The Health Dept. is barring street food vendors from selling seafood of any kind on the sidewalks of New York from here on out. The best part of the post on Grub Street about the new regulation? This comment from someone called Smokedragon: “[Street vendor] Kim’s Aunt’s fried flounder sandwich gets me through Fridays in Lent. I guess the Health Department wants me to go to hell.”

Maybe if they had had an alternative way to to express themselves, the Bethlehem, PA couple arrested for not leaving a gratuity at the Lehigh Pub would have not ended up in handcuffs. Yes, that’s right…the couple was arrested for refusing to leave a $16 tip – for sub-par service.

This was a case where the gratuity was included in the bill – a “mandatory” 18%. The patrons paid the $73 dollars owed for food, drink and tax but protested paying the “tip” for what they claim was poor to non-existent service. Leslie Pope and John Wagner attempted to explain the reason for refusing to leave a gratuity and the bartender took decisive action – he called the police and had the couple arrested for theft! That’s one way to get a tip.

This is certainly a case where using the “simple, time-tested system” of letting ones tips do the talking (see page 2 comment, Grub Street ‘Editor’s Pick’) did not work out so well for the customer. Perhaps they would have been better off  in this case  going with our motto – “put your mouth where your money is.”

Leaving an appropriate message along with a tip may work out better in the end for all.

So I braved the wind and the rain on Saturday to go to the first annual Boston Book Festival.  It was an all-day event held at and around Copley Square, with exhibits, lectures, readings, free food, and interactive events for people who write or enjoy poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.  Oh, and there were plenty for kids to do, too.

So below is a report of my “field trip,” complete with photos.  Pardon my photography – I’m not the best, but I try!

I was originally planning to go with a friend, but she had to cancel due to a family emergency.  But I still wanted to go, so I took the train into Boston’s Back Bay station despite the icky weather.  The train came 30 minutes late (go figure!), so I didn’t make it into Boston till 1:00pm.  At least it had stopped raining.

Vendors and exhibits at the 2009 Boston Book Festival

Copley Square was packed when I got there – and you could tell that there weren’t many passersby.  Clearly this event had gotten lots of promotion in the city, and people were to see what it was all about.  There were two (or three?) rows of exhibits and vendors at the square, all in small white tents because of the weather.  Some tents were for the event sponsors, like State Street, E-Ink, and Green Mountain Coffee; or local media like Mix 104.1, Boston Globe, and NECN.  Most of the tents were for literary-related exhibits: local literary journals selling discounted subscriptions, small booksellers with selected books for sale, city colleges/universities with information on their writing programs, etc.  And if you were hungry, you could get some Legal Seafood Clam Chowder or Brigham’s ice cream – for free. 

The festival had close to 30 events planned that afternoon, each housed in one of four buildings bordering Copley Square: Trinity Church, Old South Church, Boston Public Library, and the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel.   Here’s a list of some of the events, just to give you an idea:

• Spoken Word Showcase
• StoryPlace (kids’ event)
• Matters of Faith
• Book Worms and Net Crawlers
• The Power of Place: Struggles in a Strange Land
• The Examined Life: Memoir
• Thrillers and Killers
• Eat Your Words
• Jumpstart Your Writing (limited seating workshops)

I didn’t have a lot of time, since I wanted to be back home before it was too dark.  So I went right away to one event I had my heart set on: The Guided Open Mic, held at the Library.  It was hosted by Hank Phillipi Ryan, Channel 7 investigative reporter by day and mystery author by night.  (She actually has three mystery novels published – I never knew that!)

Guided Open Mic, hosted by Hank Phillipi Ryan

Here’s how it went: Attendees who wanted to read signed up before the event.  When it began, Ms. Ryan introduced herself and her books briefly, then gave her top 10 tips for reading at open mic events.  Then, she called the readers up in the order they signed the sheet.  (I was #26, so I had no chance.  Oh well!)  Each reader had 3 minutes tops to read original work: poetry, short story, excerpt from a longer story of any kind, etc.  When they finished, Ms. Ryan critiqued their performances, telling them what she liked and what could be improved.

Also, just before the event, I saw someone I knew… My local writers group had talked about the festival briefly at our previous meeting, but no one had mentioned anything about going at the time.  Well, just before the open mic began, one of the group members walked in!  So that was a pleasant surprise, and it felt more comfortable sitting next to someone I knew.

