A New Kind of Book Blog

Juliet Cook reads with the TypewriterGirls Poetry Cabaret (downtown Pittsburgh), June 25, 2010

Continued thoughts from yesterday's post on small press reading series: What if a city's lit scene hosted a book blog specifically dedicated to reviewing the books of authors coming into town for upcoming readings?

Let me back up. There's two factors that lead me to this idea:

1.) Yesterday I wrote some do's and don'ts of running (or participating in) a reading. I talked about some things that reading series hosts can do to maximize the positive experience of visiting writers (see #2 on this list). Since we can try our best to cultivate a growing audience for our reading series, but can't ultimately control how many people show up or what event is competing with the reading that particular night, I talked about other things we can do to ensure that the out-of-town author gets to meet other cool writers, or gets publicity or feedback for their new book. I mean, you don't want there to be an unusually low turnout that night and then have a dud audience be the visiting writer's entire memory of both your city and your reading series, right?

2.) I am currently engaged in booking readings and hustling reviews for an author I just published. I'm really excited about the book, but it's the poet's debut collection and no one's heard of him. Every pitch I make is an uphill battle, a competition for someone's time, a bookstore's shelf space, a reading series' slots, and the dwindling column inches dedicated to newspapers' book reviews. After booking the author a reading in Baltimore, I wrote to one colleague in that city to ask for suggestions of local reviewers and book bloggers. He wrote me back with a list of people to try, but gave a familiar warning: Most book reviewers are backed up on such requests.

We've all been reading, of course, about book review sections getting cut or drastically reduced from newspapers and magazines. But even with all the talk about print books turning into e-books, and bookstores large and small having serious struggles, the fact remains that more titles are being published each year. So the demand for book reviews should being rising, not diminishing.

So, I'm proposing the following in my current city of Pittsburgh, and suggesting that other cities consider such a model:

A book blog that would be dedicated to publicizing upcoming readings, especially to reviewing the new books by out-of-town authors slated to read in Pittsburgh soon. So that no one person would be taxed for time, I would be interested in setting up such a blog only after I gathered a critical mass of volunteers. Say, 15 or 20 people whom I thought were solid reviewers, who could be called on to review the next writer, with a rotation insuring that no one had to write a review too often. These reviews would be unpaid, which is too bad. Traditionally, newspapers and magazines have paid for book reviews, and I hate to replace a paid writing gig with an unpaid one. Frankly, I think the amount of unpaid work that goes into the small press is a bit shameful. Sure, we love what we do, but it does take enormous amounts of time and labor, and meanwhile, the rent marches on. If anyone has a suggestion of how to generate a fund to pay reviewers even a token amount, please use the comment section.

Further, the reviews would be positive. The idea would be to generate an audience for writers coming to town, so the reviewers should answer the question (among others): Who would like this book? Who is the intended audience for this book? If the reviewer didn't like the assigned book, s/he would have the option to interview the writer instead, or to not review the book. I wouldn't advocate lying or turning into a sycophant just for the blog, but rather trying to generate an audience and letting the audience decide for themselves what they thought of the writer. (Some writers, of course, give a great show but read very differently on the page.)

When time allowed, interviews could run in addition to reviews. Authors would be asked for JPEGs of their book covers and author photos.

Would local authors be reviewed or interviewed? Maybe. I don't mean to prioritize out-of-town authors over Pittsburgh writers, but I would want to avoid reviewers hyping their friends, over-taxing the volunteer reviewers, constant requests from local writers, and the inevitable scenario of disappointing people often. It might be best to just leave out all those scenarios by confining the blog to reviewing writers coming from outside of Pittsburgh. Or, perhaps a compromise could be running interviews with local writers, with questions asked by other local writers.

I think that interaction and dialogue between writers from different cities is crucial to the health of any one city's literary scene: Scenes that get too provincial, without new blood or fresh air, are in danger of becoming stagnant. A blog like this could add to such a dialogue. Maybe in a perfect scenario, Pittsburgh writers could be reviewed or interviewed by out-of-town writers instead of local-on-local. But that aspect would involve a significant addition of work and organization, so it might be better to start with a more simple formula.

What do you think?

