Looking for book bloggers/media/reviewers attending San Diego Comic-Con:

If you belong to the group I mentioned above and you're attending San Diego Comic-Con this year, PLEASE email me and let me know. Looks like I'll be attending and I'll be working on a Sekrit Project; I'd like to involve as many of you as I can. Shoot me an email, please! (And if you're an author at Comic-Con and see me there, I'm happy to say hello but please don't pitch me. I'm serious.)

Guest Blogger Max Leone: Summer Reading Recommendations for Teens

Fourteen-year-old Max Leone is a frequent guest-blogger here at The Swivet. He also has a lot of opinions about books. Some of those opinions have appeared on this blog and some of them have appeared at Publishers Weekly. He lives in New Jersey.

My Summer Reading List
by Max Leone

The majority of school-assigned summer reading lists would violate the Geneva convention if they were used to obtain information from prisoners. Reading the books on them is akin to treading through a swamp made of expired pudding without using your legs, except less exciting.

Since I seem to be making a career out of ranting about things, usually the state of YA literature, I was asked to put together a list of books that teenagers should read during the summer. Most summer reading books contain many of my Cardinal Sins of Young Adult Books, such as outdated language and morals with all the subtlety of a flaming anvil made of snakes. My recommendations contain none of the things that make up the expired, congealed pudding of a typical summer reading book.

WARNING: Books may contain swearing, sex, independent thought, Norse deities, and other things that may thwart your attempts to keep your children safe from the outside world and/or Vikings.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: It will be a struggle to get through this paragraph without making dozens of bad jokes about reality TV, since this book centers around a lethal televised competition. This book is quite dark, a welcome change from the sentimentality of most YA books. It also avoids the expired pudding dilemma, by being interesting and featuring characters the reader will actually care about, as opposed to the boring, flat protagonists who lurk in reading lists.

The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan: Because of my Publishers Weekly editorial last fall, I have become known in some circles as Mr. Scary Vampires, Hater of All Things Twilight and Emo. Therefore, I feel it was my duty to include this book on my list. The Strain features possibly the least romantic vampires ever. It is quite hard to imagine some teenage girl falling for a dirty, hideous, leechlike monster spawned from a Hot Zone-esque virus. Because of this, The Strain is one of the scariest and most entertaining books I have ever read.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman: A unique, often bizarre urban fantasy about deities in the modern world, this book shows that urban fantasy can be done without ridiculous teenage angst. It features a large, interesting cast of characters, and an amazing attention to detail. American Gods fits in historical elements without becoming another archaic cliché-fest. It has true depth and insight, unlike the faux-philosophic ramblings that infest lesser books (*cough* TheEleganceoftheHedgehog *cough*).

More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman: This book, simply put, is pure genius. It is no doubt one of the funniest things ever created by human hands. This encyclopedia (containing complete world knowledge) is another book that manages to have amazing depth. Hodgman manages to craft a world through anecdotes and lists, built in such a way that you can never be sure what is fact, what is fiction, and what is a Battlestar Galactica reference. Plus, how else are you going to learn about the mole-men and their hideous steeds, now that they have been driven from the surface by Benjamin Franklin?

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman: American Gods showed that Gaiman could do amazing things with existing mythologies. Neverwhere is another teenage angst-less urban fantasy, this time set in an amazing world of Gaiman’s creation. Unlike the cheesy, generic results of most attempts to create an original world, Neverwhere does not end up as a contrived blob of gibberish words and generic characters. Speaking of characters, Gaiman deserves some sort of prize for Excellence in Literary Villainy, for the characters of Croup and Vandemar, two of the greatest villains of all time.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: This book combines many of the elements that made previous titles in this list great. It is hilarious, like More Information Than You Require, it has a creative fictional universe that is much better than most genre attempts, like Neverwhere and it has incredible depth and insight, like American Gods. A hundred elbow-patched, goateed professors working for a hundred years could not produce something this insightful. It’s observations on humans, particularly how they state the obvious, are amazingly true. If there were a cult based on this book, I would join.

World War Z by Max Brooks: There is something tragic about this book. It is a masterpiece of literature, but it may forever be denied it’s rightful glory because it features zombies. World War Z is one of the deepest looks at zombies (or at any supernatural creature) to date. The zombie apocalypse described is thought-out, detailed, and strangely realistic. The scariest element of the book comes from the superb writing, which makes a zombie attack seem like it could happen at any time. Maybe, if we support this book, we can form a shambling mob that will consume the brains of the literary establishment and give this book the glory it deserves.

Writer Rick Bowes on Stonewall at 40, and living through history

My friend Rick Bowes has posted a lovely guest essay about living through the Stonewall riots in New York City. Go check it out!

RIP, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett

Today was a bad day to be a pop culture icon. Rest in peace, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. You made my 70s and 80s a much better place. You'll both be missed.

Never can say goodbye...

Yes, yes, I know I've been neglecting all of you...

...but I've been incredibly busy with the actual WORK part of my work, thusly this here blog o'mine has gotten short shrift the last few weeks. One more writers conference to go and then I promise to pay more attention to The Swivet. (No, really. I mean it this time!)

Guest blogger Max Leone: Max vs. Book Expo America!

Fourteen-year-old Max Leone is a frequent Swivet guest-blogger. Last month, he attended BookExpo for the first time. This is his report:

BookExpo America, or Fewer Scientology Space-Pirates and More Bikinis, Please!

