University of Nebraska Press

Author Events Special AWP Edition

This week and next, many University of Nebraska Press authors will be at the 2007 AWP Annual Conference held in peachy Atlanta, Georgia.  So if you're wandering around the Hilton Atlanta Hotel (255 Courtland St, NE/ Atlanta, GA/ 30303), be sure to visit our authors and the UNP booth.

At UNP Booth #41:

  Thursday, March 1, 10:00-10:45 AM:  Robert Vivian, author of The Mover of Bones

Thursday, March 1, 1:15 - 2:00 PM:  Dinah Lenney, author of Bigger than Life

Thursday, March 1, 2:30 - 3:15 PM:  Kathleen Flenniken, author of Famous

Friday, March 2, 10:00-10:45 AM:  Philip F. Deaver, editor of Scoring from Second

Friday, March 2, 1:15 - 2:00 PM: Michael Downs, author of House of Good Hope

 Friday, March 2, 2:30 - 3:15 PM: Joan Connor, author of The World Before Mirrors

Saturday, March 3, 10:00 - 10:45 AM:  Aaron Raz Link and Hilda Raz, authors of What Becomes You

Saturday, March 3, 1:15 - 2:00 PM:  Rynn Williams, author of Adonis Garage

Author Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer), will be presenting at AWP:

Six indigenous writing teachers will discuss their experiences teaching American Indian texts to creative writing students, including Native and non-Native students, in both academic and community settings. In this presentation, we will explore such issues as the challenges and values of an indigenous-based pedagogy; the vital questions of voice, history, community that Native writing can bring to the creative writing workshop; and the ways teachers new to Native American writing can begin to introduce it in their classes.

Weekend Reading

Sometimes, weekends should not involve much reading at all.

Karl Bodmer's North American Prints
Edited by Brandon K. Ruud
Annotations by Marsha V. Gallagher
Essays by Ron Tyler and Brandon K. Ruud
Preface by J. Brooks Joyner

A Flowering of Quilts

Edited by Patricia Cox Crews

Red Cloud: Photographs of a Lakota Chief
By Frank H. Goodyear III

 

Ghost Town: While St. Louis Sleeps

By Eric Post

A Post of Links

don't usually make myself known.  I kind of like for the University of Nebraska Press blog to exist in a sort of mystery.  Truth is, someone coordinates this blog, and I so happen to be that someone.  Today, and probably for today only, I decided to remove the shielding screen (imagine the end of the Wizard of Oz -- I'm that guy with all those buttons, bells and whistles in the Emerald Palace.  Only, I'm a gal. . .) to talk about the links on our sidebar.  They're over there to the right of this post. I'm afraid that people may forget to visit those links and, other times, I run across blog posts or websites that I want to share with everyone I can.  So, like other blogsites, I will highlight some links in a post once a week.  Today, I want to share with you some neat sites UNP authors have concocted.

Aaron Raz Link has a book coming out soon called What Becomes You.  His mother, Hilda Raz, poet and EiC of the Prairie Schooner, has written parts of the book.  Having read the book, I can honestly say that it was one of the best memoirs I've ever read.  Not only is the writing poetic and engrossing, the subject matter--changing sex--is intriguing.  To get a taste of Aaron's writing, visit his blog.

Every wonder about the von Trapp family or, specifically, George von Trapp before their escape from Nazi Germany?   The UNP book page for To the Last Salute states that his memories of commanding a U-boat during WWI shows us why the Nazis desperately wanted him as a captain.  His granddaughter, Elizabeth M. Campbell, translated To the Last Salute.  You can learn more about the book and her on her website.  I'm not sure if she sings.

Finally, author and photographer Joel Sartore (Nebraska: Under a Big Red Sky) has a beautiful website with a wonderful photo gallery.  Sartore, who is a  contributer for the National Geographic Magazine, recently was featured in a documentary entitled At Close Range: On Assignment with National Geographic. 

--Cheers!
DeMisty

From Africa

From Africa: New Francophone Stories
Edited by Adele King

"These stories ultimately cover a much broader literary terrain than just Africa, and tap universal themes in refreshing ways. . . . This is a challenging and innovative selection, and public libraries would do well to consider it."—Booklist (starred review).

This gathering of gifted writers tenders modern versions of myths; nostalgia for childhood in Africa; relations between the sexes in contemporary Africa; continuing political problems; and the life of the African diaspora in France—all related in new and familiar ways, in innovative and traditional forms.

