Category — On Reading

I enjoyed this NYT piece, “The Perils of ‘Contact Me,’” on authors being all-too-accessible to their readers. Ben Yagoda writes that for him, being contacted by a reader is “flattering, and it’s actually kind of fun” — though some authors get stranger messages and are a little more wary (Mary Karr, for example, says, “I get a handful of jailhouse marriage proposals every time I publish a book”).

These days, it’s hard to imagine a time when, as Yagoda notes via this excerpt from Catcher in the Rye, authors weren’t at all accessible, when a reader of a good book once wished “the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” Now (with the well-known exception of J. D. Salinger, of course), most authors go out of their way to be accessible, whether they write for a magazine or newspaper or whether they’re writing books. It’s what we have to do.

The writer Laurence Leamer tells Yagoda he always answers notes and queries from readers: “Every author I have ever known answers the phone the same way — on the first ring. We’re all so desperate for anything to intrude on our solitude and to take us away from that blank screen. E-mails do the same thing, and I’m embarrassed to say how quickly I read them.” This is so true.

But in addition to getting a reprieve from one’s own writing, it’s great to build relationships with readers in general. Perhaps because email makes this easier now than ever, I loved hearing this story on Larry Dark’s blog in which he shares his experience receiving a note back from Raymond Carver after Dark sent him a letter expressing his admiration for Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing.” Dark writes: “I had just quit law school to pursue writing fiction, and getting a response from the great man himself thrilled me, almost seemed to validate my choice. I swore that when a fan wrote to me, I’d write back, just as Carver had.” I think hearing back from a favorite author meant even more back in those days, when a response took so much more than hitting the Reply button.

But the point is: Write to authors whose work you like. (And rest assured that if you don’t like the work, the author has likely heard about it from a zillion others already.) Ask questions. And if you’re a writer on the receiving end of a kind note, always write back.

Okay, it’s now that time of year when we look ahead (and make New Year’s Resolutions) and look back (at all the things we accomplished — or not, hence the New Year’s Resolutions).

On the publishing front, literary agent Nathan Bransford looks back at 2009 in his blog … while this Booksquare post looks ahead by forecasting publishing trends in 2010. It’s going to be another interesting year in publishing — and this post covers everything from rights to pricing to independent booksellers. (Yes, e-books “will be huge.”) And it’s hard not to love this Guardian blog post: 2009 was the year of the short story, which proves that “reports of the short story’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”

I also took a few moments to look back on the most popular posts on this blog, and among the top five were posts about social media: Twitter and Facebook. It was great to see readers checking out the Forgetting English Reading Guide and my Q&A with essay writer Brenda Miller, and rounding off the top five were the Stuff for Writers posts. Thanks so much for reading last year — I hope you come back often in 2010!

And finally, there’s nothing like a new year to inspire new writing goals. I recently met with a wonderful group of fellow writers to set goals for 2010, and it was incredibly inspiring (especially hearing about those writers who set and met their 2009 goals).

If you’re ready to do the same, I suggest a three-step process:

- What were your goals last year? If you don’t usually write down your writing goals, this year would be a good time to start. The years  have a way of slipping by if we don’t articulate our goals, and whether this is the year to write your novel, to find an agent, or to start journaling, putting it down on paper will hold you accountable. Better yet, find a writing buddy or writing group so you’ll be able to share the joys and challenges, as well as stay inspired.

- Did you meet last year’s goals? Whether you wrote them down or just had a vague idea of what you wanted to accomplish with your writing, how’d it go? If you achieved your goal — finished a first draft, submitted a story for publication, took a writing class — then think about what enabled to you do that: What had to align in your personal and professional life to make that happen? Take note of what worked, and make it happen again in 2010. If you weren’t able to meet your goals, why not? Take a look at what got in the way, and work to resolve this issue so you’ll have a better chance of completing what you set out to do this year.

- What are your writing goals this year? Finally, make that list. It doesn’t have to be grand, like Writing the Great American Novel — it just has to be something you’ve always wanted to do but have never made the time for. When you outline your goal(s), think about how you can use time to your advantage — this is the one time all year in which you’ve got 12 months (52 weeks, 365 days) in which to work on your goal. Don’t waste a single day. If you start out strong, you’ll find yourself inspired, you’ll get into a routine, and you’ll accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

Happy new year.