By Max Leone

Book Expo was the first “convention” that I remember attending. When I found out it was happening, I was interested in going and seeing the ridiculous extremes writers have to go to in order to sell books. Anyway, I will say that I enjoyed BEA, however this may be because my mind has censored out the gigantic crowds, maze-like layout, and infuriating (and technically against the rules) rolling bags that made progress about as fast as advancing during World War One trench warfare.

I now pause to compose myself and avoid comparing the food to biological weaponry.

Judging by arm pain alone, I obtained a significant amount of “schscchwag”, or however you misspell it these days. I was informed that there were much fewer offerings than there had been previously, but barring actual work, (my one weakness), this will be impossible to confirm. The first free sample I picked up was a free copy of The Soulstealer Wars, by W.L. Hoffman. Speaking of ridiculous extremes, this was his first book, it was self-published, and he had a large booth complete with crystals and artwork. This industry can scare me sometimes.

Most of my time was spent searching for the fabled manga section, which I naively assumed was a vast row full of free samples of every manga series that ever has or ever will exist, but I found only a row of various comics and graphic novels, most of which were just for display, judging by my personal rule for the show: “if there's more than one of something, take it”. I considered using my skills of stealth and sleight of hand to abscond with some of the displayed books, but then I remembered that I possess that athletic ability of a drunken arthritic cheesesteak that also happens to be frozen solid.

There were plenty of memorable moments, however. The picture that greeted you when you first saw this post shows one of the two pictures taken at the convention. It is of a woman wearing a very small green bikini advertising her book on learning guitar. (The second picture I took is of the ceiling.)

There were fewer cosplayers than I expected, but I did see two women in feather-covered outfits accompanied by drummers, a man in a kilt, and a young woman in some sort of Russian army hat. Judging by the multitude of times I saw her, I must come to the conclusion that the KGB is having me followed. Or there were multiple women wearing the same hat, and I just wasn't paying much attention.

I received a free copy of Messages, the story of Stan Romanek, who claims to have been abducted by aliens multiple times, and has the implants to prove it.

Fear of alien abduction was the reason we gave the L. Ron Hubbard booth a wide berth; had I not acted quickly, my mom would have been taken aboard the mothership. You see, a few feet away from the booth were two people dressed as pirates, (curse them! tempting me with what I love most!) who asked my mom if she wished to have her picture taken. Assuming they were merely bloodthirsty sea raiders, and not scientologists, I had no objection to this. Then, I realized that they were guiding her into the Hubbard booth. I knew what the consequences would be. There would have been a picture floating around of my mother smiling in front of a large amount of L. Ron Hubbard memorabilia, an image that could be interpreted the wrong way. Luckily, I got her attention and pulled her away in time. After that, all I had to worry about were the communists.

I enjoyed the convention, and I hope to return next year. Hopefully there will be fewer scientologist space pirates and more women in bikinis.

It's Small Press Day on Twitter! (And here!)

I'm declaring it Small Press Day on Twitter and here on The Swivet. (I can if I want to! Really, who's gonna stop me?) The small and indie presses don't get enough love, IMHO, so today is all about the small press love!

Recommend your favorite small press book, and the publisher. If you can, add a link. You can add in the comments below or on Twitter. If you're recommending a small press book on Twitter, use the hashtag #smallpress so people who are following can see all the great book recommendations.

I'm starting with three recommendations:

• SEA, SWALLOW ME by Craig Gidney, published by Lethe Press
• TRASH SEX MAGIC by Jennifer Stevenson, published by Small Beer Press
• TURNSKIN by Nicole Kimberling, published by Blind Eye Books

What are your small press book recommendations?

Book giveaway for librarians only!

The fine folks at Hyperion Voice are celebrating today's launch of Katherine Howe's novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by giving away signed copies of the book all day at their Twitter feed.

Starting at 1:00 Eastern Time, the next five books they're giving away are reserved for librarians only! (A very cool idea, by the way! Librarians rock!) So, if you're a librarian, head over to Hyperion's Twitter feed and tweet them the name of your favorite witch (from book, film or TV!) to enter the contest. They'll be drawing five random winners at 5:00. Good luck!

Ron Hogan on the new Center for Fiction Writers' Conference & the state of publishing in general

It's not often that one gets to interview the interviewer, but recently I had a chance to sit down with my friend and colleague Ron Hogan, best known to the book industry as the senior editor of GalleyCat and the founder of the Beatrice.com reading series, and ask him about the new Center for Fiction Writers' Conference, a conference he organized for the Mercantile Library and Fordham University's creative writing program.

How did you get your start in the book industry?

I started working for Dutton's, an independent bookstore in Los Angeles, while I was still in graduate school. I was working there when I started interviewing authors for Beatrice, and kept the website going when I moved to San Francisco to freelance for dotcoms. Eventually I wound up with a staff job at Amazon.com, and two years later, when they cut 20 percent of my department, I figured it was as good a time as any to move to New York to find other ways to work with books and the Internet.

You recently partnered with the folks at The Mercantile Library Center as well as Fordham University's Creative Writing Program for Fiction to create a new writers' conference, The Center For Fiction Writers' Conference, which kicks off for the first time on June 27th. What was the impetus for creating a new writers' conference and how does The Center for Fiction's conference differ from other writing conferences?

I figured out a while back that a significant chunk of the audience for sites like GalleyCat was made up of writers wanting real insights into how book publishing works, and I wanted to expand upon the information I was able to provide online. As I was developing the concept, it made sense to collaborate with literary non-profit organizations like the Center for Fiction already working to create opportunities for writers.

The two questions you'll see experts answering at publishing conferences tend to be "How do I become a better writer?" and "How do I get an agent?" Those are important questions, but you can find a lot of good answers to them already. With this conference, I wanted to answer another question, "How do you build a career as a writer?"

