Archive for publishing
“If you are pro Black, pro Hispanic, or pro Asian, why don’t you say so … ?”
After we got back in touch with each other in 2009, Lorraine sent me the correspondence below – between me and a ‘literary agent’ – which she had kept after leaving Prometheus Books decades before.
Lorraine wrote me: “In one of my periodic cleaning binges, lo — my Prometheus ‘DO YOU BELIEVE THIS’ file re-emerged this week, after a disappearance of nigh onto twenty years! The attached provided me with a cascading set of giggles. I hope you will still find the exchange as amusing as I did.” I did, and do. Thank you, Lorraine.
(I’ve obscured my antagonist’s information.)
Note #1 to my students: The approach I chose here is generally not recommended for your own workplace correspondence. Please stay courteous! Your goal, almost always, is to foster and maintain relationships.
Note #2 to my students: You also might want to avoid misspelling *your own job title* in workplace correspondence. I was the senior “Acquisitions” editor for a year before I remembered that “acquisitions” has a “c” in it. (That was around the same time I was shocked to see that “smooth” wasn’t spelled “smoothe.”)
PS – The “LMP” is The Literary Marketplace guide.
Lorraine Marshall
My old friend Lorraine passed away in her sleep yesterday. We worked together closely in the late ’80s and early ’90s, at Prometheus Books, where she was the Marketing Director. She was very funny (and very thoughtful); she was lovely.
Her Facebook page had this Lou Reed quote on it: “There’s a bit of magic in everything, and then some loss to even things out.”
Ellavon shined up
I started up Ellavon: An Ezine of Basic Culture in 1998 so that I could work with writers and artists whose stuff I liked. My plan worked beautifully. Our writers included Kristi Coulter, Robin Plan, Julie Damerell, Kat Kosiancic, Jeanne d’Arc O’Day, Jonathan Mayhew, Joseph Conte, John Glionna, Steven Silbert, and Chris Basil. Our artists: Lincoln Clarkes, Marilyn Suriani, and John Sindelar. And our interview subjects: Diane Middlebrook and Paul Kurtz (beloved mentors of mine, both of whom have passed away).
This week with the great help of Robot Overlord Inc., we fixed some back-end code, made (minimal) updates – Ellavon stopped publishing in 2002 – and got Mr. Sindelar’s gallery up and running again. We have been careful to leave the black-on-brick design of the contributions intact — to help you remember what it was like at the turn of the century.
Best in Vancouver
Congratulations to my friend Emily Cooper, who was selected “Best Professional Photographer” in the Georgia Straight’s annual “Best of Vancouver” awards. I find her work magical and truly delightful.
Satire and Critique
From the very smart libertarian blog “Hit and Run,” presented without comment, except to note that all’s well that ends well (if it does end well):
Last Thursday an Ohio jury acquitted Anthony Novak, a 27-year-old man whom Parma police arrested last spring for making fun of them. After hearing one day of testimony, the jurors unanimously concluded that Novak did not “disrupt public services,” a felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison, when he created a parody of the Parma Police Department’s Facebook page.
Novak’s fake Facebook page, which changed the department’s slogan from “We know crime” to “We no crime,” included a job notice saying that anyone who passed a “15 question multiple choice definition test followed by a hearing test” would be “be accepted as an officer” but that the department “is strongly encouraging minorities to not apply.” …
When they arrested Novak in March, Parma police complained that his jokes were “derogatory” and “inflammatory.” …
Novak plans to sue the police department and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office for violating his First Amendment rights. … Elizabeth Bonham, staff attorney with the ACLU of Ohio, thinks Novak has a strong case. She told The Plain Dealer Novak’s actions were “so clearly protected by the First Amendment that the criminal proceedings shouldn’t have even come this far.”
Kristi Coulter
Back in 1997 I founded Ellavon: An Ezine of Basic Culture in large measure so that I could work with artists and writers I admired. I got to know Kristi Coulter by reading and responding to her posts on the old Usenet newsgroups, in particular alt.music.alternative and alt.music.alternative.female. Her prose was surpassingly graceful and witty. Indeed, Kristi was and remains one of the best pure writers I have ever read. I was thrilled when she agreed to write for Ellavon.
While I can say that I published her, I cannot say that I edited her; I never found a word – honestly, not a single one – I would change. (Such an experience is as unnerving as it is happy for an editor. It has happened to me only one other time, with Paul Edwards, editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and author of the magisterial refutation of reincarnation that you can find in Not Necessarily the New Age.)
Kristi has finally launched her own website, KristiCoulter.com, which has links to her Ellavon work and to more recent writing, including her blog, “Off-Dry: Sober Girl, Loopy World,” her two recent “Open Letters to People I Have Strong Feelings About” (“Dear Santa” is pure and poignant genius), and to her various “Enthusiasms.”
Get yours while supplies last …
… Engineering Communication: A Practical Guide to Workplace Communication for Engineers (2nd ed.), by David Ingre and yours truly.
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