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05 May 2002
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From: Karen
I enjoy your work and would like to know more about certain aspects between a writer and a publisher. First of all, the young women chosen for the cover of The Blue Place fits very well with the image you have created for Aud. Do you create and choose the cover art for your books and in general how much control does an editor have over a writer’s work and how the work will be marketed? I look forward to Stay which I am told is coming out April 16th and I hope to see a least a couple more storylines involving Aud. Wishing you the best of health.
For the record, the woman on the cover of The Blue Place is not me; I don't know her, not even her name; I most definitely don't have her phone number. I'm always surprised when readers tell me they think she's just like Aud. She's a woman, and she's blonde, but to my mind that's where the similarity ends. Aud would be much more dangerous-looking, and much better dressed. A little older, too. You would look into her eyes and know that here is someone you should never, ever fuck with. The woman on the cover of The Blue Place looks as though she'd get pissy if you messed with her, but not frightening.
I like my covers to be much less representational. Stay and Slow River are great examples of what I think works: concrete enough to give a prospective reader a hint of the contents, abstract enough to let the reader fill in the gaps her- or himself.
The publisher of a novel has total control over how the book will be marketed. An editor is a member of the publishing team. Every publisher is different, but at a minimum that team would consist of representatives from the art department, sales, marketing, publicity, and editorial teams. These days an acquiring editor is more the corporate advocate for a book than its editor. She or he spends their time in meetings, telling other publishing people why this book is important, how it fits (or doesn't fit) the corporate niche, and so on. What kind of support a book gets in-house is largely determined by the size of the advance paid to the author. This can and does change during the publication process, but not often. I don't have a huge amount of experience (haven't been doing this that long) but generally speaking the more "literary" the publisher, the more time the editor has to spend with the writer on her manuscript. My editor at Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, Sean McDonald, had a fair amount of input during the rewrite stage. My contract gives me the right to basically ignore any of his suggestions but many of them were useful. It's not always easy to listen to another person's comments on my work--who likes to be told they have to do more work?--but any writer who ignores constructive criticism is a fool. In my opinion.
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From: Chris
I just read your essay "Beauty and Brilliance and Risk". You wrote about categories in fiction-- Good and Bad. And you said, "The hipper you want your literary novel to be, the less personal struggle the better, and the less big emotion, because if you get it even slightly wrong some critic will call you naïve or sentimental. In fact, if any character feels anything at all it's probably safer to tip the reader an ironic wink; after all, you wouldn't want them to think you actually believe this stuff."
I had just finished reading Nick Hornby's How To Be Good. (which wasn't!)
I'm still laughing. Have you read it? I hope so. And I hope you're laughing as well. Oh my god, reading your words right after reading his novel was priceless!
I've just recently discovered your books. I like your style very much-- and I like that you don't consider yourself a "lesbian" writer anymore than I consider myself a "lesbian lesbian". Ya know? Anyway, I'm a dyke writer (aspiring novelist) and I have M.S. I'm new at two out of three (MS and fiction are both fairly new to me). I'm always seeking out people who live like I do-- whether they be women who love women, women who write, people who are huge weather buffs (I'm a dork!), etc. After reading about you I wanted to connect with you as well. You probably hear from lesbian writers with MS all the time. Ah well-- you're a first for me. (Sorry!)
Keep that chin up, that pen moving, and that pearl of yours happy...
Nope, haven't read any Hornby. I saw the film of High Fidelity, and enjoyed it very much, but have no idea how great a resemblance it bears to the novel.
I know one other dyke writer with MS. Before that, I knew of one other writer with MS, Stanley Elkin, but he died, which pissed me off, but there you go. Nancy Mairs writes, but not--as far as I know--fiction. Rightly or wrongly I think of novelist and non-fiction writers as separate breeds. So much non-fiction these days sounds like whingeing to me: I'm writing this book because I have so many problems but they're so very, very interesting to me and my friends that I thought you, dear reader, might be interested, too, in those years I spent being depressed/abused/alcoholic/addicted (to sex, gambling, prozac, setting fire to things, collecting small china dogs, polishing other people's shoes, food)/too fat/too thin/too rich/too poor and so on and so forth. Non-fiction like Blood Rites (Barbara Ehrenreich) or The Convert Kings (Higham) or, hell, the Oxford English Dictionary is splendid, but almost everything written in the last fifteen years that has "autobiography" or "memoir" in the title pretty much sucks.
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From: Dalmatius, (hieronymus@quipo.it)
This is not a question. It's a desire...
I hope, in future, of making a cover for your books.
My official site is http://web.tiscali.it/fantasyartworks
I took a look at your website, and liked this part of your bio:
Dalmatius loves cats and his cat is called Muad'Dib [a very fetching picture here of a long-haired, imperious looking (what other kind is there?) cat].
In fact He loves above all Michael Moorcock's novels, New Wave, W. Gibson's Cyberpunk and specially Dune of F. Herbert. Muad'Dib is the real Master of the "Millennium Studio", there He rules ...
Dalmatius loves also weapons and women.
He is a real expert in shooting, handguns and combat, and above all He likes Martini and Guinness beer.
Sounds as though we could have a hell of a party: you, me, Aud, and Maud'Dib...
If I ever put together a collection of my short sf/f, I'll let you know, though I have to say I think I prefer your images of things (like the ice schooner) to the people.
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