wonderful it must be to enter The Year of the Flood when you're crowded on a subway platform during rush hour. That's not my reality, but it is for so many.

CBT: In the past few years, articles and blog posts (for example, at LitKicks) have appeared criticizing the pricing of books. Are books too experensive? Has this been a factor in reducing the size of the book-buying audience over the last twenty or so years?

Books certainly aren't cheap, but what is? I suspect it's more a matter of shifting priorities. We've been riding the tail of a nasty recession. Personal debt, as news stories keep reminding us, is at historic highs. After the average person pays their rent or mortgage, pays the daycare, buys groceries, etc, how much is left? Are they willing to spend the remains on a book? Dollar-wise, twenty hardcover literary novels roughly equal a trip to Puerto Plata. Twenty novels equal a root canal. Twenty novels equal a visit to the vet to get the cat fixed. And so on.

CBT: Staying with the same theme. Literary novels were once published in hardcover and then, several months later (and a spot on the best-seller lists willing), they were available as affordable pocket-sized paperbacks. However, in the 1980s this practice ceased and literary paperbacks started being published in North America as pricier trade paperbacks. Only genre fiction retained the pocket-book form. In retrospect, was this a prudent decision by publishers of literary fiction? Or should the literary pocket-book make a return?

I haven't run across any recent articles that speak to this. I imagine digital issues are their primary concern right now. How can't they be? I can just see publishers scratching their heads as they consider the future. Meanwhile they're posting events on Facebook and links on Twitter as the slush pile behind them reaches for the ceiling.

CBT: Agents now have enormous power, effectively controlling which writers get access to acquisition editors at major houses. Furthermore, agents find themselves under enormous pressure, acting as the line of first readers who have to sift through avalanches of submissions. Is this tenable over the long run? Is it good for art? Or should large houses be accepting both agented and unsolicitied submissions?

As a poet published by small presses, I have no experience with this. I read the stories coming out of the book world just like everyone else and wonder where things are going. I often wonder how much art is lost in the slush pile. A fair bit would be my guess.

CBT: Literary prizes have also grown in power. They have arguably replaced the glowing review as a marketing tool. But are they as effective as criticism in building a contemporary canon? After all, critics can express nuance, prizes can't. Do book prizes give the message: this books is worth reading and all these others aren't?

Literary prizes are powerful indeed. A nomination for a major prize means the book will be purchased. It means it will be reviewed. Everyone knows this. That's just the way it is right now. I'd like to think that marketing and canon building are very different animals, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part. After all, both literary prizes and criticism are, for the most part, judgments made by peers. The former comes with big bucks and bling while the latter is buried in the Saturday paper. I wonder how many people actually appreciate nuance in this Gaga age. Less and less, it appears, if one goes by the shrinking space for reviews.

CBT: Thinking of your own site, what sorts of changes do you foresee in it? Are blogs destined to become the new magazines? Will you start using a format (and possibly working with partners) in a magazine-type way? Or is blogging as it's currently defined how you want to keep posting work on the Net?

More and more magazine-style blogs are springing up, and with the funding cuts to literary magazines in Canada I'm sure there will be more. I have no plans to start a blog-based magazine right now, but you never know. And I don't foresee any major changes in the way I blog. I began to blog prior to the publication of my second book with the hope that it would help my work find readers. While I have no way of measuring its success in that regard, I do know that blogging has brought me into closer contact with the larger writing community. Thanks to blogging, I hear helpful gossip. I get the odd heads-up. I have access to a range of opinions. I get the odd gig. Thanks to blogging, I'm confident that I could visit any city in Canada and find a friendly table of writers who would invite me to sit down. That's important to me and no small feat given that I live in a mining town in northern Saskatchewan. But that's what the internet, at its best, can do.

Lilian Nattel - author

Lilian Nattel -- author (The Singing Fire, The River Midnight), and blogger (A Novelist's Mind)

CBT: When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.

What is your take on the current depressed state of literary publishing? Is it a passing phase? Or is it an intractable problem -- in other words, it is the new normal? And if the latter, what can be down to counteract it?

LN: In Canada, despite the recession, book sales are up, so I'm not sure that literature is in a terrible state. The demise of the novel, for example, was mourned in magazines like Atlantic a hundred years ago, and it's still going strong. The fact is that popular entertainment has always been, well, more popular then literature. That goes back to the days of bread and circuses. But that doesn't mean that art and literature aren't important or don't have an impact beyond their sales. The impact can be felt in many ways, language, social impact, ideas, beauty, and because of that human impulse and need that goes beyond particular distribution methods or profit demands, literature will continue to be made and read.

CBT: How much potential do you think the Internet has as a vehicle of publishing? It's clear that there is a place for online criticism; the lit-blogosphere is dominated by it. The blogger Dan Green has even coined a phrase for this form of critical writing: the crit-blogosphere. But the crit-blogosphere's logical partner -- the fic-blogosphere -- is marginalized. Not many people read short stories or novels online.

Will the Internet really become the medium in which serious people both publish and read fiction? Or is this a technological pipe-dream, and is it more a question of using the Internet as an effective means to sell and distribute printed books?

LN: I don't think anyone can predict the future with any degree of accuracy. That isn't just my opinion. Studies show that experts are actually worse at predictions (probably because of axe-grinding) then people who have no expertise. What I would say is that the problem with the internet is that there is no filtering system and with the mass of material posted online, it is hard going to find anything really good. So the challenge, I see, is not so much with the internet as technology as with finding a way to implement a filtering system.

