Booklife

First-time author Josephine Angelini gets seven figure book deal for her YA trilogy.

Journalist and writer on the future of libraries Marilyn Johnson on Bat Segundo.

Jon Stewart to host BookExpo America.

Books in the age of the iPad.

Books to be reinvented as tablets become mainstream.

The worst grammar mistakes ever.

James Cameron defends author of disputed Hiroshima book.

Evolutionary psychologists turn their attention to romantic fiction.

German book sales down 7.5% without last year’s Stephenie Meyer sales.

A week without books.

Matt Staggs is a literary publicist and the proprietor of Deep Eight LLC, a boutique publicity agency utilizing the best publicity practices from the worlds of traditional media and evolving social technologies. He has worked in the fields of public relations and journalism for almost a decade. In addition to his work as a publicist, Matt is a book reviewer and writer whose work appears in both print and web publications.

Tomorrow is National Magazine Day. Time to “Attack the Stack.”

There are no guarantees, in writing or in life.

Teenage fiction’s death wish.

Web surfer recovers stolen Descartes letter.

Agony Column interviews Dan Simmons.

Keeping out the trolls: relevancy in user-generated content.

What is the worst sentence you ever wrote?

Nintendo makes moves into book market.

Thousands of authors opt out of Google Book plan.

Ask the editor: do edits change style?

Matt Staggs is a literary publicist and the proprietor of Deep Eight LLC, a boutique publicity agency utilizing the best publicity practices from the worlds of traditional media and evolving social technologies. He has worked in the fields of public relations and journalism for almost a decade. In addition to his work as a publicist, Matt is a book reviewer and writer whose work appears in both print and web publications.

Inspired by Elmore Leonard’s own ten rules of writing, The Guardian asked successful authors like Michael Moorcock and Joyce Carol Oates to submit their own lists of writing do’s and don’ts. You can read them all here.

While most of these are extremely useful – and it’s always fun to see how your favorite writer thinks – it got me to thinking about rules that aren’t so useful, and how things that we once thought were set in stone have a tendency to change as we advance in our understanding of our art.

I used to feel like I couldn’t write without a formal outline. I felt like that was the way “real” writers wrote. Despite that, it just didn’t work for me, and eventually I became brave enough to abandon that rule in favor of my own methods. I’ve since had several of my personal rules come and go as my writing has matured. What about you? How have your own personal rules for writing changed? What’s the most dramatic reversal or abandonment of a rule that you’ve experienced in your career? Have any managed to survive the passage of time?

Kirkus Reviews officially announces sale to Herbert Simon.

A row with the estate of Jorge Luis Borges has left works he produced with translator Norman Thomas di Giovanni in a state of limbo.

Were the mummy wrappings recycled into nineteenth century printing paper?

Google Book plans still under scrutiny.

J.K. Rowling subject of plagiarism suit.

The Rumpus interviews poet Gary Young: “We write because we can’t not write. We want to make music out of our breath; we want to be under the power of an art that toys with us and could destroy us, but which allows us to get a glimpse of what’s real.”

Publisher Prometheus Books open to unagented submissions.

Take advantage of Galley Cat’s list of Best Book Reviewers on Twitter!

The Daily Beast’s Best Books You Missed This Decade.

Ruth Franklin asks if there’s such a thing as American fiction anymore.

Matt Staggs is a literary publicist and the proprietor of Deep Eight LLC, a boutique publicity agency utilizing the best publicity practices from the worlds of traditional media and evolving social technologies. He has worked in the fields of public relations and journalism for almost a decade. In addition to his work as a publicist, Matt is a book reviewer and writer whose work appears in both print and web publications.

In a recent article Inspired by the release of a new biopic on Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, Evan Maloney of The Guardian looked at the ways that movies depict the lives of writers. These movies traffic in a certain ideal of the writer as a lusty soul with a thirst for strong drink, scrawling his or her revelations while dancing on the ever-thinning boundary between genius and madness.

Those of you who write know how far removed this sort of drama is from the hard, lonely work that is the real writer’s lot. This is a craft that requires sacrifice: hours spent hunched over notepads or keyboards, often at odd hours between the demands of work and family is the would-be writer’s toll.

Admittedly, the writer’s work requires a little glamour to hold the attention of the movie-going public, but to what degree do these sorts of popular depictions create and shape the expectations others hold of writers and their work? Further, do writers themselves feel some sort of pressure to live up to what they think a “successful” writer is supposed to be like?

How much of your own life and writing work is or was influenced or shaped by popular culture’s idea of successful authorhood? Has this changed over your career? What about the way other people perceive you? Are there things that you could change for the better? Would you?

Matt Staggs is a literary publicist and the proprietor of Deep Eight LLC, a boutique publicity agency utilizing the best publicity practices from the worlds of traditional media and evolving social technologies. He has worked in the fields of public relations and journalism for almost a decade. In addition to his work as a publicist, Matt is a book reviewer and writer whose work appears in both print and web publications.

Looking to gain authenticity in your chosen career path as a writer? This article has a few thoughts that might help.

Google releases “Google Buzz,” a new social media and communications platform. Opinions are divided, but as a collaborative tool it could have some interesting applications for writers.

Another sign of the times: the San Diego Union-Tribune has hired a former vice president of interactive to serve as their new editor.

National Public Radio’s Guy Raz has just announced a new “Three Minute Fiction” contest. Grab your pencil…and your stop watch!

Author Patrick Rothfuss offers advice to new writers.

Author Frank Wisner on the supportive role his publisher plays in his career.

Children’s authors on what it takes to be successful after your first book.

Google defends book settlement; sets stage for court hearing.

How to find an agent for your non-fiction book.

Once successful, is a writer obligated to continue his career?

Matt Staggs is a literary publicist and the proprietor of Deep Eight LLC, a boutique publicity agency utilizing the best publicity practices from the worlds of traditional media and evolving social technologies. He has worked in the fields of public relations and journalism for almost a decade. In addition to his work as a publicist, Matt is a book reviewer and writer whose work appears in both print and web publications.