Your conference seems more geared toward already-published writers, with workshops on building buzz and what to expect after a deal is landed. What does Center for Fiction offer to those writers who typically attend writers's conference, the newbies who want to know how to attract an agent or an editor?

We've grouped the panels for this conference into two themes -- one focused, as you pointed out, on issues that are relevant to writers who've already found an agent, maybe even signed a deal, and now need to figure out how to publish their books effectively enough to keep people interested in seeing their next manuscript, and the one after that. We also have a string of panels to talk about networking with other writers and how the economic climate has affected editors' acquisition strategies. We also have a panel about self-publishing and the times when it might be a viable option.

But we also have several panels that should appeal to writers at every experience level, with publishing insiders like Daniel Menaker, Sara Nelson, and Jon Karp talking about the position publishing finds itself in and where it's likely to be headed. The bottom line is that it's important for anybody who wants to be more than a one-time fluke to know as much about the business side of publishing as they do about the artistic side of writing -- and even writers who don't have a book deal yet ought to give some consideration to how they'll handle themselves when they do.

Will you be offering day-workshops that focus on a particular subject the way that some writing organizations do? What can we expect from the Center for Fiction in the future?

Although this conference has no workshop elements, the Center for Fiction already offers some great educational programs, including long-term classes with writers like Peter Selgin and Gordon Lish, and I know they would like to expand upon that. It's my hope, too, that this conference sets a precedent that would lead to similar events beyond New York; intensive workshops could well be incorporated into any future conference.

I want to emphasize, though, that the information writers will receive at this conference is going to be as specific as we can make it -- my goal from the start has been to provide authors with practical testimony from people speaking to their own experiences in the field, and what has and hasn't worked for them. I want case studies, not sweeping statements.

The publishing industry has had a rough time this past year, with more people than ever declaring that the "death of publishing is nigh!" Yet you seem to remain unjaded; your GalleyCat pieces are often critical of the industry but with an air toward optimism for the future of the book industry as a whole. How do you maintain your passion for books and writing in an industry that seems hellbent on shooting itself in the foot every few years?

The easy answer is that the industry "shooting itself in the foot every few years" (or, as some people might say, shooting itself in the foot over and over for years on end) is just the delivery mechanism for the books, so it's easy to stay passionate about books and writing no matter what happens in publishing -- that's like asking how you maintain your love of heirloom tomatoes given the state of agriculture.

That answer isn't just easy, though, it's too dismissive -- publishing is a crucial part of a literary-industrial complex (or, as the current terminology has it, an ecosystem) I value greatly, and I AM genuinely optimistic that somebody will figure out how to make this all work. Yes, the biggest publishers in New York are worried because they've come up against the limits of their old business strategies; yes, a financial media based largely in New York readily conflates the problems of those companies with an industrial crisis. But I've said it over and over: Publishing is not just New York.

That doesn't mean that independent publishers have all the answers, or that they aren't affected by the economy. For that matter, some of the bigger companies are encouraging major innovation within their ranks. So it's not a case of "corporate bad, indie good."

Anyway, what did pessimism ever get anybody besides accustomed to failure?

So what is the future of publishing?

I wish I knew! I'm hoping to get some hints on that myself.

What other projects do you have up your sleeve?

I'm looking to relaunch the Beatrice reading series in the fall -- working with the Merc to provide a showcase for debut novelists has been a great experience -- and, as I mentioned earlier, I hope that this conference is the first of many in several cities. I know it isn't an easy time for writers conferences, but I feel like the Center for Fiction and Fordham are putting forward a genuinely valuable resource that will give authors the tools to create an enduring "career" -- maybe not supporting themselves full-time simply by writing, but at the very least the opportunity to publish well and keep publishing.

The Center for Fiction Writers' Conference will take place on June 27th at the Fordham College at Lincoln Center. For more information, click here.

Orbit Books is looking for a summer intern!

Here's a great opportunity for someone in college or a recent graduate who's looking to break into the publishing world and who also loves SF/F: Orbit Books, the SF/F imprint of Hachette Books here in NYC, is looking for a summer intern.

Some of my favorite people work at Orbit and they publish great books. If you're a book lover and you love SF/F, this is your dream internship. Good luck!

(PS: Yes, this is a PAID internship!)

Borders Books launches a new SF/F blog.

Interesting news today: Apparently Borders Books has launched a new SF/F blog called Babel Clash. Not a lot of content there yet, but author Kim Harrison is blogging there as is Morgan Burns, the SF/F buyer for BGI. Anyway, you might want to bookmark this and see how it grows.

David Eddings has passed away.

SFWA and SFcrowsnest are both reporting that fantasy author David Eddings has passed away.

Rest in peace, David. Your books made a difference to millions of young readers over the past thirty years; you will be missed.

----

Edit to add: David's UK publisher, Jane Johnson, talks about him in The Bookseller.

AWESOME book trailer for THE STRAIN by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan!

This is one of the scariest book trailers I have ever seen for one of the most frightening books I've ever read: The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. What's The Strain? Think of it this way: Imagine that Michael Crichton had rewritten Salem's Lot, added scary (plausible) science and then set the whole damned thing down in Manhattan. (And I guarantee that after you read this, you will never look at airports the same way, either.) Enjoy the trailer! (It stars Roy Dotrice! How cool is that?)

Happy Towel Day!

