First Lines in Young Adult Novels

I  get about 10 queries for fiction every day. Most of the time I reject them after only reading the query letter and try to send a timely and polite reply. If my curiosity is piqued, I’ll  request the first 10 pages of the manuscript. And if I get excited by that, I’ll ask for the complete manuscript. Fiction is so hard to sell that I end up representing only a few titles a year out of the several thousand submissions received. What really surprised me when I first started evaluating fiction is that I could usually tell by the end of the first page, sometimes by the end of the first paragraph, whether the writer had talent or not. I thought perhaps there was something wrong with my own critical faculties. But when I asked experienced book editors, they acknowledged that they do the same.

Last year at the Book Passage Children’s Writers Conference, I sat in on a wonderful workshop conducted by author Kristin Tracy about young adult fiction. We spent a lot of time looking at some examples of first paragraphs. And we talked about why they worked and how they were able to express so much in so few words.

So today I’m going to use 3 examples of beginnings of some young adult titles and try to understand what makes them work. Let’s start with Kristin Tracy’s first novel and see how she does it.

 Lost It, Kristin Tracy

“I didn’t start out my junior year of high school planning to lose my virginity to Benjamin Easter – a senior – at his parent’s cabin in Island Park underneath a sloppily patched, unseaworthy, upside down canoe. Up to that point I’d been somewhat of a prude who’d avoided the outdoors, especially the wilderness, for the sole purpose that I didn’t want to be eaten alive.”

Kristin  likes to write stories that start right out of the gate. No prologues, no weather reports. And I think that is generally  a good idea.  She gets  a lot of information out in the first 2 sentences without sacrificing the very engaging and natural voice of the narrator. We learn in the first 15 words that this is going to be a story about losing your virginity. We know that the narrator is 16 and her “seducer is probably 17. Important information for a teen reader.  We learn that the critical incident occurs under  an old canoe somewhere in the wilderness.   And we also know from the writing a lot about the tone of the book. The book will probably be funny, given the lighthearted voice of the narrator and even more the comical description of the place where she lost it. It wasn’t in a grave yard or a haunted house (for a paranormal novel). It didn’t take place on the field of Gettysburg (historical). Or in Middle Earth (fantasy). It’s just a cabin by the lake  (or something). A realistic genre with a realistic story.  The style is fun and you gotta love the character after just these 2 lines.

 The Fault in Our Stars, John Green

“Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time thinking about death.

“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.”

Sometimes it’s hard to define great writing. But I usually know it when I see it. John Green tells us in the first sentence that this is not going to be a whimsical book. And he tells us in the second sentence that it is about disease. And in the 4^th sentence, about dying. But what makes this short passage amazing is the way the words get put together and the way the sentences sound when you are reading them. Try reading it out loud. It seems effortless, but it isn’t.  Look at his careful selection of words. “Winter”, for instance. I think that word really sets the stage for a book with a lot of elegiac qualities in style and content. This  wouldn’t work at all if it began in the spring with blossoms bursting forth.   Check out the cadence in these first few sentences. The first sentence is long, lots of subordinate clauses.  The second sentence is of a normal length.  The third, shorter still and with a kind of staccato feel to it. All a build up to the last sentence, made all the more dramatic by the brilliant use of the rhetorical repetitions of “depression” and “side effect”. A powerful release that hits the reader with a wallop.

A less experienced writer might have started this story: “I woke up feeling depressed…again. It was, after all, my seventeenth birthday.  I pulled myself out of bed and looked out the window. More snow. The third time this week.”

The Hunger Games,  Suzanne Collins.

“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.

“I prop myself up on one elbow. There’s enough light in the bedroom to see them. My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother’s body, their cheeks pressed together.  In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so broken down. Prim’s face is as fresh as a rain drop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.”

We all know that this book is based upon Katniss’s decision to risk her own life to save her sister’s. And most of the book is about the violence and the horrors of The Hunger Games.  To me it seems perfect that Collins begins the book by painting this incredibly intimate scene at home as a contrast to what will befall Katniss in the coming story. Think about the evocative atmosphere of  intimacy and love Collins creates in this scene.  Katniss’s fingers stretching out, Prim’s warmth. Climbing in bed with the mother where she is curled up.  A lot of manuscripts I see from inexperienced writers have similes and figures of speech that seem overwritten and  usually miss the mark. But here Prim has a face “as fresh as a rain drop”. It’s simple and short and profoundly expressive. Even the choice of the words adds to the feeling of warmth of the scene (curled, cocooned, cheeks, rain drop, primrose).  The few words Collins uses to describe her mother tell us about the harsh conditions of the post-apocalyptic world they live in and prefigure the story to come.

Mary Mackey Talks About E-book Publishing

Mary Mackey is the author of six collections of poetry and thirteen novels, including New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestsellers. Her books have been translated into twelve foreign languages and over a million and a half have been sold in hard copy. This spring, nine of her novels and her latest collection of poetry Sugar Zone were simultaneously re-released as Kindle e-books.  By the end of the summer they will be available on Nook, Kobo, iPad, and Android. We are going to talk to Mary today about how she got these books back into print and what her experience has been.

Andy: Nine of your novels and Sugar Zone, your most recent collection of poetry, were recently published as e-books.  How did this happen?

Mary: The short version is that my agent Barbara Lowenstein first negotiated two deals: one with Amazon.com, which publishes Kindle books, and another with Vook, which publishes e-books in the Epub format on all other platforms. She could only do this because she had retained my electronic rights when the books were originally sold to traditional publishing houses. The moral of this story is that every writer needs a great agent to draw up contracts and make deals with publishers.

Andy: How did you get your books into Kindle and other e-book formats? Did you do it yourself?

Mary: No, thank heavens, I didn’t have to. Barbara’s assistants worked with me for several months to get the files ready, and then Amazon did the actual conversion. I had to proofread everything to catch errors and make sure nothing was left out.

Andy: Were most of these books out of print before they were published as e-books?