Technology and Literature This Week

I came across a very interesting trio of pieces this week concerning the intersection of (small press) literature and the digital age:

Monday, Exquisite Corpse editor Andrei Codrescu waxed eloquent on NPR about how the Kindle destroyed the sacred silence that exists between a reader and a new book:
"...not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station."
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/07/134342235/E-Book-Tarnishes-The-Reader-Book-Relationship

Tuesday, a New York Observer article about Calamari Press/Featherproof novelist Blake Butler talked about how the writer has lived on the internet for the past 10 years, created a blog for other far-flung writers who were alone until HTML Giant united them in conversation, and decries stories that resolve, relationships and sex in literature, and the following: "The idea of the writer at all has become overrated," Mr. Butler said. "To think that you're this orchestrating wizard and that you have to have this story to tell and you have to have lived and seen crazy shit to be able to put it out there is absurd. To me it's just as crazy or scary or fucked up to go outside to the grocery store. You know?"
"Blake Butler and What Happens When a Novelist Lives on the Internet"
http://www.observer.com/2011/culture/blake-butler-and-what-happens-when-novelist-lives-internet

Today, Six Gallery Press poet Mike Bushnell blogs about phoning author and Black Sparrow poet Ed Sanders and what it was like to learn about poetry before the age of the internet:
"There are certain things that have happened in my poetic development that most likely would have taken less intimate manifestations if I had such an emoticoning outlet at my disposal."
http://www.iamaparty.com/2011/03/learning-poetry-before-internet.html

In Paris a Billboard Boasted Paulo Coelho's Head 10 Feet High

Lynn Alexander of Full of Crow recently posed some important questions about the small press:

*What is our obligation [as writers, voices, opinions] to this [small press] community?
*Are we cooperative or competitive?
*Is "community" the relentless pushing of the friends that push us?

*Is "community" playing nice?

To Lynn's thoughts I add a few of my own:

I think that the small press community CAN be in danger of mindlessly boosting our friends, or of being another sort of vanity press--and that (more over) we can be in danger of being seen that way, even when it's not true. For myself as a small press blogger, I have come to the conclusion that it is my obligation (and preference) to THOUGHTFULLY SPOTLIGHT the writers and presses I like and/or respect.

On spotlighting: I feel that the small press (being SO far below the big presses in advertising dollars) always needs a boost, and its worthiest voices usually deserve a wider audience. Equally often there are small press folks working hard on very interesting projects--or tackling ongoing dilemmas like distribution--in ways that merit attention even when I'm not in love with (or haven't had the time to read) the actual writing. That is, there are ways to add to the small press conversation that expand the diversity of expression and the scope of publishing--ultimately strengthening and testing and enjoying the fruits of the first amendment--which earn my respect even if the writing is not to my taste. But I don't wish to add more noise to the conversation by merely boosting mindlessly, so....

On thoughtful blogging: I have to admit that I dislike reviewing, but I also feel guilty about it. I wish I was a faster reader, and it's probably absurd to say I wish I was faster at writing criticism: Reviews necessarily take time to consider, research, and write well. But what I try to achieve in this blog is to offer some *context* to the small press books, presses, and authors I write about. The "librarian" aspect of this blog is similar to my journalism background; I'd like to tell you things about the small press without either condescending to those who already know, or leaving out those who don't know. I'd like to leave you with a bit of context, history, background; a flavor of the small press culture; a notion of which small presses are connected to which others; some objective information about a book you're not likely to have heard of outside of promo-speak by the author; a notion of why you might care that I'm spotlighting this particular title today. I try to assign reviews from time to time, and I thank my guest reviewers very much for that service to this blog.

What do you think about these issues? Do you think it's the role of small press writers to critique or support their fellow small press folk? Should there be an emphasis on exposing the "truth" no matter how harsh, or is that better left to the professional critics? Should small press writers you feel are bad writers be squelched early rather than encouraged, or should small press writers who do well be shot down when you feel they're overrated? Is there such as thing as an "overrated small press author," when 85% of the nation's readers still haven't heard of any of us? When even a literate magazine editor has never heard the term "small press"? Does "bad writing" add to the diversity of publishing, or detract? And can we still talk about "diversity" in the small press when the vast number of its players are white and college-educated? Or is diversity of expression an important thing unto itself that should be critiqued along with the diversity of the backgrounds (and content) of its voices?