Treasure Island!!!
by Sara Levine
Europa Editions, 2012
172 pages / $15.00 Buy from Powells

I love unlikable characters. In the fictional world, I want bad people to get away with doing bad things. I want the serial killer to slip into the night or live happily never after. One of the reasons I love American Psycho so much is the methodical and unwavering way Ellis portrays Patrick Bateman as an unrepentant psychopath who is as interested in the right restaurant reservation as he is in committing sadistic acts. It’s all very unpleasant (or it isn’t) but the writing is such that it is easy to be as fascinated as you might be repulsed.

I love finding writers who can hold the reader in that complicated tension where you like the unlikable character.

Sara Levine’s remarkable Treasure Island!!! (Europa Editions) is a book with a different kind of unlikable character than Patrick Bateman who is so criminally terrible. In her debut novel, Levine has created a narrator who makes you want to armchair diagnose the extreme range of mental disorders she displays.

In Treasure Island!!!, an unnamed narrator becomes obsessed with Treasure Island and decides to live by the book’s core values as she sees them: BOLDNESS, RESOLUTION, INDEPENDENCE, HORN-BLOWING. She is completely self-obsessed and never considers the consequences of her actions as she selfishly moves through the world and tries be more like Jim Hawkins—as she ultimately tries to create her own adventure. She tells her friend Rena, “I must have been a sea-bird streaking through the azure sky of his daydream; in just the same way spirits are said to commune across cultures, time, and continents, Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island felt cosmically intended for me.” Later, Rena gently asks, “Are you taking your Zoloft?”

The narrator works at a Pet Library where people can borrow pets. It’s a bizarre but delightful detail. The narrator is terrible at her job and in her quest to embody the core values of her new spirit guide, she makes a series of selfish, destructive decisions that include neglecting her job duties and taking (stealing) money from petty cash to buy a parrot so she can show her boss she is”capable of action.” Her master plan doesn’t end well, though the narrator is oblivious to what she has done wrong.

Soon she finds herself stuck with the parrot and without a job. Undeterred, she mooches off her gainfully employed boyfriend Lars until he can no longer put up with her. She continues taking wild advantage of the people in her life, justifying her decisions at every turn right until the end when there is a death and a stabbing and I cannot say anymore without ruining the book for you but I assure you, the narrator learns no lessons. In fact, whenever she is criticized by her boyfriend, her parents, her best friend, or her sister, she turns the tables, exposing and exploiting their vulnerabilities, often cruelly. Because they love her, the people in her life mostly enable her bad behavior as if they are unable to believe she is beyond redemption. By all rights, we should hate the narrator and judge her in the way her family cannot, but I too was willing to forgive the narrator her trespasses because she was so committed to her obsession and so unequivocally invested only in herself. When she runs into a girl she knew from high school working at a sandwich shop, a woman whose goal in life is, “to get through my shift with as little human interaction as possible,” the narrator is undeterred. She realizes, “Truthfully, I’m the kind of person who throws things away—letters, photos, tiresome clothes and people—and finding Patty was like finding some old thing in the closet that I had meant to discard. First there is annoyance (“I thought I’d thrown this out”), then the dawning realization fo your luck.”

There’s more to the story–the narrator’s sister, Adrianna is having a secret affair the narrator disapproves of. She tries to make sense of her sister’s relationship. “Maybe, I reasoned, she was sitting on his face for monetary reasons. Maybe she let him do things to her in exchange for cash, with a long-term plan to pay of her credit card debt and move out of our parents’ house.” Their parents encounter a bump in the road because of an old wound that hasn’t quite healed. There’s the bird, Richard. There’s an intervention over the narrator’s obsession with Treasure Island. The tension builds and builds and the narrator behaves so badly at times, I was tempted to read the book through my fingers. I was terrified to imagine what the narrator would do next but I still wanted to see.

I don’t know that I’ve read a funnier, smarter book than Treasure Island!!! Nor do I think I have ever cringed as much while reading a book as I did with Treasure Island!!! The wit is sharp, perfectly executed, and the tone is relentless and consistent from the beginning of the novel until the end. Levine is as committed to the narrator and the depths of her narcissism as the narrator is to Treasure Island. Each time you think the narrator has reached the apex of self-absorption and narcissism, she discovers new heights. Each time you think she might show her family or Lars a little compassion, a little tenderness, she stays the course. There is no redemptive arc here. She doesn’t learn a lesson or become a better person. She ends the novel as the same narcissistic, charmingly terrible person she was at the outset of the novel. That’s what I loved most about this book. So often in fiction we look for a redemptive arc. We look for momentum and for lessons to be learned. That’s not always how things work in real life. Sometimes people are bad and they don’t ever change nor do they want to change. The narrator is completely oblivious to her rotten ways and her unapologetic nature is refreshing. Sometimes, I get tired of redemption. I don’t always want to know the moral of the story. In Treasure Island!!!, Levine richly indulges that desire to appreciate a wholly unlikable narrator who is nonetheless likable. Levine makes you love her all the more for doing it.

The stories, poems, interviews, and art in the 28th issue of Salt Hill are reminders of the inspiration that comes with encapsulation; if we are living in a body, we are writing. Stories from Mark Baumer, Maile Chapman, Sarah Rose Etter, James Robison, and Jason Schwartz traverse sentience and sentiment in stylized prose. Poetry from Jennifer Denrow, H.L. Hix, Ben Mirov, John Skoyles, and Dara Wier navigates tonal and geographical journeys. An interview with Dana Spiotta on outsider musicians while Mary Caponegro talks about what’s inside her cerebral, musical prose. As the temperature hits its bitter notes in Syracuse, bundle up with SH 28 and find new meanings to the body’s hibernations.

CONTRIBUTORS

POETRY

Ciaran Berry, Bruce Bond, Brett DeFries, Jennifer Denrow, Laura Eve Engel, John Gallaher, H.L. Hix, Bridget Lowe, Ben Mirov, Oliver de la Paz, Wang Ping, Nate Pritts, Zachary Schomburg, John Skoyles, Tony Trigilio, Dara Wier

FICTION

Mark Baumer, Maile Chapman, Sarah Rose Etter, James Robison, Jason Schwartz

NONFICTION

Interview of Dana Spiotta by Rachel Abelson, Interview of Maile, Chapman by Chanelle Benz and Natalie Rogers, Interview of Mary, Caponegro by John Madera, Amy Benson, Casey Wiley

ART

Frederik Heyman, Andrew Jilka, Anders Oinonen

Abby Koski talks about the issue briefly at Vouched Books. This is a beautiful magazine and one you do not want to miss.

