Ever get caught in a nightmare you knew was a nightmare but couldn’t escape? All you want to do is wake up and be safe again. Yet we deliberately go into Halloween “haunted houses”, watch horror flicks and sit around a campfire exchanging spooky tales. We love goose bumps and feeling the hair on the back of our necks stand up … under certain conditions. Every time we face fear and triumph, we reassert our ability to overcome what threatens us, whether or not it truly exists.
The thing about scary things is that they require our participation, our validation that, indeed, they are fearful. The challenge to writers of horror stories is to find those triggers in us that induce fear, presenting questionable situations and events in believable ways. The most effective, memorable horror stories often play out only in the mind of the main character … or maybe not. Emotion overcomes logic as we, along with the protagonist, fall under the spell of the supernatural.
In the spirit of Halloween, here are seven recommended scary classics that are spooktacular: The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson The Turn of the Screw – Henry James The Shining – Stephen King The Woman in Black – Susan Hill Collected Ghost Stories – M.R. James Ghost Story – Peter Straub Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood – Selected by E.F. Bleiler
If you’re looking for something lighter to get you into the Halloween spirit: The Canterville Ghost – Oscar Wilde Topper – Thorne Smith
And it was the afternoon of Halloween.
And all the houses shut against a cool wind.
And the town was full of cold sunlight.
But suddenly, the day was gone.
Night came out from under each tree and spread. – Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree
If you’re going to be in Los Angeles November 13th-15th, you have a last chance to join in the Centennial celebrations honoring movie legend Tyrone Power. Since May, celebrations have occurred around the U.S. to great response. For more information about events (and some photos of me with the Power children in Ohio), visit Movie Memories Foundation.
Collector’s quality limited first editions of Romina Power’s moving memoir/biography, Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power are now available. Please send an email to request a special order while quantities last. In film historian Matthew Hoffman’s book review of this beautifully produced book, he says it is “a work of love that his fans will certainly love. Considering that Power himself was an avid collector of first edition books, this was a nice homage to him. Though it took years to see the light of day in this country, I can tell you that it’s been worth the wait. This is a beautifully written and compiled book for the global fans of Tyrone Power.”
This week’s Book●ed webcast re-broadcast (starting October 27th) will thrill your funny bone as I jokingly spar with Al Zimbler, octogenarian author of several laugh-out-loud books, including Broadway at 77th. You can catch the show on U-Stream and in the archives of the Book●ed website.
It’s a small world after all. Global media and internationally interdependent economies have brought people of different countries and cultures closer than ever. This can be rewarding but, too frequently, we bump up against “the others” in harmful ways, often the result of ignorance and misunderstanding.
News reports may tell us “what” happened but unbiased journalism has been overtaken by market forces that present “news” through adversarial viewpoints, constricted by space or time limitations. The result is that, even with internet access to the world, we easily and unknowingly remain isolated from “the others”. We tend to fear what we don’t know; fear instigates conflict.
I suggest we treat good literature as ambassadors of understanding. There is a wealth of literature that opens a world of other cultures to us while entertaining us. Whether novel or non-fiction, these books inform and enlighten us as few “news reports” can because they bring us into the lives of “the others”.
Literature is not “news”; it doesn’t pretend to be. It does, however, allow us to inhabit new places, get inside other people’s skins, share their experiences and see life from other viewpoints. Soon, we begin to stop seeing the “otherness” and recognize the “sameness” of humanity.
Your port of entry into other worlds can be your library, book store or eReader. Here are some of the places you might want to visit: The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan) The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan (China) Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi (Iran) The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri (India) The Orphan Master’s Son – Adam Johnson (North Korea) Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia) In the Time of the Butterflies – Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic) Stones from the River – Ursula Hegi (Germany) Same, Same But Different – Benjamin Prufer (Cambodia)
For young readers: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie (Native American) Same, Same But Different – Kostecki-Shaw, Jenny Sue (India/America)
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature. — Voltaire
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. – Desmond Tutu
Humanity’s legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: ‘He/she was born, lived, died.’ Probably that is the template of our stories – a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds. – Doris Lessing
Book●ed is delighted to rebroadcast its classic interviews and book reviews on UStream… because good books don’t have an expiration date. The shows continue to be accessible in the Book●ed Archives and book excerpts are also available on the website. This week’s re-broadcast (starting October 20th) is part two of my thought-provoking interview with transgender author Renee James, winner of several awards for her psycho-social thriller, Coming Out Can Be Murder.
Any fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation is familiar with Lieutenant Commander Data, a Soong-type android who went through several episodes fruitlessly seeking to understand and feel humor. At one point, he confesses, “I am superior, sir, in many ways, but I would gladly give it up to be human.”