Mary: Yes, it was a kind of resurrection. Even A Grand Passion, my novel about ballet which made The New York Times bestseller list had been hard to get. But the strangest experience was having my first novel Immersion available again after being out of print for 38 years. Shameless Hussy Press had published about 1000 copies, but very few were still available and those were so expensive I could rarely afford to buy one for myself. Then, bang. Immersion came out as an e-book, and suddenly people who would never have stumbled on it in a bookstore were buying it.

Andy: How are the books selling?

Mary: Very well. They’ve only been available for a short time, but every month at least a third more units have been sold than in the previous month. The first month Amazon sold over 700 copies. This approaches bestseller status for newly released e-books if you don’t count blockbusters like Fifty Shades of Grey.

Andy: I understand that when most authors publish e-books, they only sell a few copies. To what do you attribute your success?  How are people finding your books among the more than a million books available on Kindle and the ten million in other e-book formats?

Mary: We think there are several factors. First, I’m a writer with a well-established readership. I already have a reputation—fans, readers who have enjoyed my work in the past and are interested in anything new I might write. Some of my novels, like A Grand Passion or The Year The Horses Came have a cult following Second, I’m a current writer. I’ve had two novels and a collection of poetry published in the last five years. If people have read The Widow’s War (Berkley Books, 2009), they might search for me by name and find my other books all priced at $2.99, and think: “Why not take a chance? I liked her other books, and if for some reason I don’t like this one, it costs me less than a small Frappuccino at Starbucks.” I mention the price because it’s the third factor and vitally important. To sell a lot of e-books you need to set a price low enough that everyone can afford them.

Andy: How can authors who don’t already have an established literary reputation help readers find their e-books?

Mary: The algorithm that Amazon uses to decide which books to recommend to readers is a secret, but certain things seem to help. For example, my books are highly rated. They’ve been given a lot of stars by people who liked them and been reviewed numerous times, mostly quite favorably. In addition, readers have tagged each novel with words they associate with it. For example, A Grand Passion is tagged with the words “ballet,” “bestseller,” “dance,” “historical fiction,” “Russia,” “romance,” “passion,” etc. Getting good reader tags is important because they guide other readers to your books. Anyone publishing on Kindle should also establish and maintain an Amazon Central Author Page. I say this with guilt because I need to find time to update mine. Other things that help are getting both your name and information about your work out there on the web, getting reviewed, establishing an author presence on Facebook, using Twitter, blogging, and so forth.

Andy: Is there anything else an emerging author can do?

Mary: Yes, be patient. Don’t publish your work as an e-book until it’s polished. Readers enjoy good writing. They like to read books by authors who care about craft and structure and who can create crisp, fast-moving plots and interesting characters.  If you’re self-publishing and can afford it, hire an editor. Great editors are like great agents. They’re invaluable. If your book is really good, sooner or later the word will get out.

Mary Bisbee-Beek, Freelance Book Publicist

Today we are speaking with independent book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek. Mary has worked in publishing as a staff person with various literary presses as well as the University of Michigan Press, and Literary Ventures Fund. As an independent publicist, she works with publishers of all sizes and with individual authors.     I know a few of Mary’s clients and they rave about her. If you need an independent publicist (and we all know how  publishers never do enough for us!), contact Mary at:  mbisbee.beek@gmail.com

Andy: Mary, every author I speak with complains about how little their publisher did to promote their book. This is true of authors whose books were positioned deep in the midlist as well as those with lead titles and high six figure advances.  This makes no sense. After a publisher has gone to all the trouble and expense of publishing a book, why are they just letting them hang?

Mary: This is a perplexing question, Andy. …. Some larger publishers really do seem to take a back seat approach to marketing and publicity or they spend their marketing budget on advance reading copies and a few well placed advertisements. But by and large I believe that most publishers do feel that they are doing the best that they can. One of the conundrums of publicity is that one can always do more.  It takes a lot of work before a book is actually published — but it can’t stop on the pub date nor even six weeks after the pub date. It is a rare book that will carry on it’s own momentum. It requires diligence, nudging, and the perfect storm of activity both from the author and the publicist. And, of course, a little bit of luck.

Andy: You are an independent book publicist. Could you tell us a little bit about what you do and the types of books you work with?

Mary: I prefer working on literary fiction, creative non-fiction, and cerebral yet readable non-fiction books.  I like coming into a book in the planning stage, so if there is a staff publicist working on the book, it’s a good idea to enter the conversation at the same time as this person so that we can figure out who is doing what.  Once the book is published and the author is actively doing readings and events I become more active and more hands on. This is generally the time that the staff publicist needs to move on to other books in the list or to a new list, but I can help to keep the conversation alive on the book beyond the six or eight week mark.

Andy: How does an author know whether she needs her own book publicist or whether she should just rely on the publisher? When should she start thinking about hiring one?

Mary: Once the book is in the design phase or out of copy editing an author should have a frank discussion with their publisher to determine what the publisher is asking of the author. Perhaps this has already occurred and the publisher has been clear on what they can and cannot do – if a publisher says we can publish your book but we can’t market it or we only do limited marketing,  then the author should start shopping for a publicist right away.

Andy: And what do you do that a publishers publicity department won’t do?

Mary: I am able to start with sending out advance reading copies to the industry media, the selected trade media, bloggers, helping the author to set up a Facebook page, to get started on Twitter and to consult on the layout and content of a webpage.  I will set up events. I do all of the media follow-up and I will shout out the book to booksellers when I can.

Andy: Describe a typical marketing plan that you would devise for a client.

Mary: Oddly, this is a tough question, Andy. There is hardly ever a typical scenario and it would depend on whether it is the first book by the author and whether it is  fiction or non-fiction.  I would encourage anyone who is shopping for a  a publicist to talk to me about what might be  appropriate for their book; their timeline; their budget; and whether or not they have the time to travel to spread the word on their book.

Let’s consider the following thumbnail sketch of a  marketing plan.  After reading the book, I would devise a list of most appropriate reviewers; if there were an advertising budget, I would  suggest  the best potential venues…. I am mostly not in favor of paid ads but sometimes they  make good sense. I would add special market possibilities (sales outside the book business), depending on what hooks the book’s story line presents; and then I would come up with a geographically savvy and budget conscious approach for the author. After mailing the advance readers copies,  I would do timely follow-up and start to work on a one-to-one basis with media and bloggers for author interviews. As we got closer to pub date I would start outreach to radio producers and television. I would be reaching out to libraries around the country for ALL COMMUNITY READING programs and I also work closely with reading groups for readings and potential author participation. Depending on the time of year, there are Book Festivals  that can be approached for reading and panel inclusion participation, so this can also be added to the list of possibilities.