We are giving away fifteen of Salt Hill, first come, first served. If you are interested, e-mail me at roxane at htmlgiant.com with your name and mailing address. If this announcement is not crossed out, copies are still available. Salt Hill 28 is available for a fine discount available if you are interested in purchasing this magazine. If you go here, the magazine is available to HTMLGIANT readers for only $7. THAT IS AN AMAZING DISCOUNT. Support literary magazines! The discussion starts here, on Monday, March 4, after AWP.

LMC Administrivia:

Future club selections:

May 2012: Trnsfr
July 2012: Uncanny Valley
September 2012: J Journal: New Writing on Justice

Stay tuned for special offers and giveaways for these magazines.

If you’re interested in writing a guest post or some other feature related to Salt Hill 28, get in touch by e-mailing me at roxane at htmlgiant.com. Topics you might consider discussing include the design, content, overall aesthetic, whether the magazine met your expectations, what the magazine contributes to the literary scene, etc. You might also do an in-depth analysis of one writer’s work, etc. There are no limits.

There’s also a Google Group with light posting about literary magazines and club announcements. If you want to join the group or want more information about the LMC, if you’re an editor who wants your magazine featured, etc, send me an e-mail. To summarize: however you want to participate please get in touch or watch this space in November when hopefully, we’ll have a great discussion about an interesting literary magazine.

Versal 9 was the January selection for Literary Magazine Club (details of our next selection, Monday). Did you read the issue? What did you think? My favorite story was Carmen Petaccio’s “Tornado,” where the writer personified a tornado and created a really imaginative story. I also admired Stace Budzko’s “To Be Glad And Young,” particularly the ending. Versal editor Megan M. Garr and I had a great conversation via e-mail about Versal, the proliferation of magazines, being based in Europe, arrogance, editorial humility, and more.

Versal—where does the name come from?

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where he shortens the word “universal” to keep with the meter. It’s from a random comment by the nurse in act 2. Somewhere along the line the word “versal” also came to take on the meaning “single”. I liked that conflation, ten years ago when I was first figuring out how to live in a foreign country.

A “versal” is also that ornamental capital letter at the beginning of old texts – a fact that suits us, I think, with our attention to design.

How does your magazine work in terms of decision making? Who are some of the other key players involved in the editing and production of Versal.

We’re very Dutch about it. Everything rests on dialogue. The work that excites one or two editors is discussed by the whole team in what we call our roundtable. We read it out loud, we talk it through, we put pressure on it at certain points and see what falls out. If an editor’s enthusiasm endures that conversation, and if the work itself endures it, we’ll probably accept the piece.

Robert Glick is our prose editor. Shayna Schapp, my wife, is our art editor. Our managing editor is Sarah Ream, and she and I work with our business manager Annerie Houterman to make sure the journal stays afloat. We have another 12 or so active assistant editors on the poetry, prose and art teams – spread all over the world.
Skype and KLM should be our sponsors. Our combined bills for AWP are astronomical. You know that survey they send out? One of the questions is how much your organization spent to attend the conference. We each pay out of pocket, but still. They probably think we’re kidding.

Versal is based out of Amsterdam. How does that international presence influence the magazine?

When I moved to Amsterdam in 2001, I got ahold of all the “expat” or “anglophone” literary journals in Europe at the time: The Prague Revue, Van Gogh’s Ear, Kilometer Zero, Poetry Salzburg Review. They were full of foreignness, full of observatory narratives of the local urban scenery and the self, dealing with alienation—a very safe, upper class alienation, mind you. These journals bored me really quickly. In no way was I going to start a literary journal in this tradition, and being in Amsterdam helped. Unlike Paris or Prague or Berlin, there’s no literary mythology about Amsterdam. We’re Deep Space 9, you know, way out in the middle of a literary nowhere. We’re pretty removed from who’s-who and what’s-what, and we’re also removed from any Romantic illusions about our expatriated selves. I like that. It’s quiet. I like what that means for the poetry I’m writing, and for the work I’m interested in as an editor.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a healthy Dutch literary scene, but its crossovers internationally are usually either conservative white-man-poet or extreme in a way that fetishizes the other. I won’t stomach that. I can’t be a part of that anyway. And I keep tabs on things in the States through the internet, through sites like HTMLGIANT, and I go to AWP. My blurred sense of home affords me an aesthetic freedom, an exemption from some of the things you have to do as an American writer or editor or as a Dutch writer or editor, and that means that Versal has a lot of room.

Some writers working in translocal contexts like this complain that their homelands won’t publish them anymore, and maybe that’s true. I don’t know. I know I love what it’s done to my own writing, and I know I couldn’t have started Versal anywhere else

I notice that Versal 9 has a fair amount of artwork and really appreciated seeing that blend of fiction, poetry, and art. Why do you have that strong commitment to including art in a literary magazine?

How do you present poetry and prose in a beautiful, spacious way, not just make a book as a medium between writer and reader? I’m relieved so many editors are thinking about this now; ten years ago it felt really radical.

In 2002, Amsterdam’s international lit scene was all on stage, so I got up on it. We all did. I learned that “my work speaks for itself” is mostly bullshit. When you’re reading to a multilingual and not necessarily “literary” audience, you have to work differently, harder maybe, for their attention. You have to connect with your audience to make your work work. Their eyes and ears are as much a part of it as anything else.

We took this into Versal. We agreed we wanted to design the journal into an object in its own right. Give it a strong visual aspect. We were thinking about readers holding it, but also resting their eyes on it. I guess we were thinking more in terms of the walls of a gallery than in terms of the pages of a book. Art was never an add-on. It was just there.

How do you know when you love a piece of writing or art?

Something inside me freakin’ lifts off the ground.

Versal recently chose to start charging a nominal fee for submissions. I remember reading the initial post where you shared the decision and the logic behind the decision. How has it been, having the fee? Has it affected the quantity or quality of submissions Versal received during the last submission period? Will you continue to have a fee?

There are a lot of reasons that I’m glad we did it. From a purely financial point of view, our goal was to replace our ongoing workshop programming here in Amsterdam, which has partially funded the journal for over five years and which was becoming unsustainable, with a revenue stream that came directly from the journal itself. We did that.