So I have a few more things to share with you.

One is Letters of Note, a site of “correspondence deserving of a wider audience.” So true. Here you’ll find reproductions of letters from Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie & Clyde) and Bill Watterson (of Calvin & Hobbes) as well as treasures from J. D. Salinger (on why he wouldn’t sell the film rights to Catcher in the Rye) and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (writing home during the war).

I’ve recently tuned in to Betsy Lerner’s blog on writing. An editor, literary agent, and author of The Forest for the Trees, Lerner tackles writing, agenting, and publishing in this relatively new (about a year old) blog; she also answers reader questions.

I’ve also been enjoying the blog of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign professor Philip Graham — who also teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing and is fiction editor of Ninth Letter — a great blog to visit for writing info and new ways of looking at your work.

This self-publishing site focuses on photo books, and it looks really fun for anyone who wants to create a polished travelogue or a baby book.

If you’re on Twitter, you must follow FakeAPStylebook (with many thanks to Evan, for pointing it out to me and thus giving me so many more ways to procrastinate…). But it’s worth it, with such cheeky “style guidelines” as Do not use the phrase “sources have said” unless you can’t get any real sources to say anything and Avoid reader confusion about whether Africa is a country or a continent by never writing about it. Enjoy.

And check out the Weird Book Room at Abe Books, which features all sorts of literary oddities, from The Teach Your Chicken to Fly Training Manual to Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Mind Power to The Who’s Who of British Beheadings. Believe it or not, some of these books are still in print/available.

As some of you know, I have another life as a globalization editor/writer — and right now I’m working on a report that takes a look at what’s new in globalization and languages over the past year. This, plus my fascination with Facebook, inspired me to check out my Forgetting English page in several different languages.

Here it is in Spanish:

And Chinese…

And, my favorite, “Pirate English”:

Thanks largely to volunteer translators, Facebook has localized from one to 70 languages in two years. (Personally, I think we need more of the goofy ones — I’d so much rather “Adjust me riggins” than “Change settings” or change the “Settins o’ me piracy” than my “Privacy Settings.” I’m thinking of volunteering to do “Snarky English” myself.)

If you’re a translator, there’s a link on Facebook (on the language setting page) where you can find out more. And if you’re interested in language and globalization in general, check out our new report, coming in 2010.

Here are a few of my new favorite toys, procrastination tools, and helpful resources for writers (though not in that order) …

Seattle-based writer Angela Fountas runs Quoterly, a wonderful site that “hopes to inspire you to forget every rule you’ve ever learned about writing, because the writing process is bigger, and more mysterious, than any set of rules.” Visit often for new and inspiring quotes from writers’ interviews and readings.

And I love this new application, Omm Writer, which is meant to keep you from distraction while writing. It gives you a lovely page (see below) with a text box in the middle (not pictured), and you can choose from several different soothing melodies if you’d like some background music. Just looking at it makes me feel relaxed.

I enjoyed seeing Charles Dickens’ revisions to “A Christmas Carol” here (though how he read his own handwriting I have no idea). But it’s a nice reminder that every writer not only writes but rewrites, and a lot. Check out this NY Times blog for more on Dickens the editor.

For writers who tweet (or would like to), check out Jane Friedman’s post on Twitter Tips for Writers.

Speaking of social networking, try (for material as well as procrastination) Lamebook, in which — you guessed it — lame and often hilarious pictures, status updates, and other items are posted (anonymously, of course).

And finally, one thing I love about inventing new characters is exploring who they are and what makes them tick. I just discovered this site, which is designed to “explore your morality” and features tests that cover everything from personality to work ethic to vengeance. The site notes, “Many aspects of personality are related to morality. Many aspects of behavior are influenced by moral motives. And many conflicts and misunderstandings are driven by differences in morality” — and what better ways to explore a new character? Keep in mind that while the site is designed to help you explore these issues, the five social psychologists who created it hope to expand their research … so for the sake of scientific accuracy, you may want to avoid registering for ten different fictional characters and instead just use their questions as a guideline.

