Smatterings

I spent a good portion of my evening yesterday taking part in a chat run by Gerald So (who was wearing his DetecToday moderator hat) and the transcript is now available for everyone to read. In the midst of the hilarity, we talked of short story submissions, the writing process, and instinct vs. deliberate approach. It was great fun and I’m looking forward to the next (which features some degenerate or another.)

Otherwise in today’s news…

Rebecca Caldwell meets up with Malcolm Gladwell to talk BLINK, instincts, and his pouffy hair.

Look for a new publishing house to start up in the UK soon. It’s called Portobello House and it’s headed up by Philip Gwyn Jones, with backing by one of Britain’s richest families.

Another day, another doom-and-gloom article about the state of publishing. OK, it sucks, it’s a terrible business–so let’s do something about it.

The Independent on Sunday does a retrospective on the work and life of Sebastien Japrisot, with his marvellous novel A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT on screens around the world. Never mind that Japrisot had a way with nervy psychological thrillers like THE LADY IN THE CAR WITH GLASSES AND A GUN…

Helen Oyeyemi’s THE ICARUS GIRL is getting a ton of press in the UK, and no doubt will when it’s released in June (by Nan Talese/Doubleday). The Guardian meets her, as does Scotland on Sunday.

Patrick Anderson’s review of Stella Rimington’s AT RISK is a fairly typical positive review, save the end, when he goes on about it being perfectly fine for a book to be ghosted as long as everybody’s up front about it and it’s professionally written.

Clea Simon, who’ll be breaking into the crime fiction soon with her debut cat mystery, reviews David Fulmer’s JASS for the Boston Globe and breaks it down as follows: great atmosphere and setting, but the mystery’s kind of blah. January Magazine’s David Abrams reviews the book as well and pretty much has the same criticisms.

A couple of separate reviews as well for James Hall’s new standalone FOREST OF THE NIGHT, one in the Miami Herald and the other in the Charlotte Observer. (thanks to Kevin for the links.)

There’s something about the Cape Coral News-Press that breeds would-be and actual published writers. They list a whole host of alums and what they are up to on the writing front.

And finally, though I would love for this to be true, being a perpetually lazy person myself, I’m still kind of skeptical of the whole thing. OTOH, maybe that’s because I think I’m about to sign up for yoga. And please hold me to this. It’s not a resolution, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to try…