Johnny Duke and the Aces, peforming at the Festival Stage

After the Open Mic, I walked around Copley Square a little more, took some pictures, and visited some of the exhibits.  (Oh, and got some ice cream. *lol*)  The weather had improved drastically by then: It was warmer and clearing up, and very windy!  I also spent a few minutes by the Festival Stage near Trinity Church.  Musical performers were scheduled throughout the day at this stage, and the band I got to see was Johnny Duke and the Aces.  A local blues band with some jazz, rock, and funk influences.  Pretty good stuff.  Of course, they had the wind to contend with at that point.  I was afraid the tent was going to fall down on them at one point!

3:30 came around – time for Writer Idol at Old South Church.  To describe the event: Attendees could submit the first page of their working manuscript, and during Idol pages were selected at random to be read out loud by a professional actor to a panel of judges.  Not Simon, Randy, and Paula, obviously; here, the judges were local literary agents and editors.  The judges would listen to each reading either until the end or, if they really didn’t like it, until two of the judges raised their hands – meaning they would have rejected the story!  Then the judges would explain what they didn’t like and offer suggestions on how to improve that first page.

This event must have been hotly anticipated – I arrived just a minute or two before it started and took the last empty seat.  My friend from the writers group had submitted the first page of her novel-in-progress, so I didn’t want to miss it.  And Writer Idol did not disappoint.  It was extremely entertaining, and very informative.  One of the agents was hilarious, and between his comments and some of the readings people were laughing to the point of tears.  I think we all imagine literary agents to be tough cookies, but this event really proves how difficult it is to grab their attention and never let go.  Unfortunately I had to catch my train back home before Writer Idol finished.  But if the BBF organization had Writer Idol next year, I’d definitely see it again.

Trinity Church, and the crowd at the Boston Book Festival

All in all, I had a great time at the Boston Book Festival.  I’m sure it’ll be held next year; the turnout was great, and there was something for everyone.  If I were to go next year (which I’m already planning on it), I’d plan on spending the whole day there and get as much out of it as I can.

Here’s a link to the festival, in case you’re interested: http://www.bostonbookfest.org/index.php.

~ Sara

Here at Making Chicago Home, we eat meat. The following post will include some rather graphic pictures of sheep being butchered. Not killed (the farmer did that for us) and not skinned (the farmer took care of that for us, too), but it will contain pictures of people deconstructing and breaking down a whole sheep – two of them, actually, and you should be warned that it can be graphic.

That being said I feel that it is necessary to address that I am not trying to offend anyone. This post relates to the goal of “making Chicago home” because it is a Chicago event undertaken by Chicago chefs who go through this process every week to put the freshest local meat on the table. It is as quintessentially Chicago as it is quintessentially Denver, San Antonio, Richmond, New York, etc. – pretty much anywhere where they butcher animals and eat them.

I should also mention that as a person who eats meat, I find that there is nothing wrong with me being involved in the process from getting animals  from farm to table.  I want to be more connected to the process and would much rather eat meat knowing the farmer who raised it and knowing that it had a full, happy life. Plus, the process of butchering is really interesting and encourages people to eat every part of the animal, like they do at Mado.

A special thanks to Rob and Allison Levitt, executive chefs at Mado, who allow me to help out in their kitchen and to Rich Hawley, my mentor in the kitchen who is constantly pushing me to be a perfectionist. Thank you.

Part One: Meet the sheep.

(PICTURES, ARTICLE ON NEXT PAGE!)

This is a 5-year old sheep weighing over 60 lbs. As you can see, the sheep comes to Mado whole, but skinned. My guess is that the farmer keeps the wool to make yarn from it and that that yarn is probably made into thick, warm sweaters for the winter time. Rich said that most farmers kill their sheep by using a stun gun first then slitting their necks. It is important to let the sheep bleed out so as cut them we do not have to risk blood going everywhere.  Rob said that he loves buying local, even if it is more expensive, because when he goes to pick the sheep up, he can shake the hand of the farmer who raised them – I think that every chef in Chicago should be doing the same thing.

PART TWO: DECONSTRUCTING

The first thing that has to be done is to cut through the bone and deconstruct the sheep.

Rob starts by separating the neck and head from the rest of the body. This gives him extra room on the table to work with the rest of the sheep. He used a bone saw to cut through the vertebrae and muscles and had to apply a lot of pressure and elbow grease to get through all of the tissue.

