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#1 a literary fiction book that has won awards and is considered one of the best books that came out in 2019
jkrshna17 · 11 months
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Remarkable Filipino Writers.
PERIOD OF THE NEW SOCIETY.
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1. Aniceto F. Silvestre - was a Filipino poet born in San Mateo, Rizal on April 17, 1878. His contributions to the Philippine literature were his poems, short stories, novels and essays. His poems were grouped into eight: Malaya, Maalindog, Larawan ng Buhay, Pintig ng Pag-ibig, Tatag ng Pananalig, Tanda ng Pag-asa, Bukas sa Landas ng Kadakilaan at Dugo sa Ningning ng Araw. He has also received the first place award from the Palanca Awards in 1969.
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2. Ponciano Pineda - was a Filipino writer and literary critic born on December 2, 1927, in San Antonio. Some of his most notable works include "Pagpupulong: Mga Tuntunin At Pamamaraan,” “Pandalubhasaang Sining Ng Komunikasyon” and “Sining Ng Komunikasyon Para Sa Mataas Na Paaralan.” He became director of Commission on the Filipino Language, formerly Surian ng Wikang Pambansa during the year 1971 to 1999. Under his leadership, Pineda started socio-linguistic research to further widen the Filipino Language. The Palanca Award awarded him the first and second prize for his short stories “Ang Mangingisda” (1958) and “Malalim ang Gabi” (1953) respectively.
Sources: https://tl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponciano_Pineda and https://tl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniceto_Silvestre
PERIOD OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.
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1. Bienvenido M. Noriega Jr. - was a Filipino playwright born on 1952 in Cauayan, Isabela. He wrote his first play “Down the Basement” in 1970 after attending a playwriting course at the University of the Philippines. He was sent to the Harvard Kennedy School in 1979 for a master's degree in Public Administration (MPA) and graduated at the top of his class. Years later, Noriega was recipient of more than 22 major awards for writing. Some of his famous plays are Bayan-Bayanan, Ramona Reyes ng Forbes Park, Kanluran ng Buhay, Ang Mga Propesyonal, W.I.S (Walang Ibang Sabihin), Takas, Regina Ramos ng Greenwich Village, Kenkoy loves Rosing, Naikwento Lang Sa Akin, Juan Luna, Barkada, Kasalan sa Likod ng Simbahan, Batang Pro and Bongbong at Kris. He died from cancer in 1994, aged just 42.
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2. Jose Dalisay Jr. - is a Filipino writer born on January 15, 1954. Dalisay has authored more than 30 books since 1984. Among his numerous books are Oldtimer and Other Stories (Asphodel, 1984; U.P. Press, 2003); Madilim ang Gabi sa Laot at Iba Pang Mga Dula ng Ligaw na Pag-Ibig, 1993; Killing Time in a Warm Place (Anvil, 1992), he also produced more than twenty screenplays including Miguelito, 1985, Tayong Dalawa, 1994, Saranggola, 1999. He has won numerous awards and prizes for fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction and screenwriting, including 16 Palanca Awards showing how much of a big contribution his works were for the Philippine literature.
Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bienvenido_Noriega_Jr. and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Dalisay_Jr.
POST-EDSA REVOLUTION.
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1. Nicomendes Márquez Joaquin (May 4,1917 - April 29, 2004) - was a Filipino writer and journalist best known for his short stories and novels in English. Joaquin was conferred the rank and title of National Artist of the Philippines for Literature. He has been considered one of the most important Filipino writers, along with Jose Rizal and Claro M. Recto. Unlike Rizal and Recto, whose works were written in Spanish, Joaquin's major works were written in English despite being a native Spanish speaker. One of Nick Joaquin's published books is entitled “Prose and Poems” which was published in 1952 that contained many of his poems. His literary ability allowed him to earn multiple distinction and honors in the field of Philippine literature
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2. Lualhati Bautista (December 2, 1945 – February 12, 2023) - was a Filipina writer, novelist, liberal activist and political critic. Her literary career began in the 1970s when she started writing short stories and screenplays for television and film. One of her most famous works is the novel "Dekada '70," which was published in 1983, a novel set in the Philippines during the Martial Law era and follows the story of a middle-class family struggling to survive and cope with the political and social unrest during that time. Bautista's other notable works include "Bata, Bata... Pa'no Ka Ginawa?" (Child, Child... How Were You Made?), which was also adapted into a film in 1998, and "Gapo," which explores the lives of young women working in the U.S. military base in Olongapo. Some of her works garnered her to win numerous awards, including an honor from the Palanca Awards. In post-EDSA Philippines, Bautista's works have continued to inspire and educate Filipinos about the struggles and triumphs of the country's history.
Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Joaquin and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lualhati_Bautista
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westernsunshine · 3 years
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Do you ever look at your list of recently read books and think “these do not look like books a person with a normal brain would group together”
#so far this month i have read:#1 a literary fiction book that has won awards and is considered one of the best books that came out in 2019#2 a random mystery-thriller novel that was a bit predictable but alright#3 a fantasy novella with fairytale/folktale elements#4 a gothic horror novel that is considered a classic in the genre and came out in 1959#5 a gay ya contemporary romance translated from brazilian portuguese#do you see what i mean.#and last month was even weirder. last month i read: 1 a book of dub poetry#2 a ya urban fantasy/romance/whatever the hell it’s supposed to be set in the edwardian era#3 a fictional memoir with sci-fi undertones#4 a nondescript thriller#5 a ‘classic’ epistolary novel written by an insufferable man who needs to leave this poor girl alone#6 another nondescript thriller only this one was Really bad#7 another classic; this one about drugs#8 short stories but interconnected this time; primarily literary fiction but also historical; set in the us and haiti#9 poetry :)#10 another nondescript thriller#maybe it’s not That weird but like.. do you understand now why when people ask me what kind of books i like to read i literally cannot#answer them. like. i rarely read two books in a row that are of the same genre nevermind the same author#the amount of thrillers here is unusual. this is what counts as a thriller kick for me. 4 of them in 2 months#i hate answering ‘i’ll read anything’ when people ask me what i like to read because that’s so boring but like.. truly i will read anything#—apart from nonfiction. unless it’s a biography or like VERY occasionally history. otherwise i cannot#personal
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bettsfic · 3 years
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how i got an agent, or: my writing timeline
when i started writing, i had no idea how publishing worked and i had a lot of misconceptions about it. but i just signed my first literary agent so i thought i’d share what my experience has been getting to this point, in case it helps anyone else with their own publication goals. i’m also including financial details, like submission fees and income, because “i could never afford to pursue writing as a career” is something that kept me from taking the idea seriously.
for context, i write mostly literary fiction and i’m on the academic/scholarly writing path. this process looks a lot different for other genres. 
i didn’t write this in my pretty nonfiction narrative voice; it’s really just the bare-bones facts of how it went down, how long it took, how many words i wrote (both fanfiction and original fiction), and how much it all cost. 
background
2002 - 2005: read a fuckton of books, wrote some fiction, wanted to be a writer but knew it would never happen, journaled every moment of my life in intimate detail
2006: started working full-time (at a chinese restaurant) while still in high school, also started taking courses for college credit; no time to write, and forgot i had ever wanted to be a writer
2007: graduated high school, started college (psych major), still worked at the restaurant, moved out of my parents’ house into an apartment with my boyfriend; my dad got diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer
2008: continued college full-time, quit the restaurant and started part-time as a bank teller, broke up with bf and moved in with a friend at an apartment where the rent was obscenely high; had to pick up a second job altering bridal gowns
2009: continued college full-time, started dating someone else, moved in with him, had to support him, took a third job as an admin assistant 
2010: continued college full-time, still had 3 jobs; my dad’s cancer became terminal
2011: my dad passed away; i graduated college with a 3.9 and $31k of debt; quit 2 of 3 jobs; got promoted at the bank; my bf cheated on me and we broke up; moved back in with my mom
2012: a very dark time; also, bought a house (because where i’m from, it’s cheaper to buy than rent)
2013: discovered fandom
2014, age 24
this is the year i started writing and posting fanfic. prior to that i was a compulsive journaler but had no drive or desire to become a writer, despite how much i had written when i was a teenager. it seemed like a very childish dream. at this point i assumed writing was just a phase like all my other hobbies i’d picked up and set down. 
but fandom proved to be really healthy for me, and i made some good friends who encouraged my writing and made me want to be better at it. i was really not very good at writing. i don’t think i had any natural creative talent whatsoever, or even a particularly vivid imagination. the only thing i had going for me was the ability to put thoughts into words after a decade of obsessive journaling.
i started writing in spring, and by the end of the year my total word count was 311k. i was making a decent income at the bank, insofar as my bills were covered and i had health insurance. i still had a significant amount of credit card debt from college that i was trying to pay down, and which was eating up all my extra income. 
2015, age 25
i continued writing through 2015 and went to visit @aeriallon, whom i’d met in fandom and who told me i should consider applying to MFAs. i was miserable at the bank and knew i wanted to go back to school, but i didn’t think there was a chance in hell a grad program would accept me, since my writing wasn’t very good and i hadn’t so much as taken a single english class in undergrad. she told me to just look around and do a few google searches to see what i found. 
when i started searching, i assumed i would probably be more compelled toward an MEd or MSW programs and go the therapy route, which is what the plan had been in undergrad before my dad died and my life got derailed. i never wanted to be a banker, but i’d got a promotion into commercial finance that paid decently, so i took it and told myself i’d work for a year before going back to school. but then i kept getting promoted and one year became many.
i ended up being more drawn to creative writing MFA programs because they seemed to want people with weird backgrounds like mine. also the classes sounded fun and the programs were funded. i didn’t know how i would be able to afford my mortgage payment or sell my house on a fraction of the income i was making at the bank, but i figured i’d apply and see what happened.
it took 6 months to get a writing sample ready to apply to MFAs. it was the only ofic story i’d written as an adult, and in retrospect i had no idea what i was doing because at that point i didn’t read literary short fiction. but i got the sample as good as i could get it and completed my applications. i applied to 6 schools and got accepted into 1. 
in 2015 i wrote 250k. i can’t find my application spreadsheet from that year, but i probably spent between $300 and $400 on application fees. early in the year, i had finally managed to pay off my credit card debt and save a little bit of money.
2016, age 26
the school i got into was within driving distance of my house, so i didn’t bother moving. i tried to quit the bank but my boss convinced me to stay on 2 days a week working from home. i agreed to it, because my grad stipend wasn’t enough to cover my bills, and i was counting on what little savings i had accrued to get me through the program. i still had no drive or interest to publish. i mostly just wanted to go back to school so i could learn how to be better at this thing i really enjoyed doing.
in the MFA, as you might imagine, i had to read a lot of stuff and write a lot of stuff, and was encouraged to begin submitting some of the short stories i wrote for workshop. i was not particularly into the idea, considering it seemed like a lot of work for little reward, and also i didn’t think my stories were very good.
i also started teaching english comp. i hated it and decided that after the MFA, i never wanted to do it again. haha. hahahahahaha
in 2016 i wrote 343k. i didn’t apply/submit in 2016 so i didn’t pay any fees, but my grad stipend was $14k for the academic year, plus the income i was making at the bank.
2017, age 27
i did a complete 180 and decided i loved teaching more than anything else in the entire world, and i was willing to do whatever it took to become a teacher. i realized that to become a teacher, i needed to publish. begrudgingly i started submitting to literary journals. i also applied to summer workshops and got into tin house, which i highly recommend if that’s something you’re interested in. at tin house i met my dream agent, who seemed really interested in my work and encouraged me to query her as soon as i had a book done. 
a lot of personal drama happened that year. i was still working at the bank in addition to teaching a 2/2 and taking a full course load. in summer i had a long overdue mental breakdown. 
2017 was a rough year. i wrote 149k. this is the year i started keeping a dedicated expenses spreadsheet. i spent $174 in submission fees. tin house tuition with room and board was a little over $1500 + travel. i thought it was worth it because i met the agent i thought i would later sign, but that didn’t pan out. (i made some great friends though!!) tin house was definitely an unwise financial decision; i paid for it out of what little i managed to save in 2015.
2018, age 28
early in 2018, i went from teaching comp/rhet to creative writing, which only cemented my desire to teach writing as a career. i realized i was far better at teaching writing than writing, but i knew i had to keep writing to keep teaching (shocked pikachu.jpg), so i kept submitting to journals. i got my first story accepted. i didn’t receive any payment for that publication. i quit the bank early in the year (finally! after 10 years!) and was terrified about money, in part because my student loan payments were coming out of deferment and i was still paying off my hospital bills from my breakdown. 
in spring semester, i won a few departmental awards (totaling $500ish) and got a second story accepted (again, no payment). i also got accepted to another workshop which i will not name because i hated it. i graduated in may and defended my thesis in july. the thesis would later become my short story collection, zucchini.
in fall, i stayed on at my school as an adjunct, and started writing training wheels which would later become an original novel called baby. 
i wrote 450k in 2018. i paid $373 in submission fees. i was also nominated for an award for one of my publications but didn’t win. the workshop i went to was like $4000 with room and board (it was a month-long workshop). i got 75% of it covered with scholarships and i paid for the rest of it out of my savings, and even though i’d intended to drive there, my mom ended up buying me a plane ticket. again, i met a lot of big-wig writers i thought for sure would help me get an agent. i told myself i was networking, and that publication was all about Who You Knew. but that turned out not to be true for me.
as an adjunct i made $3200 per course, and i taught 3 classes in fall. in winter, i got my shit together and started applying for creative writing PhDs, mostly to convince my family i was doing something with my life, with no expectation that i would get in. in winter i applied to 2 schools. with application fees and the GRE, i ended up paying well over $500.
