Articles from %2 January, 2009

A guest post by author Christopher White

Last treasure of the Chesapeake

By Ken Ringle, Sunday, December 13, 2009, The Washington Post

"For those of us who love the Chesapeake -- and others merely curious -- the ultimate Bay sourcebook remains the late William W. Warner's wonderfully readable "Beautiful Swimmers," which chronicles the biology of the blue crab and the culture of the watermen who pursue them. Surprisingly, little has been written about the Bay's other edible treasure -- the Chesapeake oyster -- or about the sail-powered wooden workboats that harvested them for more than a century.

The skipjacks are all but vanished today. Last winter only a single one hoisted its sails, and its captain was 88 years old. But 10 years ago as the 20th century drew to a close, author Christopher White moved to Tilghman Island for two years to document the twilight of oystering under sail...

Martha A. Sandweiss's PASSING STRANGE continues to receive year-end honors as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2009!

From the Chicago Tribune:

"Mind-boggling tale of a famous white geologist who secretly passes as black in his personal life in order to marry and father children with his true love-to whom he doesn't reveal this secret until his death."

From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

"The strange and intriguing tale of a prominent white American from an old New England family who lived a double life in the 19th century, "passing" as an African American in order to marry and live with a black woman. Above all, a love story well told."

The paperback edition of PASSING STRANGE...

Since today is "Cyber Monday," we want you to remember your local independent bookseller.  Here's a note from one of our favorites...

Mass Book Award

Acceptance Speech

11.04.09

The internet is killing storytelling

by Ben Macintyre

Narratives are a staple of every culture the world over. They are disappearing in an online blizzard of tiny bytes of information

"Click, tweet, e-mail, twitter, skim, browse, scan, blog, text: the jargon of the digital age describes how we now read, reflecting the way that the very act of reading, and the nature of literacy itself, is changing.

The information we consume online comes ever faster, punchier and more fleetingly. Our attention rests only briefly on the internet page before moving incontinently on to the next electronic canapé.

Addicted to the BlackBerry, hectored and heckled by the next blog alert, web link or text message, we are in state of Continual Partial Attention, too bombarded by snippets and gobbets of information to focus on anything for very long. Microsoft researchers have found that...

By Jonathan Meyer, Intern

November 1 marks the start of this year’s National Novel Writing Month (wonderfully abbreviated as NaNoWriMo).  The event, which challenges people from all walks of life to complete a 50,000-word piece of fiction in 30 days, is in its eleventh year.  In 2008, over 20,000 writers were certified “Winners,” meaning they met or exceeded the minimum word count, turned in their manuscript on time, and made sure their work made at least some sense.     

NaNoWriMo is the literary equivalent of Hands Across America, except with actual...

Agency client (and masterful synopsis creator) Hélène Boudreau has posted an excellent guide to writing synopsis on her blog. This is a great method for authors who have trouble distilling their novels into a one page description.

Read Hélène's 9 step synopsis crafting method here.