I recently shared some initial conclusions on our blog. Submission numbers were down 39% overall. I think Duotrope’s no-fee policy accounts for much of this drop (they changed this policy two days before our reading period closed). The prose team tells me that the quality of work went up significantly. The poetry team tells me that the quality of work polarized: either it was really good or really bad. Art seems to have stayed the same.

Our business model is selling Versal, but we’ll continue to have the fee, at least in the foreseeable future. And I’ll continue to participate in the dialogue about financial models for lit mags, because I think Versal’s experience has a lot to offer these conversations. We’ve done good work here.

There’s a lot of fascinating work in Versal 9. A lot of the writing was really lyrical. Do you notice that themes emerge as you shape an issue?

You know, I hate theme issues, I don’t really know why. But every year there’s something that makes the editors say, “I’m reading so many poems about this or this.” I think Versal 9 had a lot of sea creatures. Or maybe just animals in general. But no, we try not to encourage themes from taking too much root in an issue. If anything, we try to disrupt them. But at the end of the day we just accept work we’re really excited about and see what happens.

Why do you hate theme issues?

Maybe hate’s a strong word. I heard that themes help sell journals, and I was like, really? Most themes just make me shrug. Love and violence? Beauty? The body? I like how Sidebrow handles it, with its “projects”, but a themed issue doesn’t make me buy a journal or not buy a journal. It just doesn’t matter to me.

What is your favorite piece Versal 9?

There were two pieces I fought hard for: Ken White’s “Oculus” and Suzanne Warren’s “The Reindeer Daughter.” Maybe I didn’t have to fight hard for them but I was ready to go to the wall at the roundtables.

I’d love to hear more about your roundtable. What happens in your deliberation process?

The roundtable is when an editorial team—poetry, prose or art—gets together and discusses work that’s been shortlisted for publication. I like to start the meetings by asking the team what pieces they’re excited about. We read the work out loud and dig into it. My job is to listen for enthusiasm, where the editors are converging and where they’re in opposition, and if that opposition is purely aesthetic or if the work has weaknesses that we can’t account for. Sometimes there’s a piece that everyone loves. But more often, only a few editors love it, and the others hear that and hear why, and the excitement about the piece kind of gets shared around. Like it’s contagious. When that happens, we accept the work. When that doesn’t, when an editor’s enthusiasm wanes over the course of the conversation, usually because there’s something in the piece that’s not working, really not working, then we let it go.

I’ve fought hard to make this process work. It means that each editor has to let their ego down a bit. We’ve lost editors because they couldn’t put up with the idea that they weren’t themselves the last word on what was good or what was not, or that a writer’s reputation alone wasn’t enough for acceptance. The roundtable hinges on that we listen to each other and how we listen to each other. It takes a great deal of mutual respect, sometimes even humility. Not everyone can handle it.

Do you ever work with writers on developing their writing?

We do. We try to give feedback as much as we can, even if we reject a piece. Sometimes we’ll work with a writer to tighten up an ending or a line before we go to production. But we see a lot of excellent writing, so if there’s still a lot of work to be done on a piece it seems more fair to go back to the writer with specific feedback and an explicit invitation to send work again next time. I also try to build relationships with our contributors. Many of them stay in touch with us, try new work out on us, so we get to continue dialogues with them about their writing, their development, successes.

You mentioned that there are some extremes in the lit scene with white man poets and the extreme fetishization of the other. What else is going on?

I think there are extremes in the way Dutch literature presents itself in an international setting, and the international literary events held here often fall into these extremes too. But Dutch literature has many parts, and those parts that are not white and not man are starting to gain better footholds, they’re just harder to see from the outside. And there’s more experimentation, too, with poets like Rosalie Hirs and Samuel Vriezen.

A Dutch poet once told me that the Dutch believe poetry comes from God. If that’s true, I can see why there is a really stable masculine and white hierarchy in Dutch literature. But that belief and the hierarchy seem to be breaking down. A few colleges have creative writing classes or even degrees now. This means, at least in some initial way, that Dutch literature is opening up.

Do you make an effort to publish European writers?

Yeah, but it’s not easy. American writers are raised to submit as part of the writing practice. This just isn’t the case elsewhere. In the Netherlands, if you’re a poet, then you make friends with other poets and editors and then you get published. There’s not really a  submission process.

A lot of American journals run theme issues where they focus on a particular national literature, and that creates a lot of buzz and gets the work in. Since we don’t want to do that, we want to gather rather than stockpile, we have to continuously cultivate relationships with people and organizations around the world so that the word gets out.

Also, my hunch is that the economy around translation is different in Europe, and so translators working here are less likely to send work in an open call. The translators I know in the Netherlands are paid for their work, commissioned by publishers or solicited by anthologies. Another problem has been that European writers try to translate their work themselves. I think this succeeds 1% of the time. We’ve had to reject a lot of Dutch poets for that reason, and they aren’t happy with us.

We worked with Laura L. Chalar, a Uruguayan poet and translator, for a long time. We would receive Spanish-language work, she would translate it, and then we would choose what to publish. That was exciting but the process wasn’t very sustainable – we couldn’t publish everything she translated, so she was doing a lot for very little payback. But through her we were able to connect to exciting poets like Alex Piperno, so the process didn’t fail entirely.

Anyway, it’s an ongoing effort.

Why did you move to Amsterdam?

I moved to Amsterdam for a girl. The same reason I’ve moved pretty much everywhere.

You remarked that ten years ago editors weren’t thinking as much about presentation. What other changes have you noticed in literary magazine publishing over the past decade?

The numbers! There are so many of us! Was this always the case? When I first started to publish, this would have been 1997, I feel like I had a pretty good handle on what was out there. I can hardly keep up now. This worries me a little. Does it still worry you? Flooded markets eventually freak. But there are good support systems, like CLMP, and some critical conversations being had, that should help us all navigate whatever’s going on.

If I lived in the States right now, I don’t think I’d start a literary journal. I would just try to join a community that already exists, give it what I’ve got, rather than splinter another group from it off.

The proliferation of literary magazines definitely worries me. Every time I see someone say, “I’m going to start a new journal,” I get really frustrated and I think, “WHY?” I never want to deprive anyone of the opportunity to edit, because it has helped me become a much stronger writer and editor, but at the same time, there’s no reason why would be editors shouldn’t simply join an existing magazine and contribute to helping sustain the magazines we do have. I have a particular peeve with all these magazines that don’t even bother to buy a domain name. Do you think it has become too easy to be an editor these days?