2019, age 29
in spring semester, i taught 2 classes while i revised training wheels into baby. when i had a completed manuscript, i finally pulled the plug and used all my networking contacts to get my dream agent i’d met at tin house. i queried her, and a very popular and well-regarded author i’d met at the other workshop emailed her on my behalf to tell her good things about me. i thought for sure i had it in the bag. this author also touched base with a few other agents whom he thought would like my work.
i didn’t hear back from any of them. not even a “no thanks.” i set down querying for a while. 
i got a third story picked up and published around this time, and i was paid $25 for it. they also nominated me for an award, and i don’t think i won? but i can’t find out who did win so idk.
my grandpa passed away and i decided to sell my house and move in with my grandma so she wouldn’t be alone. i got rejected from both PhD programs i applied to and decided to get a “real job” instead, and began applying for random positions that offered health insurance, because i knew i was drastically undermedicated and it was becoming a Problem.
near the end of spring semester, i moved out of my house, put it on the market, and was interviewing for a community development manager position for a nonprofit. at the same time, i found out about another university that was taking late-season applications, and i applied. five days later, i got accepted. one day after that, i got a job offer for the nonprofit. since i had no idea how long it would take for my house to sell, and being unable to afford both rent in a new city and my mortgage payment, i deferred my PhD acceptance for a year and decided to work at the nonprofit for a while. the risk was that i could only defer my admission, not my funding, so there was a chance that the following year i wouldn’t get the same funding package.
i lasted one month at the “real job” before i had another breakdown and ended up quitting. 
my house sold for well under the asking price and i received only $4000 in equity once it was all said and done. that’s a lot of money to me, but considering that i’d been paying on the house for 7 years, i was expecting a lot more.
i had a year to kill until the PhD so i decided to take a break from teaching and apply to artist residencies instead. i applied to 8 residencies and got accepted into 4, but only ended up attending 3, because the 4th was outrageously priced and there was no indication of the cost when i had applied.
in winter i picked up querying agents again. i queried 10 agents every other week. i also got a ghostwriting gig writing children’s books that paid $800 a month.
in 2019 i wrote 417k. i spent $441 in submission fees (to residencies and contests, not agent queries. never pay money to query an agent!!). i ended up teaching 3 classes fall semester.
2020, age 30
i started out the year driving across the country going to residencies. the first cost $100 (no food), the second cost $250 (A LOT OF VERY GOOD FOOD), and the third paid me $500. i was at the third when the pandemic hit.
the query rejections started rolling in. i gave up in february after 60 queries. of those 60, i received 7 manuscript requests for baby, but the consensus was that it was too long and plotless (you got me there.jpg). at the second residency completed and revised zucchini and decided to begin querying with that instead. i could only find a few agents who accepted collections so i only queried 16. i got one request for the manuscript but then didn’t hear back. i gave up in april shortly after the pandemic hit. 
when i figured the collection, like the novel, just wasn’t publishable, i started submitting to contests which is the more standard route for the genre. i submitted to 12 in total and was a finalist in 1. i was rejected or withdrew from the rest.
the PhD program reached out to ask if i was still interested in starting in fall, and i said i was, so they put me in the running for funding again and i was accepted. the stipend was $17k per academic year.
like most of us, i got totally derailed in spring and stopped doing basically everything. the ghostwriting gig started paying $1500 a month and i also started my creative coaching business, which slowly but surely began to supplement my income. i also received the $1200 stimulus. 
when school started, i quit the ghostwriting gig. i had no intention to continue querying either book, but i saw a twitter pitch event called DVpit (diverse voices) and decided to participate. for those who don’t know, a twitter pitch event is where you tweet the pitch for your book and use the hashtag, and agents scroll through the tag and like tweets. if an agent likes your tweet, you query them. 
i got one like, so i followed up with the query. the agent asked for the full MS and a couple weeks later followed up with the offer for representation. we talked on the phone, she sent me the contract, i asked for a couple changes, and then signed! 
so far this year i’ve written 375k and paid $518 in submission fees. i’ll give more details when i do my end of year roundup next month. oh, and i finally paid off my student loans.
totals
word count: 2.3 million
agent queries: 77
agent MS requests: 9
agent rejections: 28
agent no responses: 44
short story submissions: 86
short story acceptances: 3
short story income: $25
total submission/application fees: $1472
my (final) query letter
honestly this query letter probably isn’t very good which is why i got such a minimal response, but it got the job done eventually.
Thank you for expressing interest in ZUCCHINI through this year's DVpit event.
ZUCCHINI is a collection that views sex through an asexual lens. It poses inquiries into constructs like gender, sexuality, and love to dissect the patriarchal/puritanical foundations from which our social perspectives often derive. Being a collection about asexuality, each story portrays a relationship that develops from forms of attraction other than physical.
In one story, a grieving widow purchases her first sex toy; in another, a woman uses sex to cope with the death of her abusive father, and later in the collection faces the long road to recovery; an administrative assistant seeks out a codependent relationship with her boss; a masochist hires a professional sadist to lead him toward self-actualization; a woman begins to recover from her sexual assault by staging a reenactment on her own terms; and lastly, two lifelong friends in a queerplatonic relationship decide to get married. Asexuality is an under-acknowledged identity within the LGBTQIA community and is often misunderstood. In seven stories, ZUCCHINI dissects the notion of attraction, explores the intersections of sexual identity and trauma recovery, and conveys the experience of intimacy without physical desire.
Three stories in the collection have been published in literary magazines. “Lien” appeared in volume 24 of Quarter After Eight and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. “An Informed Purchase” appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Midwestern Gothic and won the Jordan-Goodman Prize in Fiction. “The Ashtray” appeared in issue 16 of Rivet Journal and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.
Complete at 53,000 words, ZUCCHINI is a collection in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado’s HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES, Lauren Groff’s FLORIDA, and Samantha Hunt’s THE DARK DARK.
If ZUCCHINI is of interest to you, I would be happy to send you the manuscript. Per your guidelines, I've appended the first twenty pages below, which is the entirety of the first story.
what comes next
i’m going to spend january revising the collection per my agent’s feedback. when i send it back to her, she’ll shoot it out to the first round of publishers. my understanding is that the goal is to get multiple offers on it so that it has to go to auction. if there are no offers, she’ll do another round of submissions, and so on, until we’ve exhausted our options. if that happens, we’ll reassess, but by then hopefully i’ll have another novel finished.
meanwhile, i’ll be continuing the PhD which entails teaching a 2/2, workshop, and 2 lit seminars per semester. i’m also still doing my creative coaching, writing fanfic, and working on my original projects. in summer, i’ll finally be moving to hopefully start going to school in person next fall. 
the PhD is a 3 year program with an optional fourth year. i don’t see myself finishing in 3 years so i do plan to take the extra year unless something comes up. after the PhD, i’m not sure what i’ll do. a lot will probably change by then so i’m trying not to commit to one idea. i might apply to post-doc fellowships and tenure track positions, or i might leave the country and teach overseas, or i might move to LA and try to get in a writer’s room somewhere. i’ve got a lot of options.
overall thoughts/stuff i learned
first of all, you don’t have to go through all of this to publish a book. you could feasibly just write a book and query agents. the only reason it took me this long is because my PTSD brain was sabotaging me every step of the way and i didn’t start taking anything seriously until i found something i was willing to fight for (teaching). i went the MFA/literary route but other, faster routes are just as good. maybe better. probably better. actually if there’s any chance you can go a different route, you should take it.
reflecting on all of this, very little of it has anything to do with talent or being a good writer. nor does it have to do with being at the right place at the right time. i’ve only made it this far because i took very small steps over and over again, and during that walk met people who could help me -- the authors who have mentored me, the editors who accepted my stories, the agent who signed me. and as i got further along my path, i started being able to help other writers in the way i was helped. 
i don’t believe i’ll ever be a great writer. the best thing i can say about my writing is that it’s competent and accessible. everything i write sets out to do something and most of the time it gets the job done. i don’t imagine i’ll ever be able to financially support myself with publishing, and i’ll certainly never be famous or well-known, but i’m good enough to keep making progress. i’ll probably continue to find opportunities that are adjacent to writing and that will keep me afloat, pending my health and provided the country doesn’t devolve into civil war. 
probably the most important thing i learned in all this is that having a wide appeal isn’t the goal. you don’t write to be lauded or liked. you have to stay as true to yourself and your interests as you possibly can, so that the people who come across your path can see you and help you. you’ll need those people; no one gets anywhere alone. if you pander, if you’re too concerned with praise and success or being adored, you won’t make it very far. the rejection will eventually kill you. 
with all that said, my advice to you is this: never stop writing. the ability to share our stories is the single most precious thing we have. you can’t let anything stop you from telling your stories the way you need them to be told.
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davidfarland · 3 years
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Has Something Like This Ever Happened to You?
An odd thing happened once to a friend of mine, Matt Harrill who was contacted by a reviewer for a major newspaper a few weeks ago, who said that a rave review would be coming out in the paper shortly. He’d read the advance review copy of Matt’s first novel, Hellbounce, that the publisher had sent, and went on about how the book was fantastic, better than Stephen King.
Well, you can imagine how you would feel hearing such great news. But for several weeks in a row, the promised review didn’t come out. So Matt contacted the reviews editor at the paper and discovered that the editor didn’t know this reviewer and no review was forthcoming. After a bit of digging, Matt’s publisher learned that the reviewer did indeed work for the major publisher, but apparently had just sort of pilfered the book. He loved it, the review was honest, but the review will not be published.
Sigh. I’ve met a lot of frauds in my time, but never a fake reviewer.
Can You Spot a Fake?
I did know a literary agent years ago who would get new writers to give her manuscripts, and then never send them out. She told one of my friends that her book had been rejected some nine times before I began to smell a rat. I happened to be at a World Science Fiction Convention and meet one of the editors who was supposed to be reading it—while sharing a cab with some of the other editors who had supposedly rejected the manuscript. I found out that the agent had never sent it to any of the editors, and two of the three editors told me that the woman was blacklisted from their agencies. The good news was that the agent did agree to look at the manuscript once the agent was fired. A couple of months later, she bought it, and the book went on to win the American Book Award.
So what did the fake agent get out of this? She wasn’t making any money. Instead, I think that she was feeding off the hopes and expectations of new writers. She got to be the center of attention at parties.
Sometimes, that’s all that these people want. A decade ago, I was working in Hollywood trying to get a fantasy movie made. After the final Lord of the Rings movie won eleven Academy Awards, I came into the office in the morning and found that we were deluged by people who wanted to invest in our movie.
So we set up an appointment with our first investor. He arrived in an enormous banana-yellow limo, and got out wearing a white suit and top hat. He looked spiffy, and he had three gorgeous young women hanging on his arms. The girls must have all used the same plastic surgeon, because their breasts all seemed to be filled with the same prodigious amount of silicone in them.
He came into the office, listened to our pitch, looked at our documents, and eagerly announced that he’d have all $84 million to us within four weeks. So we were feeling rather celebratory until we checked his accounts. He had absolutely nothing. In fact, he had just put the tab for his limo on his credit card and maxed out the card by paying for a hotel room that was going to run $2000 for the night.
Our CFO wondered aloud, “What in the world does he get out of this? It’s not like he’s going to make any money out of it.” But I observed, “He’s going to sleep in a $2000 room tonight with three hot babes at once. He’ll be talking about it for years.”
Of course, most of the frauds really are out to prey on people. It seemed to me that in Hollywood I couldn’t turn over a rock without finding one. We had one fellow who got hold of the pitch materials for our fantasy film and began talking to potential investors—contact videogame companies, film investors, studio execs, and so on. As he put it, “This is the single best movie proposal I’ve ever seen.” We couldn’t get him to return our materials or to stop trying to get investors. “Cease and Desist” orders didn’t work. Last I heard, he was hiding out in Brazil after bilking some investors out of $12 million.
Always Watch Yourself
There are publishers out there who never publish anything.
There are “agents” who scam authors in the hopes of getting paid “reading fees.” A few years ago, I had a student in Colorado who called me in tears because he didn’t have the $12,000 that he needed to pay his fake agent.
There are 10,000 movie producers listed in Hollywood, but most of them have never made a single movie that got a distribution deal. What good is an agent who can’t get a distribution deal? Don’t waste your time even talking to them.
I was recently asked by one movie producer to write a book about the types of fraud that you can get sucked into in Hollywood, but I declined. As I told him, “Every time that you think that you’ve seen everything, someone comes up with a new con.”
So, here are some questions to consider when you meet a new contact:
Three Ways to Spot a Fraud
1) If you meet a publisher, find out if the publisher can get you distribution to the major bookstores. If he doesn’t have it, then you have to wonder, is this person doing anything that I can’t do myself? Is he just a wannabe publisher?
2) If you meet an agent, does that agent charge a reading fee? If so, it’s probably not a real agent. Then again you have to ask, “Does the agency act as the ‘publisher’ for their clients’ electronic books?” If so, the agent has a conflict of interest, and you should not do business with him or her.
3) If you meet a movie producer, find out, “What motion pictures have you gotten national distribution for within the past four years?” If the producer isn’t getting access to distribution, run! Seriously, these producers will try to talk you into running up your credit cards and mortgaging your grandmother’s house in the hopes that they’ll be able to make a movie and get distribution.
Any time that you meet someone who claims to be in your business but you haven’t heard of them, start digging for the truth. There isn’t anything wrong with someone who is starting out in a business, or trying to work into it. But if you meet someone who claims to have distribution in the movie or book industry, or claims to understand the industry better than all of the people who’ve been working in it for years . . . just beware.
Happy Writing!
David Farland
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This Saturday on Apex…
As Dave Butler, he writes adventure books for kids, including, “The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie”. As D.J. Butler, he writes adventure stories for older readers, including, “Witchy Eye” and “City of the Saints”. D.J. will be talking about, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts: 15 writing lessons your novel should learn from one Bob Dylan song.”
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blackkudos · 4 years
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Samuel R. Delany
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Samuel R. Delany (born April 1, 1942), Chip Delany to his friends, is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society.
His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction includes Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, About Writing, and eight books of essays. After winning four Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards over the course of his career, Delany was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002. From January 1975 until his retirement in May 2015, he was a professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Creative Writing at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Albany, and Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1997 he won the Kessler Award, and in 2010 he won the third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master in 2013.