As Rob cuts pieces of the sheep off, he places them in the plastic tray you see above. Two “sheep prep chefs” then take the pieces out one-by-one and cut out much of the “silver skin”, or sinews that bind the muscles together and cut pieces of fat off of the sheep. Everything gets used. Fat is used in making sheep’s liver pate, stock, and to flavour other dishes.

So above we have some lean muscle (bottom), two kidneys covered with fat (left) and ribs (right). Rob explained to me that it is unusual to see kidneys wrapped in their original fat casing because in most cases, inspectors have to take the fat off the kidneys to inspect them. Since these sheep went straight from farmer to chef, this process gets skipped over. But no worries, before the kidney is used it will be cooked thoroughly and is not harmful to eat. In England it is common to see people and buying and consuming kidneys (esp. lamb’s kidneys!) and steak and kidney pie is probably one of my favourites! Yum!

Rob had Rich and I disconnect the heads from the necks and cut out the tongues. To cut out the tongue, you should genly pry the jaw open and cut from the inside. My sheep was being particularly stubborn and would not open up. Instead I turned the head upside down and slid a paring knife into the hollow cavity right under the front jaw. From there I followed the curve of the jaw to nicely remove the tongue, which you can see in my hand in the picture above.

If you ever have the privilege of butchering sheep, I recommend you take time to marvel at the tongue. Toward the front it is really smooth but at the back is a rough patch of raised bumps, much like a cat’s, which is used to grip food and for cleaning. You can also see all the glands in the bottom front of the tongue which are pretty interesting.

To remove the head from the neck you have to first dig your fingers into the back of the jaw and feel where it ends. Then with a boning knife, follow the vertical path of the jaw up to the neck. You will feel the very first vertebrae and can uncover it easily with your knife. You may run into a lot of “silver skin”, or sinews, that need to gently be slit apart. Then work your knife in between the first and second vertebrae and continue cutting through the muscle and fat at the back of the neck.

If you think you cannot eat the neck, think again, it was actually really plump and had a lot of good meat on it. The cheeks did, too!

PART THREE: PREPARING THE MEAT

Preparing the meat to be cooked is really fun. Rob bestowed upon  me the honour of making the rubs and basting juices for his meats. In the above picture I am rubbing the leg meat down with a combination of olive oil, orange water, black pepper, garlic etc. I cannot give away all of his secrets for a delicious rub!

Rich and I also got to inject the meat with a basting liquid made from garlic, molassas, brown sugar and water. The goal of injecting the meat is to inflate the entire muscle with the tasty juices.

I did not ask Rob why they tied up these leg parts or what they were going to do with them, but they sure look like they will produce something tasty!!

At the end of my time at Mado I had a new appreciation for the neat, pretty cuts of meat I bring home from Green City Market: It takes a lot of time and effort to break down an animal by hand! Next week we are butchering pigs again, so wait for the next article on that.

Happy meat eating!

Dev xx

If these articles had been published any later, I’d have accused them of stealing my idea. Alas, I was beaten to the punch. I will accept defeat, however, as The Burger Register has provided Philadelphians and New Yorkers with concise yet comprehensive lists of the best burgers in their respective cities. Not only do they tell you where to go, but they have the inside scoop on the blend of meats used, type of roll, and available cheeses and toppings. The slideshows alone are enough to get me all antsy in my pantsy.

Thank you New York Magazine and Grub Street.

Beer sausage with sauerkraut, onions and peppers. By Bonnie L.

Oh dang!  Encased meats!

Finally, some more info on Rosamunde’s new Mission location!  Take it away, Grub Street:

If all goes according to plan, there will be a second location of Rosamunde Sausage Grill in the Mission District by January 1. Owner Jennifer Tucci told Grub Street today that she and new partner Josh Margolis have closed a deal to buy the current Cafe Arguello space on Mission Street near 24th Street. They plan to keep the existing Rosamunde menu, adding a couple of dishes that Margolis says “won’t be expanded that far off of sausages.” They’re building out the bar area and adding some 20 beer taps. The rest of the space will stay more or less the same, including those giant windows, but they’ll replace the existing tables and chairs with new communal tables, tall tables, and regular tables with bench seats. They won’t have table service, so you still order and pick up the food and beer at the counter.

Yeah!  January 1st!  Ring the New Year in with a fist full of sausage (that’s what he said?).  My personal favorite is the Hungarian (that’s what she said?).

Related: how do you guys feel about Gestalt and its offerings?