It takes ego to say, “I can pick good literature from the bad”. I was 23 when I started. What was I thinking? Sure, I had a specific goal, Versal was a way to bring writers together here in Amsterdam. A project, I thought, could build a community. And it did. But I won’t downplay my own arrogance, a young American in a new country starting a literary journal. I have to laugh at myself sometimes.

Publishing has become accessible enough that editing can seem, at least logistically, pretty simple. You’re right, editing is an important learning process. But in most larger towns in America there’s already something underway. Maybe it’s not perfect but new voices and new ideas can come in and make the project stronger. I’m especially surprised when I hear of a new journal in a place like Chicago or New York City. Really? Does a new community really form around that new journal, or is it just a way for an editor to position himself at the top of something quickly? I’m pretty suspect of that, and I should be. The history of literature is full of egos manifestoing themselves against other egos. Everyone has to do it new or do it better. But engaging in community as an ambitious, would-be editor—that can be harder, more confronting, put you in a more vulnerable position. It’s easier to sit home alone one night and start a journal on Kickstarter I guess.

You know, Luna Park Review just changed course, recognizing that there are so many forums now for what they set out to do that their mission is no longer necessary. I respect that. Our community is made stronger by that kind of honesty.

What do you love most about editing?

Here’s what I’m supposed to say, and it’s true. I love putting good work in the world in a really beautiful way. But here’s what I love too: I love what I learn from editing Versal. Several of our editors have said to me recently that they think their work wouldn’t make it through our roundtable. I also think this sometimes. It’s one thing to be a lone editor of a journal, where all decisions are made by you. It’s an entirely different thing when you’re part of a team. I have learned so much about writing, about aesthetics, about ego, about what makes a great poem or story, about what doesn’t really matter. Could I have learned so much if I had edited Versal alone? I don’t think so. At the very least, doing it alone would have been boring.

At N Plus One, Molly Fischer discusses lady blogs. And then there’s this wonderful response.  I enjoy some lady blogs and especially The Hairpin but appreciated both perspectives.

Is anyone reading Caitlin Flanagan’s Girl Land? Fascinating, yes?

Barnes & Noble is taking a stand against Amazon’s encroachment on the publishing industry.

Speaking of people making Amazon-related decisions, Goodreads is transitioning to new data sources.

Also, Amazon’s earnings fell. Rough week for them, but like Drago in Rocky 4, they’ll muscle through until a Rocky rises out of the Siberian chill to put up a good fight.

At Largehearted Boy (celebrating its tenth anniversary), Hanne Blank shares her book notes from her recently released Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, which got a great review in The New York Times. There’s also an interesting interview with Blank at Salon.

John Scalzi is contributing the proceeds of his e-book sales from his titles at Subterranean Press to Planned Parenthood for the next week.

Here’s an interesting piece on how records are made, literally.

Erica Dreifus offers a list of places where you can submit your flash nonfiction.

Colossal, an art and design blog, always has really unique art to look at.

The entries for the Kama Sutra contest were so great, I need help picking a winner. Feel free to vote in the comments by listing the number of your favorite. You have until Monday! Whichever entry gets the most votes, wins!

1. The Ron Paul Real Talk Presidential Nation Express: Dream of something that will never cum.

2.  The Across the Universe: The ability to give one another an orgasm from a distance.

3. The iForn: Standing, both partners hold mobile device in right hand and lock arms so that they face opposite directions and each looks at his or her respective mobile device. With left hand, reach beneath and between partner’s buttocks. Dial. Accept.

4. The 66/99: When two egotistical people fight over who goes down on whom first.

5. the pretentious:  when you stand naked in front of, and stare into, a full length mirror and jerk off to your own reflection.

6. the heterosexual:  when one or more partners come and then immediately fall asleep before helping you to achieve orgasm7. the anti-capitalist:  enjoying sex without caring whether you or any of your partners come

8. the vicious viscous circle:  positioning oneself in a somewhat awkward position that places your genitals directly over your mouth as you prop yourself up on you shoulders or neck.  at the point of orgasm aim for your mouth & immediately swallow the come.  repeat ad nauseum.

9. The Liz Lemon: order a pizza and eat it missionary style.

10. The Panini – sex in a functioning tanning bed. A hot, melty, crispy-on-the-outside mess.

11. The MFA in Creative Writing: In the midst of having sex, stop. (Optional: tell your partner that this part “just isn’t working for me.”) Fall asleep clinging to your partner and weeping silently. Wake up abandoned, work on your manuscript.

12. unprotected hikikomori tentacle cybersex13. amputee cheerleader threesome love triangle

14. micropenis full penetration nostril banging

15. The shelver: In a bookshop, on top of a big pile of books, while both partners are reading AND blogging about it. And both looking charmingly deshabille.

16. the illumination: when JSF masturbates under his desk while his manuscript in progress cums light all over his face

17. The Pearl Harbor – When you make a movie of yourself having sex and the movie comes out really really badly.

18. Dr. Strangelove - When you make a movie of yourself having sex and the movie comes out really really funny and really really good.

19.  The Facebooker: The couple poke each other until maximum pleasure.

I started a micropress, Tiny Hardcore Press, and it has been an awesome but very challenging adventure. The best part is getting to work with writers I respect to publish awesome books that practically fit in the palm of your hand. There is no worst part but every single day I learn something new. Most of these lessons have risen from my own ignorance. Who just decides to start a press? A press is a small business. I should have done more research. I had put out two books already via PANK, but that’s not really research. My first mistake was diving into the deep end when I should have been in the kiddie pool with my floaties. I offer these observations in no particular order.

1. No matter how much money you think it’s going to cost, running a press will cost more, like, at least twice as much more and then a little more on top of that. Sure, you can run a press on the cheap, but it is pretty hard to avoid spending a lot of money.

2. ISBNs are a total racket but go ahead and buy that batch of ten for $250. You’re going to need them and buying them individually is insane. One costs $125. Also, the Bowker website is not good and by not good, I mean it is absolutely terrible. The site runs slowly and seems to use some kind of satanic Java script. I’ve almost lost it dealing with that website on several occasions.