Early life
Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. was born on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany (1916–1995), was a clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906–1960), ran the Levy & Delany Funeral Home on 7th Avenue in Harlem, from 1938 until his death in 1960. The civil rights pioneers Sadie and Bessie Delany were his aunts. He used their adventures as the basis for Elsie and Corry in "Atlantis: Model 1924", the opening novella in his semi-autobiographical collection Atlantis: Three Tales. His grandfather, Henry Beard Delany, was the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church.
The family lived in the top two floors of a three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany envied children with nicknames and took one for himself on the first day of a new summer camp, Camp Woodland, at about the age of 12, by answering "Everybody calls me Chip" when asked his name. Decades later, Frederik Pohl called him "a person who is never addressed by his friends as Sam, Samuel or any other variant of the name his parents gave him."
Delany attended the Dalton School and from 1951 through 1956, spent summers at Camp Woodland in Phoenicia, New York, followed by the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program.
Delany has identified as gay since adolescence, though his complicated marriage with Marilyn Hacker (who was aware of Delany's orientation and has identified as a lesbian since their divorce) has led some authors to classify him as bisexual.
Upon the death of Delany's father from lung cancer in October, 1960 and his marriage in August 1961, he and Hacker settled in New York's East Village neighborhood at 629 East 5th Street. Hacker's intervention (while employed as an assistant editor at Ace Books), helped Delany become a published science fiction author by the age of 20, though he actually finished writing that first novel (The Jewels of Aptor) while at 19, shortly after dropping out of the City College of New York after one semester.
Career
He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as two prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and later in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). In 1966, with Hacker remaining in New York, Delany took a five-month trip to Europe, writing The Einstein Intersection while in France, England, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. These locales found their way into several pieces of his work at that time, including the novel Nova and the short stories "Aye, and Gomorrah" and "Dog in a Fisherman's Net".
Weeks after returning, Delany and Hacker began to live separately; Delany played and lived communally for five months on the Lower East Side with the Heavenly Breakfast, a folk-rock band, one of whose members, Bert Lee, was later a founding member of the Central Park Sheiks (the other two members of the quartet were Susan Schweers and Steven Greenbaum [aka Wiseman]); a memoir of his experiences with the band and communal life was eventually published as Heavenly Breakfast (1979). After a very brief time together again, Hacker moved to San Francisco and then England. Delany published his first eight novels with Ace Books from 1962 to 1967, culminating in Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection, and Nova, which were consecutively recognized as the year's best novel by the Science Fiction Writers of America (Nebula Awards). Calling him a genius and poet, Algis Budrys listed Delany with J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss, and Roger Zelazny as "an earthshaking new kind" of writer,and Judith Merril labelling him "TNT (The New Thing)."
Delany's first short story was published by Pohl in the February 1967 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, and he placed three more in other magazines that year. After four short stories (including the critically lauded "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones") and Nova were published to wide acclaim (the latter by Doubleday, marking Delany's departure from Ace) in 1968 alone, an extended interregnum in publication commenced until the release of Dhalgren (1975), abated only by two short stories, two comic book scripts, and an erotic novel, The Tides of Lust (1973), reissued in 1994 under Delany's preferred title, Equinox.
On New Year's Eve in 1968, Delany moved to San Francisco to join Hacker, who was already there, and again to London in the interim, before Delany returned to New York in the summer of 1971 as a resident of the Albert Hotel in Greenwich Village. In 1972, Delany directed a short film entitled The Orchid (originally titled The Science Fiction Film in the Latter Twentieth Century, produced by Barbara Wise. Shot in 16mm with color and sound, the production also employed David Wise, Adolfas Mekas, and was scored by John Herbert McDowell. In November 1972, Delany was a visiting writer at Wesleyan University's Center for the Humanities. From December 1972 to December 1974, Delany and Hacker lived in Marylebone, London. During this period, he began working with sexual themes in earnest and wrote two pornographic works, one of which (Hogg) was unpublishable due to its transgressive content. Twenty years later, it found print.
Delany wrote two issues of the comic book Wonder Woman in 1972, during a controversial period in the publication's history when the lead character abandoned her superpowers and became a secret agent. Delany scripted issues #202 and #203 of the series. He was initially supposed to write a six-issue story arc that would culminate in a battle over an abortion clinic, but the story arc was canceled after Gloria Steinem complained that Wonder Woman was no longer wearing her traditional costume, a change predating Delany's involvement. Scholar Ann Matsuuchi concluded that Steinem's feedback was "conveniently used as an excuse" by DC management.
Delany's eleventh and most popular novel, the million-plus-selling Dhalgren, was published in 1975 to both literary acclaim (from both inside and outside the science fiction community) and derision (mostly from within the community). Upon its publication, Delany returned to the United States at the behest of Leslie Fiedler to teach at the University at Buffalo as Butler Professor of English in the spring of 1975, preceding his return to New York City that summer. Though he wrote two more major science fiction novels (Triton and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand) in the decade following Dhalgren, Delany began to work in fantasy and science fiction criticism for several years. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was Return to Nevèrÿon, the overall title of the four-volume series and also the title of the fourth and final book. Following the publication of Return to Nevèrÿon, Delany published one more fantasy novel. Released in 1993, They Fly at Çiron is a re-written and expanded version of an unpublished short story Delany wrote in 1962. This would be Delany's last novel in either the science fiction or fantasy genres for many years. Among the works that appeared during this time was his novel The Mad Man and a number of his essay collections.
Delany became a professor in 1988. Following visiting fellowships at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (1977), the University at Albany (1978) and Cornell University (1987), he spent 11 years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo, then, after an invited stay at Yaddo, moved to the English Department of Temple University in January 2001, where he taught until his retirement in April 2015. He served as Critical Inquiry Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago during the winter quarter of 2014.
Beginning with The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977), a collection of critical essays that applied then-nascent literary theory to science fiction studies, he published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In the memoir Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), Delany drew on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men in New York City.
He received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 1993.
In 2007, his novel Dark Reflections was a winner of the Stonewall Book Award. That same year Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, directed by Fred Barney Taylor. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The following year, 2008, it tied for Jury Award for Best Documentary at the International Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Also in 2007, Delany was the April "calendar boy" in the "Legends of the Village" calendar put out by Village Care of New York.
In 2010, Delany was one of the five judges (along with Andrei Codrescu, Sabina Murray, Joanna Scott and Carolyn See) for the National Book Awards fiction category. In 2015, the Caribbean Philosophical Association named Delany the recipient of its Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 he received the Brudner Award from Yale University, for his contributions to gay literature. Since 2018, his archive has been housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale where it is currently being organized. Till then, his papers were housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.
In 1991, Delany entered a committed, nonexclusive relationship with Dennis Rickett, previously a homeless book vendor; their courtship is chronicled in the graphic memoir Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), a collaboration with the writer and artist Mia Wolff. After fourteen years, he retired from teaching at Temple University.
Delany is an atheist.
Themes
Recurring themes in Delany's work include mythology, memory, language, sexuality, and perception. Class, position in society, and the ability to move from one social stratum to another are motifs that were touched on in his earlier work and became more significant in his later fiction and non-fiction, both. Many of Delany's later (mid-1980s and beyond) works have bodies of water (mostly oceans and rivers) as a common theme, as mentioned by Delany in The Polymath. Though not a theme, coffee, more than any other beverage, is mentioned significantly and often in many of Delany's fictions.
Writing itself (both prose and poetry) is also a repeated theme: several of his characters — Geo in The Jewels of Aptor, Vol Nonik in The Fall of the Towers, Rydra Wong in Babel-17, Ni Ty Lee in Empire Star, Katin Crawford in Nova, the Kid, Ernest Newboy, and William in Dhalgren, Arnold Hawley in Dark Reflections, John Marr and Timothy Hasler in The Mad Man, and Osudh in Phallos – are writers or poets of some sort.
Delany also makes use of repeated imagery: several characters (Hogg, the Kid, and the sensory-syrynx player, the Mouse, in Nova; Roger in "We .. move on a rigorous line") are known for wearing only one shoe; and nail biting along with rough, calloused (and sometimes veiny) hands are characteristics given to individuals in a number of his fictions. Names are sometimes reused: "Bellona" is the name of a city in both Dhalgren and Triton, "Denny" is a character in both Dhalgren and Hogg (which were written almost concurrently despite being published two decades apart; and there is a Danny in "We ... move on a rigorous line"), and the name "Hawk" is used for five different characters in four separate stories – Hogg, the story "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" and the novella "The Einstein Intersection", and the short story "Cage of Brass", where a character called Pig also appears.
Jewels, reflection, and refraction – not just the imagery but reflection and refraction of text and concepts – are also strong themes and metaphors in Delany's work. Titles such as The Jewels of Aptor, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", Driftglass, and Dark Reflections, along with the optic chain of prisms, mirrors, and lenses worn by several characters in Dhalgren, are a few examples of this; as in "We (...) move on a rigorous line" a ring is nearly obsessively described at every twist and turn of the plot. Reflection and refraction in narrative are explored in Dhalgren and take center stage in his Return to Nevèrÿon series.
Following the 1968 publication of Nova, there was not only a large gap in Delany's published work (after releasing eight novels and a novella between 1962 and 1968, his published output virtually stopped until 1973), there was also a notable addition to the themes found in the stories published after that time. It was at this point that Delany began dealing with sexual themes to an extent rarely equaled in serious writing. Dhalgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand include several sexually explicit passages, and several of his books such as Equinox (originally published as The Tides of Lust, a title that Delany does not endorse), The Mad Man, Hogg and, Phallos can be considered pornography, a label Delany himself endorses.
Novels such as Triton and the thousand-plus pages making up his four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series explored in detail how sexuality and sexual attitudes relate to the socioeconomic underpinnings of a primitive – or, in Triton's case, futuristic – society.Even in works with no science fiction or fantasy content to speak of, such as Atlantis: Three Tales, The Mad Man, and Hogg, Delany pursued these questions by creating vivid pictures of New York and other American cities, now in the Jazz Age, now in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, New York private schools in the 1950s, as well as Greece and Europe in the 1960s, and – in Hogg – generalized small-town America. Phallos details the quest for happiness and security by a gay man from the island of Syracuse in the second-century reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Dark Reflections is a contemporary novel, dealing with themes of repression, old age, and the writer's unrewarded life.
Writer and academic C. Riley Snorton has addressed Triton's thematic engagement with gender, sexual, and racial difference and how their accommodations are instrumentalized in the state and institutional maintenance of social relations. Despite the novel's infinite number subject positions and identities available through technological intervention, Snorton argues that Delany's proliferation of identities "take place within the context of increasing technologically determined biocentrism, where bodies are shaped into categories-cum-cartographies of (human) life, as determined by socially agreed-upon and scientifically mapped genetic routes." Triton questions social and political imperatives towards anti-normativity insofar that these projects do not challenge but actually reify the constrictive categories of the human. In his book Afro-Fabulations, Tavia Nyong'o makes a similar argument in his analysis of "The Einstein Intersection." Citing Delany as a queer theorist, Nyong'o highlights the novella's "extended study of the enduring power of norms, written during the precise moment—'the 1960s'—when antinormative, anti-systemic movements in the United States and worldwide were at their peak." Like Triton, "The Einstein Intersection" features characters that exist across a range of differences across gender, sexuality, and ability. This proliferation of identities "takes place within a concerted effort to sustain a gendered social order and to deliver a stable reproductive futurity through language" in the Lo society's caging of the non-functional "kages" who are denied language and care. Both Nyong'o and Snorton connect Delany's work with Sylvia Wynter's "genres of being human," underscoring Delany's sustained thematic engagement with difference, normativity, and their potential subversions or reifications, and placing him as an important interlocutor in the fields of queer theory and black studies.
The Mad Man, Phallos, and Dark Reflections are linked in minor ways. The beast mentioned at the beginning of The Mad Man graces the cover of Phallos.
Delany has also published seven books of literary criticism, with an emphasis on issues in science fiction and other paraliterary genres, comparative literature, and queer studies. He has commented that he believes that to omit the sexual practices that he portrays in his writing would limit the dialogue children and adults can have about it themselves, and that this lack of knowledge can kill people.
Works
FictionNovelsReturn to Nevèrÿon seriesShort storiesComics
Wonder Woman, 1972
Anthologies
Quark/1 (1970, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)
Quark/2 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)
Quark/3 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)
Quark/4 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)
Nebula Winners 13 (1980, science fiction)
NonfictionCritical works
The Jewel-hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1977; Wesleyan University Press revised edition 2009, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)
The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1978; Wesleyan University Press 2014, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)
Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1984; Wesleyan University Press, 2012, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)
Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (Ansatz Press, 1988) 0-945195-01-X
The Straits of Messina (1989), 0-934933-04-9
Silent Interviews (1995), 0-8195-6280-7
Longer Views (1996) with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 0-8195-6293-9
Shorter Views (1999), 0-8195-6369-2
About Writing (2005), 0-8195-6716-7
Conversations with Samuel R. Delany (2009), edited by Carl Freedman, University of Mississippi Press.
"Racism and Science Fiction" (1998), New York Review of Science Fiction, Issue 120.