Humor is a peculiar human trait that can’t be learned or forced. It’s organic. It is harder to elicit laughter than to generate tears. In today’s world, humor is a precious commodity. With daylight diminishing during this season, humor can be as effective as sunlight to lift our spirits and maintain a balance in our daily lives.
Fortunately, humor is as accessible as a book.
What puts one reader in stitches may fall flat to another reader. To help you find books that have tickled many a funny bone, I’ve rounded up a dozen that appear on multiple lists as funny favorites:
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole Three Men in a Boat – Jerome K. Jerome Catch-22 — Joseph Heller The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Doug Adams Bridget Jones’s Diary — Helen Fielding Lamb – Christopher Moore Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse Dave Barry Slept Here – Dave Barry The Importance of Being Ernest – Oscar Wilde Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth Let’s Pretend This Never Happened – Jenny Lawson
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. — Victor Borge
A day without laughter is a day wasted. — Charlie Chaplin
Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive. — Bill Cosby
The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter. — Mark Twain
You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. — Stephen King
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh. — Maya Angelou
Beginning October 13th, Book●ed is delighted to rebroadcast its classic interviews and book reviews on UStream … because good books don’t have an expiration date. The shows continue to be accessible in the Book●ed Archives and book excerpts are also available on the website. First up on the rebroadcasts is my thought-provoking interview with transgender author Renee James, winner of several awards for her psycho-social thriller, Coming Out Can Be Murder.
If you’re in or near Milwaukee on October 18th, come to the charming Charles Allis Art Museum for an evening celebrating the Centennial of movie legend Tyrone Power. Film historian Dale Kuntz will interview Tyrone Power’s daughter, actress Taryn Power Greendeer. The classic 1938 movie, Suez, will be shown. The moving memoir/biography Searching for My Father, Tyrone Power by international star Romina Power will be on sale. Refreshments will be served. Seating is limited and reservations are suggested.
17-year-old Malala Yousafzai was accorded the Nobel Peace Prize this past week, the youngest winner of the prestigious honor in the history of the award. The author of I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban has inspired the world with her courageous spirit. Book●ed recognized Malala’s star trajectory in September 2013 when I posted Books Will Defeat Terrorism. Congratulations, Malala!
Who doesn’t have the great American novel waiting to be written? Or maybe it’s a collection of poetry begging to spill on to pages of a book? Nearly everyone I talk to confesses at some point to harboring the dream of being a published author. Writing groups are gaining in popularity, with members ranging from the pure dreamers to ambitious authors who have prepared a manuscript and are searching for the path to publication. Are you one of these writers?
The dream of having your book published is accompanied by the expectation that it will be purchased to be read; that fortune will accompany fame, or at least cover your publishing costs. This hope exists whether your book is published traditionally or self-published.
With traditional publishers, production, distribution and related professional costs are born by the publishing company but authors have become more responsible for their own promotional efforts; and the book’s “life” is under the control of the publisher. Self-published authors bear total responsibility and costs but maintain total control of every step.
Whether you go the traditional route or self-publish, keep your day job. Until your book sells in the several thousands of copies, the only riches you will receive will be the knowledge that some people are reading your work. How can this be when hardcover books sell for $25 and up, a paperbacks sell for $15 and up, and eBooks run $7 and up? Where does the money go?
Welcome to “trickle down income” in the publishing world. If your book is published traditionally, you will periodically be paid a royalty for books sold after the publisher deducts all its costs plus its profit. If you self-publish, you pay yourself … after you pay anyone you employ to get your book into the hands of readers: editor, proofreader, technical formatter, cover designer, printer, (possibly a warehouse), distributor, marketer, (maybe a web designer), administrator.
Production is not necessarily the most expensive factor. Distribution takes a huge bite off the retail price. Authors can expect a wholesale discount of 40 percent to be taken off the retail price by major book stores and big box stores. Libraries typically take a 20 percent discount. Distributors take 15 percent on top of those discounts. Sellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble act as both distributor and seller, taking 55 percent off your retail price. If you use an agent, expect 10-15 percent off the wholesale price to be collected for services.
Ongoing promotion is a book’s life insurance. Regardless of how a book is published, authors are expected to oversee this job. Maintaining websites, arranging book signings, giving talks and doing interviews are some of the recommended promotional activities.
Some expenses occur once while others will be recurring. Every responsibility you handle yourself rather than hire out is more money in your pocket … if you know what you’re doing and you don’t mind spending your time on it … time you could use to write your next book.
Scared? Don’t be. Knowledge is power. Empower yourself by learning all the aspects of taking your brainchild from start to a successful finish. But, at least for now, don’t quit your day job.
I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward. – Anne Lamott
Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be. – Margaret Atwood
An author who gives a manager or publisher any rights in his work except those immediately and specifically required for its publication or performance is for business purposes an imbecile. – George Bernard Shaw