       Construction seems to be proceeding nicely on UCON Corporation and Hospitality Holding‘s Mark Grossich brand new Empire Room, located on the ground floor of the Empire State Building. New York Magazine did a bit of reporting on Grub Street, discovering that the 3,500 square foot space used to be a post office. Mark Grossich is accustomed to building the finest properties, like World Bar, Campbell Apartments, Madison & Vine, and he’s got the right collaborator in UCON Corporation.

       UCON’s Wayne Schumer loves doing spaces a bit smaller than his usual work because they’re so intimate. Just as long as they’re landmarks; UCON’s work goes on to be some of the most celebrated venues in the New York City. The Rainbow Room, Cipriani, and the Hudson Hotel are just a few of UCON’s choice venues. Famed chef Cesare Casella also choice Wayne for Salumeria Rosi, a project UCON completed earlier in the year on the Upper West Side. It has been so successful that its planning on opening up satellite venues throughout the city. We’ll be an up-to-date source on news about that development, so stay tuned. For now, head uptown, and enjoy the salumi, and the ambiance, for yourself

When I wrote about the 2009 Muse and the Marketplace conference a few months back, I mentioned Ann Patchett’s keynote speech. Let me give a little more detail there:

Patchett talked about editing the 2006 Best American Short Stories collection. Out of the wealth of material available to her, she had the hardest time winnowing down to a roster of twenty. “But I would not have had that difficulty were I picking the twenty best novels of 2006,” she said. “They’re just not the same quality.

“Everyone tries to sell their first novel,” she continued. “But nobody tries to sell their first short story. You write it and you stick it in a drawer. Or you throw it away. No one has a problem throwing away a short story. But when we invest so much time in our novels, we get married to them. And if you’re going to take your craft seriously as a writer, you have to reach the point where you can admit that a novel just might not work.

“I had a very dear friend who had tried to sell a novel for ten years. He worked on it and revised it and edited it and workshopped it a dozen times. Finally he gave it to me and said, ‘Ann, if you say it can’t be saved, I’ll put it away.’ I read it. Then I came back to him and said, ‘Put it away.’ And he screamed at me in tears and said, ‘No, no, you’re wrong,’ and we have not spoken since.”

I say all this because I may be at that point with my last two novels.

I’ve been trying to push the first one as a thriller, but that was before I read any actual thrillers. With two hundred thousand words of Tess Gerritsen and Lee Child and Harlan Cobin under my belt, I now know what a thriller’s supposed to look like – and the Levittown Barbecue Club ain’t it. It takes its sweet time. I may have some talent as a stylist, but I can’t plot for shit.

The second one, the one I just finished, is more literary. But it also starts with a murder and it coasts on suspense for as long as it can. If it’s a thriller, I don’t introduce any real tension until about midway through; if it’s literary, I don’t spend nearly enough time exploring a theme. And it’s barely 60,000 words.

Whereas the short story I just finished? The one I sent to Esquire’s new fiction contest? I feel pretty good about it. And if it gets rejected, that’s a month’s work gone. No big loss. But a month of writing a short story helped me at least half as much as a year of writing a novel did. Maybe I should measure my writing progress in plots instead of words. I created four plots in the last six months, etc.

I haven’t given up hope yet. Michelle’s feedback on the second novel gave me some new inspiration. But hope’s not what I need most right now. More than anything, I need truth. I need to know whether either of the novels I wrote over the last two years have any future. Because if I need to murder my darlings, I want to get my blood up.

I got a kick out of this Grub Street Post from last week so I thought I’d pass it on. Read the whole thing!

Earlier this week Grub Street pointed out (along with meat business cards) a website where you can mix and order your own granola. Being a trail mix kinda snacker, and granola being close to trail mix – I decided to give it a try. Now, normally I buy trail mix from places like Trader Joe’s and find myself sorting through the bag and picking out the dried fruit that sucks OR I end up making my own “trail mix” and spending a million dollars doing it (nuts are expensive!) Now, A. I know that granola is not trail mix and B. that granola is not trail mix – but I think the granola is a nice addition (even if I’m yet to encounter any large pieces.) Anyways, A whole bag full of dried fruit, nuts and chocolate plus granola- where I liked EVERYTHING was pretty much irresistible. I ordered (basic organic granola starts at $4.99/lb – add on’s vary in price), I waited a couple days and poof here it is. Best of all, I got to name it – it comes with a list of ingredients and even a nutrition label. I’m not sure what you can make out from the photo’s above – but here’s the list of ingredients of what’s inside:  Banana chips, dried pineapple,apricots and cranberries, chocolate chips, peanut covered M&M’s, rice crispies, hazelnuts and almonds. As for the taste? Fresh, generous pieces (with the exception of the apricot) and obvious quality ingredients. As for ordering again? Not sure, I just found this.

