Obviously, over two days of events, there's something for just about anyone who cares about words in any form at the Tucson Festival of Books, but we'd like to share a few of the events we're excited for over the next few days.  One seemingly must see presentation will be the discussion of how to get started in screenwriting featuring John August (Sunday at 11:30 in the UA Mall Tent).  We love great screenwriting here (after all, we have a whole department dedicated to the craft), so the opportunity to learn something from August, whose credits include Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the underrated Big Fish, is always welcome.  To learn more about John August or about Hollywood in general, bookmark his blog, where he answers screenwrting questions from readers and discusses whatever else happens to be on his mind.  See you this weekend!

The Book

Steering the Craft began as a workshop Ursula K. Le Guin gave at the 1996 Flight of the Mind conference and was adapted to book form in 1998. It's a slim volume with a long subtitle: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Mariner and the Mutinous Crew. It contains ten chapters, each featuring a brief lesson, literary examples, and a writing exercise. Le Guin is passionate about the interplay of words and her love of writing (and writing craft) is very clear. She uses excerpts from classic works like Jane Eyre and The Return of the Native to illustrate her points, and keeps things moving with mix of both poetry and prose. There is also a glossary of terms, an appendix delineating the forms of the verb, and a section on how to conduct a peer group workshop. The chapters cover essential writing skills such as punctuation, adjectives and adverbs, and point of view, and are a mix of author essay and literature excerpts.

Le Guin's premise is that, "Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art."

The Tucson Festival of Books is rapidly approaching, and at the Editorial Department, we're excited for two days of sun and book events.  We'll be there with a booth, meeting people and talking about our services, so if you happen to be around, we hope you'll say hello.  Also, we'll be previewing the festival here on Ellipsis up until the festival kickoff on Friday.  If you're planning on attending, you better have a plan.  There's so much going on from workshops to book signings to children's events.  Thankfully, The Arizona Daily Star has developed an iPhone app for the occasion. While there are far flashier applications, if you're the iPhone sort, the entire festival schedule is at your fingertips, so you can make vexing decisions about how to spend your weekend on the spot.  Isn't technology grand!

 

This is the third year that the Internet is celebrating National Grammar Day, and since our company is based on the premise that edited work is better than non-edited work, this sort of made up holiday should be something we buy a cake for, right?

 

 

PaidContent UK has a look at what Penguin has up its sleeve for the Apple iPad, and in a few words, what they have planned is exciting.

You say you don’t like historical fiction? You say descriptions of technical nautical details bore you silly? You say if you wanted to read a novel with turn-of-the-19th-century dialogue you’d read Jane Austen?

Fie, I say. And possibly pshaw. I'm here to tell you why you should consider reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, and in order to keep myself from going on ad nauseum, I'm going to do it in list form.

I just spent a little time at the just-launched http://www.whomovedmybuybutton.com/ and I must say I'm very pleased with the mission of this clever little site that takes on the noble cause of 'Keeping an eye on our friends at Amazon since Friday morning.'

The idea is as simple as it is timely: to help authors whose books are available on amazon.com keep track of whether or not the BUY NOW link is working and the book can actually be purchased.

As you may or may not know, Behind the Bestsellers was a monthly feature of our e-zine, and while we haven't looked at the charts officially since November, to some extent, not much has changed. 

The Help is now the publishing feel good story of this year, like it was in 2009.  The Lost Symbol is still on the charts and there's a James Patterson book there as well, along with a stack of similar detective novels.  Also, we might not ever rid ourselves of vampires. 

When you work with books and authors, it's easy to get caught up in wanting great things to happen for the works you've been involved with. 

Angel, the first novel by Mary Kingsley falls into that category.  The Editorial Department, specifically founder Renni Browne and editor Shannon Roberts, were happy to be part of the creative process that resulted in Kingsley's novel, but part of the satisfaction that comes with being part of something of artistic value (Renni described the book as "the kind of story that takes you over completely and stays with you long after you finish the last page", for example) is making sure it reaches an audience, which can often be just as challenging as writing the book in the first place.  We live with the story, watching it evolve to the final product and finding an agent, then a publisher, who shares the vision, who, with a quick glimpse, sees what we see, can be a tough road to travel.  So, when an A-list agent (Mel Berger at William Morris Endeavor) chose to represent Mary and Angel, we couldn't have been happier.

Normally, when giant corporations fight, it's more a source of indifferent amusement for me more than anything.  While I recognize there was some drama last month over whether companies should be able to act like people, most of the time when public kefuffles occur, it's provides me a giggle over whether Papa John's hurt Pizza Hut's market share by saying that their ingredients are better.  There are certainly underlying issues involved, but it ends up sounding like two fifth graders upset that one didn't invite the other to a birthday party.  Even though it involves the business I work in, I have to admit, this whole Amazon vs. Macmillan seemed to fall into that category, until I started reading authors talk about how they've been affected.