Today is Towel Day, a day where Nerds, Geeks and Hoopy Froods of all stripes pay homage to writer Douglas Adams and his brilliant series of Hitchhiker's Guide books. Towel Day (and its accompanying slogan "Don't Panic!") has been celebrated every May 25th since Adams' death at the age of 49 in May of 2001; with each passing year, it gains more and more followers. This year, because of Twitter, it seems to be taking off like crazy. It's been funny watching #towelday race neck and neck with #SusanBoyle on Twitter's trending topics. (Also, in case you didn't know, "Don't Panic!" has become the unofficial slogan of the entire publishing industry of late.)

Why a towel?

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

I met Douglas Adams once and shared lunch with him when he came to speak at Stacey's Bookstore many years ago for the Starship Titanic tour. He and his co-writer Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) led about 500 of our bookstore customers (and our general manager!) in a sing-a-long, which was completely hilarious. Years later, when I was at Del Rey Books, I was lucky enough to be able to work on the PR for the Hitchhiker's Guide backlist, as well as the omnibus Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, and the Douglas Adams biography, Wish You Were Here by Nick Webb.

Last September, Adams' widow, Jane Belson, stirred up a bit of controversy among Adams' fans and in the SF/F book community when she gave noted children's writer Eoin Colfer (best known for his Artemis Fowl series) her blessing to write the sixth (and supposedly final) book in the Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy. (Yes, it's still called a trilogy, which is part of the joke. Adams had often commented that he wanted to end his trilogy with a sixth book and was quoted as saying "I would love to finish Hitchhiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.")

The new book, called And Another Thing, is scheduled for release on a one-day laydown on October 12th. It'll be published in the UK by Penguin Books, and here in the United States by Hyperion. Both publishers are aleady going gangbusters with promotions for the new book, but only time will tell whether true Douglas Adams fans will be happy with Colfer's offering. (Meanwhile, Eoin Colfer fans - no slouches in the devoted and obsessive department! - seem to be thrilled at the pairing of Colfer and the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.)

Some fun links for Towel Day:

• The Official Douglas Adams home page.
• The Don't Panic! Forum
• Kevin Thompson at CyberLaw Central hosted a Towel Day Blog Carnival! (And you thought lawyers didn't know how to have fun.)
  
• Wired Magazine's "Geek Dad" columnist Curtis Silver writes about Towel Day.
• Pan Macmillan, Douglas Adams' UK publisher, are holding a Towel Day contest on Flickr. Upload a photo of your most creative use of a towel to win.
• Hyperion Books has created a new Twitter feed for news about And Another Thing, called @PartSixofThree. Today they're giving away special "Don't Panic!" towels. (At least they still had some left when I checked an hour ago. And a little birdie at Hyperion publicity told me that they were going to be giving away a lot of the same towels at San Diego Comic Con International in July.)
• There's a Facebook fan page for Douglas Adams as well as a new one for And Another Thing.
• If you had any questions about whether it was Towel Day or not, go here.
• Geeks of Doom also posted about Towel Day.
• The folks at Penguin UK are pulling out all the stops in their search for a creative digital team to help spread the word about And Another Thing.
• ThinkGeek.com has a very cool "42" towel of their own!
• Join in the Towel Day conversation on Twitter here or here.
• Hilarious music video (starring Sam Rockwell) from the film version of Hitchhiker's Guide: Vote for Zaphod Beeblebrox!
  

In the meantime, I'm off to enjoy a frothy Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Make way for ducklings! The feel-good video of the year

(Via Moonrat)

Poll! What color Converse All-Stars should I wear to the Pennwriters Conference?

I'm heading off to the Pennwriters Conference in Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. And while I do plan to wear grown-up and professional clothes from my ankles up, from my ankles down, it's all about comfort. And comfort means Converse All-Star sneakers. (How can you not love a shoe you can throw in the wash?)

So now I need help choosing: which pair of Converse All-Stars do I bring to the conference? (I'll be wearing a black suit.)

What color Converse All-Stars should Colleen wear to Pennwriters Conference?



Neon-Green Hightops



Fuschsia Hightops



Brown & Orange Rugby-Stripe Lowtops



Neon Orange Low-Tops

View results

Free online surveys

Seriously funny: Wolverine in 30 seconds.

Reminder: I'm still closed to submissions and here's why.

Just a reminder: I'm still closed to new submissions via query, and all queries that have come in since March 19th have been deleted without being read.

Sending queries that say "I know you're closed to new submissions but mine is special" won't sway me. Additionally, sending me roses (yes, this actually happened - granted, they were pretty roses! - but wow, is this inappropriate!) and phoning me at the office repeatedly (this happens all the time) will just make me think you're a creepy stalker; even if I were open to new submissions, this would probably knock you out of the running in any case.

The fact of the matter is that I can only take on so many new clients per year. Right now I'm full-up. This is true of all agents. I know this may come as a shock to many of you new writers out there but we agents actually have real lives, and we don't work 24/7. (And if an agent does work 24/7, it's probably not a good idea; s/he should consider investing in a portable defibrillator.) Therefore, continuing to read and respond to queries when I know perfectly well that I don't have the time to take on new clients right now is not only a waste of my time, but it takes valuable time away from the clients that I have signed.

Are there exceptions? Sure, there are always exceptions. If I meet a writer at one of the writing conferences I'm attending in the next few months, and I like his/her work and invite him/her to submit to me, that's an exception. Likewise, I'm still open to referrals from well-known published writers, editors and/or agents that I trust. The last client I signed came to me as a referral from an agent I trust.

So what counts as a referral to me? Well, generally the only thing I count as a referral is when I receive an email/phone call from said well-known published writer/editor/agent telling me about a great writer. Conversely, your emailing me and telling me that "so and so agent" told you to write to me is NOT a referral. (By the way, this applies only to me. Other agents most likely have different guidelines and different ideas about what they consider a referral. Thus the reason you should research every one of us individually.)

