www.richardjespers.com
  • Home
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blog

Life Among the Savages Still Delightful

4/20/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
 A WRITER'S WIT
One of the advantages of the book's [The Best Little Boy in the World] having been out there for more than a quarter century is that there's been time for people to report back on what it's done for them.
​Andrew Tobias
Born April 20, 1947
Picture
A. Tobias

My Book World

Picture
​Jackson, Shirley. Life Among the Savages.
    New York: Farrar, 1948.
 
Jackson’s memoir about family life up through the birth of her fourth and final child is entertaining and timeless, though it is written in the 1940s. What contributes to this timelessness is Jackson’s grasp of the universal through developing the specific.
 
This is a woman’s story to tell, though it is for everyone to read. Jackson published many of these narratives in women’s magazines before releasing them in this book. She develops the universal by delving into the concrete. She never names her husband: it is always my husband this, my husband that, objectifying him as the head-in-the-clouds academic that he is, in the same manner in which she, as housewife, is objectified in this post-World War II period. She has pet names for her oldest three children: Laurie for Laurence (which he vehemently sluffs off at one point); Jannie for Joanne, and Sally for Sarah. It’s as if by naming them something more intimate, they cannot possibly belong to someone else, the world at large.
 
What saves her persona from being a martyr is that Jackson actually enjoys being a mother and wife while at the same time pursuing a serious career as a writer of fiction. She would be considered a permissive mother, but such a free household allows all her children to develop unfettered: Laurie is allowed to take on a boisterous, all-boy personality; Jannie develops as one who expresses herself as bluntly as Jackson herself does; and charming little Sally is a princess, who quotes fairy tales and talks in oblique sort of riddles when she is angry about something. To be sure, Jackson spars with her children (and her husband) on occasion, nudges them back and forth over the goal line, but she allows them simply to be. One would love to know how they developed as adults, and how their children fared. 
 
This free and delightful yet sophisticated read is timeless and should be perused by everyone: women and men, old and young, especially those who think they know everything about raising children. They could learn a thing or two from the late Shirley Jackson.

NEXT TIME: My Journey of States-11 Maryland

0 Comments

Shirley Jackson's Haunted Life

4/13/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett
Born April 13, 1906

Picture
S. Beckett

My Book World

Picture(Liveright)
Franklin, Ruth. Shirley Jackson: A Rather
     Haunted Life
. New York: Liveright,
     2016.
 
Roger Straus, Jackson’s first publisher, often called her “a rather haunted woman” (2). She had plenty to haunt her life, especially a mother who fiercely dominated her daughter, even after she became a literary success.

“Jackson’s awareness that her mother had never loved her unconditionally—if at all—would be a source of sadness well into adulthood. Aside from a single angry letter that she did not send, she never gave voice to her feelings of rejection. But she expressed them in other ways. All the heroines of her novels are essentially motherless—if not lacking a mother entirely, then victims of loveless mothering. Many of her books include acts of matricide, either unconscious or deliberate” (25).
Jackson spends nearly the rest of her life fighting against her mother about how to raise her own children, how to cook and keep house, how to go about her career even though her mother had never had one of her own. At the same time that Shirley attempts to establish a literary career while being supportive of a husband in the related business of literary criticism and raising four children, she seems to love being with her children. She often packs them up into the car to go on day trips. She more or less lets them have free run of the house and town, while at the same time, scolds her children with the same invisible criticism that she learned from her mother.
 
Franklin goes into great detail about Jackson’s literary life, each novel, her famous story, “The Lottery.” She paints an honest picture of Jackson’s life, one that is so interesting, I didn’t want the book to end.

NEXT TIME: My Journey of States—10 West Virginia
0 Comments

To Be Clear

8/18/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
The Chinese people have been forced to forget the Tiananmen massacre. There has been no public debate about the event, no official apology. The media aren't allowed to mention it. Still today people are being persecuted and imprisoned for disseminating information about it.
​Ma Jian
Born August 18, 1953

Picture
M. Jian

My Book World

Picture
Evans, Harold. Do I Make Myself Clear?
    Why Writing Well Matters
. New York,
    Little, Brown, 2017.
 
