Do any of you have friends who are writers?

 

Then you know how complicated, difficult, worrisome it can be when one (or more) of them asks you to read something they’ve written. It’s bad enough when the book is already or about to be published and you really can’t make even the most constructive suggestions; but believe me, it’s not so easy when the book is in manuscript. Telling your friends what you really think – especially if it’s less than: “this is a masterpiece," which is really all any writer wants to hear --  is, shall we say, a bit difficult.

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Olson D-Day

 

I can’t help thinking there’s something kind of poetic, even Biblical, about the way it was announced today  that Random honcho Peter Olson was stepping down.   While sources citing the poor performance of Random of late, the language was as strong as it was nearly a decade ago when Olson fired the revered (if feared) editor, Ann Godoff. He was a tough guy then, that Olson, and he apparently is falling on the same sword he used to cut a swath through the publishing house. Who can forget the New York Times piece by ...Read More

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Mama always said there would be weeks like this – but I don’t know that she knew about book industry panels.   I’ll have been on three this week:  one of emerging fiction writers at the LA Times book festival (see previous post), and two today:  one for Turn Here video, which produces all our videos here at PW (check back here for a really good one if I do say so myself,  an interview with my old friend and now big star, Lewis Black).  The one later is on translation at PEN, and will star Morgan Entrekin, whose video interview you can also see on PW.

Anyway, the Turn Here event, held at the Manhattan Hearst building because Will Hearst was one...Read More

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It’s not easy being James Patterson. Sure, he’s got a big-house publisher (Hachette), a hot-shot agent (Bob Barnett, who is now going to be mad at me because, as he’s told me many times, he’s an attorney, not an agent) and a slew of super-bestselling books. But, somehow, it seems, something is lacking. Even as he spoke at a party in his honor at Tiffany’s for his umpteenth book, Sundays at Tiffany’s, even as he stood surrounded by handlers and fans and lots and lots of  bling, Patterson seemed, well. . . a little bit sad.

What’s he got to be sad about? As every journalist who has ever covered him knows, Patterson is thin-skinned. (I bet that first paragraph has him upset a...Read More

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There were all kinds of unalloyed good things about being in LA last weekend: beautiful weather, great parties and most of all, the terrific LA Times Festival of Books. I’ve become something of a book fair rat these past couple of years, and while I enjoy London and Frankfurt and BEA, The LA Times festival is my favorite because it’s the one that’s closest to the writers and the books. At no other book fair can you sit minding your own business in a large green room (full of decent food, no less) and see the likes of Richard Price, Michael Connelly and Gay Talese walk by – and in some cases, even talk to them.  And for somebody like me, moderating a fiction panel with relatively-unknown-but -if-I-h...Read More

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