3. Many people do not want to pay more than $10 a book. This has been really frustrating, just keeping it real. If a book costs me $8.50 to print, I cannot sell it to you for $10. People love to talk about paying the writer but don’t seem to understand that in order for writers to get paid, customers have to be willing to pay for the book. Where do you think the writer’s money is going to come from?

3a. People do not want to pay for shipping. I charge for shipping anyway. The reason Amazon can offer free shipping is because they are willing to lose money. They are willing to lose a whole lot of money.  Micropress publishers are not Amazon. Just pay the $2.50 or the $4.00 or whatever. That cost is postage + supplies. The bigger the book, the more the shipping will cost. There’s no secret profit in shipping fees.

4. What really breaks your spirit is shipping. I have learned about shipping the hardest way possible. If there is a shipping related fuck up, I have done it. The first envelopes I bought were some paper envelopes at Staples. That was a huge mistake and I paid for it dearly. I don’t rightly know what I was thinking at the time other than, “Fancy envelopes are so expensive! I’ma go with these generic envelopes.” I also got envelopes that don’t self seal, so, yeah, that sucked.

About three and four weeks after my first mailing of Normally Special, I started getting these curious scraps in the mail, often in larger envelopes, from the USPS. Sometimes, I would see an address or a partial address.  I had to CSI the envelopes to figure out who did not get their book and then send out a new copy. USPS also included with these curious scraps, a totally asinine note about how sometimes things happen and things get lost or damaged. I have a drawer full of this sadness and their pointless claims forms I don’t have the patience to fill out to get my postage back.

I have decided that what the USPS does with mail is take your envelope into some sadistic room of destruction where postal workers gleefully jump up and down on your envelopes with their muddy workboots. When they’ve exhausted themselves, they put those beat to hell envelopes in a burlap sack on the back of a donkey who then slams into a wall about a hundred times burlap sack first. When the donkey tires of this, a postal carrier then delivers your mail by kicking and otherwise abusing it, thoroughly. It looks something like this.

I respect the USPS and the work they do at the price they do it at but they are also the worst. They are hell on mail.

Still, this was my fault. I used the wrong envelope. The second envelope I tried was a Tyrek envelope. These envelopes are very durable but they offer no protection at all, so while the USPS won’t “lose” the contents of your package, the book will probably arrive looking worse for the wear. Finally, last week, I broke down and bought these poly bubble envelopes–strong and there’s great protection. If you ordered Steal Me For Your Stories or Shut Up/Look Pretty (shipping Tuesday), you will get your book cozily nestled in these awesome envelopes. I’m sorry it took me so long to get my envelope game correct.

If I had just paid the money up front for the good envelopes, I wouldn’t have lost, literally, hundreds of dollars being a cheap ass. My point is, just buy the goddamned fancy envelopes up front. You can’t game the system. You’re welcome.

5. The guy at the post office hates me and I live in a really small town so there aren’t other options. When he sees me coming with my neatly addressed and sorted envelopes, he just glares. One time he pointed at me and said, “No. Absolutely not.” To be fair, it was like ten til but I have a job and sometimes late afternoon is the only time I can get to the post office. He freaks me out. When I’m really scared, I drive 50 miles and ship from Champaign. I’m looking into printing my own postage but it feels more expensive than I can cope with right now. I have clearly learned little from Item 4.

6.  Mailing labels are your friends. Just buy them already. Your handwriting sucks anyway. I’ve finally settled on Avery 8163–one sticker and done. Mailing labels are SO EXPENSIVE. Everything feels expensive these days but doing things right takes money, and slowly but surely, I am trying to get to a place where I do things right.

7. People will lie about buying the books you publish as if you don’t have access to your own sales records. This fascinates me and sometimes I just want to ask–why did you pretend to buy this book?

8. Get a big stack of those Customs Declaration forms from the USPS. They are free and you’re going to need them. Fill them out before you go to the post office and attach them to the envelopes so the scary man won’t growl and send you to the back of the line. You need one for every international package, including mail sent to Canada.

8a. International shipping is ghastly. It’s probably best to have two tiers of shipping rates–Canada, Europe, and the UK, and then the other side of the world. Shipping to New Zealand and Australia can cost up to $15 or more. Whenever I have a stack of international envelopes, I close my eyes and go to my happy place while the postal clerk rings them up.

9. My overall mantra is, “What would Adam Robinson do?” I try to channel him a lot. I don’t know how well I succeed with that but if you’re looking for a model of how to run a small press, he is a good spirit animal.

10. Writers will submit even when you are closed to submissions. Sometimes, this is absolutely wonderful. I just accepted two manuscripts this week from such submissions. Mostly though, it’s not great. I do not know when, if ever, THP will open to submissions again. I have projects through 2013 and after that, I cannot say but I am a writer first and I know I will not be a small publisher forever.

11. Writers don’t often realize what it means to work with a micropress. I think it was Peter Cole who said, maybe on Facebook, that there’s nothing he can do for you as a publisher that you cannot do for yourself. When it comes with working with a micropress that’s mostly true. What you get with a micropress is, hopefully a personal experience, an editor who cares, and you get to put your book out into the world without the (unfortunate) stigma of self-publishing, without the cash outlay of self publishing, and hopefully, you will also get someone who will put some time and effort into making your book look good. You’re also going to get someone who isn’t publishing books as a full time job, so they are stretched and they will sometimes be terse in emails because e-mail requires triage–critical patients first.

You have to be prepared to hustle. You have to be willing to promote your book, and do readings, and plan your own events because there’s no support staff at the micropress to do it for you.

These days, you have to do this kind of hustle when working with a major publisher so as you can well imagine, when working with a micropress, there’s even more responsibility on the writer’s shoulders.

So far, I’ve published books by extraordinary hustlers. Brian Oliu made his own book trailer. Then he made another one with Brandi Wells. Roll Tide.

12. Writers are generous enough to gracefully, patiently work with a micropress. They are generous enough to let you publish their work for little or no money up front. These presses would not be possible without writers being great. I’ve heard horror stories about writers but have not experienced any yet. I hope to never be a horror story as a publisher.

13. I am terrible with the bookkeeping and business end of things. Math is the worst. Thankfully, PayPal can generate various reports so I can figure out what I’ve sold to pay royalties, if applicable. I need to be better about this by a factor of at least 100. I had absolutely no plan in this regard and I needed a plan. How are you going to track sales? How are you going to track various price points if you offered sales or other discount offers? How are you going to track direct e-book sales? Are you going to charge tax? If not, how are you going to pay The Man in April? How are you going to generate royalty statements? What information do you need to include? How are you going to track order fulfillment? The questions are endless and you need to be able to answer them, or you can, like me, just learn the answers the really hard way as you go–your choice.

