WOW, this is a fascinating piece of legal history and a wide-ranging look at civil forfeiture. When journalism goes this deep into stories, I can't tear myself away. And the story is a moment of "bipartisan" cooperation (yes, theoretically the SCOTUS is not supposed to be party-based, but we all know perfectly well that's hogwash). An excellent read because it's great writing, engaging storytelling, relevant and hopeful history.
T-Rex at the American Museum of Natural History. NEATO-SPEDITO! Don't even pretend you don't want to see this.
I grew up with the affectionate use of "am" in my house. White and Southern and old as I am, this wasn't correlated to Black American speech, though we were familiar with the stereotypes. The "am" was just linguistic overlap, though its tone of juvenilization/baby-talk usage has a distinctive paternalism, viewed alongside the hideously racist exaggerations of blackface speech. In our family, it was our intimacy: dad would ask us or our friends, "How am ya?", but it was certainly not a greeting he used with colleagues. I'm fascinated to see the roots that am between us. I'm also reminded of the long-held belief that Appalachian American speech preserved Elizabethan English for centuries - the truth of which is delightfully more complex than "yes, it did" or "no, it didn't." The lineage of Black American English is more complex than its reception has generally allowed. It's hard not to want to protest, "but my dad wasn't racist" ... even as it's impossible not to see the Colonial heritage of a language long-shared only because of slavery.
Once again, Diane's fascination with the archaeology of poo ... oh man - "comes to the fore"? "raises its head"? I'm not sure how to put this that isn't lame scatalogical humor. Anyway: NEATO, it's excremental science again! This time, on the moon. <Resists the Schrödinger's poo joke> Go! Learn the wonders of human contamination in space ... or the secrets of seeding (cue echo-boom voice effect) LIFE ITSELF.
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalism. Show all posts
Monday, April 1, 2019
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Interview: Alec Shane
Today is the day! I emailed the questions to literary agent Alec Shane of Writers House last night, and today I found a shiny new interview in my Inbox. Everybody - please enjoy ...
DLM: Before you became a literary agent, you spent some time in Hollywood as an assistant, a martial arts coach, a production assistant, and a stunt man. What was the moment you decided to leave the West Coast - or did you decide to *come* to the East Coast?
AS: My time on the West Coast was never a permanent move; I’ve just always been a big proponent of doing as much as you possibly can while you still have the opportunity to do so. Life is all about collecting experiences and having some great stories to tell your grandkids, and that’s mainly what my trip out West was about. When I felt my time in LA had run its course, I came back East, as this is where I’m from originally.
DLM: Was it really their great-looking building that brought you to Writers House?
AS: Pretty much. When I first started looking for a job in publishing, I didn’t know anything about the industry. I just kind of started researching based on some of my favorite books, and I eventually found my way to Writers House. It looked exactly how I would expect a literary agency to look, and combined with their wonderful client list and even more wonderful people, it was an easy decision. From the moment I first walked in the door, this is where I knew I wanted to be.
DLM: It looks like your entire publishing career has been with Writers House, starting as an intern four years ago. Would you give us a look at the arc you have had there, and what it takes to become an agent?
AS: I have been very lucky to have Writers House as my first and only publishing job. Like pretty much everything in life, it’s all about being at the right place at the right time, and there just happened to be an assistant position available as I was completing my internship. I interviewed with Jodi Reamer, and I was offered the job. The rest is history, as they say. As for what it takes to become an agent – ask me that question again in about 30 years. I may possibly have an answer for you then.
DLM: Now that you’re actively building your own list, what genres or topics do you most want to see?
AS: I grew up on Stephen King, and so I’m a huge horror fan. I also love mysteries, thrillers, and all things sports. On the nonfiction side, I’m always reading interesting biographies or books that look at well-known historical events from a completely different angle. At the end of the day, though, as long as you can make me miss my subway stop or keep me up all night reading – or too scared to turn off the light - I’m yours.
DLM: Are there stories or subjects you definitely do not want to represent?