The field of English grammar can be a pedant’s paradise (or nightmare), what with Twitter and texting divining their own rules, and for over 400 pages noted wordsmith Evans sounds off about his favorite peeves. He also, if readers take away nothing else, reminds us that the passive voice (not tense) can bloat a sentence, whereas active voice (subject+verb+object) allows for clearer and briefer writing. Evans takes governmental babble and rewrites it so that one can understand it:

​White House:
“Despite these opportunities and multiple intelligence products that noted the threat AQAP could pose to the Homeland, the different pieces of the puzzle were never brought together in this case[,] the dots were never connected, and, as a result steps to disrupt the plot involving Mr. Abdulmutallab were not taken prior to his boarding of the airplane with an explosive device and attempting to detonate it in-flight” (374). [passages written in passive voice appear in bold font]
 
Evans’s rewrite:
“CT staff never connected the dots, so no one attempted to prevent Mr. Abdulmutallab boarding the plane with an explosive device” (375).
The author reduces the passage’s bloat from 68 words to 46, without reducing its meaning; in fact, he clarifies its meaning. And this goal becomes his overarching purpose. As a journalist Evans hasn’t much use for other inflated language, including what he calls flesh-eaters. One should, for example, use “although” instead of the flesh-eating “despite the fact that” or “like” instead of “along the lines of.” He reiterates what every good eighth-grade English teacher tries to teach: “Don’t pad your writing.” He might have followed his own advice when explaining “flesh-eating” by reducing his verbiage from half a page (plus a photograph of Zoophagus insidians) to a sentence or two. His metaphor is self-explanatory.
 
Overall, Mr. Evans provides a fine review for persons who write or wish to. He directs his writing to the journalist, who is attempting to reach as many readers as possible, but his “Ten Shortcuts to Making Yourself Clear” (Chapter Five) alone are worth the price of the book, and could assist all writers in making themselves clearer, regardless of the genre. Kudos to Evans.

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017
0 Comments

Book-TV Update

8/11/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
With theatre, we all agree to suspend our disbelief about so many things, but not about race. It's totally OK to have one actor playing five roles—people are willing to believe that. But they won't believe it if there's a black or Asian kid who has white parents. What does that say about us?
​David Henry Hwang
Born August 11, 1957
Picture
D. Hwang

My Book World

Each weekend I try to view selected portions of C-SPAN’s Book-TV, forty-eight hours of recorded author readings of nonfiction now hitting the shelves, and sometimes six-hour segments covering book festivals around the U.S. C-SPAN is supported by most cable and satellite TV providers, so check your listings. You can view any reading at Book-TV’s Web site. And if you do wish to tune in, you can download and print a copy of the weekend’s schedule off the Web site. Below I profile an August 7, 2017 presentation I found very compelling.
Eisinger, Jesse. ​The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives. New York: Simon, 2017.
 
I’m always a sucker for a provocative title, but I’m particularly drawn in when the content of the book delivers on the title’s punch. In a recent C-SPAN Book-TV presentation of his Chickenshit Club, Eisinger takes readers into the bowels of the 2008 financial meltdown and explains why neither the CEOs nor the corporations they headed were ever prosecuted, why individuals responsible for such bad deeds never went to prison.  Not to give away too much, Eisinger’s explanation is at once simple and complex.

Simply, Department of Justice officials are afraid of certain aspects, for example, so-called collateral consequences, in which innocent employees lose their jobs when a corporation is put out of business. To explore the complexities, Eisenger lays out the history of why our country has arrived at this point where the financial-sector tail is wagging the law. He concludes that without individual accountability reforms are meaningless. Hedge fund managers and CEOs continue their heinous practices knowing they have an excellent chance of not going to prision.

In a perfect world the author would recommend, one, paying prosecutors much more money so they will have the incentive to work as hard as they would for private law firms that can pay more. Two, he recommends diversity in hiring, not merely more women and persons of color, but individuals from different parts of the country, who have graduated from a variety of law schools, not just the elite ones. Also, he would hire older, esteemed attorneys with a track record and a wider vision of the world, as well as those who have experience in consumer protections. Eisinger’s book expounds on what Matt Taibbi introduces in his excellent book, The Divide. Read both if you’re concerned about the fragile yet powerful world of finance.
 
NEXT TIME: My Book World
0 Comments

The Men in Bosworth's Life

6/30/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
If people retreat into private life, if critics grow quieter, if cynicism becomes endemic, the corruption will slowly become more brazen, the intimidation of opponents stronger. Laws intended to ensure accountability or prevent graft or protect civil liberties will be weakened. If the president uses his office to grab billions for himself and his family, his supporters will feel empowered to take millions. If he successfully exerts power to punish enemies, his successors will emulate his methods.
The Atlantic, March 2017
​David Frum
Born June 30, 1960
Picture
D. Frum

My Book World

Picture
Bosworth, Patricia. The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan. New York: HarperCollins, 2017.
 