13a. I kind of hate PayPal as much as I appreciate PayPal. The website is slow and their evil just lurks waiting to bite you. The information hierarchy is also counterintuitive. I don’t know who helped them with their information design but they are not good. They also take a cut of every sale. Everyone has their hand out, man.

13b. I do appreciate the ease with which you can handle transactions on PayPal. If you need to issue a refund, it only requires the click of a button.

13c. In terms of sales, Normally Special is in it’s 5th printing, So You Know It’s Me is in it’s 4th printing, and Please Don’t Be Upset is in its 2nd printing. We are not talking print runs of 10,000 or anything, you know, manage those expectations, but it’s great that these books are staying in demand. One of my goals for the summer, is to really get my books in order so I can share exact sales figures with a breakdown of sales versus comps etc.. I have gotten things in better shape so I can share info with the writers but there’s a lot of room for improvement here.

14. However much time you think it’s going to take, running a press will require several times as much. If you do not truly have the time, do not bother. I do not have as much time as I would like to devote to the press. I get everything done, but I’d like a couple more hours a week to focus solely on THP. In addition to overseeing the production process, doing the interior design, working with designers if you so choose,  and all that, you also have to do absolutely mundane things like stuff the envelopes. That’s one of the main reasons I’m not open to submissions. I could not possibly read unsolicited manuscripts right now. Before starting this post, I stuffed 127 envelopes which was actually the most relaxing thing I did for the day. I made neat little piles and tore off adhesive strips and it was really rather pleasant. I also spent a couple hours creating the labels (mail merge can bite me). Then my goddamned printer broke trying to print the labels. That POS HP printer, one of those awful All In One printers, is now an expensive brick that should work but doesn’t. The printer thinks it has a paper jam but it does not. I was all up in that printer with a flashlight. Dr. Google told me this is a known problem, but HP doesn’t care so, yeah, I’ll be printing those labels at work tomorrow, trying not to think about how much a new printer might cost. I went back to stuffing envelopes to cool my rage which was significant.

15. If you want to start a press, and need some pointers on who to work with, you should get to know the following people (and feel free to add other suggestions in the comments):

David McNamara at Sunnyoutside/Cloudyoutside is your man for printing. He also does design and such, if you need those services. He is helpful and a good and fast communicator. I have never had a single printing problem and I’ve done four books through him. He is, in fact, the only printer who has never sent me a flawed product. He quality checks the book at every stage. If something looks jankity, he gets in touch and explains his concerns an offers options for fixing the problem. Spend the money on printing! The customer service is worth it and his prices are very reasonable. You can order in quantities as low as 25 which makes it easy and affordable to keep books in print. I’m not a big fan of POD because I like more flexibility in terms of trim size and other printing options (like a color inside cover) but I understand why people use that option, and there are good POD choices out there.

Alban Fischer will help you with all your design needs.  I had him design the cover for two projects and will be working with him again. He is creative, a good communicator, works fast, and offers multiple design options. His rates are also reasonable. He can do both covers and interiors. It’s worth the money. If you’re going to publish a book with a crappy cover, like Mike Meginnis discussed in his post, and with an interior that looks like it was done in Microsoft Word, then why bother? Are you respecting the work? Are you really bringing something into the world that needs to be in the world if you’re not willing to invest (either the time, if you have design skills or money, if you don’t) in presentation? It’s something to think about. I designed the first two covers myself, and then realized, I cannot do everything and I am not a cover designer! I am not a Swiss Army Knife! I do, however, design the interiors. I know how to do document and book design and also, keeping it real, I can’t afford to pay someone to design the interiors.

Steven Seighman also does great cover design and is worth looking up. He designed the cover for Shut Up/Look Pretty and I love it so much.

Alicia Kennedy is a great copy editor. I’ve worked with her since Normally Special. She has reasonable rates, can work in PDF, Word, or InDesign, and is very thorough. Yes, you do need a copy editor. A “friend” who is an “amazing proofreader” is probably not going to do as good a job as a professional. Everyone thinks they’re a good proofreader or copyeditor. No one catches everything, not even a professional, but when you work with a copy editor, they will catch most of what needs catching and that, again, is showing some respect for the work and for the customer who buys your book. When I get a book back from the printer, it is pretty stressful and I kind of read it with my eyes covered, praying I don’t see anything glaring. So far, so good!

Other publishers and editors will answer your questions an offer you tips. Indie people are great.

16. Invest in Adobe Creative Suite if you can or, you know, acquire it via other channels liberated from the clutches of capitalism. The educational discount makes the shocking price a little more palatable and most people know someone who is affiliated with a university who can hook them up. I bought the suite for like $300 when I was a graduate student and it was the best investment I’ve ever made in software. It will save you money in the long run. To build anything, including a press, you need tools and it is beneficial to invest in good tools. Also, I repeat: invest in good envelopes. I can’t say this enough.

17. Having an e-book is pretty important. Creating e-books is the circle closest to the hottest part of hell. Vaughan Simons created the e-books for Normally Special, So You Know It’s Me, and Please Don’t Be Upset. He also turned me on to Jutoh, the program I use to create e-books, which I have now taught myself to do because it needed to be done. I hate creating e-books. And for the record, InDesign supposedly has an ebook export function. That is an outrageous lie. The only thing that “function” does is shit the bed. Once you accept that, find something else to get the job done. I don’t enjoy coding or anything along those lines. I am not naturally suited to e-book creation but I also can’t afford to outsource it so I create the ebooks, and simply hate everything about it. That said, it’s awesome when the e-book is done and it actually works the way it is supposed to. Amazon makes it really easy to upload the ebooks and I also sell direct from the website.

18. Publisher’s Weekly is not kidding about the three to four month advance time. They are really quite nice and will take your books if you send only a month or two before the release date, but the books won’t get reviewed. This lead time makes it very difficult for micropress books to make it into Publisher’s Weekly. Hopefully, they’ll be able to accomodate e-galleys at some point so they can feature books from smaller presses who lack the resources for physical galleys and sending copies three to four months in advance.