AS: “Definitely” is a strong word; like I said before, if I love the story, then I’m open to it. In general, though, I’m not much of a romance guy. I also don’t really like to read about people with problems that 99% of the world would absolutely kill to have.
DLM: Aspiring authors have a morass of sometimes-contradictory advice and unwritten rules to navigate in creating queries - some agents insist on having a word count, for instance, while others hate seeing such administrivia. In terms of content, are there any must-haves or deal-breaking elements to avoid for someone who would like to query you?
AS: No real deal-breakers, no. But I would advise, for querying me and for your career in general, to know the difference between “breathe” and “breath.” That’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me.
DLM: What advice or parting thoughts would you like to share with readers - not only aspiring authors, but lovers of literature, history and Trek nerds, or possibly even stunt men wannabes?
AS: If you don’t love what you are doing, then you need to find something else to do. Life is way too short to be unhappy.
DLM: Before you became a literary agent, you spent some time in Hollywood as an assistant, a martial arts coach, a production assistant, and a stunt man. What was the moment you decided to leave the West Coast - or did you decide to *come* to the East Coast?
AS: My time on the West Coast was never a permanent move; I’ve just always been a big proponent of doing as much as you possibly can while you still have the opportunity to do so. Life is all about collecting experiences and having some great stories to tell your grandkids, and that’s mainly what my trip out West was about. When I felt my time in LA had run its course, I came back East, as this is where I’m from originally.
DLM: Was it really their great-looking building that brought you to Writers House?
AS: Pretty much. When I first started looking for a job in publishing, I didn’t know anything about the industry. I just kind of started researching based on some of my favorite books, and I eventually found my way to Writers House. It looked exactly how I would expect a literary agency to look, and combined with their wonderful client list and even more wonderful people, it was an easy decision. From the moment I first walked in the door, this is where I knew I wanted to be.
DLM: It looks like your entire publishing career has been with Writers House, starting as an intern four years ago. Would you give us a look at the arc you have had there, and what it takes to become an agent?
AS: I have been very lucky to have Writers House as my first and only publishing job. Like pretty much everything in life, it’s all about being at the right place at the right time, and there just happened to be an assistant position available as I was completing my internship. I interviewed with Jodi Reamer, and I was offered the job. The rest is history, as they say. As for what it takes to become an agent – ask me that question again in about 30 years. I may possibly have an answer for you then.
DLM: Now that you’re actively building your own list, what genres or topics do you most want to see?
AS: I grew up on Stephen King, and so I’m a huge horror fan. I also love mysteries, thrillers, and all things sports. On the nonfiction side, I’m always reading interesting biographies or books that look at well-known historical events from a completely different angle. At the end of the day, though, as long as you can make me miss my subway stop or keep me up all night reading – or too scared to turn off the light - I’m yours.
DLM: Are there stories or subjects you definitely do not want to represent?
AS: “Definitely” is a strong word; like I said before, if I love the story, then I’m open to it. In general, though, I’m not much of a romance guy. I also don’t really like to read about people with problems that 99% of the world would absolutely kill to have.
DLM: Aspiring authors have a morass of sometimes-contradictory advice and unwritten rules to navigate in creating queries - some agents insist on having a word count, for instance, while others hate seeing such administrivia. In terms of content, are there any must-haves or deal-breaking elements to avoid for someone who would like to query you?
AS: No real deal-breakers, no. But I would advise, for querying me and for your career in general, to know the difference between “breathe” and “breath.” That’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me.
DLM: What advice or parting thoughts would you like to share with readers - not only aspiring authors, but lovers of literature, history and Trek nerds, or possibly even stunt men wannabes?
AS: If you don’t love what you are doing, then you need to find something else to do. Life is way too short to be unhappy.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Writerliness
I found this post in the Drafts file - one I thought I had published months ago. Since it saves as of the date you wrote it, but publishes in real time - please accept that this was written in April, but still says some relevant things (to my mind!).
Okay, Arianna Huffington on Colbert says "The Huffington Post is not about Right versus Left, it is about Right versus WRONG ..."
Oh, honey.
And I read HuffPo from time to time.