Andy: How hard is it getting media attention these days?

Mary: It depends.  If we adhere to the schedules that reviewers and feature writers need , then we have a fair chance of receiving attention.  These days, there are more books for a reviewer to consider, for fewer pages of review space – so a publicist has to be savvy about the rules and deadlines.

Andy: What is the most effective media for book promotion?

Mary: I think  radio.  There is magic in the words, “I heard about it on NPR.”  Certain blogs carry enormous weight but I am also smitten with book review pages in major metropolitan newspapers; and glossy magazines, of course. And I’m very partial to PENNIE’S PICKS.  Pennie  Clark  Ianniciello is the book buyer for Costco and she shouts out an interesting title every month or so. That sticker on a book carries a lot of weight, as does Oprah’s Book Club…. I think everyone is happy that’s back.

Andy: What about Internet marketing? Do you do that as well? Describe it for us.

Mary: I work with a number of bloggers who have solid sites that are exclusively shouting out books and they are powerful.. But this is not an either –  or situation, you need the full power of traditional and newer media in all forms to create a strong platform for your book.

Andy: And here is the $64,000 question. How much can an author expect to pay for your services? Can you give us a ballpark estimate and tell us what it buys?

Mary: I try to work with an author’s  budget and I believe I charge fairly for my services. Generally I ask for a six-month minimum agreement and my fees range from $1,000 to $1500 per month depending on how full-scale a program is needed or wanted. This is a personal discussion with each client, of course. This buys an active place on the desk, in all or as many pertinent media conversations as I have in a day, week, month and as many of situations as described above, from making lists, sending books, follow-up, to setting up events, conferencing on websites, etc.

Andy: Mary, thank you so much. Almost every author I have worked with complains that his publisher didn’t do enough for him. Sounds like authors have some options out there.

Mary:  Yes. Absolutely. Thanks for talking with me, Andy!

Eunuchs at an Orgy: Authors’ on Literary Critics

“Critics are like Eunuchs at an Orgy.” – origins unknown

 Writers don’t take kindly to criticism.  After all why should they be different from any of us?  For me there is something exquisite about reading author responses to reviews. The anger and the pettiness seem to inspire  masterful wit and style (at best) or  (even better) clownish buffoonery unworthy of  figures of  great cultural gravitas.

 For those who are connoisseurs of the literary contretemps, I recommend reading the letters in The New York Review of Books. You will uncover a universe of expressions that will serve you well in your own modest efforts at literary feuding.  Here are just a few treasures [along with my own deconstructions of their meaning]:

 

•          “outrageously inaccurate”  [a hair splitting difference of opinion on a subject that no one else understands  or cares about]
•           “rhetoric” [the writing style of the reviewer in question, usually as opposed to the reasoned arguments of the writer]
•          “petrified academicism” [a favorite of mine, a characterization usually made by a petrified academic writer  about   a petrified academic reviewer]
•          “crude” [the reviewer's method of analysis, as opposed to the "subtle dialectics" of the writer]
•          “mendacity” [a pompous way of saying that the reviewer is a liar, but with the implication that the flaw is deeply imbedded in his character.]
•         “clique” [friends of the reviewer who have publicly defended the review]
•        “heartwarming to hear” [Sarcasm. Usually said when the writer takes out of context a short phrase by the reviewer to make the reviewer seem foolish]
•          “the reviewer surely knows…” [said when the writer patronizingly points out a particularly egregious mistake of the reviewer indicating that the reviewer knows very little about what he is reviewing]
•          “shocking” [a very common and overused  characterization about things rarely shocking,  that always calls to mind the Claude Raines character in Casablanca]
•          “unholy alliance” [people who usually disagree about most things but are united in their revulsion of the author's writing]

 

I love this stuff!  Here are a few more of my favorites:

“I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me” – George Bernard Shaw

 Possibly the greatest put down ever of a reviewer (critical of Shaw’s play, no doubt). Magnificent double entendre. Unforgettable understatement.

 “What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank.” – Liberace

 Another classic that has become a cliché. Probably more honest than Shaw about the mental state of  the aggrieved artist.

Liberace was pretty blunt. But leave it to the inimitable Ayelet Waldman to bring out the universal humanity in a writer’s outrage at an unfair review of Michael Chabon’s [Ayelet's husband] book:

 “To the fucking MORON Amazon reviewers giving Awesome Man 1 star [because] ‘It would be good for, like, a 2 year old’  – IT WAS WRITTEN FOR LITTLE KIDS”

 Getting back to The New York Review of Books, I find it puzzling why writers would ever respond to these reviews, given the fact that the NYR always gives the reviewer the final word. And the reviewer  almost always answers  with a tone of bored world-weary superiority at the overwrought, and implied, unbecoming comments of the writer.

 So I too  will give the reviewer the final word:

 ”Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. ” – Samuel Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

Writers on Writing – My Favorite Quotes

I’m going to share some of my favorite quotes about writing. I know  it’s a little presumptuous on my part. I’m not a writer, unless you count this blog as writing.  But as an agent, I find myself doing a lot of editing. Publishers don’t have time to imagine how to make an imperfect manuscript perfect. So part of my job is to make sure it’s  pretty perfect before  it lands on their desk. That means I have to edit. And in order to edit, I have to think about writing that’s  good and writing that’s bad.  Telling the difference is pretty easy. I can usually do that on the first page. But  understanding why good writing is good and bad writing is bad, I  think that could take a lifetime.

I have a philosophy about editing. I like to come to  a manuscript with a “beginner’s mind.”  That’s a concept in Zen Buddhism that means  one should approach a subject with no preconceptions, techniques, or methods. In his book: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shuryu Suzuki describes it perfectly.  “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”  So when I start to edit a manuscript, I try to put myself in the role of  the simple reader who is, after all, the only person that really matters. Writers aren’t always in the best position to understand the reader. I’d like to believe that I can help them out.