Enjoy!

The New York Times reported that The Atlantic will publish two short stories (by Christopher Buckley and Edna O’Brien) today on the Kindle. The stories, which will be offered at $3.99 each, will be available only on Amazon’s e-reader (not in the print version), and they’ll be the first of many more — about two Kindle stories every month, says The Atlantic.

It’s not the first time individual short stories have been made available on the Kindle — for example, my husband, John Yunker, made his award-winning short story, “The Tourist Trail,” available on the Kindle after it first appeared in Phoebe — but it’s great to see that The Atlantic, which stopped publishing monthly fiction in 2005, is embracing a new format.

The format is a bit limiting, since one needs a Kindle to access these stories. The authors will split earnings with both The Atlantic and Amazon and are restricted from publishing these stories in other e-formats. But publishing in e-format is still attractive; as author Curtis Sittenfeld (Prep and American Wife) told the Times, she didn’t mind selling a story to The Atlantic for the Kindle only because “had she sold it to a small academic journal, it would have had ‘limited distribution anyway.’”

We still have to support the small journals — both by reading them and submitting to them — but it’s great to see The Atlantic take this step, as it allows the magazine to publish stories that may not be affordable to publish in print form. How many readers will pay $3.99 per story is what I’m eager to see; I hope readers will embrace e-stories as they do e-books.

What I learned from John’s adventures with the Kindle and “The Tourist Trail” is that he had to charge $1 because Amazon won’t allow anything to be posted for free; this is why he also made the story available for free as a PDF … and while not all writers are willing to give away content for free, it’s a reminder that, in the end, what’s most important for writers is having readers.

Now that we’re in the year’s eleventh month, we’re also in the season of Top 10 lists — opinions on the year’s best of all things cultural, including, of course, books. So I thought I’d include a list of the lists … at least a few of them.

For The Guardian, Howard Jacobson has compiled a list of the Top 10 Novels of Sexual Jealousy. From James Joyce to Jane Austen, the list includes Shakespeare’s Othello, “only not a novel because novels weren’t a going form yet.”

Publishers Weekly released its Top 10 Books of 2009, which includes not one book by a woman. This NY Times article on the reaction to the all-male list is followed by reader comments.

The Atlantic lists only five Books of the Year, but also includes a long list of runners up.

The New York Times has posted its critics’ Top 10 Books of 2009 — Dwight Garner, Michiko Kakutani, Janet Maslin — and the NYT Book Review has posted its list of 100 Notable Books of 2009, compiled from the year’s reviews.

I was very happy to see that the Seattle Books Examiner’s Best Books of 2009 includes three short story collections (happiest of all that one of them is Forgetting English, which is in excellent company among Mary Gaitskill’s Don’t Cry and Amanda Eyre Ward’s Love Stories in This Town).

And this post from literary agent Nathan Bransford’s blog is a top ten list of another sort: Top 10 Myths about E-Books, an important read for readers and writers alike.

I will be adding to this post periodically — the year’s not over yet! — but this should be enough to cover holiday reading and holiday shopping over the long weekend.

And what’s on your top ten list?

It’s been great to see short stories getting so much attention lately — from the 2009 Pulitzer in Fiction going to Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge to Oprah’s newest pick, Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them, to the National Book Award finalists, which include Bonnie Jo Campbell for her collection American Salvage and Daniyal Mueunuddin for In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. And as always, Andrew’s Book Club highlights two to three story collections every month (for November: Alice Munro and Laura van den Berg).

And I enjoyed seeing yet another reading expert celebrate the short story: Nina Sankovitch (who has read a book a day for the past year, and counting) recently made the argument, in The Huffington Post, that even if we think we don’t have time for reading, we can always find time to read a short story — and she includes a terrific list of suggestions.

So whether it’s just before bed, on your bus ride home, or during your wait at the doctor’s office, take those minutes you think you don’t have and devote them to a story (or two, if you’re at the doctor’s office; or three, if you’re in traffic) … and enjoy.