The Grub Street Book Prize is awarded three times annually to a writer outside New England publishing his or her second, third, fourth (or beyond…) book. First books are not eligible. Writers whose primary residence is Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire or Rhode Island are also not eligible. Each winner receives a $1000 honorarium and a reading/book party at Grub Street’s event space in downtown Boston. Fiction and Non-Fiction writers are also invited as guest authors to the “Muse and the Marketplace” literary conference.

Dinty W. Moore, Brevity editor, won the 2009 prize and thoroughly enjoyed the conference and the opportunity,  so we can wholeheartedly recommend both Grub Street and Muse and the Marketplace.

If you meet the criteria above, the NON-FICTION deadline for submitting the book and application is July 1st, 2009.  (NOTE: Books published in 2009 and 2010 are eligible, as long as 2010 books are available in galley form by July 1st.)

More info here (as well as detail for the fiction and poetry prizes):

GRUB STREET BOOK PRIZE

New York Magazine’s cool “Grub Street” blog on NYmag.com picked up on MixMyGranola, along with an interesting concept on customizing business cards.  Click here to check out the blog.

I’ve gone through my Japan travel posts and added photos, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Now, by clicking on the “Works” tab above, you can access my fascinating travelogue with the added benefit of VISUAL STIMULATION. Go on – live the dream!

This past weekend in Boston was utterly gorgeous, and I spent about 94% of it indoors.  You know what, though — I loved every minute of it.  The sun is bad for you, after all, and writing is not.  So instead of lying in the park with my T-shirt rolled up, I was at Grub Street’s Muse and the Marketplace writing conference.

The Muse is two packed days of workshops, readings, signings and lectures.  The whole event is pretty rigorously paced, with three workshops or lectures each day.  As a participant, I could have also signed up for lunch with published authors, meetings with agents and query letter evaluations (last year I met with an editor to discuss my work) but this year I specifically chose lectures that addressed topics I needed to tackle with my own writing.

Here’s what went down:

Saturday
Got to registration a little later than planned and therefore missed the free breakfast.  This didn’t bother me but I was sweating profusely from walking to the Park Plaza and desperately needed something to drink.  Bumped into Farrah from my writing group before heading to my first lecture, “Time Travel In Fiction: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”  I chose it because I’m working on something with a lot of flashbacks, and besides, who doesn’t like a Joyce Carol Oates reference?  The class — which was both incredibly fascinating and terribly helpful — was led by Alix Ohlin, who was clever and a great speaker and very smart, and as I took notes I realized my pen’s ink matched my shoes exactly, teal.  My only other pen was, um, light teal.  Grabbed a coffee before “Traits, Quirks, and Habits: Crafting Characters from the Inside Out” with Lynne Griffin.  Took more notes with teal pen.  Caught up with my friend Terry over lunch; we took a great Grub class last summer with Kate Flora, and now Terry has a fantastic and funny idea for a book I can’t wait to read.  Poked at a dry piece of chicken and stole extra rolls while Alan Cheuse and Dinty W. Moore read excerpts from their work, and Mr. Moore described the conference as “the grubbiest” he has ever attended, which got lots of laughs.  Met up with Farrah again at Rakesh Satyal’s “Culture Clubbing: How to Write About Ethnicity Without Beating Your Readers Over the Head.”  Farrah and I are both of Lebanese descent, and apparently equally interested in including this is our respective work.  Afterward went to an hour-long lecture on “The Art of Column Writing” with Suzette Martinez Standring.  Braced myself for the heat, began perspiring as soon as I left the hotel.