Memoirs and letters
Heavenly Breakfast (1979), a memoir of a New York City commune during the so-called Summer of Love, 0-553-12796-9
The Motion of Light in Water (1988), a memoir of his experiences as a young gay science fiction writer; winner of the Hugo Award, 0-87795-947-1
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (NYU Press, 1999; 2019, 20th anniversary edition with foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr), a discussion of changes in social and sexual interaction in New York's Times Square, 0-8147-1919-8; 978-1-4798-2777-0
Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), an autobiographical comic drawn by Mia Wolff with an introduction by Alan Moore, 1-890451-02-9
1984: Selected Letters (2000) with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 0-9665998-1-0
In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany. Volume 1, 1957-1969 (2017), edited and with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 978-0-8195-7089-5. 2018 Locus Award Finalist (non-fiction)
Letters from Amherst: Five Narrative Letters (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), with foreword by Nalo Hopkinson, 9780819578204
Introductions
The Adventures of Alyx, by Joanna Russ
We Who Are About To..., by Joanna Russ
Black Gay Man by Robert Reid-Pharr
Burning Sky, Selected Stories, by Rachel Pollack
Conjuring Black Funk: Notes on Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality, Volume 1 by Herukhuti
The Cosmic Rape, by Theodore Sturgeon
Glory Road, by Robert A. Heinlein
Microcosmic God, by Theodore Sturgeon
The Magic: (October 1961-October 1967) Ten Tales by Roger Zelazny, selected and introduced by Samuel R. Delany
Masters of the Pit, by Michael Moorcock
Nebula Winners 13, edited by Samuel R. Delany
A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction, by Baird Searles, Martin Last, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin; foreword by Samuel R. Delany
The Sandman: A Game of You, by Neil Gaiman
Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent, edited by Charles Rowell and Bruce Morrow
Interviews
Sci-Fi Legend Samuel R. Delany Doesn't Play Favorites (2017)
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reviewbazaar · 4 years
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10 Greatest Books Ever Written!!
Literary critics, historians, avid readers, and even casual readers will all have different opinions on which novel is truly the “greatest book ever written.” Is it a novel with beautiful, captivating figurative language? Or one with gritty realism? A novel that has had an immense social impact? Or one that has more subtly affected the world? Here is a list of 10 novels that, for various reasons, have been considered some of the greatest works of literature ever written.
1.Anna Karenina
Author :- Leo Tolstoy
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Review: Any fan of stories that involve juicy subjects like adultery, gambling, marriage plots, and, well, Russian feudalism, would instantly place Anna Karenina at the peak of their “greatest novels” list. And that’s exactly the ranking that publications like Time magazine have given the novel since it was published in its entirety in 1878. Written by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, the eight-part towering work of fiction tells the story of two major characters: a tragic, disenchanted housewife, the titular Anna, who runs off with her young lover, and a lovestruck landowner named Konstantin Levin, who struggles in faith and philosophy. The novel was especially revolutionary in its treatment of women, depicting prejudices and social hardships of the time with vivid emotion. 
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2. One Hundred Years of Solitude
Author :- Gabriel Garcia Márquez
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Review :- The late Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez published his most-famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, in 1967. The novel tells the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and follows the establishment of their town Macondo until its destruction along with the last of the family’s descendents. In fantastical form, the novel explores the genre of magic realism by emphasizing the extraordinary nature of commonplace things while mystical things are shown to be common. Márquez highlights the prevalence and power of myth and folktale in relating history and Latin American culture. The novel won many awards for Márquez, leading the way to his eventual honor of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his entire body of work.
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3. A Passage to India
Author :- E.M.Forster
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Review: E.M. Forster wrote his novel A Passage to India after multiple trips to the country throughout his early life. The book was published in 1924 and follows a Muslim Indian doctor named Aziz and his relationships with an English professor, Cyril Fielding, and a visiting English schoolteacher named Adela Quested. When Adela believes that Aziz has assaulted her while on a trip to the Marabar caves near the fictional city of Chandrapore, where the story is set, tensions between the Indian community and the colonial British community rise. The possibility of friendship and connection between English and Indian people, despite their cultural differences and imperial tensions, is explored in the conflict. The novel’s colorful descriptions of nature and the landscape of India.
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4. Invisible Man
Author :- Ralph Ellison
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Review :- Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a groundbreaking novel in the expression of identity for the African American male. The narrator of the novel, a man who is never named but believes he is “invisible” to others socially, tells the story of his move from the South to college and then to New York City. In each location he faces extreme adversity and discrimination, falling into and out of work, relationships, and questionable social movements in a wayward and ethereal mindset.
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5. Don Quixote
Author :- Miguel de Cervantes
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Review: Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, perhaps the most influential and well-known work of Spanish literature, was first published in full in 1615. The novel, which is very regularly regarded as one of the best literary works of all time, tells the story of a man who takes the name “Don Quixote de la Mancha” and sets off in a fit of obsession over romantic novels about chivalry to revive the custom and become a hero himself. The character of Don Quixote has become an idol and somewhat of an archetypal character, influencing many major works of art, music, and literature since the novel’s publication.
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6. Beloved
Author :- Toni Morrison
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Review: Toni Morrison’s 1987 spiritual and haunting novel Beloved tells the story of an escaped slave named Sethe who has fled to Cincinnati, Ohio, in the year 1873. The novel investigates the trauma of slavery even after freedom has been gained, depicting Sethe’s guilt and emotional pain after having killed her own child, whom she named Beloved, to keep her from living life as a slave. A spectral figure appears in the lives of the characters and goes by the same name as the child, embodying the family’s anguish and hardship and making their feelings and past unavoidable.
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7. Mrs. Dalloway
Author :- Virginia Woolf 
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Review: Possibly the most idiosyncratic novel of this list, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway describes exactly one day in the life of a British socialite named Clarissa Dalloway. Using a combination of a third-person narration and the thoughts of various characters, the novel uses a stream-of-consciousness style all the way through. The result of this style is a deeply personal and revealing look into the characters’ minds, with the novel relying heavily on character rather than plot to tell its story. The thoughts of the characters include constant regrets and thoughts of the past, their struggles with mental illness and post-traumatic stress from World War I, and the effect of social pressures.
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8. Things Fall Apart
Author :- Chinua Achebe
Review: The Western canon of “great literature” often focuses on writers who come from North America or Europe and often ignores accomplished writers and amazing works of literature from other parts of the world. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, is one such work of African literature that had to overcome the bias of some literary circles and one that has been able to gain recognition worldwide despite it. The novel follows an Igbo man named Okonkwo, describing his family, the village in Nigeria where he lives, and the effects of British colonialism on his native country.
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9. Jane Eyre
Author :- Charlotte Brontë
Review: Jane Eyre, another novel often assigned for reading in school, was initially published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell to disguise the fact that the writer was a woman. Fortunately, a lot has changed with regard to women in literature since 1847, and Brontë now receives the credit she deserves for one of the most-groundbreaking novels about women in history. At a time when the author felt compelled to hide her true identity, Jane Eyre provided a story of individualism for women.
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10. The Color Purple
Author :- Alice Walker
Review :- Though the epistolary novel (a novel in the form of letters written by one or more characters) was most popular before the 19th century, Alice Walker became a champion of the style with her 1982 Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning novel The Color Purple. Set in the post-Civil War American South, the novel follows a young African American girl named Celie into adulthood in letters she writes to God and to her sister Nettie.
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thebaronmunchausen · 4 years
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Like most of you writers, I got my start as a writer in the campus press, first in high school, then in college. And, like most of my contemporaries I dreamed of a career in journalism—writing for the national newspapers and magazines, since, in those days, there was only print journalism. Creative writing programs, and even creative writing courses didn’t exist.
UST, my alma mater, offered a degree in Journalism (with course offerings which included the new fields of Advertising and Public Relations). In the same faculty (the Faculty of Philosophy & Letters, or Philets), which taught Journalism, it also offered a Bachelor of Philosophy (with course offerings which included many Literature subjects). I chose Philosophy even if I had no idea what profession a degree in Philosophy prepared one for, mainly because I wanted to take all those Literature courses.
In high school, while writing for and eventually editing The Paulinian, I began to contribute feature articles to several national magazines (all unfortunately short-lived). As a sophomore in college, while writing for and eventually editing The Varsitarian, I wrote a weekly column in the youth section of the “Manila Chronicle”; and as a senior, I became Editor of the youth section of the “Weekly Graphic”. So, when I graduated from college, I considered myself a professional journalist.
But what I really wanted to be was a writer of short stories, and, of course, to win a Palanca. This didn’t come easily to me. It was essays that I wrote, and the Palanca Awards then did not yet include the essay category. My best friend had already won a Palanca for her poetry while still an undergraduate. But I hadn’t even published a story! And when she was invited to be part of the first Writers’ Workshop in Silliman, and I wasn’t, I was devastated.
When my first short story was published, I was 25, married and a mother. When I won my first Palanca, my husband had accepted a job with UNICEF, and we were living in Beirut. The news got to me in a letter from my mother, sent via diplomatic pouch by UNICEF in Manila. Tony was out of the country, and my oldest daughter was in school. So the only one I could share my big news with was my second daughter, Anna, who was around 4 years old. I said to her: “Anna, guess what, I won a prize for my story—I got 3rd prize.” She thought about that for a moment, and then, she said, “Gee, Ma, you have to try harder next time.”
I have another favorite Palanca memory. It happened in this very room on Palanca Night. I was here with my husband, Tony. Either he or I had served as judge for one of the categories. A young man came up to greet us—it was the late Luis Katigbak, still an undergraduate in the UP’s Creative Writing Program then. He looked rather self -conscious in his dark suit. I had only ever seen him in t-shirts and jeans, so I almost didn’t recognize him. We congratulated him for his prize, and he shook our hands, gave us a wide smile, and a little bow. After he had left us, Tony said to me, “That’s the look and the swagger of a writer who has just won his first Palanca. Recognize it?”
And every Palanca night since, I have seen that look and that swagger in some of the young writers in attendance. But now and again, I wonder: how long will this last? The question I’m asking is not long will the Palanca Awards last, but how long will writers keep on wanting and trying to produce the kind of writing that wins a Palanca award?
Why am I asking this question? We all know that in the different branches of the country’s biggest bookstore chain, what few shelves are devoted to books are not occupied by literary titles written by Filipino writers. Of course, these days, the question that follows naturally on that one is: but what do we mean by that term “literary title”?
A few months ago, at a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Book Development Association of the Philippines (BDAP), I heard another term used for the first time: “hard literature.” I learned that, in the publishing world, the term has replaced the earlier term, “serious literature.” As a writer, and a reader, my own definition of “serious literature” is literature that is carefully crafted, literature that seeks to explore ideas which the writer feels strongly about, literature that is written, not just to share experiences, but to offer insights about its subject. In other words, literature which has a chance of winning a Palanca award.
But at that meeting I am referring to, the speaker (himself a very successful local publisher, who happens to be here tonight, and who has given me permission to mention his name—Mr. Jun Matias of Precious Pages and Lampara) made a pitch for Filipino publishers to be more open—not just to “hard literature”—but to all forms writing. There is so much of it being produced now, he said, so many young people wanting to share their stories, and so many people wanting to read them, that publishers who choose to continue to ignore it, or “judge” it—by which he meant, look down on it—run the risk of being left behind. This made me sit up.
Jun then showed us a brief video of one of his authors—a Wattpad writer—arriving for a “meetup.” This writer’s fans were so numerous that they had to open another room to accommodate them. When she arrived, she was received like a rock star—with screams and shrieks and wild applause. And she looked the part too—young and slim with straight long hair, her face partly hidden by huge shades.
Another publisher later told me that her company has been in an arrangement with Wattpad since 2014, to turn selected Wattpad novels into print novels. One of these, “She’s Dating a Gangster” by Bianca Bernardino became, not just an National Bookstore bestseller, but the first Wattpad novel to be turned into a movie (by Star Cinema, with Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla in the lead roles).
This publisher also informed me that their most popular writer, Jonaxx, is so big that the company has created an imprint just for her. Her real name is Jonah Mae Panen Pacala; she’s 28 years old and a pre-school teacher from Cagayan de Oro. According to her fan page she is the first Filipina Wattpad author to gain 1 million followers. Last year, that figure went up to 2.7M+. And her fans are so fiercely devoted to her that they object to her novels’ being changed in any way, including correcting grammar and syntax. “Mapapansin Kaya?” the first of her books to be published, had a print run of 40,000. Seven of her books have been published so far. Since she joined Wattpad in 2012, she has published 32 novels. (That was a year ago. Perhaps she has since produced more.)
Actually, my initial reaction to the Wattpad phenomenon when I first heard of it was astonishment. I had no idea that so many people wanted to write fiction. But why not? Looking back on my own teen years… didn’t I, too, want to write stories?
I began writing stories because I loved reading them. I’m talking about novels like “Little Women” and “Anne of Green Gables” and “Daddy Long Legs;” and later, the Nancy Drew series and the Beverly Gray series—what today are called “YA novels.” My world was a small one. My parents were conservative and kept me at home most of the time. To use a hoary cliché, reading books opened doors for me, doors into other, larger, worlds.
When I first tried to write stories, I was a pre-teen. I simply wanted to imitate the stories I had read. The heroines in those stories had adventures; they fell in love. And they wanted to be writers! They became my role models. My writing—like my reading—was not so much for self-expression or sharing with others. It was a form of escape, an escape from a life I considered boring and humdrum.
But I outgrew those stories. There was something predictable in their plots, and in their characters, principally, the little orphan girl, neglected and deprived of love, but gifted with a vivid imagination. After various mishaps, some painful, sone hilarious, she transforms into a strong-minded, large-hearted, confident, accomplished, and lovely young woman; and of course finds a young man worthy of her.
So, I moved on to Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, to Mark Twain and Harper Lee and Charles Dickens. I discovered Nick Joaquin and Kerima Polotan and Carmen Guerrero Nakpil. I realized I was no longer reading just for escape. Without fully realizing what I was looking for, I just knew I was looking for something else, for something more.
My writing began to change as well. I showed my new essays and stories to my English teachers and the school paper adviser. When they edited these, or wrote comments on the margins, I did not take this as an infringement on my freedom. Neither did any of my classmates, by the way. We took it as an effort to help us become better writers. And we were grateful. (Which is I find it difficult to understand why, today, some beginning writers are averse to being edited.)
Anyway, this whole process simply meant that I was growing up as a person. And that I was developing as a writer.
Today, I ask myself: if the Net had existed when I was a teen-ager, and had it been possible to post my scribblings on an app like Wattpad, without the benefit of comments or suggestions from teachers or more experienced writers; had I acquired a huge following, and my stories been turned into printed books, which would sell copies in the hundreds of thousands… if these things had happened to me, would I have chosen to stop writing girlish romances, and moved on to other subjects, and other ways of writing? What would have been the reason for doing so?
It has occurred to me that this may well be the situation some of the Wattpad writers find themselves in. They’re already successful. What else do they need to do? In particular, why do they need to go to college and study writing?