In celebration of Halloween, I offer you this story by the late Kurt Vonnegut, published by the LA Times for the first time (and forthcoming in a new book from Delacorte Press).

“Look at the Birdie” is just what we might expect of Vonnegut: it’s bizarre and brilliant — and with such lines as “she was…watching us with the harrowing cuteness of schizophrenia,” you won’t be able to stop reading (and you may be looking over your shoulder for the rest of the day, too).

(Writers: Check out Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing.)

Happy Halloween.

I met Brenda Miller at the Get Lit! festival this past April, almost two years after I first read her wonderful essay “Blessing of the Animals” in The Sun. I was reminded of the exquisite beauty of her writing when I heard her read and promptly devoured her new book (titled after that essay) as well as her first collection, Season of the Body. Brenda’s essays have been described as “affecting and thought-provoking” (Publishers Weekly), “glistening, sensuous” (Kirkus Reviews), and “memorable for their sensuality and unflinching honesty” (Library Journal).

Brenda graciously agreed to do a Q&A for my memoir students at Hugo House, who I knew would benefit from her advice and experience — and I’m posting it here knowing that any other writer who reads this will benefit as well.

Q: What led you to personal writing as opposed to, say, fiction?

A: Well, the easy answer is that I’m a terrible fiction writer! I wrote quite a bit of fiction in grad school, because back then “creative nonfiction” was not recognized as a valid creative writing genre. So to write prose, I had to be in the fiction workshops. But all my stories were a bit “forced,” that is: they never quite found their authentic voice and instead relied on standard plot elements I cribbed from writers I admired. Dialogue, too, was always my weakness. When I discovered creative nonfiction, my voice naturally emerged and I was able to be much more fluent in my writing. I found I was able to bring in what I love about poetry (I also wrote poetry for years and years)—metaphor, unexpected images, the sonic quality of language—into prose in ways that kept me excited and interested in my own work. It began to feel more like a process of discovery than fiction had been for me. I also spent a year writing a very bad novel, and so I got that out of my system!

Q: How much distance do you need from a topic to write elegantly and clearly about it?

A: It depends. For certain things, I still don’t have enough distance, even though the events may have happened thirty years ago. For others, I write about them as they’re happening. In either case, I don’t think it’s the literal time, but the mind’s perspective on the topic or event that creates enough breathing room for something literary to happen on the page. Also: form. If you find the right form, or voice, for a piece, it can provide just the “container” you need for whatever the topic might be. And some of my essays span quite a bit of time; so I might start off by writing about an image from my childhood, which leads me to something quite close in the present day; once I’m on that train I’m not going to jump off.

Q: When do you know a piece is finished? And how do you know what is essential and what should be eliminated?

A: This may sound weird, but I think I hear an audible “click” when a piece has found its ending line. But then again, I’ve heard that “click” and then have to go back and “unclick” it, or sit with my ear up against the essay, listening, listening for just the right moment when it all comes together. It takes a great deal of patience. I think you only know it’s finished when it gets published, and even then there are things you’re going to want to go back and change.

When I’m in the final revision stage, I read the piece aloud. When the writing begins to bore me, I stop and see what’s going on in that section. It’s usually something I’ve written to get me to the next stage, and it can be cut. That’s the fun part: once you know what your essay is about and its trajectory (where it’s going to end up), it becomes pretty easy to gently put aside those things that are getting in the way and save them for something else.

Q: When the people in your life become a part of your essays, how do you anticipate/handle their reactions? Have you ever written/published something you wish you could take back?

A: I just don’t think about while I’m writing new work, or else I would never write a word. I save those decisions for when I’m in the revision stages, and then I think about if I’m being fair or exploitative of other people. There are some things I’ve written that will never see the light of day. And yes, there are definitely things I’ve published that I cringe at a little now and wonder if I should have said what I said. It’s as if I’m in a trance while I’m writing and forget that these are actual people and not just characters. I forget that anyone else would ever read this. I could get away with that thirty years ago, but not so much anymore!