But THAT. Is writerliness. And this finally gets me off my bum to write that Writerly post I've been thinking and saying I was going to get to soon.
***
Okay.
Writerly writing goes past self-consciousness and ends up in self-satisfaction instead, skewing either twee or superior depending upon its point. And it always has a point, which itself is tiresome.
More often than not, the latter seasons of M*A*S*H represent for me the sins of writerliness - the didactic sentimentality, the heavily over-ground axes - but it is popular even in journalism. In fiction, it can get pretty thick. Fiction peopled with auto-characters, avatars for an author's self (or dreams of self) modeled into *ary *ues, cheap exposition working to be clever, would-be clever verbiage straining to teach.
The writerly writer can be heard finding their own work witty and charming. On television, Sorkin productions sometimes fluff a writerly writer. Sitcoms of course do it, see the old war horse referenced above. In the seventies, before irony, archness, and meta came along (we did not know of these concepts of course, the human race before Teh Intarwebs), earnestness was done to a scale which might appear ostentatious to the wiser eyes of today. (Is Diane being writerly? The world may never know. But as Mr. X knows, I was never suBtle.)
Cleverness and sincerity had a dangerously passionate relationship, and of course audiences had no critical eye for it. This stuff was ENT-ertaiment! (*Cue Lovitz doing his Thespian character.) Even the quiet writerly moment - *especially* the quiet writerly moment - was thick with portent. "Portent!" these moments cried, with their contrived intensity. "Portent ..." they whispered, with the profundity of Lesson.
Ahh. Writerly writing.
It's hardly gone the way of the dodo, since all us hayseed pre-'netters grew up and got iPhones. Even reality TV occasionally falls prey to writerliness, don't kid yourself. And reality serves us up intimate, powerful personal monologues by the multi-ton.
If only we could keep it out of "JOURNALISM" ... Whatever that even is, anymore. The best ones out there are Colbert and Stewart. What does that say about our supposed non-fiction writers??
Okay, Arianna Huffington on Colbert says "The Huffington Post is not about Right versus Left, it is about Right versus WRONG ..."
Oh, honey.
And I read HuffPo from time to time.
But THAT. Is writerliness. And this finally gets me off my bum to write that Writerly post I've been thinking and saying I was going to get to soon.
***
Okay.
Writerly writing goes past self-consciousness and ends up in self-satisfaction instead, skewing either twee or superior depending upon its point. And it always has a point, which itself is tiresome.
More often than not, the latter seasons of M*A*S*H represent for me the sins of writerliness - the didactic sentimentality, the heavily over-ground axes - but it is popular even in journalism. In fiction, it can get pretty thick. Fiction peopled with auto-characters, avatars for an author's self (or dreams of self) modeled into *ary *ues, cheap exposition working to be clever, would-be clever verbiage straining to teach.
The writerly writer can be heard finding their own work witty and charming. On television, Sorkin productions sometimes fluff a writerly writer. Sitcoms of course do it, see the old war horse referenced above. In the seventies, before irony, archness, and meta came along (we did not know of these concepts of course, the human race before Teh Intarwebs), earnestness was done to a scale which might appear ostentatious to the wiser eyes of today. (Is Diane being writerly? The world may never know. But as Mr. X knows, I was never suBtle.)
Cleverness and sincerity had a dangerously passionate relationship, and of course audiences had no critical eye for it. This stuff was ENT-ertaiment! (*Cue Lovitz doing his Thespian character.) Even the quiet writerly moment - *especially* the quiet writerly moment - was thick with portent. "Portent!" these moments cried, with their contrived intensity. "Portent ..." they whispered, with the profundity of Lesson.
Ahh. Writerly writing.
It's hardly gone the way of the dodo, since all us hayseed pre-'netters grew up and got iPhones. Even reality TV occasionally falls prey to writerliness, don't kid yourself. And reality serves us up intimate, powerful personal monologues by the multi-ton.
If only we could keep it out of "JOURNALISM" ... Whatever that even is, anymore. The best ones out there are Colbert and Stewart. What does that say about our supposed non-fiction writers??
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