To quote another fine New Jersey artist — oh what a night! I live in the wonderful town of Washington in beautiful Warren County, and I can literally walk to the Warren County Community College. This was my second reading, and I read most of the first chapter to keep it around twenty minutes, but that’s not all — I got to share the stage with the students who won the 2009 Warren County High School Fiction and Poetry Contests. Plus we were also celebrating the release of Ars Poetica, the art/literary magazine of the college, so many of the authors who were published in the journal got up to read as well. Professor BJ Ward was the master of ceremonies, and he gave me an introduction that I didn’t deserve (which didn’t stop me from accepting it with great thanks). It was an evening of literary community in my very home town, and I couldn’t have been more proud.
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4/18/09: East Coast Book Launch at KGB Bar
It was, as usual, a joy to be at KGB Bar. Most of my life, I’ve been a part of the audience, but on this Saturday night, I was one of the two readers (the other being Wendy Lee). The wonderful folks at Debut Lit put the great event together, and Alexander Chee was kind enough to come all the way from Amherst to introduce both Wendy and myself. Good books, good liquor. Life is good.
Page 69 Test and Emerging Writers Network
Two posts from the good folks at the Page 69 Test and EWN. In case you don’t know what the Page 69 test is:
Marshall McLuhan, the guru of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), recommends that the browser turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book. It works. Rule One, then: browse powerfully and read page 69. [Campaign for the American Reader]
The Page 69 Test
The thing I was most afraid of was this: that my page 69 would be blank. Lucky for me, it’s page 70 that’s got nothing on it.
Page 69 is a short one, with just a single paragraph, but it serves a crucial purpose: a transition point to bring the reader back to the central characters of the novel, the Kims.
Emerging Writers Network
Tuesday should see piles of Sung J. Woo’s debut novel, Everything Asian Woo (2009, Thomas Dunne Books), in bookstores as it hits its publishing date. I’ve not read the whole thing yet, but can say that I’m about 1/3 of the way through and enjoying it enough to be pretty sure I’ll have it finished up before that pub date hits.
New Jersey’s Indie Bookstores, Up Close and Personal
This past weekend, I drove up and down the the state of New Jersey, hitting as many indie bookstores as I could, and some cafes as well. That’s because I was trying to distribute a broadsheet of the first chapter of the book that I had made. (By the way, I need to thank Todd Dills of the2ndhand.com for not only giving me the initial idea to do this, but also for his help on figuring out what kind of paper to use. And again, big thanks to Noah Dempewolf for his killer illustrations and design.)
On the first day, I drove about 230 miles, arriving at the first store, Books & Greetings, at around 10:30am. After that, I stopped at Womraths, because it was only about five minutes away from Books & Greetings. Then it was to Bookends, which somehow ended up being slightly north of where I was. At this point, I looked at my list of stores to hit, and was slightly disheartened that I still had twelve more to go.
Google Alert and Korean Interview
In preparation for the avalanche of media coverage that will be exploding like a volcano (talk about mixing some bad metaphors), I have set up a Google Alert with my name, and lo and behold, I actually got a hit. The article is from my hometown newspaper, the Warren Reporter. It all looks good, except they said my novel came out last month. But hey, press is press, so I’m grateful.
The other bit of news I found today was that an email interview I did a little while ago got in The Korea Daily. It’s been there for about two weeks, so if I hadn’t been so lazy setting up my Google Alert, maybe this would’ve been my first. In any case, for those who want to read the interview in English that I’d originally done with the reporter, check out the exchange below. The Korean version has been shifted around here and there, but it’s basically the same thing.
Books on a Shelf
The contract copies of the book (comp copies that are designated in the contract) arrived yesterday, and this morning, I slid them into the top shelf of my bookcase and took this shot, and I was reminded of one of my favorite jobs growing up.
The year before I left for college, I worked at the Barnes & Noble in Shrewsbury, NJ, which, like so many stores nowadays, isn’t there anymore. Each associate was given a section to take care of, and I ended up with scifi/fantasy, which was great because at that time, I read a lot of it. I hadn’t discovered Philip K. Dick yet, but I was quite fond of folks like Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s series), Isaac Asimov (Foundation series), and Stephen R. Donaldson (Mordant’s Need series). Not only did I have to keep the shelves in order, I also had to keep tabs on what was selling out and had the freedom to display the books however I chose. If there was a title I liked, I faced the cover out, to catch the eyes of the potential customer.
So here’s what I hope, now that I’m standing on the other side — that there’s a book associate out there who likes my book enough to give it the cover treatment.
Advice from Glimmer Train
Just read two excellent pieces from Glimmer Train’s latest bulletin. One is by Jeremiah Chamberlin, about workshops, titled “Workshop Is Not for You”:
Whenever my students complain about workshop, their gripes invariably have to do with issues of reciprocity. Or, rather, the lack thereof—they have spent a great deal of time carefully reading and writing thoughtful comments on the work of their peers, only to receive the vaguest feedback in return.
I can certainly relate, having been through many workshops. It’s a nice, positive spin on a sore subject. Then there’s Aaron Gwyn’s piece, simply titled “Trouble”:
Trouble, trouble, trouble.
“In life, we want peace,” I tell them. We want love, and peace, and job security. In literature, not so much.
I’m printing this one out, because even though I know it, I so often forget it.
Salinger’s Nine Stories
A book of stories that runs less than 200 pages shouldn’t take two months to read, but that’s what happened with J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories. I wish I could lay blame on Salinger’s prose, and maybe I could — certainly the first page of “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” qualifies as dense — but that argument wouldn’t stand a chance against “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” which is like 80% dialogue. Actually, “Pretty Mouth,” outside of that first paragraph, is just as dialogue-driven as “Uncle Wiggily.”
I’d think it’s pretty much impossible to discuss Salinger without mentioning his talent for dialogue. Here’s just a tidbit from “Uncle Wiggily”:
“Oh, I’m dying to see her,” Mary Jane said. “Oh, God! Look what I did. I’m terribly sorry, El.”
“Leave it. Leave it,” said Eloise. “I hate this damn rug anyway. I’ll get you another.”
Salinger doesn’t mention the spill at all. He doesn’t have to. The use of italics, the repetition — there’s a hyperreality to the conversation that takes this story into a realm above and beyond fiction. It’s more like you’re eavesdropping into this story than reading it. It is very impressive — Richard Yates was also a fan of Salinger, and especially this story in particular, and now I can see why.
School Library Journal Review
In the May 2009 issue of School Library Journal, the following review will appear:
With a mix of humor and drama, Everything Asian makes a fine addition to recreational reading lists and a good companion to Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese.
Yang is currently doing the Funny Pages for the Times Magazine. He’s one of many great Asian-American graphic novelists out there — Yang, Adrian Tomine, Shaun Tan (though I suppose he’s Asian-Australian?), just to name a few. If you haven’t read American Born Chinese, Shortcomings, or The Arrival, you’re missing out.
So with this latest review, the quartet of prepub journals are done: Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and (School) Library Journal. So far, so good.
Toni Morrison, J. Robert Lennon…and Me
There’s actually a page on the Internet now that features the legendary novelist Toni Morrison, the talented Mr. J. Robert Lennon (if you haven’t read The Funnies, you really should), and me. As you may have guessed from the graphic on the left, the page is from Cornell Alumni Magazine. Morrison received her M.A. back in 1955, Lennon currently teaches there, and I received my B.A. in 1994. Let’s just say I’m grateful to be occupying the same literary space as these fine folks (and Professor Ken McClane, too, a phenomenal poet, who signed off on me taking a class at Wells College during my junior year, but that’s a whole another story).