I think in most of my writing it’s very clear that I’m telling my own story, from my own very particular perspective, and that I don’t claim to be telling a grand “truth” with a Capital T. I’m trying to understand my own experience, not indict anyone or tell their truth. I think that’s the essential piece of this particular puzzle. If you’re trying to discover your own story, and in the process see how your own story fits into a larger consciousness, you’re not using other people in ways that are vindictive or selfish. You have to be mature about it (or at least give that impression!).

Q: How do you decide how to structure a piece?

A: Well, I’m not really all that intentional about it. The pieces seem to structure themselves to a certain extent. I just start with some image that is bugging me and then ask the question “why?” Why do I remember that? What’s going on there? These days, I can pretty quickly sense how long the essay will be: from a couple of paragraphs to a twenty-pager. And if it’s something that will lend itself to research, it’s nearly always going to end up in a braided form so that I can play cool images and facts against one another.

Q: You sometimes choose the second-person voice (“How to Meditate” from Season of the Body) or the third-person voice (“Table of Figures” from Blessing of the Animals) – is this a conscious decision, or do the stories simply come to you in these voices?

A: I may have answered this in the last question! Both of those essays were started in classes I was teaching; I was doing the writing exercises along with my students, so I was doing whatever the teacher said!

Q: Which writers taught you the most about craft by reading their work?

A: Oh, such a hard question. E.B. White first showed me the power of the first-person voice. Bernard Cooper showed me what could be done with scene, humor and structure. Joan Didion continually teaches me about the sentence. Mark Doty allows me to revel in language and transcendence through language.

Q: Do you have a writing group? How do know if a writing group is a good fit?

A: I now have a couple of writing groups. In the most consistent group, we do new writing together, usually at a café, in formal timed-writing segments. It’s where we get the bulk of our new writing done for the week. And because we just meet at the same time every week, we don’t have to do too much fiddling with our calendars; the space is held for us. In the other group we give writing assignments to one another and bring those in, but that group has a harder time finding the consistent way to be together. I think that may be one of the things to consider: if it’s just too hard to arrange calendars with a group of people, it’s going to end up being stressful rather than a pleasure.

At this point in my writing life, I don’t have a group for feedback on work-in-progress; I’d rather just give to one friend and meet over coffee. I also try to have a “writing contract” with a long-distance friend, especially in the summer. We actually write out monthly contracts on how much work we will accomplish each week and send to the other, with consequences if it doesn’t happen! We don’t often give feedback; it’s just the expectation that you’ll write that gets you in the chair to write. I’m finding that feedback needs to be done only when I’m ready; otherwise, it becomes a hindrance rather than a help. I know it might be heretical for me to say this, since I make a living as a teacher, but I think we may have created student writers who are too dependent on feedback—too eager to please–and so they don’t develop their own intuition and stamina for writing on their own.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: A book in collaboration with my friend Holly Hughes called “The Pen and the Bell: Reading, Writing, and the Contemplative Life.” I’m also toying with a memoir in short fragments that are emerging from the writing practice group.

The End — with many thanks to Brenda, and to the Hugo House writers for the great questions.

Brenda is also the author of Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction (with Suzanne Paola) and her work appears in numerous literary journals and anthologies and has received five Pushcart Prizes. For more info, visit Brenda’s web site.

As I reported in this blog a while back, Bellingham, Washington’s Village Books became the first bookstore on the West Coast to acquire an Espresso machine — not the caffeine-producing kind, however: the book-producing kind.

Many of you may already be familiar with the Espresso Book Machine, which allows bookstores to offer customers out-of-print books or self-published books on demand. While I’ve written about it before, last night I got the chance to see the Espresso — and its products — firsthand.

The EBM can print “over two million public domain and in-copyright titles,” as its web site tells us, and its main purpose is to serve “educational institutions and libraries, public libraries, bookstores, self-publishing, multi-lingual environments and in many other global point of sale or point of need locations.” What does this mean for us as writers and readers? For one, if your book is out-of-print, this machine will bring it back. If you want to self-publish, readers have (relatively) instant access to your books, without your having to go into debt and sell copies out of the trunk of your car. And for readers, the EBM means you can walk into Village Books and acquire any out-of-print or copyright-free book in about the time it takes to order and enjoy a regular espresso.