For the same reasons I enjoyed reading her biography Montgomery Clift years ago, I sucked down Patricia Bosworth’s memoir of her own life. She is not afraid to search out and write the truth of any situation and do it with dignity and empathy for involved parties. Because for about a decade she is an actor, she becomes acquainted with Montgomery Clift personally, and she approaches her subject with honesty and a certain kindness. The same can be said for her book: all of the members of her family are loved ones, but they are also, at times, bad actors who undermine her life. Her father is a narcissistic alcoholic attorney, a closeted homosexual (according to her mother) whose love is not entirely unconditional; he profoundly affects Patricia’s life when he commits suicide. Her mother is a published novelist (Strumpet Wind) whose career stalls and becomes an ambitious stage mother who plays on all Patricia’s insecurities: Patricia’s actions and achievements are never good enough. The relationship that affects Bosworth the most, perhaps, is her brother, Bart.
 
When they are young they establish a special bond, with even their own form of Pig Latin which their parents cannot understand; they share that language for many years until Bart ceases to think it appropriate. A particularly effective tool peppered throughout the book are her continued conversations with Bart’s ghost. Eerie how she makes it seem as if he’s still alive as he advises her. In his teens, her brother is attracted to males and has sex with a couple of them, including a friend at an exclusive boys’ boarding school. There, after they are discovered together, the friend commits suicide, an act from which Bart never recovers. He, too, eventually kills himself before reaching the age of twenty-one. Bosworth’s father and brother are not the only men she writes about in her page-turner; she outlines in detail her love (and sexual) relationships with several different men, including two husbands.
 
She reminisces about her acting career in which she appears on Broadway with the likes of Daniel Massey and Elaine Stritch. The highlight of this period may be when she appears with Audrey Hepburn in a film, The Nun’s Story. Nonetheless, in spite of Bosworth’s success on the stage, she comes to the realization that she can no longer bare her soul in that manner but must establish a writing career instead. And glad we are that she does. Bosworth’s book—taken from her diaries, her notes, but most of all her remembrances—is a stunning read.
 
[I’m still amazed in this day and age how a book produced by one of the top companies in the country can make it through all that scrutiny with a typo:
 
“I was able to slip into the wings just as Bobby begain [sic] belting out ‘I Believe in You,’ the signature number” (350).
 
How many copyeditors overlooked this error and how many times? How many times did the author or her staff herself read the galleys? Amazing.]

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017

0 Comments

Book-TV Update

4/21/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
I spent a lot of time in the White House in the public areas where reporters are allowed to go, but I spoke to people about the private quarters as well. Some of the things I learned were small, novelistic details. For example, the fact that there were still pet stains on the carpets from the Bush cats when the Obamas moved in.
​Jodi Kantor, New York Times Correspondent
​Born April 21, 1975
Picture
J. Kantor

My Book World

Each weekend I try to view selected portions of C-SPAN’s Book-TV, forty-eight straight hours of recorded author readings of nonfiction now hitting the shelves, and sometimes six- or eight-hour segments covering book festivals around the US. C-SPAN, by the way, is supported by most cable and satellite TV providers, so check your listings. You can also view at any time any reading at Book-TV’s Web site. And if you do wish to tune in, you can view, download, and print a copy of the weekend’s schedule off the Web site. Please find below one presentation that recently piqued my interest.
Daniel Connolly. The Book of Isaias: A Child of Hispanic Immigrants Seeks His Own America. New York: St. Martin's, 2016.
 
This panel presentation was part of the Tucson Festival of Books, in which author Connolly speaks of the status of children of undocumented immigrants. In the book that takes five years to research and write, he says that the vast majority of these children are citizens, yet they are often not only mistreated but when their parents are deported they have no lifeline. He states that enforcement of immigration laws varies from region to region. For example, in Arizona there are guards and walls. In Memphis, Tennessee, where he lives, the workforce depends heavily on immigrants, and the laws are not always adhered to. A fascinating discussion, and it looks like a fine read—on my wish list, for sure. He shares the stage with Julissa Arce, author of My (Underground) American Dream: My True Story as an Undocumented Immigrant Who Became a Wall Street Executive.