Now on to my favorite quotes:

• “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
• “I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.”
•  “Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.”
• “One should not put a loaded rifle onto the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”

- above quotes by Anton Chekhov

“Show, don’t tell” has become a cliché.  But it is also fundamental. Not quite a law of nature. Great writers can break the rules. I think these wise words by Chekhov say it better than all the articles you read  on this subject in Writer’s Digest. Actually the quote about the ballet doesn’t really address this concept, but I liked it so much I decided to include it. And it’s only a little bit of a stretch to say that the stink of the ballerinas tells – no, excuse me – shows you a lot about their art.

• ” The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” -Stephen King
• “As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out.” -Mark Twain
• “Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.”  - Elmore Leonard
• “Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’…he admonished gravely.” – Elmore Leonard
• “Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.” –Elmore Leonard

When I was in New York last month for the book convention, I had dinner with Susan Sutliff Brown, freelance editor, Joyce scholar, and friend.  At some point in the evening, Susan stated pontifically that good writers of literary fiction don’t use adjectives and adverbs. I was astonished.  Of course, we all look down on  Tom Swifties, those ungainly adverbial tags used by the novice writer. (“Let’s get to the rocket ship, Tom said swiftly.”) But banishing adverbs and adjectives altogether? Unimaginable, even in an alternative  universe designed by Raymond Carver. Susan’s pronouncement ruined my reading for several weeks. Rather than getting lost in a good book, I poured over  texts counting modifiers.  But now I must admit that Susan was on the right track. Again, it’s all about “show, don’t tell.” Excessive use of adjectives and especially adverbs is a sign of lazy writing. Check it out yourself. (Now, I hope  this hasn’t ruined your experience of reading for the next few weeks.)

• “Avoid prologues.” – Elmore Leonard

Editors believe  how you handle or mishandle “backstory” is a marker for your ability as a writer. Back in the 19^th century when people had more time, you could get away with spending the first 50 pages, say, setting setting up the story. If you don’t believe me, check out Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable. Jean Valjean doesn’t even come on stage until page 55. You can’t do that today. Backstory needs to be insinuated into the narrative, obliquely,  as it unfolds. And it’s devilishly hard to do. Prologues are the lazy man’s way of getting all the crap out and onto the page, so that the you can proceed to roll out the plot without any messy explanatory back tracking. Book editors call this an “info dump”.

You see prologues a lot in movies. And it makes sense.  Screenplays are much more compressed than novels.  A typical screenplay has about 20,000 words. A very short novel will have 70,000. A movie doesn’t have time to allow a backstory to subtly unfold and bore an audience. But you can’t do  that in fiction. Well, that’s not entirely true.  Looking for graceless, awkward, lazy, and inelegant management of backstory? I recommend The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.

But on the other hand –

• “Learn from cinema. Be economic with descriptions. Sort out the telling detail from the lifeless one. Write dialogue that people would actually speak.” -  Rose Tremain
•  ”Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn’t enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.”

– Rose Tremain

Don’t laugh when I say that learning how to write  is a lot like learning how to play golf. There is a very profitable  industry out there of golf tip books, magazines,  and videos by the super stars. Millions of words written on how to execute the perfect swing or how to make your drive fade. But mastering this information won’t make you Tiger Woods. Similarly with writing, the great novelists are a practical group, always willing to give and receive tips. Here’s some quotes I like:

• “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” - Elmore Leonard
• “The wastebasket is a writer’s best friend.” - Isaac Bashevis Singer
• “A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.” –  Baltasar Gracián
• “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” - Agatha Christie
• “ Try to be accurate about stuff. ” – Anne Enright

Ok. So the golf comparison is pretty sucky. And you might just perceive in these quotes a tone of  post-modern self-reflective irony that one would not likely hear at the British Open. But there is something about these sentiments that make me feel pretty good, like these writers are  experiencing the same struggles as we mortals. Compare this to:

• “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.” -  Anais Nin
• “To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.”  – Lord Byron
• “I am a man, and alive…. For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.” – D.H. Lawrence

No offense to the great Lord Byron and these other fine writers, but their characterizations of themselves as writers strike me as gaseous nonsense.

To be continued……

Monopoly, Monopsony, and Oligopoly in Book Publishing

Most of  us got into   book publishing because we wanted to make a life  immersed in great ideas and great literature and to share those ideas with others. So how come during the last few weeks all we are hearing about are arcane economic theories explaining restraint of trade?

Several weeks ago the Anti-trust Division of the Department of Justice announced that it had been conducting an investigation into whether the 6 largest US book publishers had combined with Apple to fix prices on e-books. Today the DOJ filed a lawsuit against  Apple,  Macmillan, and Penguin USA alleging that they had made agreements to restrain trade and keep retail prices for e-books higher than they would otherwise be under free competition.   At the same time three other major publishers; Simon and Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins; announced that they were settling with the DOJ to avoid this litigation.

The issues aren’t all that complicated. Several years ago the major publishers changed the way they sold books to retailers. Previously they used a “wholesale” model in which the publisher set a low wholesale price in which books were sold to retailers and the retailer could set its own price, usually higher, so that the retailer made money on each sale. Seems reasonable. However  Amazon.com started  aggressively selling e-books below cost in order to keep other potential competitors from getting into the e-book business. Amazon  used a proprietary format for their Kindle Edition e-books that could only be sold through Amazon. Essentially if you wanted to buy e-books to read on your Kindle Reader, there was only one place you could shop.

Back in 2010 about 90% of all e-books were being sold in the Kindle format and only  by Amazon. Publishers, authors, and other booksellers were understandably  concerned about Amazon’s power in the marketplace and decided to do something about it. The major publishers adopted a new business model where the publisher  would set the retail price and give the retailers a 30% commission but only under an agreement where the retailer couldn’t sell at a  discounted  price.

The DOJ is arguing that this arrangement (called “the agency model”)  keeps prices artificially high for consumers, and they are seeking to end it. The 3 publishers who are settling with the DOJ have agreed to allow retailers to discount e-books below the suggested retail price.