18a. I definitely need to create a publication schedule. Thus far, I have basically done a book every three months but it’s not that regimented beyond that and it needs to be so I can get books reviewed in places requiring a lot of lead time. I have ten books in the queue and that should take me right through 2013. This spring/early summer books from Tadd Adcox and Frank Hinton will be released, as well as a surprise book coming out very soon! Then I’ll just let things breathe a bit and have a firm schedule for the remaining books.

I’m going to shamelessly show you the covers for the surprise book, The Fullness of Everything (Cover by Alban Fischer), Frank’s book, Action, Figure (Photo by Mariel Clayton, cover by Alban Fischer), and Tadd’s book, The Map of the System of Human Knowledge (Cover by Alban Fischer).

I’ll share one more neat thing, I can’t resist. The table of contents for Tadd’s book (designed by Jeffrey Calway, who did the cover for Please Don’t Be Upset, and is looking for design work to build his portfolio) is going to look like this (spread across a couple pages so it can fit the trim size):

18b. This is the really fun part–working with great artists and pulling wonderful creative ideas together so that a manuscript becomes a book. Sometimes, I caress the books when no one’s around. They’re awful cute…I mean, hardcore.

19. There are people out there who will support your press unconditionally. It’s amazing. That kind of support makes me extra committed to publishing books that are beautifully written, look good, are well edited.

20. I don’t like giving physical books away for free. This is a press not a library. If I could print and ship books for free, I would happily give books away for free. If you can’t afford a book, though, and really want to read a THP title, I will likely give you the e-book for free because great writing deserves to be read and a lack of money shouldn’t get in the way of that.

21. At first, I thought I could give advances (see: no plan). That only lasted for the first book, which totally earned out  and then some and then some (as I knew it would).  I was glad to be able to pay a writer for their writing, which is as it should be, but offering an advance was not sustainable. I changed my model. I havent abandoned the advance idea forever, though. I would like to figure out how to pay an advance to every writer while also meeting my own obligations like, you know, rent, student loans, gas, coffee, whatever. My current thinking is to have a model where the advance is a percentage of pre-sales but I have to think it through more. Once production costs are recouped, I do pay royalties, though. And writers get lots of copies of their book they can then sell to make more money.

22. I do best when I can sell books to people in person. I love the books I publish so I love talking about them and my favorite parts and introducing people to new writers. I absolutely got into doing this because of Christopher Newgent and his Vouched Books. Whenever I take books to events, I sell out. There’s a lot to be said for personal, face to face interaction when it comes to bookselling. A webpage can be informative but it is also pretty cold and impersonal. It’s also a great way to meet people. At the Mission Creek Festival last year, I represented PANK at the bookfair. The woman next to me was from Black Clock. She saw my little stack of Normally Special, and we started talking about it. I evangelized. She bought a copy, started reading it right there, and ended up loving the book. The festival ended and we went our separate ways, didn’t even exchange contact information. A couple months later, that same woman reviewed the book for Bookslut which was a wonderful surprise and it all happened because we had a great conversation about the book in Iowa City.

23. The first website I created was serviceable but not good. It was mostly a generic WordPress template, which was the best I could do at the time. I am not a web designer! (See also: not a Swiss Army Knife) I quickly realized that I needed to have a real designer (Steven Seighman) design a real website to best showcase the books. I’m really glad I did that. I totally used part of my tax return for this. Thanks, Mr. President!

23. Things I would like to do in the future: get set up with SPD, sell physical copies via Amazon, improve on publicity and getting the books reviewed in more places, book launch parties (?), do something with the website’s blog which is mostly dormant, and just, be better about everything.

The amazing writer S. Bear Bergman has started a Kickstarter to fund a really exciting, much needed project: Flamingo Rampant–Gender Independent Kids Books. 

Why?

Kids’ ability to see themselves in books available to them is an incredibly valuable thing. Any parent, teacher, librarian, or caregiver will tell you that kids love books that reflect their daily experience. Kids with dogs like it when the kid in the book has a dog; kids with non-nuclear family structures cherish books in which families like theirs are shown.

Knowing this – or instinctively grasping it, as most of us do – makes it easy to see the value of children’s books with trans characters to trans or gender-independent kids (or kids with transgender family members).

More details here! This is definitely a project worth throwing a few dollars at.

The Darlings
by Cristina Alger
Pamela Dorman Books, February 2012
352 pages / $26.95  Buy from Powell’s

From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant
by Alex Gilvarry
Viking Adult, 2012
320 pages  / $26.95 Buy from Powell’s

For the past couple months, Full Stop has invited writers like Justin Taylor, Alexander Chee, Danielle Evans, Maud Newton, and many others, to discuss the situation in American Writing. Most of the questions focus on the concerns contemporary writers face, particularly in terms of the responsibility, if any, writers have to respond to popular upheaval, social change, and the various crises our world is facing. It’s an important question–how do we write about the world we live in? The range of answers to these questions has been fascinating and they reveal the many differing opinions writers have about what we should be writing and what responsibility we have to document the world as it is changing.

I recently read two very different books, both responding to this world we live in, books that made me think about the different ways writers can approach the issues currently shaping our sociopolitical climate–The Darlings by Cristina Alger and From the Memoir of a Non-Enemy Combatant by Alex Gilvarry.

Cristina Alger’s The Darlings takes on the current economic crisis through the story of the Darling family—a wealthy clan of New Yorkers who find their lives irrevocably altered during a critical week when the family business is threatened by scandal. The Darlings, though largely enjoyable, is not a well written book. The overall narrative structure with chapters time and date stamped, is chaotic at best and hard to follow. The times don’t seem integral to the story and yet there they are as if this is the kind of novel where from one minute to the next important changes are taking place.  The writing is more often florid than not, the descriptions overly ornate and clichéd, sometimes bordering on absurd–cheeks the color of peonies, raspberry lips, etc. Everyone is beautiful and thin. The women don’t eat and drink too much. The men work and philander. The Ivy Leagues and Eastern seaboard boarding schools are well represented. It’s all very Real Housewives: Bear Stearns and the Trust Fund Babies Who Love Them.

To remind us that this is a story about the follies of the 1%, there’s a lot of brand name dropping—Patek Philippe watches, Mercedes Benz cars, homes in the Hampton, glittery Park Avenue addresses. I am fairly certain this book was sponsored, in part, by Blackberry because the usage of the device is so prominent throughout the book, one can only assume there is a positive correlation between mentioning the device and financial remuneration. It’s certainly amusing to envision this rarefied world where money is or once was no object, and to consider how times are changing. At the beginning of the novel, for example, there is a charity event and alas, even on the charity circuit, they must take austerity measures, because, “no one wanted to see orchids at a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate charity event, not with the Dow hovering around 8,400.” Quelle tristesse.