Robert, who introduced me at the reading last night and was ever so kind and patient to indulge my fascination with the book machine, showed me the machine as well as a couple of printed books. They looked and felt as good as any perfect-bound paperback original — and the whole process, he says, takes only about ten minutes.

As Village Books co-owner Chuck Robinson told the Herald back in September, “There are obviously changes rapidly taking place in our industry, and instead of standing on the sidelines and waiting to see what will happen, we’ve decided to jump right in.” The EBM, he hopes, will provide a market for readers looking for out-of-print books by local authors, as well as anyone who plans to self-publish, from novels to compilations of recipes or family histories.

If you’re in the Bellingham area, drop into Village Books to check it out (though that’s not the only reason: the store also has three floors of already-printed books, and two adjoining cafes have regular espresso). You may not find the machine as fascinating as I did (but I’m nerdy that way), but nevertheless it offers a glimpse into book publishing’s high-tech future.

Well, despite all the bad news we’re getting about publishing these days, the NY Times reported a bit of better news: Electronic reading devices are attracting more readers.

Of course, this good news comes from the makers (and marketers) of e-reading devices. Publishers are not nearly as optimistic. According to Amazon, “a reader who had previously bought eight books from Amazon would now purchase, on average, 24.8 books” on his or her Kindle. Those who use Sony Readers purchase an average of eight books a month, “far more than the approximately 6.7 books than the average American book buyer purchased for the entire year in 2008.”

And yesterday, Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook.

Yet rather than being heartened by this news during a poor sales season, publishers remain wary, the article notes. And of course, there’s the pirating issue — though the pirating story in this article seems no different than what people do with traditional books: passing them around to friends and family. (“Exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s system, [Shayna Englin] has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once.”)

Still, it’s nice to hear that people who did not previously read much are now reading quite a lot — after all, despite the hurdles ahead, publishing is still, in the end, all about the readers.

As I sifted through the stacks of newspapers that piled up over the week, it all added up to some pretty depressing publishing news (as for what’s going on in the rest of the world, let’s not even go there). First I read this NY Times story about price wars, which notes that Wal-Mart and Amazon will be offering new hardcover releases at $8.99 this holiday season. This is, in so many ways, a new low.

“Publishing as we know it is over,” John Grisham’s literary agent, David Gernert, told the Times, if people start getting used to $10 books. If you can buy a new hardcover from a bestselling author for under $10, Gernert notes: “why would you buy a brilliant first novel for $25? I think we underestimate the effect to which extremely discounted best sellers take the consumer’s attention away from emerging writers.” Indeed.

And if that isn’t scary enough, check out this article on book piracy, and learn all about how file-sharing sites (such as RapidShare, Megaupload, Hotfile) offer easy access to pirated e-books. Because e-books are inevitable (for better or worse), piracy is becoming a huge concern — and the only good news about this is that it might create jobs in a struggling industry (because file-sharing sites don’t generally screen for content, they’ll only take down pirated material if asked, which apparently means publishers and/or authors will need full-time piracy detectives to protect their work).

The Times discovered through Attributor, a company offering antipiracy services to publishers, that 166 copies of the e-book version of Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” were available on 11 sites (RapidShare accounted for 102). Yikes. I’m all for e-books as part of the evolution of publishing and storytelling, but clearly this is going to be a significant problem, albeit more for hugely bestselling authors like Dan Brown than for the rest of us.

And yet…we can’t ignore the fact that e-books are an inevitable part of the new publishing landscape, particularly with ongoing troubling news about independent bookstores closing across the country. The latest concern is, for me, very local, with the news that Seattle’s beloved Elliott Bay Book Company faces serious financial hurdles. This Newsday article highlights other independent booksellers worried about the price wars.

However, there is — as always — some good news mixed into all of this. The Newsday piece does include booksellers’ optimism that they exist not to sell the hottest new hardcovers but to offer “all kinds of books – classics, specialty books, nonfiction, wholesale bulk sales to schools – as well as events.” And as Terry Lucas of The Open Book says: “We sell customer service, knowledge – and you can’t do that for $10.”