This is a victory for Amazon.  Now they can return to their  practice  of heavily discounting e-books and discouraging competition. Amazon can afford to sell books at or below cost. They know that customers coming to the Amazon site for a cheap e-book are likely to pick up some other more profitable products at the same time.

Everyone else in the book business is alarmed and I think consumers should be too. In the short run, there are going to be some good deals for e-books on Amazon. But  Amazon’s   potential for monopoly power raises some pretty ominous questions. In a word, Amazon has not been shy about removing “buy” buttons from titles by publishers who won’t cave to Amazon’s  terms, terms which are becoming  increasingly unsustainable to publishers as Amazon consolidates its market power. Several weeks ago Independent Publishers Group announced that it could not agree to Amazon’s new and draconian demands for favorable terms. As a result Amazon refused to sell Kindle editions for 6000 IPG titles. As of now, those books are still not available at the  Kindle Store.

A lot of people in our business are throwing around words that are not often used at literary cocktail parties. We say that Amazon.com is gaining monopoly power. A monopoly is a market arrangement where a single company controls all sales and distribution of a particular product. At the moment, Amazon is not a monopoly. It’s market share of e-books is down to about 60%, due to the entry into the market of major players like Apple and Barnes and Noble. To some extent this is a result of  the  the agency  pricing model that the DOJ is seeking to undermine . If   Amazon is successful at cutting out the other competitors by aggressive price competition,  it  will once again have a monopoly on the sale of e-books with the help and support of the Department of Justice.  A most ingenious paradox. Your tax dollars at work.

At the moment, we have an oligopolistic structure in the sale of e-books. An oligopoly is characterized by a small number of producers or distributors. Almost all e-books in the US are being sold by Amazon, Apple,  Barnes and Noble, Google, and Sony. A lot of industries are oligopolistic. And it doesn’t necessarily pose problems for competition as long as the parties are not acting in concert to control prices or limit supplies.

There is another relevant economic concept: Monopsony. This is distinguished from monopoly  because it describes  a market with only one buyer that forces sellers to accept lower than socially optimal prices. The decision  by the Department of Justice to litigate against Apple and the book publishers  will help establish  a market for e-books  where Amazon will be the only  seller of e-books (a monopoly) but also the only buyer of e-books from the publishers ( a monopsony).

This  is a truly alarming  situation for an industry that can only thrive in a diverse marketplace. We are, after all, in the business of disseminating ideas. And a monopoly of the marketplace of ideas is an enormously troubling development for those of us who see books as something more than just another consumer product.

Breaking News: Amazon Removes All Kindle Editions of Independent Publishers Group From Their Site

Independent Publishers Group announced yesterday that Amazon.com has removed every Kindle edition of IPG Books from their site. This is serious and requires immediate response from all interested parties. Amazon did the same thing last year with all MacMillan Books and backed off after pressure from authors and publishers.

IPG is one of the largest book distributors of independent presses in the world. It distributes hundreds of smaller and mid-size presses that  publish thousands of titles.

Mark Suchomel, president  and CEO of IPG said in an e-mail alert yesterday, “I am disappointed to report that Amazon.com has failed to renew its agreement with IPG to sell Kindle titles….  Amazon.com is putting pressure on publishers and distributors to change their terms for electronic and print books to be more favorable toward Amazon. Our electronic book agreement recently came up for renewal, and Amazon took the opportunity to propose new terms for electronic and print purchases that would have substantially changed  [publisher's] revenue from the sale of both. It’s obvious that publishers can’t continue to agree to terms that increasingly reduce already narrow margins. I have spoken directly with many of our clients and every one of them agrees that we need to hold firm with the terms we now offer. I’m not sure what has changed at Amazon over the last few months that they now find it unacceptable to buy from IPG at terms that are acceptable to our other customers…”

This  is another cautionary warning of the dangers of what is close to being monopoly power by Amazon in the sale and distribution of  e-books. Kindle Editions account for more than 60% of all ebook sales. They can only be read on Kindle Readers which are the largest selling  e-book readers by far. Anyone who owns a Kindle reader can no longer purchase or read any of the thousands of titles distributed by Independent Publishers Group.

Amazon’s power in the marketplace and their willingness to exercise that power to chilling effect on the availability of ideas in the world should be of interest to us all. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a censorship of the marketplace that has the same impact as any other form of censorship.

All writers, publishers, and book lovers should make their feelings known. Amazon did this last year with all the titles of MacMillan and ultimately backed down due to pressure.  This is not in the long term business interests of Amazon, a company that prides itself in being “the Earth’s largest bookstore.”

But even if Amazon  backs down, the act itself will put pressure in the future on all publishers to capitulate to Amazon on what are  unreasonable demands for unsustainable trade terms by publishers.

 

 

Linda Gray Sexton Talks About HALF IN LOVE, Her Memoir on Suicide

 It’s hard reading about suicide. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me think about the frailty of life. It also makes me feel anger at the person who has taken or has attempted to take her life.   I always identify with the victims –  the families –  because of the anguish, grief, and guilt that they experience.  I’ve just finished reading an astonishing book that has forced me to look at my feelings and think about suicide in an entirely different way.

Linda Gray Sexton has written a personal memoir about suicide. The book is entitled:  Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide. It has just been released in paperback from Counterpoint Press. It’s a book that Linda is singularly qualified to write. She is the daughter of Anne Sexton, one of America’s great poets, who committed suicide in 1974 after a long battle with depression.  Linda was 21 years old at the time.  Linda, herself, suffered from depression for much of her life and attempted to commit suicide several times. Half in Love is her remarkable story that brings to life the feelings and thoughts of her troubled mind and how she was driven to make the final and seemingly irrevocable decision to end her life. The book is beautifully written, deeply moving, honest, and courageous, and will change the way you think and feel about suicide.

AR: Linda, it is puzzling to me that both your mother and yourself were driven to suicide. My initial inclination is to view it as a kind of family curse, something out of a Greek tragedy. But you seem to see it quite differently. Is it more than a coincidence that you and your mother were haunted by the desire to end life?