Sunday
Got to the hotel with enough time to grab a cup of coffee and a marble bagel, which I promptly wrapped in napkins and stuffed in my bag, before bumping into Steve Almond; tried to have a chat before getting separated in the elevator, but learned his four-month-old is named Judah Elijah, which I think is a nice name, particularly with the reverse alliteration.  Attempted to balance my notebook on my knees during Merrill Feitell “Mechanical Physics for Fiction Writers,” which was so straight-up good that I filled pages with notes when I wasn’t too busy laughing at her jokes and stuffed bunny prop.  Immediately afterward, ran downstairs to the Porter Square Books table to buy a copy of her anthology, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, along with The Missing Person by Alix Ohlin, The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry and Naming the World by Bret Anthony Johnston.  Ran back upstairs for Steve’s lecture on “How to Achieve Sudden Impact,” and am pleased to report his sense of humor in front of an audience is the same as his humor in front of one person.  Farrah and I ate lunch together (soggy chicken) and listened to Ann Patchett’s keynote speech.  In the middle of it, I sent a text to Marcella and Keith: “Ann Patchett should be my spirit guide.”  She spoke for something like forty minutes without notes, and bluntly about writing.  This is the best job you’ll ever have, this is hard work, there’s not such thing as doctor’s block so why writer’s block?*  Clapped until my hands felt sore then made my way back upstairs for “Diving Into the Novel” with Vyvyane Loh, who was so full of information that I could practically see the story I am working on come together right in front of me.

* This, of course, is paraphrased.  Ann Patchett is much more clever than that.  And she spoke about much, much more with an almost intimidating amount of intelligence and a lot of humor.  Ann Patchett is funny!

I spent most of this weekend indoors at Grub Street’s annual Muse and the Marketplace conference. Writers take over two floors of the Park Plaza Hotel, networking, taking seminars from some of the best writers out there, and getting manuscript feedback from agents and editors.

My take:

• I attended the conference primarily for the Manuscript Mart – a chance to sit down privately with an agent or an editor, have them read an excerpt of your work, and hear their thoughts. Most attendees use this to pitch, but I had no illusions about by manuscript (the novel I finished last year) being saleable. I wanted to hear what the pros thought.

  (Agent) Michelle Brower, Wendy Sherman Associates: I need to work on pacing. I have a good sense of character, description and dialogue, but for a murder thriller, there’s very little tension in the first 20 pages. She recommended that I scoop up a bushel of thriller writers – King, Cornwall, Patterson, etc – and read them for craft. “Also, I think your protagonist needs a name.”

  (Editor) Rakesh Satyal, HarperCollins: Spend more time on the primary characters in the first 20 pages. If I need to front-load all that tension, I need to introduce the main characters efficiently and thoroughly. Give a clearer description of the setting, particularly the family’s new neighborhood. He also called me out on several unnecessary adverbs that I thought I’d scooped up in the first revision. “It’ll help the audience identify with your protagonist if he has a name.”

• Tess Gerritsen gave a gem of a talk on taking a strong premise and pushing it into a genuine plot. She writes very different from me: starting with a good idea and letting rip rather than outlining. We both agree that a character evolves through the writing process, though, not a character sketch. We as humans never learn a person’s whole life story when we meet them: we meet a person as they are at that moment. So should it be in your novel.

  What hooks a reader in, she observed, are premises and scenes with strong emotional content. Keep an eye out for what makes you feel something, even during the research stages. “When you’re doing research,” she told us, “if you find something that makes you say, ‘Wow’ – put that in the book.” Her example: the one-in-fifty failure rate of NASA shuttles, which came up while researching Gravity.

• Sure were a lot of women my mom’s age pitching their memoirs! Or maybe I just picked the right string of seminars. The male/female ratio was about 40:60, and I fell several years below the median age.

• Chuck Sambuchino: think Mark Wahlberg, literary agent. He has the same high, urban accent (not Bostonian, though), the same aggressive upper body language, and the smart attitude Wahlberg would likely have in dealing with a roomful of unpublished writers.

  “There’s a lot of debate about self-publishing …” began one question.
  “There is?” Chuck laughed.

  I attended two of his – one on query letters, one on non-fiction book proposals. A query letter (he says) needs to sell your strengths in a way that gets the agent excited. Work on your pitch until it’s streamlined and effective. And the non-fiction book proposal seminar not only gave me information, but ideas for things I might write myself. Chuck handled himself like a pro in a tight room with a limited clock and a lot of questions. “Not all of this applies to memoirs,” he said, watching half a dozen hands slowly go down.

• I expected cold sandwiches and chips, but they lay out quite a spread! Caesar salad and chicken breast with capers for Saturday lunch, with key lime pie for dessert. On Sunday: baby spinach salad, chicken asiago and Boston Cream pie. I wouldn’t mind cheaper fare if it meant a cheaper conference, but Park Plaza caterers might not have down-market options.