Conversations with Maryse Condé
By Françoise Pfaff

Françoise Pfaff met Maryse Condé in 1981, when she first interviewed her. Their friendship grew quickly. In 1991 the two women continued recording conversations about Condé’s geographical sojourns and literary paths, her personality, and her thoughts.

Maryse Condé is the recipient of the French literary awards Le Grand Prix Littéraire de la Femme and Le Prix de l’Académie Française. She currently teaches at Columbia University and her most recent works include Tree of Life and Crossing the Mangrove.

The Five Writing Crimes of Ultraviolet

ltraviolet is a visually beautiful but plotless little movie revolving around a disease that causes "vampirism" and Milla Jovovich kicking butt in skimpy clothing. I suspect the latter bit was the whole reason my husband rented it. But, hey, sometimes you learn more about what makes a good story from the bad stories than you do from the great stories. Great stories put it together so seamlessly it is hard to pull it apart and see why. Bad stories practically scream their flaws. So for any budding screenwriters out there, here are five major crimes you can learn from watching Ultraviolet.

1) Keeping the audience confused about what is going on and why is not ambiguity, slow reveal, or depth. It is lazy writing. Now that I have seen the film and given it some thought, I think I can piece together the plot. But at the time I was watching it, I kept wondering things like: Who is that? How is that important? What is going on?  Yes, some ambiguity can be provoking. But not that much. Yes, a slow reveal can keep an audience pinned to their seat. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl has a wonderful slow reveal of what the situation in without ever leaving the audience confused. They do this by carefully giving the audience enough information at the right times, and taking the time to set up the situation before launching into the action. They also have several storylines (see Subplots below) started before the mystery even begins to crop up so the audience has something to hang onto. Finally, confusing an audience isn't depth. Read classics of literature and you are never confused. Depth comes from exploration of human motivations, strivings, surrenderings, our relationships. Depth comes from having something to say, even if that something is a question. Confusion is just confusion.

2) Action does not make an audience care about the character. Lots of movies like to start with a whiz bang scene and yes, it immerses you immediately into it, but it doesn't inform character, and character is why people bother. So start with an exciting point, but let that exciting point show something about the person. Bond movies can get away without it. We go in knowing who James Bond is and that we like him. Other movies have to concern themselves a bit more with set up. My favorite action packed beginning lately is from The Incredibles.

Author Events

Baseball and the Media
By George Castle

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Borders
4500 North Oracle Road
Tucson, AZ 85705
520.293.6799
Author appearance and book signing.

Black Gun, Silver Star
By Art T. Burton

Wednesday, February 21, 2007
7:00 PM
Calumet City Public Library
660 Manistee Avenue
Calumet, IL 60409
708.862.6220
Author appearance, lecture and book signing.

Thursday, February 22, 2007
6:00 PM
University of Illinois at Chicago Medical School
Sickle Cell Center
1801 West Taylor Street
Chicago, IL 60612
Author appearance, lecture and book signing.

Sunday, February 25, 2007
2:00 PM
Matteson Historical Society
813 School Avenue
Matteson, IL 60443
708.388.1078
Author appearance, lecture and book signing.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
7:00 PM
Blue Island Public Library
2433 York Street
Blue Island, IL 60406
708.388.1078
Author appearance, lecture and book signing.

The Fortune Teller's Kiss
By Brenda Serotte

Sunday, February 25, 2007
11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
Naples Writers' Conference - International College
Naples Campus
2655 Northbrooke Drive
Naples, FL
239.593.1488
Author appearance, "Writing Your Life": A Memoir Workshop

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
11:00 AM
David Posnack Jewish Community Center
5850 South Pine Island Road
Davie, FL 33328
954.434.0499
Author appearance, book discussion and book signing.

Level Playing Fields
By Peter Morris

Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Everybody Reads
2019 East Michigan Avenue
Lansing, MI 48912
517.346.9900
Author appearance and book signing.

The National Grasslands
By Francis Moul; Photography by Georg Joutras

Sunday, February 25, 2007
2:00 PM
Writers Cafe at the Brownville Lyceum
228 Main Street
Brownville, NE 68321
402.825.4321
Author appearance, presentation and book signing.

Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
By Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

Wednesday, February 28 – March 3, 2007
Associated Writing Programs (AWP)
Atlanta, GA
Panel Chair, Presenter, Reader

Blacks in Translations

The Fourth Century
By Édouard Glissant
Translated by Betsy Wing

"From the first pages, describing the atrocities endured aboard the slave ships, this is a fascinating, harrowing historical epic told in rich, unflinching prose."--Publishers Weekly

Édouard Glissant is one of the foundational figures of Francophone literature. Along with other writers from the French West Indies, he inaugurated a radical interrogation of the French literary canon from the margins of the traditionally Paris-centered literary world. His books include Black Salt: Poems and Poetics of Relation, which was also translated by Betsy Wing.