Actually, I know people—some of them, writers—who believe that one does not have to get a degree in creative writing to become a writer. And that is certainly true. National Artists Nick Joaquin, NVM Gonzalez, Francisco Arcellana didn’t have degrees in Creative Writing. National Artists Bienvnido Lumbera, Virgilio Almario, and Frankie Sionil Jose don’t have degrees in creative writing. And, as I said earlier, neither do I.
The establishment of Creative Writing as an academic discipline is relatively new (unlike the B.A. in Fine Arts and the B.A. in Music, which have been around for more than a century). But I’m not quite sure why anyone would discourage young writers from wanting to get degrees in creative writing.
The myth seems to be that a formal education in writing will “destroy” your natural, instinctive talent. And, perhaps, there ARE some teachers out there whose methods may, in fact, have a negative effect on their students. But doesn’t this happen in all fields, be they the arts, the natural sciences, or the social sciences? There are good teachers and bad teachers; there are teachers whom some students find inspiring while others find them boring.
I tell my students that, at some point, they should become pro-active and choose the mentor they feel is the best suited to their own temperaments, someone they admire and trust and feel they can work with. Such a mentor cannot harm them; in fact, he or she, is more likely to be a great help to them.
I’ve said this often before: writing is a profession like any other. One trains to become a professional. It is accepted as natural that people in the other arts, like painting or sculpture should wish to enroll in a College of Fine Arts, and musicians should wish to enter a Conservatory of Music. And, certainly in the visual arts and in music, the more highly skilled you are, the bigger your chances of selling your works via the great international auction houses or doing solo performances to the accompaniment of great symphony orchestras. Why should it be any different for literature?
Of course writers who don’t want to get a university education don’t have to get it. But if they’re serious about making writing their career—if they wish to be professional writers—they need some form of training, even if it be self-training. All training requires hard work, but this kind of training—self-training—even more so.
One learns any skill, first, by imitating those who know how to do it. Even child prodigies—like Tiger Woods, who was playing golf when he was two years old—took golf lessons, from his father, first of all. Even gifted musicians—like the band Queen and its brilliant front man Freddie Mercury—have acknowledged the influence on their work of other rock stars, whom they respected, and whose music they spent time studying: Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix.
When the UST Center for Creative Writing invited Ely Buendia to speak at a forum on song writing, I asked him what he thought had led to the Eraser Heads’ great success. He said he didn’t know, but he also told me that he had admired many other musicians, had studied them, and tried to incorporate those influences into his music. He mentioned, in particular, Elvis Presley (who, in turn, had been influenced by African American blues, southern country music, and gospel music). And he mentioned our own folk songs, which he said he had also studied.
To return to what I was saying earlier: what would be the incentive of the phenomenally popular and commercially successful Wattpad writer to raise the level of her writing skills, and take on concerns larger than first love or first heartbreak?
Actually, I know someone who has done just that. Perhaps some of you will recognize the name Charmaine M. Lasar. She’s a 20-year-old Wattpad writer, who won the Carlos Palanca award for the novel in Filipino in 2015. She has been quoted to the effect that she joined the Palanca literary contest because she “wanted to refute the idea that only garbage comes out of Wattpad.” But she also added that, in writing her 35,000-word novel, Toto-O, which she claims to have written in just one month, she “consciously deviated from her Wattpad writing style, which is looser and more carefree,” and opted to write something that was “medyo malalim” in terms of language.” Also, its plot has nothing to do with young love or heartbreak.
The novel was published in 2016 by JumpMedia. And last year, Maine was accepted by the UP Institute of Creative Writing as a writing fellow for its National Writers Workshop. I met her there, and she told me she was considering saving up to enroll for a Creative Writing degree. I salute her, and I salute the Palanca Awards for giving her the recognition she earned.
Her crossover is proof that the two worlds—the world of pop fiction and the world of hard literature—are not mutually exclusive.
Back in 1999, after retiring from government service, my husband (who, in one of his earlier incarnations, had also been a poet, an essayist , and a journalist), set up a small publishing company that he ran pretty much by himself. He had in mind two lines: information books, and literature. But when he found out how small the print run of most literary titles was, he was shocked. Why, he asked me, would I go to all that trouble and use up all that time to write a novel or a collection of short stories or essays, if only a thousand people were going to read me?
He was determined to publish books that would appeal to larger audiences, and he decided that the way to do that was to produce short, light, nonfiction books, targetting readers in their 20s and 30s; books which would be accessible, without losing their literary quality. Many of the writers he published were first-time authors, like Vlad Gonzalez, Carljoe Javier, Rica Bolipata Santos; but he also published writers who already had something of a name, like Marivi Soliven Blanco, and Luis Katigbak; and award-winning writers like Butch Dalisay, Vince Groyon, and Chris Martinez. The award winners were not averse to trying their hand at writing that would have a more popular appeal.
Milflores books did well in terms of sales. A few did exceptionally well. And some of the Miflores books also won awards, like Rica Bolipata Santos’ “Love, Desire, Children, Etc.,” which won the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award.
Today, we have Visprint Publishing, which is doing something similar, but on a much larger scale. Some of the writers whom Nida Ramirez publishes are actually academics, like Chuckberry Pascual, Joselito Delos Reyes, and John Jack Wigley. All three have written “hard literature.” All have won awards for their writing. But Nida has chosen to publish their lighter work. Visprint books are small, inexpensive, light, humorous. Nida has also published the speculative fiction of Eliza Victoria and the graphic fiction of Manix Abrera. Actually, none of Visprint’s titles are sleepers. And some have won literary awards too. In fact, in 2015, Visprint received a National Book Award as Publisher of the Year, a prize which goes to the publisher with the biggest number of winning titles for that year.
So Visprint would seem to represent the happy bridge between the commercially successful book and the artistically lauded book, proving, yet again, that these are not incompatible.
In that sense, this is actually a very exciting time for writers. There have never been so many choices available, including what would have been mind-boggling for me and my contemporaries: self-publishing online.
Before making those choices, though, writers need to figure out a few things. First, what kind of books do they want to write? Second, what kind of writers do they want to be, or think they can be? Third, do they mainly want to entertain readers, or to challenge them intellectually, or to influence them politically? Do they want to make as much money as they can? Or do they want to write in the best way they know how? Or do they want to try and do both? And, finally, how do they want their books distributed—by commercial publishers? by academic publishing houses? by themselves, on line and in small expos?
These choices will be determined by what they believe the function of literature is in a country like ours, at the time in which we live, and what role they want to play in it as writers.
Because I am a writer who is also a publisher, I understand the need to be commercially viable. But, as an educator, I also believe that public service is an important responsibility of the publishing industry. And this means recognizing that expanding the market for books is important, not just for bigger profits, but because more educated citizens make more mature citizens—an indispensable element for any experiment in democracy, like ours.
In concrete terms, this means: on the one hand, accepting the level at which most of our reading public is—what it’s willing to read, what it enjoys reading—and, on the other hand, committing at least a part of the resources available to producing books which will upgrade standards and tastes.
Personally, I remain committed to writing in the best way I know how, no matter how small the audience for this kind of writing might be. Because I feel that literature of this sort—“hard literature,” if you will --serves its own purpose.
In another essay, I wrote about this, and perhaps you will allow me to quote from it: “Writers of all generations have tried to define that purpose. But there are periods in our history when it becomes startlingly clear. The period we live in today, in this country, is one of them—one of those periods when events, both natural and man-made, conspire to drain one of all hope that better times lie ahead."
I mentioned the book, "Sonoran Desert Summer," by John Alcock, professor of Zoology at Arizona State University, where he describes June in the desert as "the month of almost no hope for all living creatures, with the temperature at 102 degrees, rainfall at two-tenths of an inch, and a wind that has removed almost every hint of moisture from the desert world."
He calls it "a time for hanging on, enduring, letting the days pass."
And then, he describes how, suddenly… "from the boulders on the still shaded lower slope of Usery Mountain comes a song, the clear, descending trill of a canyon wren. Loud, defiant, and encouraging, it announces a survivor... (The bird) bounds from rock to rock, at perfect ease in its home in the desert.’’
Sometimes I think that this might be the reason we do it, the reason we keep on writing. This is our song, “defiant and encouraging.”
As writers, we all know that we must stay the course, most particularly in bleak times such as those that confront us now. We will not necessarily agree on what we are called upon to do, but we will do it according to our best lights. We will observe, we will record, we will protest. Above all, we will remember. And we will endure.
Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
*Speech delivered during the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, November 8, 2019, at the Manila Peninsula, where the author was Guest of Honor and received the Dangal ng Lahi Award
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promonetpublishing · 5 years
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PROMONET INTERNATIONAL AWARD OF DIGITAL NARRATIVE 2019
Promonet Publishing, a young publisher that offers online publishing services, celebrates its 8th Anniversary with the official launch of the international award, which is dedicated to the independent publication of new authors in two categories that are Fiction and Nonfiction. This purpose is based on the motto of our editorial "Promoting knowledge on the Internet". With the fact of presenting his work to this Prize, the author of the work accepts that it will be governed by the following bases that are explained below:
Novice writers of any nationality, of legal age, who have written a single work in English, original and unpublished, and who are not participating in other contests during the award of this prize, may participate.
To participate, only the file of the work will be accepted in digital format .txt, rtf, doc, docx or PDF. At no time will the postal work of the work be requested in a portable storage unit, nor will the printed format of the participating works be expedited in order to expedite the selection process. All participants will be sent a confirmation email regarding the successful reception of their work and participant data, or if necessary, they will be notified of any necessary correction for their re-submission within the term of this call. There is not a fee payment to participate.
The work and data of the participant should be sent only to our email:
Two categories are presented:
• Fictional digital narrative: The work is included in fiction according to the short narrative of a single author, as a collection of short stories, micro stories, short stories or novels. Works of an extension of up to 150 pages maximum, with arial letter, double spacing, and one-inch margins will be accepted. The theme of the work is free, but the following subgenres are recommended: romantic, terror and mystery, political satire, humor, erotic and police.
• Nonfiction digital narrative: Only the work, written by one or two authors, is included in this category, according to the academic research of any professional field such as essay, collection of journalism articles, manuals and guides. Works of an extension of up to 150 pages maximum, with arial letter, double spacing, and one-inch margins will be accepted. The theme of the work is free, but the following subgenres are recommended: scientific, social, political and economic. It is accepted that tables, graphics and images with a good resolution of 300 ppi are included in the digital file of the nonfiction work.
Participation by real name of author and / or pseudonym is allowed. In either case, two attachments must be sent in the same email; one of the Work and another of the Data of the participant, with the following: Title of the work, Pseudonym (if it has one), Legal name of the author of the participating work, Literary genre, Sub thematic gender, Identity document number or passport, country of residence, address, email, cell phone number (WhatsApp if you have it), Brief biographical review of the author and recent photo.
The deadline for sending the works will be until 23:59 Pacific time, on January 31, 2020.
The works of the 10 finalists will be announced through the official website of Promonet Publishing in July 2019, after which two winners and three finalists will be chosen, who will be chosen according to their category based on the narrative quality of the argument, or innovation. in academic research.
The prize will consist of 1 package of digital edition services, whose unit value ranges from $ 300.00, for the complete edition and publication of the 2 winning works in ebook format or e-book and soft cover edition for sale on demand in the platform that Promonet assign you, with a free promotion on the Internet through ads linked to the official sales site and video book trailers for a maximum period of 3 years, counted from the date of announcement of the ruling. If considered, the organization of the Prize may also consider granting the other 5 selected finalists special discounts for editing and editing services within a limited time for those who have not won, have the interest to hire at a lower price editing services, self-publishing, translation into Spanish, Italian or Portuguese the promotion of your participant work with Promonet Publishing. In addition packages of free ebooks owned by the digital publisher will be deliver.
The prize could not be declared void.
The jury will consist of three employees of Ediciones Promonet that will be revealed at the time of the ruling in an estimated date for the end of July 2020, of which all participants will be informed through the site.
Subsequent communication will be maintained with the 5 winning participants through email and social networks. It is assumed that all participants to this award are subscribed to the contact base by e-mail of Editions Promonet, until they express their express request to unsubscribe from it.
Promonet Publishing waives the right to charge or receive any percentage of what has been earned for the sales of its work by the two winning authors in its sales platform and gives them these rights for life. The finalists grant Ediciones Promonet the use of their cover and parts of the content of their prize-winning work to promote themselves on their official websites and blogs on the Internet, as well as their face photography for an indefinite period, in addition to the placement of advertising within Promonet Publishing collections at the end of your ebook and in the printed book when your published work is published.
The two authors of the awarded works will hold 70% of their international royalties, (the remaining 30% will correspond to the service of an online sales platform such as Amazon, Casa del Libro, Kobo Rakuten, etc.) as well as their rights connected by the authorship of their works such as adaptation, independent reissue by printing and others. With the exception of the right of distribution, whereby they assume that Promonet Publishing will advise them in the process of self-publishing in all tasks that this implies, such as their editorial under exclusive hiring without cost. This includes the creation of a personalized account of the author or author of each work where he will have to supply the editor with some general, personal and secure banking information, with the sole purpose of receiving by direct electronic transfer the funds provided by his royalties and sales reports. within the period deemed appropriate for the cancellation or extension of this commitment between the parties.
Promonet Publishing as a publishing services company, assumes a vision based on respect for human rights, and civil liberties, for which it will not accept or promote works that violate the principles of peace and social justice, as can happen with violence, racism, discrimination and abuse against civil rights.
Promonet Publishing will guarantee the confidentiality of the use of the data sent to this contest, and will assume the responsibility of eliminating all the files that are not awarded. It will also be limited as an intermediary agency or third party before the possible legal implications presented to the author of his work before the External Sales Platform, and to obtain the prize, the author will even assume the payment of his taxes that will generate its e-commerce activities according to each country, for which the winning author releases any responsibility for any event that could affect the representatives of this International Prize with its main office in the Republic of Panama.