• Amy MacKinnon taught a seminar on using sparing, salient details to enhance description. The handout had more examples than concrete principles, but it gave me a wealth of new authors to consider: Stewart O’Nan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Paul Yoon and this Hemingway guy.

• Free wireless!

• Ann Patchett gave the keynote speech during lunch on Sunday. She chose, ironically enough, “the Muse and the Marketplace” as the topics of her speech. “The Muse,” she began, “is bullshit.”

  Writing is a job, she stressed, and writers have to treat it with the same respect as a job. If you sit around waiting for creativity to inspire you, or you confine yourself to peculiar rituals and superstitions before you can write anything, you will never produce the volume that you must to succeed. The more time you spend sitting in front of your computer, trying to write, the more you will write and the better you will write.

  We put such a high premium on creativity, she said, when it should really be the top level of the pyramid – and therefore the last applied. Absolute commitment should come first – the vaunted ten thousand hours – then technical proficiency. Only once you’ve assembled all the tools should you get creative.

  Patchett talked about the immense technical quality you see in most short stories today. She had a hard time narrowing down the twenty Best American Short Stories when she edited the collection in 2006; she said she’d have a hard time finding twenty such novels. The reason, she said, is because writers throw short stories away. Nobody expects to sell their first short story, but everybody wants to sell their first novel. Writers invest so much time and pain into novels that they have a hard time letting go.

  (N.B.: Patchett wasn’t saying to write more short stories – though that couldn’t hurt – but to view novel manuscripts more objectively)

• As for the Marketplace? Opinions vary. Some speakers encouraged new writers – publishers are clearing out their mid-lists in the slow economy and are willing to buy a debut novel cheaply in the hopes of finding a breakout. Others acknowledged the changing market – Barnes & Noble’s head buyer will not be the most important person in the print world by the end of 2009. But the moral remained constant: keep networking, keep honing the craft and keep writing. Luck strikes anyone who stays at the table long enough.

Good news Americans:  the gluttonous capitalism that you thought died with the recession is alive and well…with writers of all people!

How do I know this?  Well, it’s one of the main take-aways from a writers’ conference I attended today sponsored by Boston’s Grub Street.

It was brought home to me by one question posed by one presenter.  Her question to all of us newbies:  ”Do you know anyone–ANYONE–famous?” Her premise?  If you don’t–get to know at least ONE famous person now.  Why?  ”So that–when you’re published–they can write a blurb on the back of your book.”  She then went on to elaborate on her schemes to get on “EXTRA” (the gossip tv show) and the importance of product placement in a book as a way to fatten your pay check.

Oh my God.  THIS is the most important pearl of wisdom for budding writers?  How to manipulate the system?  Here I thought I had left politics (AND, if writing is this political, then why, oh why, did Nancy Pelosi’s recent book sell only 4 copies …not even one per grandchild!)?

Her question left me wondering:  is writing an art..or a business?  Is it like everything else in America today and all about the fame…and fortune.  Or, put another way, is the prevailing view…among writers, at least Boston writers…that, if you write a book in the forest and no one hears it…you haven’t written?

Reassuring to a room of laid-off capitalists who figure “anyone can write”.  Less than inspiring to folks who actually see writing as…well…art.  As lifting the veil to reveal the truth of the human soul.  I understand that, if you want to make a living at writing (as I do), you have to make sure you get paid.  But, what ever happened to letting the art speak for itself?  When you think of the truly successful artists (and, no, Britney, Miley and Lady Ga Ga do not count), do you think they put business before their art?  Oh…wait…Madonna.  SEX book.  Do you think she’ll write a blurb on the back of my first book?  I’ll even adopt an African baby…(one, just one).

.. Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore is giving way too many interviews:

Lyric and Laid Back at Silk Road

“The credibility battle is being won in many ways, by pioneer online journals that have remained very selective in the work they publish, by somewhat newer ventures like McSweeney’s and Narrative and Blackbird that have the funding and staffing to act like “real” magazines and draw in the star power, and by conventional print magazines that are opening up more and more online content. I suppose there are some tenure committees that still turn up their collective egghead noses at online publications, but most writers I know, and especially if they are younger, don’t carry that prejudice any more.”

–

Oh, and if you are in Boston this weekend, he is also teaching, reading, and accepting an award as part of Grub Street’s Muse and the Marketplace.

