In 2020, BookExpo finally died. BookExpo was, once upon a time, a convention for booksellers, put on by the publishing industry. Back then, it was called The American Booksellers Association Convention, and honestly, it was marvelous. If you were a book person, it was like the best place ever. Books everywhere. So many books in […]
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Author’s Note: I wrote this on January 3, which (in case you’ve lost track in this already long year) was three days before January 6, when insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol. I still have high hopes for 2021. We just have to go through some 2020 bullshit here this month on the political side. On […]
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I have courageously decided to review the year 2020 in publishing. Courageously only applies to me because I actually dread looking at the numbers or the things I remember. 2020 has made me skittish and has forced me to believe everything is a disaster, even when it isn’t. I have already logged a few blogs […]
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Yeah, we’re doing it again. Because COVID infections are worse. I’d think it was just us in the U.S., but today’s news is that Scotland is locking down until February 1, with other countries to follow. I really have no words, except how sorry I am for folks who are suffering from the disease or […]
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Unless things go horribly wrong in the next two days—and this being 2020, that’s entirely possible—we will make it to 2021. As my Pearls Before Swine Day-To-Day Calendar reminded me this week, the change of year is an arbitrary construction that we imbue with great meaning. I looked at that cartoon and thought, I don’t […]
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Since I’ve decided to take on a review of 2020 and its impact on the publishing industry, I have been reading many articles I bookmarked but skipped during this long horrible fall. Some of the information is, as I thought, overwhelming. I haven’t yet begun to synthesize it all. (I will. I promise.) I’m starting […]
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I have considered writing this short series for more than a month now, and every time I envision it, I see myself standing in a pile of rubble, surveying the landscape. It’s almost a movie scene, probably an amalgam of every disaster movie I’ve ever seen. The camera focuses on a small section of rubble, […]
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I’ve been running full-speed ahead since the beginning of November. I knew I was near the end of the very long Diving saga I’ve been writing. The book I’ve been writing most of the summer was nearing completion, and was turning out to be more than 300,000 words, which is ridiculous. Then there was my […]
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On Saturday, November 14, I went on my usual morning run. I chose the route that took me past the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, one of the country’s top-rated high schools. When I ran past this school pre-COVID, I would often hear voices raised in song, or a particularly amazing band practice. Sometimes […]
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I call this a regular Thursday blog, even though it posts on Wednesday night (if I’m lucky). Which means that every year, this post falls on American Thanksgiving, which falls on the last Thursday of November. Most years, I write a Thanksgiving post, although some years, I write a standard post. I have a post […]
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