Then there’s the plot.  Carter Darling, the patriarch of the powerful Darling family, runs a hedge fund, Delphic. His sons-in-law Paul, married to Merrill Darling, the smart daughter, and Adrian, married to Lily, the socialte daughter, also work for the firm. When the head of investment firm that manages a significant portion of the fund’s assets allegedly commits suicide, it is quickly revealed that the firm was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. The sky is falling!  There’s an SEC investigation, a son-in-law’s divided loyalties, an affair, an ex-girlfriend, a secretary who knows too much, a stoic matriarch, and all manner of subplots meant to keep us intrigued beyond the financial scandal. Once you get past the writing, The Darlings is a fun, gossipy read.

I don’t begrudge escapism, and there were mildly intriguing subplots that kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. (Who is the mistress? What will happen to the family? Who killed Laura Palmer?) At times, the breathless cataloging of the trappings of extreme wealth is a bit much. At one point, a mother, reflecting on her young disabled son, thinks, “the worst thing in the world for him, she knew, would be for his mother to act as if he were a cripple,” which, I assure you stands out uncomfortably because the term cripple has, for the most part, been banished from our vernacular.  I certainly don’t believe in privileging political correction over art, but the word’s casual usage in a story set in the past couple years, makes you wonder how it got past an editor.

Alex Gilvarry’s From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant takes on a different, but equally pressing issue—the erosion of civil liberties after 9/11 as part of the unchecked “war on terrorism.” Gilvarry uses the world we live in as a foundation but builds an imaginative story that goes beyond the headlines. Until I read this book, I could have never imagined that a novel about a fashion designer could offer an incisive look at  the complex issues of civil liberties and government detainees. That’s the balance we have to find in using fiction as a vehicle for social commentary—negotiating the issue at hand and writing an entertaining, well-crafted story. Trying to achieve that balance is the struggle clearly at work in The Darlings. Gilvarry, in trying to balance social commentary and fiction, is much more successful.

Boyet Hernandez is a fledgling fashion designer from Manila. When he arrives in New York in 2002, the towers have fallen but Boyet, who goes by Boy, is all immigrant optimism, eager to find fame and fortune in the big city—”Sure, the financial skyscrapers, the sprawling bridges, the underground love tunnels, the people in their park-side penthouses—these were physical proof of the impossible. Manhattan was a testament to everything being out of God’s hands and within Man’s.”  The novel is told as Boy’s memoir, written while he is held indefinitely and without charge at Guantanamo. The narrative goes back and forth between Boy’s incarceration and his years in New York.  He is being held as a non-enemy combatant because his label was funded by Ahmed Qureshi, a suspected terrorist, and the federal government wants to know what Boy knows, which is little.

Throughout Boy’s memoir, we learn about the rise and fall of his fledgling fashion label, his personal entanglements, his appreciation for America and then his disillusion that is not strong enough to overcome his love for his adopted country. There are footnotes, throughout, by reporter Gil Johannesen, footnotes that often reveal Boy’s unreliability as a narrator and add a layer of complexity to an already complex story.  As the novel unfolds, we see how Boy’s faith in the United States erodes, how he begins to lose hope he will ever be free—”Now that I approach the end of my confession, I find that I am beginning to lose hold of my character. I have become removed from the hero of my own story, you see. To lose hold of your own character must be park of the natural order of things in No Man’s Land.”

The novel is meticulously researched, both in terms of depicting Boy’s incarceration and in authenticity of the depiction of New York’s fashion scene. The writing is witty and fast-paced. Gilvarry is very adept at creating a well-developed protagonist who is charming in all his imperfections and his wide-eyed adoration of everything he is trying to achieve. The story has an interesting satirical bent that Gilvarry certainly could have pushed further, but overall, the novel is really compelling. Gilvarry’s works very successfully from his original premise. Even though this is fiction, the novel is also very affecting in how it portrays the injustice of unchecked judicial authority, affecting in ways that might not be possible in journalism. Sometimes, the best way to tell a story is by actually telling a story.

Toward the end of From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, Boy laments the play his ex-girlfriend Michelle has mounted about their relationship while he languishes in prison.

“My greatest fear to come of this recent development is that Michelle might actually have the influence to sway public opinion. That is the power of entertainment. Sure, when the government spins a story like mine, you will always have your believers, those dumb enough disciples who follow their leader no matter how much of a stuttering fool he is; but you can also count on a good many doubters, those citizens who question what is being force fed to them through the media test tube. And it is this group that I am worried about. For no one is immune to the force of good art when it is disseminated through the mass media. I know this better than anyone, for it is this foundational essence of the human condition to which I owe all my own success.”

When we try to use writing to respond to the world we live in. We are trying to use the power of good art in entertaining, engaging ways to create change or to create awareness or to make sure we do not forget the way the world is and was at its best and worst. We’re trying to write toward this foundational essence of the human condition to surrender to the force of good art. Sometimes we succeed; sometimes we do not.

Over at The Rumpus, Elissa Bassist offers great advice on how to write like a funny woman.

The National Book Critics Circle has announced the finalists for their 2011 book awards.

Edith Wharton turns 150 on Tuesday and she still looks great. The New York Times gives her a nod as they talk about heiresses and social climbers and such.

Anil Dash discusses the web as a medium for protest.

On her blog, Anna Leigh Clark shared an image of the most amazing writing group that included Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, June Jordan, Lori Sharpe, and Audrey Edwards, among others. I want to know absolutely everything about this group now.

Margaret Atwood revisits The Handmaid’s Tale, which has remained in print since 1985.

Cory Doctorow’s essay about a vocabulary for speaking about the future is really interesting.

Are you watching Downton Abbey? Team Mary, right? And Edith; she is the worst. Over at The Millions, an essay about the literary pedigree of the show. Also, Shit the Dowager Countess Says and Downton Abbeyonce. You’re welcome.

Jennifer Weiner looked at the gender breakdown for reviews in the Times for 2011.

In The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan wrote a… curious essay about Joan Didion that included the assertion that to really love Didion, you have to be a woman. Like I said, curious.