While all the author events, workshops and vendors are probably enough to convince anyone who enjoys the written word to come to the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend, I don't know if you're legally allowed to use the word "festival" if there isn't food.  Thankfully, this particular festival will have an excellent selection of food from Tucson restaurants.  While you can't go wrong with barbeque from Brushfire, a sandwich from Beyond Bread or the always classic Sonoran hot dog,  I'd like to put in a brief endorsement for the Tucson Tamale Company.  Tamales are just about the perfect food, as far as I'm concerned, and the Tucson Tamale Company makes excellent tamales, both traditional and more playful.  The tamales are made with the best ingredients, they have vegetarian and vegan options and it also helps that the owner, Todd Martin, is among the nicest people on earth, giving every customer a warm welcome.  Bring cash (the food vendors won't be accepting credit cards), grab a tamale, and come say hello to the staff of the Editorial Department this weekend.

Obviously, over two days of events, there's something for just about anyone who cares about words in any form at the Tucson Festival of Books, but we'd like to share a few of the events we're excited for over the next few days.  One seemingly must see presentation will be the discussion of how to get started in screenwriting featuring John August (Sunday at 11:30 in the UA Mall Tent).  We love great screenwriting here (after all, we have a whole department dedicated to the craft), so the opportunity to learn something from August, whose credits include Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the underrated Big Fish, is always welcome.  To learn more about John August or about Hollywood in general, bookmark his blog, where he answers screenwrting questions from readers and discusses whatever else happens to be on his mind.  See you this weekend!

The Tucson Festival of Books is rapidly approaching, and at the Editorial Department, we're excited for two days of sun and book events.  We'll be there with a booth, meeting people and talking about our services, so if you happen to be around, we hope you'll say hello.  Also, we'll be previewing the festival here on Ellipsis up until the festival kickoff on Friday.  If you're planning on attending, you better have a plan.  There's so much going on from workshops to book signings to children's events.  Thankfully, The Arizona Daily Star has developed an iPhone app for the occasion. While there are far flashier applications, if you're the iPhone sort, the entire festival schedule is at your fingertips, so you can make vexing decisions about how to spend your weekend on the spot.  Isn't technology grand!

 

This is the third year that the Internet is celebrating National Grammar Day, and since our company is based on the premise that edited work is better than non-edited work, this sort of made up holiday should be something we buy a cake for, right?

 

 

PaidContent UK has a look at what Penguin has up its sleeve for the Apple iPad, and in a few words, what they have planned is exciting.

As you may or may not know, Behind the Bestsellers was a monthly feature of our e-zine, and while we haven't looked at the charts officially since November, to some extent, not much has changed.

The Help is now the publishing feel good story of this year, like it was in 2009.  The Lost Symbol is still on the charts and there's a James Patterson book there as well, along with a stack of similar detective novels.  Also, we might not ever rid ourselves of vampires.

When you work with books and authors, it's easy to get caught up in wanting great things to happen for the works you've been involved with. 

Angel, the first novel by Mary Kingsley falls into that category.  The Editorial Department, specifically founder Renni Browne and editor Shannon Roberts, were happy to be part of the creative process that resulted in Kingsley's novel, but part of the satisfaction that comes with being part of something of artistic value (Renni described the book as "the kind of story that takes you over completely and stays with you long after you finish the last page", for example) is making sure it reaches an audience, which can often be just as challenging as writing the book in the first place.  We live with the story, watching it evolve to the final product and finding an agent, then a publisher, who shares the vision, who, with a quick glimpse, sees what we see, can be a tough road to travel.  So, when an A-list agent (Mel Berger at William Morris Endeavor) chose to represent Mary and Angel, we couldn't have been happier.

Normally, when giant corporations fight, it's more a source of indifferent amusement for me more than anything.  While I recognize there was some drama last month over whether companies should be able to act like people, most of the time when public kefuffles occur, it's provides me a giggle over whether Papa John's hurt Pizza Hut's market share by saying that their ingredients are better.  There are certainly underlying issues involved, but it ends up sounding like two fifth graders upset that one didn't invite the other to a birthday party.  Even though it involves the business I work in, I have to admit, this whole Amazon vs. Macmillan seemed to fall into that category, until I started reading authors talk about how they've been affected.

When you're the sort of person who spends your days wrapped up in books, in whatever manner that might be, the seemingly back-to-back deaths of historian Howard Zinn and famed recluse J.D. Salinger were likely a little hard to take.  Your opinion of Zinn likely is determined by your particular political bent, but Salinger's death was a little more universally felt.  Who hasn't read Catcher in the Rye, at very least?  In the Editorial Department office, the day following Salinger's death was one where we talked about his books for awhile and shared a laugh over The Onion's amusing Caufield-like obit.  However, as a group of people well removed from the age of Catcher's main character, we had to wonder...do teenagers still care about Holden Caufield?

The Internet is a mess.  This might be my own personal bias resulting from the laptop melting virus that ruined the first half of my month, but I think most people would agree the signal to noise ratio online is rather low.  In a way, every horrible blog with pop-up ads flying everywhere makes up appreciate those places where the Internet is really helpful and kind of awesome.  Today, one of the really cool aspects of the Internet celebrates its first anniversary, LitChat.