Okay, so I hope we're clear on this.

At this point I'm looking to be closed to submissions until the end of July at the very least. If that changes, I'll let y'all know. Cheers!

An interview with yours truly at Follow the Reader!

I've been meaning to talk about Follow the Reader for a couple of weeks now, the wonderful Netgalley-sponsored book industry blog that's being co-written by publishing veteran Charlotte Abbott and digital marketing guru Kat Meyer.

Last week Charlotte did an amazing interview with PW contributing editor and notable book industry journalist Bethanne Patrick. On Friday afternoons, at 4:00 Eastern Time, Charlotte and Kat also host a great live-Twitter chat about the book industry. (You can follow along by using the #followreader hashtag at monitter.com or hashtag.org.)

This week, Kat interviewed yours truly, in an interview where I admit publicly to stealing books as a second grader and also to not being able to learn my times tables. (I blame Catholic school.) We also talked a lot about the book industry and publishing and why y'all should just stop complaining about Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer already! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Guest blogger Juliet Ulman: "Today is World Malaria Day. Here's how you can help fight malaria today."

Edit to add: Although the book giveaway mentioned below is over already, you can still make a donation to Madness Against Malaria for the next two weeks. Read on!

My friend and colleague Juliet Ulman (freelance editor extraordinaire and former senior editor at Bantam Dell) is sponsoring a special Madness Against Malaria book giveaway for those of you who step up and donate to this incredibly worthwhile cause. Here's what Juliet has to say:

FACT: Malaria is the world's single largest killer of children. 1-3 million people die of malaria each year. 70% of them are children under 5. The equivalent of 7 jumbo jets full of children die from malaria every day. Using insecticide-treated mosquito nets lowers the infection rate, but they're too expensive for the average African family to afford.

The Madness Against Malaria charity has *no* overhead, because it is run entirely by people volunteering their time & services. 100% of the money raised by the Madness Against Malaria charity goes directly to purchasing mosquito nets for African children.

This is where you come in.

For World Malaria Day, I'm running a special giveaway. First, please see our team on Madness Against Malaria here.

The format is a multi-round qualifying heat, and within next 8 hrs, we need to gather $50-100 more dollars in sponsorships to reach the next round. When we reach the next round, we can proceed to the subsequent round only by "beating" another team in donations -- this process goes on for two weeks, like sports semifinals ;). If, with your help, we reach round three, I'll be doing another sponsorship drive giveaway.

If you sponsor my team within the next 8 hours, send me proof of your donation via email at malaria [at] papertyger [dot] net or via DM @papertyger on Twitter. If I'm not following you on Twitter and you can't send me a DM, let me know with an @reply message, and I'll correct that oversight. :)

Everyone who sponsors our team at Madness Against Malaria in the next 8 hrs will be entered into a drawing for 5 giveaway books:

• Mothers & Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh (hardcover)
  
• Nine Below Zero by Kevin Canty (trade paperback)
  
• Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shores (trade paperback)
  
• The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar (trade paperback)
  
• Flight, Volume 2 ed. by Kaz Kibuishi (trade paperback, Image Comics edition)
  

Well, what are you waiting for? Get over there and sponsor Juliet's team now! I did! And if all of you reading this donate $10 each, that's one whole mosquito net per person. Just do it!

Mini-hiatus.

Got lots of stuff to do: editorial notes to write on FIVE (count 'em - FIVE!) manuscripts and a flooded apartment (yet again) to deal with. I'll be offline for a few days. In the meantime, go play at Nathan's place, or Rachelle's place, or Jessica's place (in my humble opinion, the three best agent blogs on the 'Net).

Oh, and for those of you who keep asking? I'll continue to be closed to submissions until at least the end of May.

Cheers!

See you next week!

J.G. Ballard, R.I.P.

Sad news for the book world once again: Award-winning British writer J.G. Ballard has died at the age of 78.

Guest blogger Matthew Cheney in conversation with David Beronä, author of Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels

David Beronä is the author of Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels, published by Abrams in 2008 to much acclaim -- most recently, a first place award from the Bookbinders' Guild at the New York Book Show in the Special Trade - Adult Graphic Novel Book category. In addition to Wordless Books, he has written numerous articles, reviews, and introductions for both scholarly and general audiences.

I met David because he is the head of the library at Plymouth State University, where I currently teach. Before we met, all I knew was what friends had told me: he was interested in some sort of "print things", something to do with graphic novels. Once I had to chance to talk with him and read his book, I began to understand his obsession with certain artists of the first half of the twentieth century. Lynd Ward's work, in particular, fascinated me. David's interests are eclectic and esoteric, and after many conversations, I knew I wanted to do a formal interview with him. The Swivet audience seemed a perfect one for it, and so, my dear Swiveteers, it is my pleasure to introduce you to David Beronä...

Matthew Cheney: What is a "wordless book"?

David Beronä: Wordless books were stories from the early part of the twentieth century told in black and white woodcuts, imaginatively authored without any text. Frans Masereel, a Belgian, referred to these wordless books as "romans in beelden" or "novel in pictures." The term commonly used for these early wordless books was also woodcut novels since they used woodcuts, wood engraving, and other forms of relief printing like leadcuts or linocuts to tell a story. Although woodcut novels have their roots spreading back through the history of graphic arts, including block books and playing cards, it was not until the early part of the twentieth century that they were conceived and published due in large part to Masereel and the American, Lynd Ward. Despite its short-lived popularity, the woodcut novel had an important impact on the development of comic art, particularly contemporary graphic novels with a focus on adult themes.