CBT: It is arguable the Internet isn't effective as a medium for publishing long works of fiction because very few people can stand looking at regular screens for the necessary length of time. But e-ink provides a solution to this. It eliminates eye strain. How much potential do you think e-ink and e-book technologies have? Do you see e-books catching on with the public? And do they provide a reasonable business model?

LN: Ebooks have a place. They're great for holding large volumes (pun intended) of material. They're great for travelling, for example, or for agents reviewing manuscripts. But the problem I see with e-books is two-fold. Firstly, they are expensive devices easily lost or dropped in the tub. Secondly the providers are offering a service, not in fact selling books whatever they call it. Amazon has recalled books from people's devices and has banned people who own a Kindle from purchasing any further books, turning it into an expensive paperweight. But who can say about the future? The printing press was an innovation, too. All I know is that people need and love stories and that they will continue to tell them to each other in various forms.



CBT: In the past few years, articles and blog posts (for example, at LitKicks) have appeared criticizing the pricing of books. Are books too experensive? Has this been a factor in reducing the size of the book-buying audience over the last twenty or so years?

LN: A book costs less than a movie plus popcorn and provides more hours of entertainment and education. So, no, I don't think it's all that pricey. But besides that, writers need to earn a living. How that will happen, how that will look, I don't know. In order to write beautifully, we need to eat well and pay our mortgages. I think that we need to move out of the framework that has been imposed on us, one that focuses on prices, sales, making people consume a product.

Literature isn’t dyed sugar water that you have to convince people they need because they really don’t, it isn’t any different really than the other guy’s sugar-water, and in fact it rots your teeth and makes you fat. Literature is wonderful. It is art, it is light, it comes out of a desire to make beauty and show truth, it is fun, it is mind blowing, it is educational, it is consoling. I believe that underlying all the talk about making money, agents, publishers, cover designers, and authors really love books and I also believe that readers love books. We need to change how we speak about these things, and let go of the sugar water talk. Let's find the underlying truth that comes about in the magical partnership of a writer who puts words on a page, the people who get those words out, and the readers who read them, in their minds the words coming to life. Research has shown that the brain activates in areas of emotion and action while reading as if the reader is really experiencing it. Isn’t that amazing?

CBT: Staying with the same theme: Literary novels were once published in hardcover and then, several months later (and a spot on the best-seller lists willing), they were available as affordable pocket-sized paperbacks.

However, in the 1980s this practice ceased and literary paperbacks started being published in North America as pricier trade paperbacks. Only genre fiction retained the pocket-book form. In retrospect, was this a prudent decision by publishers of literary fiction? Or should the literary pocket-book make a return?

LN: You're forgetting the demographic bulge. Baby boomers need larger print. One benefit of e-books is being able to change the size of the font (though then there is not as much text on the screen). So I don’t know about the literary pocket-book. Maybe trade paperbacks should use a font size slightly larger than at present instead.

CBT: Agents now have enormous power, effectively controlling which writers get access to acquisition editors at major houses. Furthermore, agents find themselves under enormous pressure, acting as the line of first readers who have to sift through avalanches of submissions. Is this tenable over the long run? Is it good for art? Or should large houses be accepting both agented and unsolicitied submissions?

LN: There is some question as to what publishers actually do, since much of their former role has been passed down to agents and authors themselves. That’s true regardless of the size. With e-books, publishers may need to redefine their roles or agents and authors may at some point simply by-pass publishers altogether.

CBT: Literary prizes have also grown in power. They have arguably replaced the glowing review as a marketing tool. But are they as effective as criticism in building a contemporary canon? After all, critics can express nuance, prizes can't. Do book prizes give the message: this books is worth reading and all these others aren't?

LN: Anything that draws attention to books is good in my view. It’s unfortunate that we are living in a winner-take-all culture, which shows itself in American Idol type reality shows and in the Olympics where a fraction of a second separates “winner” and “loser”. But most readers who pay attention to prizes are interested in the short list, not just the winners, so it widens the field. But I’ll tell you, my reading list is made up just as much from reviews I read in my favourite book blogs. What I think we need is a network of book blogs equivalent to scienceblogs.com. Again, the issue is filtering, and I’ve come across the book blogs I enjoy partly by chance and partly by clicking through the links on those blogs.

CBT: Thinking of your own site, what sorts of changes do you foresee in it? Are blogs destined to become the new magazines? Will you start using a format (and possibly working with partners) in a magazine-type way? Or is blogging as it's currently defined how you want to keep posting work on the Net?

LN: I don’t see blogging as a way to post my books because, by their nature, blogs favour short pieces. However it does have a valuable role in communicating with readers. One exciting thing I will get to do is post scenes that I have had to cut from my current novel. They are good scenes in themselves, but slow down the pacing of the novel. Now I have a place to put them and readers who want to know a bit more about the characters or linger with them have a way to do so. I also use a blog to post Q & A and another to write about my interests and thoughts, which are wide ranging, but not cohesive enough for a book of non-fiction. Sometimes it is an immediate response to an immediate situation, politically or environmentally for example. Blogging is perfect for that. And it’s a venue for readers and writers to speak directly to one another, which itself is rewarding.

BIO: Lilian Nattel is the author of The Singing Fire and The River Midnight, which have been published in Canada, The United States, across Europe and in the Middle-East in seven languages. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two daughters.