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cameoamalthea · 6 years
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Drawing porn of child characters from comics or cartoons is NOT ILLEGAL in the United States (only obscenity is illegal) - Also if you’re going to copy/paste laws - actually read them
Someone asked me to weigh in on this post Before I could respond, I was blocked (I’m not sure how since OP deactivated, maybe someone who has me blocked has reblogged it? In any case, if you want to reblog the correct information you can reblog this post or add your own correction to that post).
OP correctly cited the applicable law, but it appears they did not actually read it or do not comprehend it.
(a)In General.—Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that—                    
(1)                        
(A)    depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and 
(B)    is obscene; or                                                                
(2)                      
  (A)    depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and  
   (B)    lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;  or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A(b)(1), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.                                
(the definition of obscenity includes lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value, so the law is doubly clear - in order for a work of art/fiction to be illegal it has to lack literary/artistic value). 
This is in contrast to laws banning child pornography. Child Pornography is always illegal because in order to produce it a crime must be committed (a child must be sexually abused) and the market for it creates a demand which provides economic incentive to abuse children/sell children. That is why even receipt or possession of child pornography is a serious crime. If there is demand for child pornography (people who want it/seek it/get it) then there is incentive to create more of it and that incentive means more children will be sexually abused, raped and sold. Often child sex trafficking begins with child pornography.
(Please report Child Pornography if you see it. This can help save victims who are still being abused). 
In the United States, fictional works are protected by the 1st Amendment. No one is harmed in order to produce works of fiction. The demand for fiction does not provide economic incentive to harm anyone.
However, the 1st Amendment does not protect works deemed to be obscene. Any work can be found to be obscene if it meets the definition of obscenity (or if a person charged with obscenity pleads guilty rather than defend their rights).
Fiction that features sexual depictions of minors are not considered obscene simply because they sexually depict minors. The standard of obscenity is not ‘this is gross’ or ‘I don’t like the idea of this’.
The Supreme Court held that such speech has “serious redeeming value” and noted that “the visual depiction of an idea-that of teenagers engaging in sexual activity-that is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and literature for centuries.”
In order for a work to be obscene it has to fall under the Miller Test. More from the Supreme Court on the subject of fiction:
“Both themes-teenage sexual activity and the sexual abuse of children-have inspired countless literary works. William Shakespeare created the most famous pair of teenage lovers, one of whom is just 13 years of age. See Romeo and Juliet, act I, sc. 2, 1. 9 ("She hath not seen the change of fourteen years"). In the drama, Shakespeare portrays the relationship as something splendid and innocent, but not juvenile. The work has inspired no less than 40 motion pictures, some of which suggest that the teenagers consummated their relationship. E. g., Romeo and Juliet (B. Luhrmann director, 1996). Shakespeare may not have written sexually explicit scenes for the Elizabethan audience, but were modern directors to adopt a less conventional approach, that fact alone would not compel the conclusion that the work was obscene.
Contemporary movies pursue similar themes. Last year's Academy Awards featured the movie, Traffic, which was nominated for Best Picture. See Predictable and Less So, the Academy Award Contenders, N. Y. Times, Feb. 14, 2001, p. Ell. The film portrays a teenager, identified as a 16year-old, who becomes addicted to drugs. The viewer sees the degradation of her addiction, which in the end leads her to a filthy room to trade sex for drugs. 
The year before, American Beauty won the Academy Award for Best Picture. See "American Beauty" Tops the Oscars, N. Y. Times, Mar. 27, 2000, p. El. In the course of the movie, a teenage girl engages in sexual relations with her teenage boyfriend, and another yields herself to the gratification of a middle-aged man. The film also contains a scene where, although the movie audience understands the act is not taking place, one character believes he is watching a teenage boy performing a sexual act on an older man.
 Our society, like other cultures, has empathy and enduring fascination with the lives and destinies of the young. Art and literature express the vital interest we all have in the formative years we ourselves once knew, when wounds can be so grievous, disappointment so profound, and mistaken choices so tragic, but when moral acts and self-fulfillment are still in reach.”
Art/fiction can depict minors in sexual situation and not be obscene, if there is artistic value to the work as a whole. 
 “The artistic merit of a work does not depend on the presence of a single explicit scene. See Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Mass., 383 U. S. 413, 419 (1966) (plurality opinion) ("[T]he social value of the book can neither be weighed against nor canceled by its prurient appeal or patent offensiveness"). Under Miller, the First Amendment requires that redeeming value be judged by considering the work as a whole. Where the scene is part of the narrative, the work itself does not for this reason become obscene, even though the scene in isolation might be offensive. See Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U. S. 229, 231 (1972) (per 249 Curiam}.”
 So unless the work is obscene per the Miller test/ lacks the artistic and literary value when taken as whole, then it’s protected speech. (See Ashcroft vs Free Speech Colilition https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/535/234/#tab-opinion-1961047).
You can find other posts about laws under the tag #laws . These posts are informative and do not constitute legal advice. 
(Also, if posting gross things on the internet was illegal 4chan would have been taken down a long time ago)  And if anyone harasses people for asking legal questions or sharing legal information, that’s messed up. Movies, books, drawings etc that you don’t like don’t hurt people. Harassing and slandering anyone hurts people.
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infactforgetthepark · 2 years
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[Free eBook] 3-book omnibus from Tor [Award-Winning Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery with LGBT Romance]
As a special Valentine's Day-themed treat for their Free eBook Club of the Month offer for February, an omnibus edition of 3 award-winning science fiction & fantasy tales (some with romantic and suspense elements), is offered free for a limited time, courtesy of publisher Macmillan's Tor Books imprint.
Through Friday, February 18th, you can download a special omnibus compilation of the following 2 novellas + 1 novel:
All Systems Red by Martha Wells, the 1st novella in the Murderbot Diaries space opera series starring a sarcastic rogue security AI, which won the 2017 Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella, and was one of the recipients for the American Library Association's annual Alex Awards spotlighting adult-level works considered to be appealing and suitable for older YA readers. This first story is a bit of a murder mystery, involving a suspicious industrial accident whose continuing investigation will form an overarching arc to further adventures.
Silver in the Wood by British author Emily Tesh, the 1st novella in the Greenhollow duology of historical-ish gothic rural fantasy with apparently m/m romantic elements, drawing upon the traditional folklore of the English countryside. This won the 2020 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella.
Witchmark by Canadian author C. L. Polk, the 1st novel in the Kingston Cycle which takes place in an alternate history version of England known as Aeland, in an approximately Edwardian-era equivalent setting. This is a magical murder mystery with m/m romantic elements, which won the 2019 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and was also a finalist for the Nebula, Aurora, and Lambda Literary Awards.
Offered DRM-free through Friday, February 18th (until just before midnight Eastern Time) in Canada & US (due to publishing rights geo-restrictions), available directly from the publisher.
Currently available @ the publisher's dedicated promo page (DRM-free ePub & Mobi officially only available to Canada & US but they don't really seem to check, requires newsletter signup with valid email address), and you can read more about the offer on the announcement blogpost and also check out the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of parent publisher Macmillan's eBook Deals page for their promo selection of $2.99 Tor Books which should mostly be good through the month of February.
Description The Tor.com Ebook Club Loves You SO MUCH
BUNDLE O’ LOVE
Wow! It’s three great books for free!
Witchmark When a fatally poisoned patient exposes Miles’ healing gift and his witchmark, he must put his anonymity and freedom at risk to investigate his patient’s murder. To find the truth he’ll need to rely on the family he despises, and on the kindness of the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen.
Silver In The Wood There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome and intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes.
All Systems Red As a heartless killing machine, Murderbot has been a complete failure. Addicted to soap operas and scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. Emotional connections are…inconvenient.
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theraistlinmajere · 6 years
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THE “”GOTHIC”” REC LIST
Edited for my own use.
LET’S START WITH THE GATEWAY DRUG BOOK
1. Flowers in the Attic (VC Andrews): Published in 1979 and technically considered contemporary Gothic. The style closely resembles a lot of “original” Gothic fiction I’ve read, but the themes, story arc and style are distinctly contemporary and very psychological. Gets a bad rap because it’s over the top insane and averagely written (which most Gothic is, tbh). Flowers is light reading, and I think it’s a good gateway drug into heavier Gothic. Has several sequels but stands alone as well. I wish I could call this Victorian-inspired Gothic but honestly it’s just knockoff Victorian in a contemporary setting. If you don’t enjoy this book, it probably means you don’t like the over the top insanity and average writing. Skip it if you like!
1.5. But if you do like it, I hear My Sweet Audrina is pretty good. All of VC Andrews and her ghostwriters are like a hellhole people sometimes don’t escape tbh it’s a raging aesthetic disaster down there.
Note: I have a strong suspicion that “contemporary” Gothic published between 1965 and 1989 will eventually have its own movement name; you will see a decent amount of it on this list.
THE VICTORIAN GOTHIC PART OF THE LIST Most of these are available for free online due to copyright law being born late or whatever. 2. Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu): Considered the first English vampire story (Germans invented the European vampire allegedly), and published in 187…9? 1871? Something like that. A novella. Arguably a same-sex romance (VERY arguably), but can also be read as a close friendship. The writing is good, but not the absolute greatest I’ve ever read. The real strong point here is the imagery and the dawn of the English vampire. Great Halloween read; I read it almost every autumn. 3. “The Trifecta,” according to Gothic fans: Dracula (Bram Stoker), Frankenstein (Shelley), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Swift & Stevenson): First mainstream vampire, original English monster movie fuel, and the dawn of psychological fiction. Shelley’s the best writer out of all of them but she’s a Romantic and I’m sort of biased against Romantics. She’s a precursor to true Victorian Gothic. Dracula is still one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read and it’s the only one in the trifecta I really really love (and finished).
Note: If, by any chance, you find yourself seriously obsessed with vampires at any point in time, please consult me for an extended list of vampire fiction because I have a shit-ton of it in my reading history and left most of it out so vampires wouldn’t clutter this list lmao.
4. Edgar Allan Poe, Completed Works. The Cask of Amontillado, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Tell-Tale Heart are all notable. His poetry is lovely–Annabelle Lee and The Raven are most culturally significant. Just solid and wonderful work that I like a lot but haven’t explored in a lot of detail. Will appeal to your interest in darkness imagery.
5. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories (Washington Irving): QUINTESSENTIAL HALLOWEEN READING. SPOOPY. WONDERFUL. I truly love this anthology. Will also appeal to your interest in darkness as a concept and a physical thing. 6. Nightmare Abbey (Thomas Love Peacock): an 1818 novel that makes fun of the Victorian Gothic movement. Hilarious, contains all the typical Victorian Gothic tropes and has the added benefit of actually falling into the Victorian Gothic movement ironically. Usually comes packaged with another novel called Crotchet Castle which is similar. 7. If, somehow, you haven’t had it with Victorian Gothic yet (and I got to this point, it happens, Victorian Gothic is a slippery slope)… Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke): A really bizarre story behind how this was published, at least it is to me. Published in 2004, Over 10 years in the making and is written in the Victorian Gothic style but with a quirky and modern twist. The writer takes a page out of contemporary social commentary and includes pages-long footnotes, heads up (they’re funny and entertaining though). HUGE. You could kill a man with this volume. Excellent writing; I’m halfway through. I hear there’s time travel (?) and there are about ten thousand characters. Neil Gaiman is a fan. 8. The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux) is not technically Victorian (Technically Edwardian? Also French; I’m not familiar with French literary eras) but of course it has a huge following. I’ve read a little so far; I like the style and I think it’s culturally significant. You might want to read this because it’s heavily inspired by a French opera house, the Palais Garnier in Paris. Amber tells me she read literature in French to help sharpen her skills in the language; you may consider picking up an un-translated version of this? A BRIEF INTERLUDE FOR MORE CONTEMPORARY 9. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice): One of my favorite books of all time! Possibly the dawn of the romanticized vampire. Falls into that 70s contemporary Gothic bracket and is pretty amazingly written, but markedly more angst-ridden than anything else on the list (save for maybe Flowers). Lots of “what is evil?” and “what does immortality imply?” type speculation. Also gets a bad rap because Anne Rice made it big and haters are rife tbh it’s a very solidly built book in my opinion (BUT SUPER EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES). If you like this, continue with The Vampire Chronicles (The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, Prince Lestat, and about 8 others in between that concern minor characters). Lestat is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. 10. Coraline (Neil Gaiman): Quick, cute, I found myself actually afraid for a little while despite the audience being middle grade readers?? I enjoyed it. The only Neil Gaiman on the list because his other work doesn’t impress me very much. 11. The Spiderwick Chronicles (Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi): More middle-grade creepy aesthetic stuff. Cute modern fantasy stories, five volumes. I can read these books at twenty years old and still enjoy them (like Coraline)! The only good thing Holly Black has ever produced, in my opinion, though many people like her and her ~aesthetic.
11.5. Should you find yourself in the mood for more quick middle-grade aesthetic-y stuff, Pure Dead Magic (Debi Gliori) is really an adorable book with two sequels. Victorian Gothic tropes such as the creepy mansion, creatures in the dungeon, family drama, and Weird Newcomers are all present, but it’s set in modern times. One of the main characters is a hacker. Addams family-esque.
THE SURREAL-ISH FICTION PART OF THE LIST
Not true surreal fiction; these are contemporary surreal-inspired works. 12. The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter): An anthology of short stories which retell fairy tales. Falls into the contemporary surrealism movement and is not traditionally considered Gothic, but this is definitely your aesthetic. Very quick read, very vivid imagery, lots of second-wave feminism and some brief eating disorder symbolism. Carter was a phenomenal writer! My favorite story is “The Lady of the House of Love"
12.5 (Just as a reminder since I’ve mentioned these) See also: Nights at the Circus (Carter) and Mechanique: A tale of the Circus Tresaulti (Valentine) for your interest in circus books!