MC: Why did wordless books develop when they did?

DB: Like anything, it was a matter of timing. The influence of the silent cinema, the use of the woodcut by the Expressionists, and the familiarity of the public with cartoons all contributed to the advent of the wordless book. More important, though, was Frans Masereel himself and his courage to publish his wordless books. The success of Masereel’s books in Europe, though, can be attributed to the publisher Kurt Wolff, who admired these books when he saw copies from the initial editions that all had short print runs. Wolff published the first six woodcut novels with introductions by famous literary names like Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann in large editions that made them affordable to the general public. There was a universality of these wordless books that rose above language barriers and literacy that spoke in pictures directly to the reader.

MC: What's the connection between wordless books and graphic novels?

DB: These early wordless books are just now being recognized for their pioneering graphic storytelling qualities that have so much in common with comics and today’s graphic novels. Will Eisner, the artist who coined the term “graphic novel” in the 1970s, recognized the influence of these early wordless books. These wordless books highlight the components of today's graphic novels with an even flow of the pictures and just the right amount of visual information in each picture to tell a story.

MC: I'm curious for your thoughts about the way those stories are told, or, rather, how we construct stories from the images. Without text, the stories, as such, are associational and fluid. When I read them, for instance, my "reading" is a kind of narrator in my head, but that's probably because I have just about no visual imagination and so I turn everything into words. I'm fascinated by your introductions to, for instance, Lynd Ward's books, because I usually read them after looking through the book once or twice, and I find the story I've gotten on my own is often fairly different from the story you describe, yet on looking through again, I can see justifications for both ways of interpreting the images and their connections to each other. Am I just weird?

DB: I remember when I spoke with Lynd Ward’s two daughters that both Nanda and Robin told me that they constantly asked their father what his wordless books meant and Lynd always replied with the same answer: "It means exactly what you think it means." And that is really the attraction of these books -- we bring so much of our own personal experiences to reading pictures because the language of pictures has, what I like to call, a "private declension" that only each of us can understand -- a secret smirk or a haunting remembrance from our private association to an image.

MC: How did your interest in this material begin?

DB: I was always fascinated with picture books and comics growing up, but when I first read Storyteller Without Words: The Wood engravings of Lynd Ward, published by Abrams (ironically the same publisher of my book) in 1974, I was immediately awestruck by these stories told in pictures without words. These were not children’s picture books but rather books for adults that displayed themes of social injustice, family squalor during the Depression, and fantasy worlds that reflected a strong psychological focus. I looked for more information on Ward and a few other artists who published wordless books, like Frans Masereel, and was surprised how little had been written about this genre. I was first encouraged by Professor Estelle Jussim when I was in graduate school at Simmons College in Boston to pursue this area of research. While I began my professional career as an academic librarian after graduation, I also began my research on wordless books in earnest. I have, in the last twenty-five years, made contact with many print makers, scholars, cartoonists and their family and friends.

MC: How did you decide what to include in the book?

DB: I wanted to include works up to the early 1950s with a social rather than a religious or biographical focus. I also did not want a purely academic approach in my text but wanted the pictures to do the talking, so I toned down my writing. I wanted my text to provide only a historical framework to the visual content.

MC: So in some ways, then, you were constructing a minimally-worded book about wordless books. That seems apropos! How did you choose the images -- some of the books you could only represent with a few images, yet there are dozens and even hundreds in the complete original. I'd think some of that selection would be maddening.

DB: Yes, I wanted the images to speak and chose the images that I felt would provide enough interest for readers to go out and read the books themselves. The selection was personal and my editor was completely behind my choices, though he did encourage me to include selections of the city from Ward’s Gods’ Man that captured the dark shadows and looming buildings, which were the images that personally spoke to him when he first read the book.

MC: Can you tell us a bit about how you sold Wordless Books?

DB: I had originally talked about this book with James Sturm at the Center for Cartoon Studies where I lecture on wordless books. James was convinced that there was a growing interest in these historical books. We talked with one publisher but it was really not their market. My break came when I traveled down to New York with James for an opening of the exhibit, “The Jewish Graphic Novel,” where he was exhibiting his work and where I met his agent, Judy Hansen of Hansen Literary Agency. When I mentioned my research on wordless books, Judy became very interested and asked for a book proposal. Since I had most of the book already written, I took a few months to polish up my manuscript, which I sent to her. Since Judy is so well known in the field, she knew Charles Kochman, senior editor at Abrams and now Executive Editor of Abrams ComicArts, who had an acute interest and knowledge of comic art and was also especially excited about these wordless books. After that it was only a matter of a couple weeks before Abrams bought the rights to my book.

MC: As a librarian, what are your feelings about books, technology, and society? Are you optimistic for the future of books?

DB: For most of my academic career I have been involved in library technology and the transformation of the traditional library into a vital online resource. The resources available now online have provided me access to more information than I could ever have discovered in a hundred lifetimes. I see our access to information growing and feel that we are in another information revolution very similar to the one experience during the advent of the printing press. Lets not forget that illuminated manuscripts were not destroyed following the implementation of the printing press. With that said, I am not only a proud supporter of online technology but also a firm believer in preserving our primary materials. I do not feel that these interests are at odds but rather an extension of my mission as a librarian to preserve information in all forms. As far as the future of the book, I believe that content will become disseminated more and more online and that the book, as we know it, will begin to metamorphosize into objects of art, as we can see in many artists books where the substance as well as the text integrate into one unique message. In addition and in contrast to the book as an object of art, I also see the book remaining viable as a cheap and disposable vehicle for content. Examples of this can be seen in today’s manga, graphic novels, and paperbacks.

