The first e-book offering from little old me.

Yep. I did it. It wasn’t traditional. It wasn’t even my favorite book. I know, you shouldn’t say that. But I have become filterless in the last short while… beware the “f” bomb, people.

I blame it on the world. I am, like most writers filled with doubt about the publishing world- the book as we once knew it is probably changing forever. And along with that, is the way we acquire, market and buy both the author and the book.

So what’s a girl to do? Give up her dream? Stand there and just take it? Nope. Not my style. I have been patient. I have been understanding, forgiving and kind. Ask my agent.*

I believe there is “the right time” for everything, but seriously… does it take 4 months for an editor to reply? I know I always think I can do something better than the guy in charge, but imagine this… an email comes in. You read the query.  You say, nope. not for me. you reply. You delete, and repeat. A pitch comes from an agent, you like it, you request manu.  She sends it, you skim, trust your gut. Offer or decline. Done. Next?

Don’t even get me started on the army of marketers and accountants it takes to push a manuscript into book form. Or the way most people only read what they find listed on a BOGUS best-seller list. ANd please, we do not want to talk about the way some writers are more magic web masters and salespeople than wordsmiths.

ARGH.

Let’s just say, I want to keep writing novels, even if no one ever reads them. Even if I have to buy the whole stock myself and fly around the world reading chapters to blind people . I want to believe in the power of words, be sucked into the imagery of a place I will never go nor have never been. I want to be responsible for taking one person out of their reality and dropping them smack into a place from my dream. I want to mess with your head and I want you to love me for it.

Well, there. that’s why we write. For love. Or… to annoy the shit out of you.

I do both.

*note to agent   forgive my candor…now go pitch We’re Not Waving, We’re Drowning, and 3 Women Walk into a Bar

I found and joined the Facebook group, Naked Girls Reading, without really knowing what it was, only that I was one of them. I admit. I read in bed. I’ll also admit, I don’t always wear pajamas.

But wait, read on.

This is a live reading series, where totally buck naked- not even a pasty- they claim. beautiful Burlesque dancing women read from banned books.

“Pinchbottom Burlesque debuted Naked Girls Reading Banned Books at Madame X on Friday, October 16. It was hosted by Nasty Canasta, with Gal Friday, GiGi La Femme, Jo Boobs, Legs Malone, Sapphire Jones and Naked Girls Reading creator, Michelle L’Amour. ”

I know. Great, isn’t it?

Now, I’d love to see some audience reaction photos.

Here, “Nasty Canasta reads And Tango Makes Three, the true story of Silo and Roy, a male penguin couple in the Central Park Zoo. The American Library Association deemed it the most banned book of 2009 and most challenged book of 2006 – 2008.”

Burlesque gets smart-assed.

God, I love New York.

LUSH LIFE. By Richard Price. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Chandler — and Bellow, too — peeps out from Price’s novel, in which an aspiring writer cum restaurant manager, mugged in the gentrifying Lower East Side of Manhattan, himself becomes a suspect.

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH. By Jhumpa Lahiri. (Knopf, $25.) In eight sensitive stories, Lahiri evokes the anxiety, excitement and transformations felt by Bengali immigrants and their American children.

THE UNFORTUNATES. By B. S. Johnson. (New Directions, $24.95.) This novel, first published in 1969, dovetails theme (the accidents of memory) with eccentric form (unbound chapters to be read in any order).

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? By Kate Atkinson. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) Jackson Brodie, the hero of Atkinson’s previous literary thrillers, takes the case of a mother and baby who suddenly disappear.

THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK. By John Updike. (Knopf, $24.95.) In this ingenious sequel to “The Witches of Eastwick,” the three title characters, old ladies now, renew their sisterhood, return to their old hometown and contrive to atone for past crimes.

My friend Jack Riggs reads from his new book, The Fireman’s Wife. Watch for it early next year.
Robert Olen Butler read from his book, Intercourse. Great, as usual.