13. The Palace of Curiosities (Rosie Garland), which I also rec’d before. Similar style to Chamber, similar themes. Both beautiful books. 14. Deathless (Catherynne Valente): Oh, Deathless. Technically contemporary lit, but hails to Russian Gothic (one of the earlier Gothic movements which I haven’t read much of). Retelling of about a million Russian folk tales. I could go on about this book for a thousand years. Stylistically similar to The Bloody Chamber as well, but far more poetic. (Very) structurally inferior to every other book on this list, but so heart-wrenchingly romantic you won’t notice or care on the first read. Visually breathtaking, absolutely the closest thing to death and the maiden imagery I’ve found in fiction. I’m fairly confident you’ll appreciate this one! Might as well read it to test my theory!! There’s controversy surrounding the fact that the writer is not Russian–something to be aware of. 15. The Enchanted (Rene Denfeld): TREAD WITH CAUTION. This is contemporary literary fiction (not Gothic) written from the pov of a death row inmate. Nominated for approximately a billion awards in 2014 (and won a few); high caliber of writing. Incredibly visceral, horrific, psychological imagery that was too much for me, though I still liked it. Short but dense–I had to take a two-day break to ward off the anxiety it caused. But you are darker~ than I so you might like it more!
THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC PART OF THE LIST 16. Beloved (Toni Morrison): Contemporary Southern Gothic. Incredibly creepy imagery, explores the connection between women’s issues and racial issues. Uses abortion and slavery as metaphors for each other. Gracefully written, but Southern Gothic (even contemporary) tends to be textually dense so it’s something to really think about as you read. 17. As I Lay Dying (Faulkner): “True” Southern Gothic. DENSE AS HELL but I think Beloved is a good precursor to Faulkner. A lot of almost comedic family drama, similar to Flowers in that sense, but very srs bsns nonetheless.
17.5. Basically all of Faulkner is considered Southern Gothic. He’s the father of Southern Gothic. If you enjoy this, you might also like Absalom! Absalom! and other such works. I loved As I Lay Dying but it’s possibly his easiest read, and while I love a good challenge I haven’t stepped up to this one yet.
Note: I use reading guides for all my classical works and Shakespeare, and I think there are good ones for Faulkner too, so that might be something to look into if you wanna vanish into this hell lol.
AN ADDENDUM: OTHER WRITERS
HP Lovecraft: Father of horror or whatever. Awful writer–anyone will agree. The guy had no command of language, but he’s known for over-the-top horror imagery that people really enjoy. Honestly I hate his writing so I haven’t bothered with much of it.
Oscar Wilde: If, by this point, you still want more Victorian-era writing, Wilde is here for you. Lots of social commentary, wrote basically one piece in the Gothic style (Chapter 16 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, my favorite novel), snarky as hell, incredibly gifted writer.
Neil Gaiman: Modern surreal in my opinion, sometimes called modern Gothic, well-loved and writes creepy things. I think he’s average because I’ve read too much Murakami (who does “modern surreal” way, way better) but many people really love him.
THE BLACKLIST Knockoff Gothic/Gothic themed things to avoid. I apologize if you like any of these okay ._.
The Grisha Trilogy (Leigh Bardugo): Contemporary YA, tries to be Russian Gothic and fails. Stick to Deathless. This book makes a mockery of Russian culture whereas at least Valente exhaustively researched her novel. Also doesn’t do romance very well.
The Night Circus (Morgenstern): What the hell is this book, tbh. 400 pages of obtuse and cliched imagery which you don’t have time for in your life. No plot. Two-dimensional characters, bad writing.
Those Across The River (Christopher Buehlman): Terrible. Just terrible.
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10 fiction Chinese books
FICTION
The Three Body Problem- Liu Cixin
“The title is a reference to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. The book is one of the most popular science fiction novels from China. The Three-Body Problem starts off in the age of China's cultural revolution, when academics are prosecuted for promoting science and teaching it to students.”
https://www.thehindu.com/books/liu-cixins-the-three-body-problem-holds-a-mirror-to-human-society/article22491136.ece#:~:text=The%20title%20is%20a%20reference,and%20teaching%20it%20to%20students.
Dream of Ding Village- Yan Lianke
“Officially censored upon its Chinese publication, Dream of Ding Village is the prescient story of the public health crisis of the 1990s when rural villages selling their blood led to an AIDS outbreak.”
https://humanities.wisc.edu/great-world-texts/ding
War Trash- Ha Jin
“Ha Jin’s masterful new novel casts a searchlight into a forgotten corner of modern history, the experience of Chinese soldiers held in U.S. POW camps during the Korean War. In 1951 Yu Yuan, a scholarly and self-effacing clerical officer in Mao’s “volunteer” army, is taken prisoner south of the 38th Parallel. Because he speaks English, he soon becomes an intermediary between his compatriots and their American captors.With Yuan as guide, we are ushered into the secret world behind the barbed wire, a world where kindness alternates with blinding cruelty and one has infinitely more to fear from one’s fellow prisoners than from the guards. Vivid in its historical detail, profound in its imaginative empathy, War Trash is Ha Jin’s most ambitious book to date.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14729.War_Trash
The Hundred Secret Senses- Amy Tan
“Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of Southwestern China, Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses is a tale of American assumptions shaken by Chinese ghosts and broadened with hope. In 1962, five-year-old Olivia meets the half-sister she never knew existed, eighteen-year-old Kwan from China, who sees ghosts with her “yin eyes.” Decades later, Olivia describes her complicated relationship with her sister and her failing marriage, as Kwan reveals her story, sweeping the reader into the splendor and violence of mid-nineteenth century China. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, Tan conjures up a story of the inheritance of love, its secrets and senses, its illusions and truths.”
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/308853/the-hundred-secret-senses-by-amy-tan/
TO LIVE - HUA YU
"To Live is the passionate telling of one man's life, family and country. ... "The novel To Live by Yu Hua is a story about the struggles of the Xu family through forty years of life in China as it evolves from World War 2 through the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong (Zetung) to the present Communist China”
https://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/coursepack/ToLivenovel.htm#:~:text=%22To%20Live%20is%20the%20passionate,man's%20life%2C%20family%20and%20country.&text=%22The%20novel%20To%20Live%20by,to%20the%20present%20Communist%20China.
DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER - CAO XUEQIN
“The Dream of the Red Chamber is considered the greatest novel of Chinese literature. The son of a wealthy, noble family is born with a magic stone in his mouth. ... After his family crushes his romantic love affair with his favorite cousin, both lovers renounce earthly life.”
https://www.getabstract.com/en/summary/the-dream-of-the-red-chamber/35690#:~:text=The%20Dream%20of%20the%20Red%20Chamber%20is%20considered%20the%20greatest,magic%20stone%20in%20his%20mouth.&text=After%20his%20family%20crushes%20his,both%20lovers%20renounce%20earthly%20life.
RED SORGHUM- MO YAN
“Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty, as the Chinese battle both Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s. A legend in China, where it won major literary awards and inspired an Oscar-nominated film directed by Zhang Yimou, Red Sorghum is a book in which fable and history collide to produce fiction that is entirely new—and unforgettable..”
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Sorghum-Novel-Mo-Yan/dp/0140168540
JOURNEY TO THE WEST- WU CHENG’EN 
The bulk of the novel recounts the 81 adventures that befall Tripitaka and his entourage of three animal spirits—the magically gifted Monkey, the slow-witted and clumsy Pigsy, and the fish spirit Sandy—on their journey to India and culminates in their attainment of the sacred scrolls.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Journey-to-the-West
ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS - LUO GUANZHONG 
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of China's greatest and most influential works of literature. It is an epic tale of war and heroes, loyalty, betrayal and cunning plans; of beleagured morality versus cruel political reality; and of what men are capable of doing in the pursuit of power.
https://randallwriting.com/three-kingdoms-chapter-summary-1/#:~:text=The%20Romance%20of%20the%20Three,in%20the%20pursuit%20of%20power.
DEATH’S END- LIU CIXIN
“A meditation on technology, progress, morality, extinction, and knowledge that doubles as a cosmos-in-the-balance thriller, Death's End is a testament to just how far his own towering imagination has taken him: Far beyond the borders of his country, and forever into the canon of science fiction.”
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/27/494927821/deaths-end-brings-an-epic-trilogy-to-a-satisfying-close#:~:text=A%20meditation%20on%20technology%2C%20progress,the%20canon%20of%20science%20fiction.
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meccaakagrimo · 3 years
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👑✍🏽 @el_tigrenegro . In 1993, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Brown University—her thesis, entitled "My turn in the fire – an abridged novel",was the basis for her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory, which was published by Soho Press in 1994. Four years later it became an Oprah's Book Club selection. The literary journal Granta asked book sellers, librarians, and literary critics to nominate who they believed to be the country's best young author. The standards were that the person must be an American citizen under the age of 40 and must have published at least one novel or collection of short stories before May 31, 1995. In 1997, at the age of 27, with 19 other finalists, Danticat was named one of the country's best young authors. Since completing her MFA, Danticat has taught creative writing at the New York University and the University of Miami. She has also worked with filmmakers Patricia Benoit and Jonathan Demme, on projects on Haitian art and documentaries about Haïti.Her short stories have appeared in over 25 periodicals and have been anthologized several times. Her work has been translated into numerous other languages, including her own Haitian Creole. Danticat is a strong advocate for issues affecting Haitians abroad and at home. In 2009, she lent her voice and words to Poto Mitan: Haitian Women Pillars of the Global Economy, a documentary about the impact of globalization on five women from different generations. Danticat is married to Fedo Boyer. She has two daughters, Mira and Leila.Although Danticat resides in the United States, she considers Haiti a home. To date, she still visits Haiti from time to time and has always felt as if she never left it. Danticat has won fiction awards from Essence and Seventeen magazines, was named "1 of 20 people in their twenties who will make a difference" in Harper's Bazaar,was featured in the New York Times Magazine as one of "30 under 30" people to watch,and was called one of the "15 Gutsiest Women of the Year" by Jane Magazine. She has 22 other awards and honors, including two honorary degrees. ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃ #Haiti #Ayiti #EdwigeDanticat #HaitianHeritage ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃ Part 2 https://www.instagram.com/p/CMmvbDgBd9u/?igshid=8sczo5sa6926
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localbiz1 · 3 years
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Entertainment Book Tauranga
Find Right Way to Choose a Best Book to Read
Reading is one of the best ways, by which a person can enhance his or her well-being. In this age of the internet, reading for pleasure and knowledge is gradually declining. However, there is no fixed method for choosing, or right or wrong. In New Zealand, unfortunately, public libraries are all declining and are being gradually replaced by online libraries, which also contain a variety of entertainment book.
These online libraries can also be accessed from home. Depending upon an individual's choice, he or she can read more and more books for entertainment, but it is generally stated that there should be a ratio of four is to one for entertainment knowledge. Entertainment book Tauranga is good means of getting entertainment coupons and great discounts on certain entrainment activities like movie, restaurants and other activities.
While it is very difficult to distinguish between knowledge books and entertainment book, for clarity, these four questions are extremely important for making reading an enjoyable experience.
Is     the book nonfiction?
Is     the book considered classic or literary fiction?
What     is the writing style of the author? Is he known for writing style or     prose?
Has     the book ever won any of the prestigious world's literary awards?
The following tips will assist you in finding the best new books.
1)  Friends or colleagues' recommendations.
Since people have very little time in busy places like Auckland, so they should always seek out their best friends or colleagues' recommendations in discovering new books. They should first look into it, before finalizing.  Due to paucity of time, a fantastic recommendation is usually given by someone, whom they know very well.  He will be knowing their tastes and choices, and the inclination, which they will be having. It might so happen, that while conversing with their friends or acquaintances, they will immediately come to know of the book.
2)  Reading lists from friends, colleagues, and other acquaintances.
Reading lists published online can be quite deceptive since they contain many books, which might not match the choice of a particular individual.  They should have well-trusted friends and recommendations, who will give them the appropriate suggestions for all kinds of books, including Entertainment Book Rotoura enlisting various coupons for entertainment in New Zealand.
3)  Goodreads.
Goodreads is an incredible community website, in which fans of literature can connect, across the whole world. In Goodreads, lakhs of books are rated by top-class users and reviewers. Users need to sign up, read the reviews, observe the high scores, and search for good books within a few minutes and hours.
4)  Try to Read Books Written by Nobel Prize Winners.
Since books written by Nobel Prize Winners are a trademark of quality, it is better, if individuals always go in for books written by such stalwarts.  These writers promise both quality and quantity, which delivers effective utilization of their time and money. Generally, all the books written by these people are worth reading.
5)  Which Book
Which Book is an incredible online resource for books, which helps hundreds of combinations of factors and then give the right recommendations of books, which closely matches your requirements?
6)  Readers must usually avoid bestsellers.
This is another very important tool, but it is most often overlooked by readers. The books, which are appearing at the top of the charts, may not be thrilling to read. It often happens, that some books, become popular on the author's name and reputation, or by using a massive advertising campaign. For individuals, who are interested in bestsellers, they must check out reliable reviews, before selecting and give non-reputable authors a chance, by purchasing and reading their books.
7)  Penguin Classics
This is one of the best ways to select the best book. Penguin Classics is one of the finest collections of books, and readers can easily fill their bookshelves by purchasing books from this website.  The books are also priced reasonably and have books from all of the top-class authors, in a variety of subjects like anthropology, history, economics, physics, chemistry, etc.
8)  Go to top-class bookstores
In Auckland, Wellington, and particularly big cities, independent and commercial bookstores, often have new and old texts, which are placed in the store. Readers can read their synopses and decide if a particular fit your case.  Users can read several random pages and will indicate the writing quality.
9)   Readers must always study world-class literature.
Readers must always study world-class literature, which can be of various types like free online literature, and they will have exceptional literature to fall back upon and utilize for essays.  Readers will come across new texts and authors, and which will give them a purpose to achieve something in life.  There are reputed sites like Learn Out Loud, which have free courses, and Bibliomania, which contains free study guides.
Conclusion
In the above article, you will get the relevant knowledge as to how to select the best book for reading. They will come to know; how simple and straightforward it is to choose the best book.