MC: "Cheap and disposable" -- as an occasional collector of old magazines and paperbacks, I know exactly what you mean. Even with such items, though, there's an excitement to the physical object that I imagine you must have when you encounter, for instance, an early edition of Masereel or Ward or Nuckel or dozens of others. I would love to have, for instance, a digital version of the July 1943 Weird Tales that I have, because handling it is so perilous, but there's some sort of magic to the object itself, too. Can libraries still afford to continue to strengthen their physical archives while also expanding digitally?

DB: My professional philosophy would be to insure that your specific issue of Weird Tales is being preserved and archived in some library but that a digital copy is available for everyone who does not have access to the original copy. And that is what libraries are working toward -- the preservation of materials in the original format and the digitization of the material for universal access.

I have to tell you a story that is a good example of this question. The first copy of Bochořáková-Dittrichová’s Childhood that I discovered literally fell apart in my hands. Talk about a "weird tale"! I had been looking for a copy of this my entire life and when I opened up the book, the pages fell from the spine, cracked, and fell apart in fragments right through my hands, certainly due to the poor paper and humidity. Since that event many years ago, I did find another copy of this rare book that was in very good shape.

MC: Well, don't take it personally then if I don't let you touch my Weird Tales! Anyway... What's your next project?

DB: I'm working on a survey of wordless books from where I left off in my first book: the 1950s to the present day. This includes wordless comics, children’s wordless picture books, and artists’ books. In addition, I am working closely with Dover Publications, writing introductions to a line of new editions of out-of-print graphic arts and wordless books.

MC: Are there forthcoming releases from Dover that we should particularly keep our eyes out for?

DB: Yes, Dover is doing some exciting work publishing new editions of these out-of-print wordless books and I am so happy to be involved with these projects. There are some great surprises forthcoming. This year there is an edition with three of Masereel’s woodcut novels in one volume (The Sun, The Idea & Story Without Words), and an edition of one of my favorite books and illustrators -- John Vassos' Phobia: An Art Deco Graphic Masterpiece -- not a wordless book but a powerfully engaging illustrated book from the 1930s.

Thanks to David for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm. I'd also just like to add that Dover is reprinting the extraordinary 1934 edition of Frankenstein that Lynd Ward illustrated -- it has jumped near the top of my list of most-anticipated books.

Heads up! The Rules for QueryFail 2: Queries Never Die and some changes!

Okay, as y'all know, tomorrow is #Queryfail Day on Twitter, and the participating agents & editors have decided to post a more specific set of guidelines for those agents and editors out there who'd like to participate. We've made a couple of changes to #Queryfail, changes that I think will help people realize that this really is an educational opportunity for writers and not an organized humiliation-fest. (Most of you got that the last time around, anyway; thanks for all the great feedback!)

The first big change to Queryfail is the name:

#Queryfail will now be known simply as #Queryday.

For those of you who want to follow the live-streaming of #Queryday participants or who wish to participate yourselves, go to Search.Twitter.com or use Monitter.com and type in #Queryday. (You don't even need a Twitter account to follow #QueryDay, by the way.)

Why the name change? Well, although the majority of us actually liked the name #Queryfail, there were some people who felt that the name conveyed an unnecessary negativity. And, because of the other change we agreed on (which you'll see in just a few seconds if you keep reading), the name #Queryday made more sense.

The other major change? Tomorrow, we're not only going to live-Tweet our queries, but we'll be taking your agenting/publishing questions as well. Agent Jenny Rae Rappaport and I have been doing this by ourselves about once a week and it's seems to be something that writers find helpful, so bringing it into #Queryday will open it up to a much larger group of writers. Now, in order to ask a question, you'll need to have a Twitter account (free!) and you'll need to include the #Queryday tag in your tweet. Now, bear in mind that we're all actually working as we're doing this, and our jobs take precedence over your questions, so if one of us doesn't get to your question right away, try again a little later.

All this being said, if you are an agent or an editor who would like to participate tomorrow, we do ask that you agree to adhere to the rules below (which, incidentally, are exactly the same rules as the first time we did #Queryfail):

• Do not post real author names
• Do not post actual titles of manuscripts
• Do not post the actual title, character names, exact plot details or place settings of manuscript.
• Intersperse positive with negative comments. Tweet the things you like and dislike.
• Paraphrase where you can instead of actual quotes; use your discretion.
  
• Try to explain why you're passing without excessive snark.
  
• Make sure to add the hashtag #Queryday to your tweet.

When does it start? Whenever the first one of us wakes up tomorrow morning and opens his or her email.

When does it end? Whenever the last one of us cries "Uncle!" tomorrow night and collapses in a sweaty, query-ridden fever
.
Everybody clear? Good.

I'm really excited about #Queryday 2 and hope y'all will join us with your questions and comments tomorrow.

Guest blogger Max Leone: The Inelegance of The Elegance of the Hedgehog: A Book Review

Fourteen-year-old Max Leone has a lot of opinions about books. Some of those opinions have appeared on this blog and some of them have appeared at Publishers Weekly. He lives in New Jersey with an assortment of reptiles, amphibians, and humans.

The Inelegance of The Elegance of the Hedgehog: A Book Review

I realize that The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (which was translated from French, and is set in Paris) is not exactly meant for the “young adult” demographic. However, I read widely, and after reading this book I decided that something had to be done. I heard someone raving about this book, the plot sounded interesting, and it was a surprise bestseller. Then I read it. And I realized that I must act to protect the public from this pretentious leviathan. The goal of this article is to keep as many people as possible from buying this book.