LGS:I don’t see it as a curse, but I do see it as a legacy.  Suicide and mental illness were handed down in my family, from generation to generation.  My mother’s aunt, whom she called Nana, was afflicted with depression, and labeled “insane.”  She was eventually institutionalized and died within those walls.  My mother’s father intermittently sat in the kitchen of my childhood home and told my mother of his deep depression and anxiety.  Her great aunt Frances killed herself with a shotgun when I was a teenager, and her sister killed herself with an overdose of sleeping medication following my mother’s suicide.  So there was a lot of mental illness and suicide in the family well before my mother finally killed herself, after many attempts, in 1974, as she was turning forty-five.  Suicide was so much a part of our family construct, and for so many years, that I can’t even begin to imagine my life without its influence. Despite my early deep conviction that suicide would never be the route I would take, I found myself grappling with it when I was forty-five. It came knocking at the door in the same year of my life that it had finally taken my mother in hers.  I, too, found myself sinking into the abyss and came to believe the only way to escape the interior mental anguish was to end my life.

 AR: In the course of reading your book, I came to feel compassion for your condition. But I was also constantly fighting off a sense of anger at you. You had a family whom you loved. A husband. Two children who were at a tender age when you sought to end your life. And you were aware, when you made the decision, of the hurt that it would cause.  Under the circumstances a lot of people would say you were being selfish, self-absorbed, and weak. I would imagine that with the publication of Half in Love,  you came in for some pretty heavy criticism.   Can you tell us about the kind of reactions other people had after reading your book?

LGS: You would expect that I would have had a lot of that kind of  criticism.  But really, that’s not what actually happened.  I had a lot of email, and responses at readings, as well as reviews, that were compassionate with the predicament I had found myself in, much more than judgments by others that I had been self-centered in my decision.  That’s not to say that there weren’t people who perhaps felt that way. It’s simply that those weren’t the people who spoke up.  Perhaps the book convinced them that suicide isn’t a selfish act, but rather a desperate one, one that the ill person feels driven to by his or her pain.  I think “Half in Love” sheds new light on the hopelessness the suicidal person feels, the sense that there seems to be no way out of the pain except a final escape.  I was deluged with mail through my website   from people who felt that their story had at last been told.  They said that I had spoken for them, for their families, their friends.  It was a very moving experience to receive these notes from the heart, and I answered them all.  I was grateful to know that I had reached so many people and that they were open to hearing my message.

AR: And what kinds of reactions have you had from people in the helping professions who have to deal with these feelings in a therapeutic context?

LGS: Actually I have had a great deal of positive reaction and support from those who are therapists, psychiatrists, nurses, and even those who run suicide hot lines, or national suicide support groups.  Everyone seems gratified that the subject, for so long taboo, has at last been brought out into the light and discussed in something other than professional terms.  They have often told me they either recommend, or even give, “Half in Love” to patients, and/or their families and friends.

 AR: You say in Half in Love that both you and your mother suffered from bipolar disorder, a medical condition that was responsible for your extreme depression. Does it run in families?

LGS: Bipolar disorder has now been classified by the medical profession as heritable.  This means they have run studies to see whether or not it can be passed from generation to generation.  They have even constructed studies around twins who were separated at birth to see whether there is more than a purely environmental link—in other words, these studies of twins show us whether it is “nature” rather than “nurture” that accounts for the higher percentage of bipolar disorder among family members.  And indeed, twins separated at birth do still seem to share the link of mental illness, and especially, bipolar disorder, even though they were raised in entirely different environments.  So in recent years we have learned that it is not only the ways in which people are raised that accounts for the illness, but that there is also a genetic component.

 AR: I must make a confession here. My mother suffered from bipolar disorder. She never attempted suicide, but she once left a suicide note. Even though she lived to a ripe old age, I’m still angry with her for this. Truth to tell, I’m angry with myself as well for not really dealing with it in the best manner.  Is that an unusual feeling? Do the survivors often blame themselves?

LGS: I think your reaction is not an uncommon one.  In “Half in Love,” I talk about how angry my sister and my father and I, and indeed the whole extended family, were after my mother made a suicide attempt.  We were not counseled by the medical profession that it was natural to have these emotions  We were only taught that it was “not her fault” and that we should stifle any feelings we might have.  Naturally, this helped us not at all.  We were sad and grieving—and angry, angry, angry.  We felt that she had tried to desert us in a very selfish way.  As I say in “Half in Love,” suicide used to be, and still is to some extent, a deeply taboo subject.  Through the ages, for instance, suicides were not allowed to be buried in churchyard cemeteries but had their bodies interred in the crossroads, where it was hoped that the four winds would disperse their “diseased” souls.  I recently wrote a blog for my website that deals with this very question of anger and guilt within the family after a successful, or even failed, suicide attempt.  And, in addition to feeling anger, survivors of a successful suicide often blame themselves for not having been there enough emotionally for their loved one.  They believe that if only they had done something differently, the person would have lived. Both guilt and blame are nasty emotions—they take hold and are difficult to eradicate no matter how much we console the one suffering from them.  I think this is why “Half in Love” helps so many people: it allows them to see that the suffering of the one they love is not due to them, but is an interior force that can overtake and destroy a life regardless of what others attempt to do to help.

AR: But there is one thing of note about my mother’s condition. During her “manic” periods, she would spend her time writing poetry. Unlike your mother’s, hers was shockingly bad and an embarrassment to the family. But it was a form of creativity nonetheless. Do you think that this disease would explain some of your mother’s (or your) creativity?

LGS: No, I think in fact it is the opposite. Creativity does not bring about mental illness but creativity is often present in the lives of those who are touched by the fire of this disease.  Interestingly, my mother often found herself equally as unable to do any serious writing when she was manic as when she was depressed—at which time she was unable to do much of anything at all.  Though the surge toward mania often produced extremely intense creative activity, once she was in a full blown manic attack, she abandoned writing for scattered activities and scattered language.  She didn’t have the ability to marshal all her strengths and gifts necessary for creating poetry.  I find this true for myself as well.  When I was very depressed I was unable to work on “Half in Love” at all, which is why the book took nearly ten years to write.  When I was on a manic surge, I found myself at my most productive, often getting up in the early, early hours of the morning to sit down at my computer.  But once the mania had set in, I spent my time moving furniture from room to room, or cooking vast quantities of anything at all, which later had to be pitched.  My capabilities with language languished, as I wasn’t able to corral my abilities with words into some kind of recognizable work product.