For more info click: https://localbiz.nz/entertainment-in-tauranga
Source: https://localbiz-nz.blogspot.com/2020/11/entertainment-book-tauranga-find-right.html
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onlymexico · 7 years
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Guillermo del Toro Gómez born October 9, 1964, is a Mexican American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. In his filmmaking career, del Toro has alternated between Spanish-language dark fantasy pieces, such as the gothic horror film The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006), and more mainstream American action movies, such as the vampire superhero action film Blade II (2002), the supernatural superhero film Hellboy (2004), its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), and the science fiction monster film Pacific Rim (2013). His latest film, The Shape of Water, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and is scheduled for an American release on December 8, 2017.
In addition to his directing works, del Toro is a prolific producer, his producing works including acclaimed and successful films such as The Orphanage (2007), Julia's Eyes (2010), Biutiful (2010), Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Puss in Boots (2011), and Mama (2013). He was originally chosen by Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit films; he left the project due to production problems but was still credited as co-writer for his numerous contributions to the script.
Del Toro's work is characterised by a strong connection to fairy tales and horror, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty.  He has a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power.[3] Del Toro is known for his use of insectile and religious imagery, the themes of Catholicism and celebrating imperfection, underworld and clockwork motifs, practical special effects, dominant amber lighting, and his frequent collaborations with actors Ron Perlman and Doug Jones. He is also friends with fellow Mexican directors Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Cinema”.
When del Toro was about eight years old, he began experimenting with his father's Super 8 camera, making short films with Planet of the Apes toys and other objects. One short focused on a "serial killer potato" with ambitions of world domination; it murdered del Toro's mother and brothers before stepping outside and being crushed by a car. Del Toro made about 10 short films before his first feature, including one titled Matilde, but only the last two, Doña Lupe and Geometria, have been made available. He also wrote four and directed five episodes of the cult series La Hora Marcada, along with other Mexican filmmakers such as Emmanuel Lubezki and Alfonso Cuarón.
Del Toro studied special effects and make-up with special-effects artist Dick Smith. He spent 10 years as a special-effects make-up designer and formed his own company, Necropia. He also co-founded the Guadalajara International Film Festival. Later in his directing career, he formed his own production company, the Tequila Gang.
In 1997, at the age of 33, Guillermo was given a $30 million budget from Miramax Films to shoot another film, Mimic. During this time, his father, automotive entrepreneur Federico del Toro, was kidnapped in Guadalajara. Del Toro's family had to pay twice the amount originally asked. The event prompted del Toro, his parents, and his siblings to move abroad. In an interview with Time magazine, he said this about the kidnapping of his father: "Every day, every week, something happens that reminds me that I am an involuntary exile [from my country]
Del Toro has directed a wide variety of films, from comic book adaptations (Blade II, Hellboy) to historical fantasy and horror films, two of which are set in Spain in the context of the Spanish Civil War under the authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco. These two films, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth, are among his most critically acclaimed works. They share similar settings, protagonists and themes with the 1973 Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive, widely considered to be the finest Spanish film of the 1970s.
Del Toro views the horror genre as inherently political, explaining, "Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don't wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment."
He is close friends with two other prominent and critically praised Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu.[15] The three often influence each other's directorial decisions, and have been interviewed together by Charlie Rose. Cuarón was one of the producers of Pan's Labyrinth, while Iñárritu assisted in editing the film.
Del Toro has also contributed to the web series Trailers From Hell.
In April 2008, del Toro was hired by Peter Jackson to direct the live-action film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. On May 30, 2010, del Toro left the project due to extend delays brought on by MGM's financial troubles. Although he did not direct the films, he is credited as co-writer in An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies.
On June 2, 2009, del Toro's first novel, The Strain, was released. It is the first part of an apocalyptic vampire trilogy co-authored by del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The second volume, The Fall, was released on September 21, 2010. The final installment, The Night Eternal, followed in October 2011. Del Toro cites writings of Antoine Augustin Calmet, Montague Summers and Bernhardt J. Hurwood among his favourites in the non-literary form about vampires.
On December 9, 2010, del Toro launched Mirada Studios with his long-time cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, director Mathew Cullen and executive producer Javier Jimenez. Mirada was formed in Los Angeles, California to be a collaborative space where they and other filmmakers can work with Mirada's artists to create and produce projects that span digital production and content for film, television, advertising, interactive and other media. Mirada launched as a sister company to production company Motion Theory.[19]
Del Toro directed Pacific Rim, a science fiction film based on a screenplay by del Toro and Travis Beacham. In the film, giant monsters rise from the Pacific Ocean and attack major cities, leading humans to retaliate with gigantic mecha suits called Jaegers. Del Toro commented, "This is my most un-modest film, this has everything. The scale is enormous and I'm just a big kid having fun." The film was released on July 12, 2013 and grossed $411 million at the box office.
Del Toro directed "Night Zero", the pilot episode of The Strain, a vampire horror television series based on the novel trilogy of the same name by del Toro and Chuck Hogan. FX has commissioned the pilot episode, which del Toro scripted with Hogan and was filmed in Toronto in September 2013. FX ordered a thirteen-episode first season for the series on November 19, 2013, and series premiered on July 13, 2014.
After The Strain's pilot episode, del Toro directed Crimson Peak, a gothic horror film he co-wrote with Matthew Robbins and Lucinda Cox. Del Toro has described the film as "a very set-oriented, classical but at the same time modern take on the ghost story", citing The Omen, The Exorcist and The Shining as influences. Del Toro also stated, "I think people are getting used to horror subjects done as found footage or B-value budgets. I wanted this to feel like a throwback." Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, and Charlie Hunnam starred in the film. Production began February 2014 in Toronto, with an April 2015 release date initially planned. The studio later pushed the date back to October 2015, to coincide with the Halloween season.[
He was selected to be on the jury for the main competition section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
Del Toro directed the cold-war drama film The Shape of Water, starring Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, and Michael Shannon.[29] Filming was set to begin on August 1, 2016 in Toronto,[30][31] but del Toro confirmed on his personal Twitter account that filming would begin on August 15, 2016.[32] Production was officially announced to have begun on that day and wrapped twelve weeks later, the film is currently in post-production.[33] On August 31, 2017 the movie was screened and premiered in the main competition section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival where it was awarded the Golden Lion for best film, making Del Toro the first mexican director to win the award[34][35].
On July 21, 2016, it was reported that del Toro will retire from producing for projects that he isn't creating or directing himself.
At the D23 Expo in 2009, his Double Dare You production company and Disney announced a production deal for a line of darker animated films. The label was announced with one original animated project, Trollhunters. However, del Toro moved his deal to DreamWorks in late 2010. Trollhunters was released to great acclaim on Netflix and "is tracking to be its most-watched kids original ever
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geekade · 7 years
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Geekade Top Ten: Neil Gaiman Long Form Fiction
It’s a great time to be Neil Gaiman. His latest book, Norse Mythology, debuted on the New York Times’ bestseller list. American Gods, based on the novel of the same title, debuts on TV next month. And a filmed adaptation of Good Omens is finally in development at Amazon, with the author at the helm. So what better time, then, to celebrate some of his work? Neil Gaiman is a God among book geeks, considered by many, myself included, to be their favorite author. Any entity with so passionate a fan base is bound to be extremely sensitive about a ranking concerning said entity. So it is with great trepidation that I approach this task and ask you all to remember that, while I am doing my best to be objective here, at the end of the day, these are my opinions. I am as entitled to them as you are to yours. Let’s not fight, let’s just love Neil Gaiman and every word that comes out of his brain.
Categorizing Gaiman’s work is tough because his oeuvre is so expansive and varied. I had to limit this somehow and the easiest way was to eliminate his children’s picture books , which I HIGHLY recommend. They are all charming and fun, gorgeously illustrated, and provide excellent alternatives when gift-giving that most parents haven’t seen before and will be glad of the breath of fresh air. I always give Blueberry Girl or Instructions at any baby shower that requests a book instead of a card. I’d say even if there are no children in your life, if you love Neil Gaiman, you’ll enjoy looking at these and possibly donating a copy or two to your local library. In the same vein, his short fiction is out. I am also excluding Norse Mythology by the logic that a retelling is a different animal than long form fiction. (Also I haven't read it yet...sorry). On the other hand, I have decided to include some of his longer juvenile fiction and YA work to round out the list because YA writing is as legit as any work of “adult” fiction. Fight me. Sandman is also in here; although it is a graphic novel, there is enough writing there to qualify it as long form fiction. Also, this series is a gateway drug for many comic fans becoming Gaiman fans; it’s too important not to include. As the man himself wrote, “Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” So, here we go.
10. Fortunately the Milk - FtM is definitely a juvenile book, but in a much longer form than a picture book. This grand tale, suitable for middle grades readers, tells of wild adventures a Dad gets caught up in, all while out on a mundane errand like buying more milk to go with breakfast. The set up is relatable enough to children to be believable and the fantastic and funny mishaps Dad encounters will crack them up and keep them reading. It’s an excellent way to introduce young readers to the work of a parent’s favorite author.
9. Stardust - Stardust is a love story, Gaiman style. Its most masterful achievements are the fantasy world of Faerie and the rich, non-traditional characters. It provides a lovely twist that flips a traditional fairy tale narrative on its ear. It’s more lighthearted than most of his other works, which isn’t to say it isn’t good, but it is a bit out of his lane. Additionally, many readers find the lead character Tristan grating, thus knocking it this far down on the list. But on a list of works of this quality, good things fall to the bottom. Still very much worth the read.
8 - Coraline - This is Gaiman’s take on a parable, warning of the dangers of wishes. It is at the same time for kids and not for kids. It’s a young adult story, I suppose, but appeals to older adults as well. Gaiman’s guilty many times over of writing unique, realistic children and  putting them in strange and creepy circumstances. He walks the fine line between condescension and understanding, making the characters relatable while still reminding us, often painfully, of our own youth. This story ranks here only because it is a good, but not the best, example of his ability to do so; it’s a rating of the story against other of his stories, not on its own merits, which are excellent.
7 - Ocean at the End of the Lane - Like most of Gaiman’s work, this is a beautiful, dark work of genius. It’s a captivating story of long-forgotten memories unearthed by a visit to a mysterious place from the narrator’s childhood. It’s a book to read to remind you what it’s like to be a child, encouraging you to revisit unexplained, mystical experiences of youth from an adult perspective. As one Goodreads reviewer aptly put it, “In short, it is a Neil Gaiman novel.” It’s not his best or best-known work, but it’s definitely representative of him. It makes a good recommendation for readers who don’t know, but are interested in, his work and for those who know some of his work, but are unfamiliar with this fairly-recent release.
6 - Anansi Boys - This not-quite sequel to American Gods tells the story of Fat Charlie and Spider, children of a deceased God and brothers who never knew each other in their father’s lifetime. Gaiman’s talent for taking a small part of a larger story and blowing it up into its own narrative is part of what makes him such a master. This novel is an excellent example of his ability to create rich worlds and fully fleshed out characters. It also shows off his knack for incorporating mythical elements from oral storytelling traditions of cultures other than his own. It’s a fun, fast read, not quite up to the caliber of some of his greater works, but that’s hardly a criticism.
5 - Neverwhere - This is a great work of modern urban fantasy with possibly Gaiman’s most relatable protagonist, an office worker thrust into a fantastical world beneath the streets of London. It’s a story most of us would imagine (or have imagined) ourselves in, written as only Gaiman can and a world we want to spend far more time in, even after the story is over. As a standalone story, it’s a good entry point into the author’s work, but reader beware, it will leave you wanting more.
4 - The Graveyard Book - Yes, this children’s book is placed awfully high up on the list, but it has won some of the most prestigious awards in literature (notably the Hugo award and the Newbery medal) and quite deservedly so. For one thing, Nobody Owens is a phenomenal protagonist and for another, this is just such a remarkable, fun, exciting story as only Gaiman can tell it. It has the potential to become scary at just about every turn, but thanks to the author’s humor and talent, it never really does. This is truly one to be enjoyed by readers of ALL ages and for that reason, it deserves high placement in the NG canon.
3 - Good Omens - It gives me serious pain not to rank this number one. Not only is it my favorite of Gaiman’s books by far, it is my favorite book, period. But this is a list of his best books, not my favorites, not to mention it’s a co-write with beloved, recently-departed fantasy author Terry Pratchett. Still, if you’ve missed out reading this one, and I find even many diehard fans have, do yourself a favor and correct that IMMEDIATELY. This book is as insightful as it is hilarious. It is a foundational book for me, in terms of my sense of literary appreciation, my humor, and my religious belief system. It’s a tale of the apocalypse gone awry. You can bet your ass I got some serious side-eye when I introduced it in my 10th grade English class as my favorite book, which is kind of the best praise I feel I can give for it and if you understand what I mean, then this book is for you.
2 -Sandman series - If you haven’t already wanted to hang me up by my toenails because you disagree with my opinions,  you’re probably about to. This series is...not for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good. It’s great. It’s a masterpiece in the field of the graphic novel. But that’s a medium I’ve never been a huge fan of and I suppose that’s why I never connected with it. The fact that I believe it should be ranked this highly in spite of that missing connection speaks to its outstanding quality. If you love Gaiman, you probably love this series and I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong. But I can’t give it the top spot because it’s not what he does best.
1 - American Gods - This is what he does best. This is storytelling at its finest. This is Gaiman, pulling from legends of old, seasoning them with his dry British wit, crafting a fascinating tale, setting it in a universe that sits just kitty-corner to our own, and drawing his audience in, such that they don’t want to leave, even after the last page is turned. It’s no wonder that fans have been clamoring for an on-screen adaptation for years, one they’ll finally lay eyes on next month, and heaven help the show’s creators (see what I did there?) if they fandom doesn’t approve. If you’ve been living under a rock and have therefore never read any Neil Gaiman and you’re wondering what his best, most representative work is? Look no further.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to disappear to an undisclosed location and stay off social media for a month to avoid the wrath from holders of differing opinions. I know not everyone will agree with me, but if we’re all talking about, celebrating, and reading books by our favorite author, that’s really the most important thing, right?
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