Macadam Dreams
By Gisèle Pineau
Translated by C. Dickson

"Savane Mulet is the nominal landscape of this stream-of-consciousness-influenced novel that inhabits a dreamscape more than any particular town on Guadeloupe in the West Indies. . . . Pineau's liquid flow of images, chronological leaps, and varied points of view add up to a treasurable experience for those who stay with it."—Booklist.

Gisèle Pineau is a psychiatric nurse and novelist living in Guadeloupe. C. Dickson is a translator living in France whose translations include Mohammad Dib’s The Savage Night and J. M. G. Le Clézio’s The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts.

Blacks in the American West

Buffalo Soldier Regiment: History of the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, 1869–1926
By John Nankivell; Introduction by Quintard Taylor Jr.

Drawing on a wealth of official records, reports, and personal recollections, this book reconstructs the experiences of the Twenty-fifth Regiment from its formation in 1869 through its service in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, in 1926.

Fugitive Slave in the Gold Rush: Life and Adventures of James Williams
By James Williams; Introduction by Malcolm J. Rohrbough

The account of a self-taught escaped slave and underground railroad worker who also succumbed to the lure of the California Gold Rush.

The Life and Adventures of Nat Love
By Nat Love; Introduction by Brackette F. Williams

Thousands of black cowpunchers drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail after the Civil War, but only Nat Love wrote about his experiences.

See more books in the Blacks in the American West series.

An Amazon Confession

y first book of poetry, Famous, came out last September at the same time as a friend’s second book. Her first had been a success, a winner of multiple prizes and fine reviews. In those first few weeks, she admitted that she was checking her rankings on Amazon regularly. As in daily.

"Don’t do that! It doesn’t mean anything," I cautioned her, and I believed it. I had just reread my marketing manual provided by University of Nebraska Press. The staff recommend that you invest little psychic stock in the Internet book-sellers’ rankings. This sounded sensible to me, especially since my book’s ranking lingered around 300,000^th place.

I don’t know the figures at UNP, but I’ve heard that first poetry books often sell around 500 copies, a book by a midlist established poet might expect to sell 1500, and a book by a first rank poet is considered successful when it sells 3000 copies. The idea of ranking poetry along with Stephen King and even literary authors like Philip Roth seems almost ludicrous.

Two weeks ago I heard from the press that Famous is going into a second printing. I am delighted. Itmeans the book is soon to sell more than 1000 copies and the press believes it will continue to sell "well" by poetry standards. This prompted my semi-usual self-conscious vanity-induced internet search for mentions of the book, capped by a visit to the Amazon sales page. I noticed the ranking had skyrocketed to the low 100,000’s. Wow.

I checked my book’s ranking the next day; it was at 88,000^th place (plus a few hundred).

Crossing the Athletic Color Line

Tricksters in the Madhouse: Lakers vs. Globetrotters, 1948
y John Christgau

"[A] fascinating look at a chapter of Chicago sports lore I am embarrassed to say was not familiar to me: an incredible game at the stadium between George Mikan's Minneapolis Lakers and the Goose Taum-Marques Haynes Globetrotters, deadly serious for once, for what might have been the unofficial world championship back in the days before pro basketball allowed black players in its ranks."—Ron Rapoport, Chicago Tribune.

Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson's First Spring Training
By Chris Lamb

"Lamb's detailed and annotated research provides an in-depth examination of an important step in the integration of baseball, a step that, up until now, has not received the coverage it deserves. Of interest both to baseball fans and social historians."—Booklist

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Basketball Game That Changed American Sports
By Frank Fitzpatrick

"Social change comes in unexpected increments—like the 1966 NCAA men's basketball tournament. The 72–65 victory by Texas Western over Kentucky had tremendous social symbolism: Texas Western (today the University of Texas, El Paso) started five black players—the first such occurrence in an NCAA championship—and they thoroughly outplayed the all-white Kentucky squad, coached by Adolph Rupp, collegiate sports' intransigent exemplar of white supremacy."—New York Times Book Review.

Maybe I'll Pitch Forever
By LeRoy "Satchel" Paige and David Lipman

Satchel Paige was forty-two years old in 1948 when he became the first black pitcher in the American League.

"Lipman . . . has preserved the flavor and cadence of Paige's conversation and writes his story honestly, avoiding neither the tragedies nor the escapades which mark his career."—Booklist