AR: You also talk about “cutting”. This has struck me as odd and inexplicable behavior. It also seems to be almost the opposite of suicide. Suicide is an act that seeks to end the pain of life. Cutting is an act that creates more pain. Can you talk about this a little bit?

LGS: Cutting is something few people understand.  Why inflict pain on yourself when you already are in pain?  The only explanation I can offer is that creating the pain is one way of “letting the pain out,” of controlling it.  It is as if the pain is a poison inside of you, and by cutting you release it to flow from your body and your mind—and, in fact, from your life itself.  I found, as I describe in a chapter in “Half in Love” called “Cutting,” that once I had finished using the razor blade, I felt a tremendous sense of relief, both physical and mental.  In fact it kept me from making more suicide attempts—it was a replacement, in a way, that kept me alive.  Unfortunately, I had a psychiatrist who couldn’t understand what the cutting did for me, and thus forbade me to cut.  When I inevitably did again, once more in an attempt not to take my life, he “fired” me as a patient.  It was only later, when I found a new therapist who did understand my feelings about it, and my explanations for it, that I was able to relinquish cutting without making further suicide attempts.  I think it was at this point that I seriously began to get well. 

AR: I read a lot of memoirs. Some of them are just plain silly or exploitative. And then there are those like yours that are brutally honest, that deal with the most personal of all feelings, and that are courageous enough to talk about mistakes, flaws, and weaknesses without resorting to self-justifications. Isn’t it scary to do something like this? To expose yourself this way? To take this kind of risk? Why did you do it?

LGS: Of course, the answer is “yes:” it is very frightening to expose yourself, especially about an aspect of your character that is terribly unappealing.  You have to be willing to bring your flaws and your weaknesses into the light, without trying to self-justify, as you say, and be able to take the heat.  Ultimately, if you want to reach people, you have to be willing, as I say, “to get naked.”  And you have to do it in front of a lot of people.  Many people ask me, “why didn’t you protect yourself from public scrutiny by writing this as a novel instead?”  My answer is always that I thought it would be more authentic, more moving, if I weren’t hiding my life behind the life of a character. And, in the end, I think I was correct.  I don’t think I would have received the outpouring of mail if I had fictionalized this aspect of my life.  People responded because I had been willing “to get naked.”  They felt that if I could do it, so could they—in talking with their family members, their therapists, their friends.  And for the public, who knew so little about mental illness and suicide, the book opened the topic and so made it less taboo.  I made myself public so that the topic would be public.  I wanted to help the people who couldn’t help themselves, to give them a voice.

 AR: Well, at the end of all this, you are still here and seem to have triumphed over your desire to end your life. It sounds like you have come to love life. How did this change come about?

LGS: It took a long time.  I wrote “Half in Love” from the depths of depression and then as I began to come out of it.  I wrote it as I began to move away from death, and emerge toward health.  I did that with the help of a great therapist, and a loving husband, and an extended family that eventually began to understand what had happened to me and to forgive me.  And then there were the all-important medications, which took a long time to regulate and to get in the proper “cocktail,” but which my very skilled and compassionate therapist juggled until she had it just right. I feel grateful for all the emotional support I have received and for my ability to receive the medications that, even today, make my health possible. To return to the book’s title, which takes its source from a poem by Keats, at one time I was “half in love” with death—and now I would have to say that I am quite in love with life. 

Linda will be appearing at and discussing Half in Love at the following events:

Books Inc.,  Palo Alto.  January 11,  7:00 PM

Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Boston, Ma.  February 29, 8 PM

Brandeis University, Waltham Ma. March 1,  4 PM

Harvard Bookstore, Cambridge, Ma.  March 5, 7 PM

Newtonville Books, Newton, Ma. March 7

National Alliance for Mental Illness, Sacramento, Ca. May 14

 

 

 

Let Me See…What Should I Buy My Daughter? Curious George or a Biography of Heinrich Himmler

Today I went to work on the retail floor at Book Passage in Marin. I did it last year for several days during the  Christmas season. And I’m excited about doing it again. I spent 35 years in retail.  My favorite job was recommending books to my customers.  And when I took the time to do that, I got an amazing sense of what book lovers care about. I also had a chance to express my passion for my favorite titles and to try to share that passion with others. When customers came back and thanked me for a book I recommended, I felt pretty good. It made everything else worthwhile. Now that I’m a literary agent, sometimes I feel out of touch with the people who are really the  heart and soul of  the book world… the book lovers.   I think everyone in the book business ought to spend a few days helping customers in book stores. We could all learn a lot by doing it.

But that isn’t what this blog post is about. I wanted to share a very weird bookstore moment with you.  It happened today at Book Passage. One of the nice things about working on the floor is that I see books that grab my attention and I sort of thumb through them.  So anyway, I’m standing in the history section. I read a lot of history. I studied German history in graduate school. So I picked up this 1000 page brick of a book. Heinrich Himmler: A Life by Peter Longerich. It’s published by Oxford University Press. It is an important work of scholarship about a figure in history for whom most people have very little sentimental attachment.  One of the Book Passage employees came up to me and asked me if I was holding Curious George. I can only assume that the holiday frenzy had disturbed his mental equilibrium.

Well, gentle readers. I suppose I would like to say that whether you intend to put Curious George under the tree this holiday season, or perhaps Heinrich Himmler: A Life, I hope you have a very happy and peaceful holiday and get all the books you want on Christmas day.

Mary Mackey on Writing Poetry and Fiction

Mary Mackey  is a novelist, a poet, and a teacher. We interviewed her last year in this blog upon publication of her historical novel, The Widow’s War. Mary’s new book of poems, Sugar Zone, is being published this October by Marsh Hawk Press. Her poetry has been praised by Wendell Berry, Jane Hirshfield, and Marge Piercy to name but a few. She is the author of 13 novels and her work has been translated into twelve languages.

