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?

I just spent a little time at the just-launched http://www.whomovedmybuybutton.com/ and I must say I'm very pleased with the mission of this clever little site that takes on the noble cause of 'Keeping an eye on our friends at Amazon since Friday morning.'

The idea is as simple as it is timely: to help authors whose books are available on amazon.com keep track of whether or not the BUY NOW link is working and the book can actually be purchased.

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.

 

 

 

 

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

 

Martin Luther King Jr

(1929 - 1968)  

Since the calendar changed from 2009 to 2010, at the Editorial Department we've been thinking about the best way to interact with our customers, past, present and (hopefully) future.  We feel like our e-zine has been the home to some great material this year, but is that the best way to get information out there these days?  Waiting a month between issue release dates just doesn't seem to fit within the way the Internet works.  We have a blog, but most of the attention has gone to making the most of the e-zine.  So, how do we balance out the larger, in-depth pieces we like to put together with a bit more immediacy mixed in?  The answer we've come up with is our forthcoming new blog, complete with a new name (...Ellipsis...), a new focus on providing information about our company, helpful writing advice and a look at the world of publishing.  We're going to pull together all of our resources, voices and insight into the new blog in an attempt to make our site a must-read destination for anyone writing, editing, representing, publishing or even just interested in books.  We'll still keep our e-zine archives available online for your persual, but we'll also bring some of that great material back on the blog every Friday.  We're excited about what ...Ellipsis... will offer the reader in the next year and the conversations that will arise.  Thanks for your support.

I was paging through some vintage copies of National Lampoon yesterday (one of my favorite magazines ever, may it R.I.P) and found an entry from their short lived FROM THE SLUSH PILE series, where they remind readers why writers need editors with excerpts from actual submission to publishers from back in the day.

The bookcase was made of solid walnuts and polished to a high shine.

Mr. Phillips cleared his throat to make his presents felt.

The dishes done, Ruth sat down with a book of cross words.

This particular group of coal minors was the lowest of the low.

Her neatly coiffed hair, her clothes, her well modulated voice denied the wiry person she really was.

There's something about airports that get me in the mood for stories with protagonists who aren't afraid to open up a can of serious whoopass from time to time. I'm not sure what it is, perhaps the myriad aggravations of air travel these days, but for whatever reason I tend to go for a more physical brand of thriller before getting on an airplane.  And when the mood for such a book strikes lately, I find myself more and more likely to reach for a Jack Reacher novel.