And don’t forget that Powell’s (Portland, Oregon’s awesome bookstore) sold books online even before Amazon did — and now carries more than 200,000 titles in four digital formats. So bookstores that change with the times will likely be here to stay.

Finally, we all have to remember that stories were being told long before books existed — before written language existed, in fact. And even when tales went to print, the idea of copyright didn’t come until later; everything was — for a while, at least — in the public domain.

And so we’ll continue to tell stories, and people will continue to want them — the big question of the future being how we tell them, and how audiences receive them.

How often do you actually listen to stories anymore? Probably not as much as you did before you could read on your own. If you’re like me, you go to bookstore readings as often as you can, though except for poetry and very short stories, often the author reads a portion of a longer work, which isn’t quite the same as hearing a whole piece from beginning to end.

This afternoon I went to the Seattle Public Library’s Thrilling Tales (it’s a year-round thing, but it’s especially fun in October, when the fiction librarian picks the creepiest stories). Today’s reading featured a story by the amazing Alison Lurie called “The Highboy,” which until today I hadn’t yet read (or heard). It’s now officially one of my favorite stories ever: it’s creepy, hilarious, beautifully written. And I think that while I’d have loved reading it myself, I was more taken by hearing it read aloud.

As a writer, one of the many things I love about this story is the way Lurie handles time: she propels the story from afternoon to evening, from one season to another with seamless grace (always a challenge for me in my own work). I’m not sure how much this would have stood out to me had I been reading it myself, rather than sitting there anticipating the next line. And hearing this piece aloud clarified something about a piece of my own that I’m trying to find a title for: Use a simple title for a piece in which you’re asking readers to suspend disbelief. While in another story it might seem ordinary, for a story like this one, it’s absolutely perfect.

By the way, I’m not even going to give you a hint as to what the story’s about, and will instead insist that you go out and find it. It’s so good.

So whether you’re in reading-for-pleasure mode, or reading-as-writer mode, try listening instead. The Seattle Public Library creates podcasts of many of its visiting authors — and check out the New Yorker’s podcasts, where you can listen to Joyce Carol Oates read Eudora Welty, or T.C. Boyle read Tobias Wolff, and much more.

Happy listening.

There’s always something new in e-publishing these days … and now it’s the “vook.” As the NY Times reports, Simon & Schuster is working “with a multimedia partner to release four ‘vooks,’ which intersperse videos throughout electronic text that can be read — and viewed — online or on an iPhone or iPod Touch.” And the article poses the Big Question of whether the attraction of vooks to “modern readers” will lead to material that “ultimately degrades the act of reading.”

What a great question. E-books are simple enough — they’re still books; you just turn them on instead of opening them up. But when it comes to multimedia books, it does seem to be more about the video than the text. But the question is: are these drawing readers away from reading, or attracting video people to reading? And some of them are simply more instructional than anything: one of the Simon & Schuster vooks, for example, is a fitness title that demonstrates the exercises.

Personally, I like my reading straight (I don’t even like to watch movie versions of books, most of the time). But then, that’s pretty old-fashioned these days. And electronic devices are not only not going anywhere but are only going to become more interactive and innovative. This post on Booksquare looks at e-books in the marketplace and makes a good point about publishers not releasing e-versions of books until after the hardcover: “People, please. Get over yourselves. Yes, the ebook will drain away some hardcover sales — many of those customers are already lost to you. They choose ebooks for their own convenience, not yours. There is absolutely no evidence that withholding the ebook will encourage ebook readers to purchase the hardcover instead. None. Zilch. Nada. Not one iota. Zippo. It’s more likely that withholding the ebook version will result in a lost sale.”

And e-books might get even hotter with the upcoming holiday season … as the LA Times reports, an online survey shows that one in five shoppers plan to buy an electronic book reader this year.

I’m all for e-books and what they can offer, but it’s still a tough call for me personally, even as co-owner of a Kindle. For example, after seeing an awesome poetry lecture last weekend, I got in the mood to read Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, which, to my horror, I don’t own (or at least can’t find anywhere amid the ridiculous number of books around here). I can download it free on my Kindle, or buy a copy in my local bookstore. Still haven’t decided.