Fuchsia and coral are NOT the colors for spring/summer ‘09.  Who thinks that? More importantly, why? Hello–do you remember a summer without fuschsia and coral?! I’m getting all cartoon-punctuationy here, but srsly. Perhaps some summers those colors appear less, others more. But aren’t there always a couple of s/s trends where coral and fuchsia can legitimately feature,  like feather earrings, ubiquitous metallics, or gauzy-floaty sequin-spattered tops and dresses? The two gloriously summer-appropriate colors also receive receive fashion benediction in more androgynous-to-butch looks, e.g., skate shoes,  the reinterpreted loose-fitting short sleeve button-downs in bold colorful patterns for summer,  possibly even madras.  But I think I have figured out, perhaps, why these undying summer colors are being singled out this season…it is in celebration of Rachel Maddow.

Digression: And then there are pants! Do you suspect the reign of the low-to-extremely-low-rise waist ended ignominiously because of  economic anxiety? Personally I loved seeing those pants on women. Of course they looked best on healthy, athletic torsos , or slender, ascetic ones, but it’s all personal judgment. I even have two or three pairs just because they feel so nice (and I tend to love skirts/dresses). Is a return to less body-skimming, more rectilinear/structured shapes designed to soothe consumers into feeling frugal and responsible? A complementary impulse brings us skirts that just happen to have legs: e.g., the short, silky or ruche-y rompers, long gauzy pants, and, in a utilitarian way, the ultra wide leg pants, are skirts in pants’ clothing most gender-linked feature…)

Rachel Maddow–always bringing the right equipment, and never clanking against the sides!–prepared a fuchsia/hot pink cocktail, the cherry julep, with the reverent assistance of Martha Stewart a few weeks ago. This is more than enough time for imaginations to be fired, hearts to be captured, and memes to reach critical mass. Coral is the color of the cocktail she prepared on Grub Street, the jack rose. She even wore a winsome coral hoodie while insisting upon the squeezing of actual limes and that we go as hard as we can as long as we can with the cocktail shaker instead of being a wuss.  These informative clips, watched attentively, could melt anyone’s objections to coral and fuchsia taking pivotal roles in spring/summer.

(Thank you Dorothy Snarker for your um, thought-provoking columns, your weekend crushes (ever cited Jenny Hoyston in that category btw?), and most of all your Maddow videos. Dorothy Surrenders: just the most awesome blog ever without benefit of puppies!)

Wintering

In Hell, as on earth,
things are rarely as they seem:
Mother, this is not

a song to ripen
trees pregnant with pale olives
judged fit to soothe, charred figs.

This is to confess
what your heart had warned
you true. My lips parted,
in his palm the seeds

glistened like blood. I
regret only that he has
me for one solstice

and not two. Summer,
I cherish your grief, long you
dead.

- by Jocelyn Burrel

Jocelyn Burrell is fascinated by many things, particularly the devastation of poetry and rumor. Under various pen names her work has appeared in the now [in her opinion] suspect publications LiP magazine and MoJo! The Maps One Journal. She is also editor of the anthology Word: On Being a [Woman] Writer. Someday you might see this poem and other efforts stitched together in “This Was Her Father’s Daughter: Poems.”

Courtesy of Grub St. Rag, Edition: March 30, 2009

The foodie revival reminds me a lot of what the opera revival can be.  Classical European (and multi-national/pan-ethnic techniques) being adopted by young, brazen chefs that could make Julia Child choke on her “bon appetit” and “that guy in the band with the big plastic glasses who’s already asking for grass-fed steak and knows about nibs,” per Grub Street/The New York Times, are making sure that artisanal products and local growers are staying afloat.  Even in this economy.

I remember reading an article in 2006 in which the writer referred to black-clad hipsters lining up for baroque operas at Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I also remember surveying a random sample of Gen X and Gen Y on opera attendance, only to be told by one that “I think if it were more marketed to our generation, y’know, sexier, more fast-paced, even more nerd chic (see the success of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee) rather than blue-haired lady nerdy, it would be infinitely more popular.”

Courtesy of The Williamsburg Spelling Bee

Nerds are having their revenge nowadays, how hard could it be to tailor another cultural niche to fit their current lifestyles?  Intimate nights in a club/art space with local microbrews and Lucia…Low-key production values with real-deal singers…Loft spaces…  A lot of luscious “l” words in play.

It’s not hard to make opera itself fast-paced, it’s the marketing that seems to lag.

UPDATE: Interesting article on Greenmarket promotion from today at LancasterFarming.com.  Opera promoters take note…