For The Love of Words...

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Chicago is all about festivals, and one of my favorites is the Printers Row Lit Fest. It’s called Printers Row because this area used to be the printing center in the Midwest—two blocks between Congress Parkway and Polk Street. Now the print buildings are loft apartments, whose streets host the Lit Fest, formerly known as Printers Row Book Fair. Since I’ve been going to the fest, it has grown in size and changed to accommodate families with young children.

The Printers Row Lit Fest is this Saturday and Sunday, June 9-10, beginning at 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. There are booths setup along the streets for large and small bookstores, authors’ tents, workshops, entertainment and food. I remember the first time I went, I couldn’t get enough of the resale books, postage stamps, old posters, and the smell of books. Old pages from books smelling up the booths at second-hand stores—rare bookstores—and some wine tasting along the way. It’s just a sample of what I experienced and why I return each year.

If you happen to be in the Chicago area this weekend, I suggest you go to the Lit Fest. You will either fall in love all over again with books or start reading again. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Saturday’s Schedule

Sunday’s Schedule

Literature and Wine,

Bea

*Flips the Switch On*

It’s a New Year and I can finally say I’m a published author. Net Switch is available in paperback on Createspace (subsidiary of Amazon) and Amazon, and on Kindle and Nook.

Blogs, Amazon, Goodreads and Barnes & Noble have already received reviews and I’m excited and nervous because I know my novel will get good and bad reviews (hopefully more good). Criticism was my biggest fear of publishing, however, I knew I’d always wonder and regret it if I didn’t do it. This experience has also opened my eyes to all the liberal arts. How actors and actresses, musicians, painters, and writers must feel when they receive unflattering criticism. It hurts, plain and simple, and sometimes even makes us cry. Criticism of an author’s book is very personal. Our book is our baby, and any bad publicity is like saying our baby is ugly, stupid, and should never have been born. Yes, I know it sounds dramatic…and the feelings are just as dramatic. None of us like criticism; a boss putting negative comments on an evaluation, and family and friends letting us know what they don’t like about us. We cringe, get defensive, and usually no one walks away a winner.

But since I published, it means I accept the good with the bad. It’s part of the deal. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t read about how to deal with it, so I actually researched how other authors go about handling negative reviews. Should you bother reading the reviews? Do you accept them like a grain of salt or do you learn from each one? Do you post a comment on a blog who has reviewed your book thanking them for reading it? There are so many questions and different ways authors handle negative reviews. A few have even gone a bit nuts online—berating the reviewer (You gotta read the comments). And there are even some authors out there that don’t read any reviews of their books. They feel it doesn’t matter at this point.

Literature is subjective. Some people will like my book and some won’t—there’s nothing I can do about it. What I can do is handle my reviews professionally. Everyone has a right, including me, to express how something makes them feel and that is something I need to remember about reviews. I don’t have to agree with every review, but it's how the reader felt and what they took away from the book (right or wrong). It isn’t debatable.

*raises beer*

A toast! To all the reviews I receive regarding my book, good and bad, and a heartfelt thank you to all who bought it (or will buy it) and took (or will take) the time to write a review.

*chugs beer, puts it on the counter and smiles*

Reading and reviews,

Bea

Once Upon a Time…

A writer friend, Barb sent me a link to a blog post, Scariness in Fictionland by Athol Dickson. These days, I haven’t kept up with information about the writing world, and I definitely don’t bother with articles on ‘how to write’. It’s not that I’m a snob and know everything there is to know about writing, it’s just that I feel writing takes practice—individual practice. If I was completely clueless about how to write a novel, short story or poetry, then I would look for some form of guidance; although it’s only bits and pieces I take and leave the rest of the lecture behind.

Since I’ve been separated from the writing world—submerged in my own work—I hadn’t kept up with what is being said out there. So this blog post by Athol Dickson really opened my eyes to writing and what some authors are saying. As he states on his blog, “I’ve seen dozens of emails from other authors who claim they strongly dislike the first person point of view.” Okay, I see we all have our favorites, certain things we enjoy reading, but for an author to commit to such a hard statement is serious. If authors begin to omit first person POV, if publishing companies put all first person POV’s in the slush pile, then we have wiped out a part of literature that’s been around since language kissed our lips.

Athol points out that this isn’t the impossible. “…the reading public came to prefer the stark and spare Modernist style of literature which had been almost universally forced upon them, not because it’s necessarily better in any way, but simply because it had indeed been so universally forced upon them…Also, it’s a well-known psychological fact that we develop habits mainly because they are more convenient.” We find ourselves becoming habitual and accepting without question. It’s easy to follow the leader—the dictators telling us what we should do, watch, buy, yet it’s, as the cliché goes, ‘killing us softly’.

- Once upon a time, a man by the name of Mark Twain wrote a story “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” using the word 'nigger’ and ‘Injun Joe’.

- Once upon a time, there were these places called book stores, where you could wander the isles and topics to pick your favorites.

The sad thing is that I could probably find at least half of the people I know never read ”The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, and that their children probably never heard of Mark Twain or even seen his picture…or any of the classics.

I had to write this post because it’s dear to my heart—my manuscript (novel) is in first person POV. It’s fine to like or dislike writing styles and genres, but writers should not be too hasty to make changes to the written word. Writing allows independent thought and creativity, so to stifle this in others would be a grave mistake. 

As much as I want change to occur in life, I also want us to keep and remember values and history that taught us about life and what brought us here. Some might think it’s not a big deal that the classics are changed or aren’t read along with any other book for that matter. Some might think it’s not a big deal that book stores won’t exist—Amazon is convenient. I say it is a big deal. It’s a big deal to starve your mind. It’s a big deal that book stores won’t exist—a place where people can socially meet—to actually have contact with others. These fundamental beauties in life should continue to be cherished. Let’s not live a lifetime and find ourselves saying to younger generations, “Once upon a time…” when it isn’t in an actual book.