Mary will be giving readings  of Sugar Zone throughout the month of October in the Bay area and New York.

I thought it would be a lot of fun to talk to Mary and compare the creative experiences of writing poetry and fiction.

Andy: Mary, let’s start by talking about a poem in your new poetry collection Sugar Zone. Here it is:

The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 5

in the flame
of a single candle     entire cities
are appearing
and disappearing

my hands tremble on you
my fingers pass through you
your tongue tastes like apples
your flesh is fog

above our roof     the jealous moon
has torn a hole in the sky

Could you tell us a little bit what went  through your mind when you were composing this poem?

Mary: This is a love poem, the fifth in a series about the spiritual dimensions of passion. For thousands of years, poets have been writing about how passion can seize us, pull us out of ourselves, and unite us not only with another person but with the Divine. As I wrote this poem, I had a vision of lovers creating a moment where time stopped for so long that entire cities could appear and disappear in the flickering of a candle.

Andy: In plain English, what are you saying here?

Mary: That’s a hard question. When you put a poem into plain English, it’s no longer a poem, but let me try: I’m saying that passion combined with love is one of the paths to the Divine. I’m not the first poet to say this. Saint John of the Cross, one of the most important mystical philosophers in Christian history, wrote passionate love poems to God.

Andy: This is a gorgeous poem.  I think I had to read it out loud several times to really appreciate it. But having read your fiction, I’m a little surprised that this has come out of the same mind as the person who wrote The Widow’s War. That novel was also beautifully written but it was an adventure, a popular novel. It would make a good  big budget movie. Are you a literary schizophrenic?

Mary: No, I’m not even all that unusual. Marge Piercy, whose work I admire greatly, has been writing both novels and poetry for over 40 years. I’ve been writing poetry since I was 11. For the first 15 years of my literary career, I was known primarily as a poet. Poems and novels come out of different parts of my brain.

Andy: Other than Marge Piercy, who are some other poets you admire who also write fiction?

Mary: Thomas Hardy, Maxine Hong Kingston, Michael Ondaatje, Ishmael Reed, and Paul Auster, are some of my other favorite poet-novelists.

Andy: Your novels have been on The New York Times bestseller list. Your last novel The Widow’s War made The San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list. All told, your novels have sold well over a million and a half copies.  So why did you choose to write the poems in Sugar Zone instead of writing another novel? Are you nuts?

Mary: Probably. No, seriously, I wrote those poems because they came to me with an urgency that told me that right now I would not be happy writing anything else. I have the great luxury of being able to write what I want when I want to write it, not because I’m rich but because I’ve always had a day job. When I was a teenager, I read a lot of biographies of authors, who were forced to write pot boilers to put food on the table. I like regular meals, so I decided to get a Ph.D., become a professor,  write whatever I wanted to write, and teach college students for a living, which I did. This was a good choice because I love teaching.  I think it’s important for writers to do something besides write. You need to get out in the world, experience life to the fullest, have a few Hemingway-like adventures.

Andy: What do you get out of poetry that you don’t get when you write a novel? Certainly not money. You’ve said that. I’m sure your agent couldn’t care less about this part of your writing life. I don’t represent poets. I have a mortgage to pay.

Mary: You’re right about the money. During my first ten years as a writer, I only got paid once for a poem: $1.75. My last book of poetry Breaking The Fever, actually made money thanks to Garrison Keillor who read three of my poems on The Writer’s Almanac, but I couldn’t retire on my poetry income unless I lived like Gandhi. What I get out of writing poetry is joy. When I write a poem, I feel elated, as if I had gotten in touch with some deep, hidden part of myself. I don’t write poems that read like a diary, but there is more of the real me in my poems than in my novels. Writing poetry is my spiritual practice, like meditation. It gets me in touch with my unconscious.

Andy: What’s the difference between writing novel and a poem? Talk about the creative process a little bit.

Mary: Writing a poem is more immediate experience. I write most of my poems out in longhand in one sitting and then start putting them through revisions.  I’ll sometimes revise a poem 20 times before I am happy with it.  Occasionally a poem will come to me without  a word that needs changing. Ideas for novels also come quickly, but the novel itself  takes a long time to write—three years of daily work all done on a computer. Writing a novel is like planning a huge convention: you need to be highly rational and well-organized; you have to work within the limits of plot and character, and you have to think about whether or not your publisher is going to be able to sell your book; because publishers, agents, and booksellers  do indeed have mortgages to pay. But with poetry, anything goes. It’s more like play than work.

Andy: Does the craft of writing poetry bleed over into writing novels? Do good poets make good novelists?

Mary: I like to think my novels are better written because I write poetry. I love language, I’m sensitive to the rhythm of sentences, I’m in touch with the unconscious impulses of my characters. But you also have to resist poetry when you write novels or you will spend three pages ecstatically describing a sunset, neglect the plot, mess up the pace, and bore your readers.

Andy: Mary, it seems to me that in America, poets get no respect. I remember in the Soviet Union where free expression was not permitted, poets were authentic superstars who would draw thousands of people to their readings. That doesn’t really happen  here. It doesn’t happen in the new Russia either. Does poetry thrive on adversity?

Mary: Under an oppressive dictatorship,  poetry often becomes the last stronghold of freedom of speech because dictators underestimate its power to inspire ordinary people to resist oppression. Poetry can be very dangerous.

Andy: How do poets make money as poets?

Mary: Most don’t. The most common way for a poet to survive in America is to teach. Well-known poets are paid to do poetry readings, lecture, and give workshops, mostly at colleges, universities, and at writer’s conferences.  If you write poetry, don’t give up your day job.

Andy: I can’t write a story to save my life. But my clients who write fiction never run out of stories to tell. I assume that it’s a gift from the muse and that I have not been so blessed. Is this true? Is the gift of poetry the same gift or different?

Mary: They are both the same gift expressed in different ways.

Andy: Will you ever write another novel?

Mary: I am working on one right now.  I have more ideas for novels and poems than I’ll ever be able to use in one lifetime.