For the lucky people who have not read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, it is a story that will make you want to defenestrate smart people. One of these people is Paloma Josse, one of the two main characters. She is a twelve-year-old a genius. She hates her life full of people who don’t understand me because I’m oh-so-special and so much smarter than they are and because of this, she plans to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. And burning her house down. Because my stupid parents and sister think their life is so great and they never think about all the poor people who lose their homes and I’ll wait until they leave to do it because I’m not a criminal even though suicide and arson are crimes. But wait! She’s actually more unlikable than that! She is a stuck-up, insufferable genius who feels the need to pseudo-philosophically criticize anything and everything, because she is so much better than this world of cruel idiots who don’t understand me.

And she is a weeaboo. A weeaboo is someone, usually a teenager, who has developed an unhealthy obsession with Japan, to the degree that they think everything Japanese is wonderful, Japan is so much better than anything else, Japan is the magic land of unicorns, rainbows, and happiness etc. They constantly insert Japanese phrases in their speech. Paloma has all these qualities, and she’s the one we are supposed to root for. Excuse me while I bang my crude, inelegant American head against a crude, inelegant American wall. (Also, “manga”, Paloma is plural. “Mangas” is not a word.) At one point wondergirl watches synchronized diving and mopes for a half-hour because two of the divers were out of sync. Yes, this is the person we’re meant to sympathize with and root for.

Reneé Michel is the other protagonist. I hate her marginally less than weeaboo wondergirl because she is somewhat less annoying. She is a concierge and autodidact (oh, how this book has polluted my vocabulary) who, due to some universal law I have not heard about, forces herself to act like the person you’d see a picture of if you looked up concierge in the dictionary. She’s pretentious, and spews as much BS as Paloma, but her lack of precociosity (I refuse to say “precociousness”. This book made me start a rebellion against proper spelling and grammar. Join me, my fellow compantriotades) makes her more tolerable. She is also a weeaboo, but to a lesser degree than wondergirl. She is also unlikeable. For example, at one point she observes that one of the tenants misplaced a comma in an invitation. This is apparently the end of the world for concierge, who collapses into a chair in shock. She than goes on a tirade that the tenant has “no excuse” to make a typo because she is rich. Her exact words are “To the rich, therefore, falls the burden of Beauty. And if they cannot assume it, then they deserve to die.” No, I did not make that up. This is the person we are supposed to root for. This, is, ridiculous, isn’t, it? And, yes, I, am, doing, this, out, of, spite.

You will notice I have not discussed the plot at all. That is because it does not exist. The first third or so of this book is made up of Renee and Paloma making observations on their daily lives. I have no problem with this per se, since it can help flesh out the characters and introduce the setting to the reader. But it should not take up half the book. Yes, Paloma is a genius surrounded by idiots, we get it. Yes, Renee “breaks stereotypes”. We get that, to. Finally, after slogging through 134 pages of slimy, thick, constipated prose, something happened in the book. Namely, Kakuro Ozu appears. Kakuro is a Marty Stu. Which is to say, he is a perfect, idealized character, who came from some parallel universe with only two dimensions. He is rich, he is intelligent, he is handsome, in an old man sort of way, and he makes the lives of wondergirl and concierge better. And his toilet plays Mozart when you flush it. That last one is actually in the book, by the way. Anyway, wondergirl and concierge meet him, become magically happy, wondergirl stops being suicidal, then concierge get hit by a truck and dies. Yes, Muriel Barbery is evil. She probably has a long mustache that she twirls while constructing her death ray.

The one thing about this book I hated more than the unlikable characters and the unstory was the philosophical musings that take up most of the book. They are… almost indescribable in how infuriating they are. Most of the book is made up of pretentious observations on random things. That is how Ms. Barbery the diabolical makes the story of concierge, wondergirl, and Mr. Stu last for 325 interminable pages.

Whenever I saw one of these sections come up, my heart filled with dread. I had to read them more than once, since my mind refused to concentrate. I felt like screaming “No one cares about how beautiful a summer rain is, hurry up and get hit by a truck already!” I have no idea how people can live like that, their minds over-interpreting everything. A Maori rugby player dancing is not just a dance, it is “motionless movement”. When a woman trips, it is not just an accident, it is “…a Bacon come to life before my very eyes…” I have no idea how someone’s mind can even work like this. However, the worst part about these “intelligent” observations is how utterly meaningless they are. They don’t improve the world or really anything. These mental abominations just seem to have been frankensteined together for the purpose of being pretentious. A keyboard is a tragic thing. All the letters imprisoned. It is a great dishonor to them to keep them like this, locked in oubliettes of plastic. That was not from the book, that was from me. I made it up in a few seconds. And it means nothing to me. It’s the kind of thing you would find in this book, the kind of think taken to be “deep” and “profound”. And yet it means nothing. It contributes nothing to the world, and it is maddening in its meaninglessness. And that it is the thing I hate the most about The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

"I don't know what we're doing for May, but I hope it involves Nerf weapons."

I was wrong: THIS is the funniest response to Queryfail vs. Agentfail.

#Underfail: Rise of the Agents!

(I think I actually just broke a rib laughing...)

Saturday Night Live spoof or actual advertisement against gay marriage?

Yeah, if I didn't know that this was a real-honest-to-goodness advertisement produced and paid for by the ironically named National Organization for Marriage, I would have sworn that this was a SNL-produced parody. Judge for yourself. (Thanks to Moonrat for pointing me toward this!)

Queryfail vs. Agentfail: Maybe not the final word but...

...definitely the most hilarious one!