​Daniel Connolly's Book-TV Presentation

NEXT TIME: Earth Day 2017
0 Comments

Book-TV Update

4/14/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
We might be on the brink of an apocalypse if, instead of poor people with suicide bombs killing middle class guys, middle-class people with suicide bombs started killing rich guys. The Difference Engine
Bruce Sterling
​Born April 14, 1954
Picture
B. Sterling

My Book World

Each weekend I try to view selected portions of C-SPAN’s Book-TV, forty-eight straight hours of recorded author readings of nonfiction now hitting the shelves, and sometimes six- or eight-hour segments covering book festivals around the US. C-SPAN, by the way, is supported by most cable and satellite TV providers, so check your listings. You can also view at any time any reading at Book-TV’s Web site. And if you do wish to tune in, you can view, download, and print a copy of the weekend’s schedule off the Web site. Please find below two presentations that recently piqued my interest.
Maureen Dowd. The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics. New York: Twelve, 2016.

I’ve viewed both of these presentations, one held at the Miami Book Fair and the other at the Tucson Festival of Books. In the first one, shortly after the 2016 election of our forty-fifth president, she speaks directly to her book, how, after covering 45 for over thirty years, she’s arrived at some conclusions as to how he won the election. In the second video, she is questioned by host, Peter Slen, of C-SPAN’s Book-TV, a fine interviewer, who speaks to her about not only the book but her entire career. In both events the New York Times columnist from Washington, DC, is quite candid and astute in her assessment of President 45. She says we’re in for quite a ride. Tune into to one or both talks to find out why!

Maureen Dowd at the Miami Book Fair
Maureen Dowd at the Tucson Festival of Books

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017
0 Comments

Old is Not New Again

3/20/2017

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
It's a funny thing—when I'm crazed with work, spending time with my children relaxes me. Yet, at the end of a long weekend with them, the very thing I need to relax is a little work and time away from them!
​
Emily Giffin
Born March 20, 1972
Picture
E. Giffin

New Yorker​ Fiction 2017

***—Excellent
**   —Above Average 
*      —Average ​​
**March 20, 2017, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The I.O.U.": In this story set about a hundred years ago, a New York company publishes the long-awaited book of an author who writes of his astrological connection with a nephew having died in World War I. ¶ On the Contributor’s Page of this issue, one learns that this story was to have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar in 1920 but never did. One must wonder . . . could it have been because largely it is a plot-driven narrative with a clever trick ending? Who wouldn’t want to read that in 2017? I would imagine that the New Yorker turns down thousands of such stories a year but makes this one exception merely because it is written by FSF. Now, I’m a fan of his—I taught and annually re-read The Great Gatsby for a decade—but I believe he would now rise from his grave and shake a fist at us knowing that this story, not nearly as developed as “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” or “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” has made it into print at long last. Yet more unearthed works of Fitzgerald’s, collected in I’d Die for You and Other Lost Stories, is out in April. Cahn’t wait.
Illustration by Seth.

NEXT TIME: My Book World

Book-TV Update

3/10/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
On sherry: The destiny of a thousand generations is concentrated in each drop. If the cares of the world overwhelm you, only taste it, pilgrim, and you will swear that heaven is on earth.
​
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
Born March 10, 1833

Picture
de Alarcón

My Book World

OFTEN, if I’m involved reading two or three lengthy books at one time, I may spend two to four weeks completing them.

I am in one of those periods right now, perusing a lengthy biography of author E. M. Forster, revisiting George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eight-Four, a novel I read fifty years ago for college freshman orientation, and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters.

Each weekend, however, I do watch C-SPAN’s Book-TV, forty-eight straight hours of recorded author readings of new nonfiction literature hitting the shelves, often recording the ones I want to watch and viewing them later in the week. Sometimes the reading venue is a coveted bookstore, such as DC’s Politics and Prose, or it might be a university setting. Sometimes, conservative, sometimes progressive. Many times, the subject matter is not political at all. Now, here is the best part, you can view any one of these readings at Book-TV’s Web site at any time. You do not have to have cable TV. And if you do wish to watch them on television, you can view and download and print a copy of the weekend’s schedule. Below I list a couple of readings I recently found interesting.
Terry McDonell. The Accidental Life: An Editor's Notes on Writing and Writers. New York: Knopf, 2016.

As editor of Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and Rolling Stone, McDonell reveals scintillating details about his relationship with such writers as Hunter S. Thompson. His fascinating presentation sustained my interest throughout. First aired February 18, 2107.

 
Dean Baker. Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Washington DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2016. In this book Baker “argues that government policies, not globalization or the natural workings of the free market, have led to the upward redistribution of wealth seen around the world over the past four decades.” His logical and comprehensive lecture offers one of the most compelling arguments I’ve ever heard on the subject. First aired January 17, 2107.
 
NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017
0 Comments

DIY Publishing 101-C

9/17/2014

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
There is no armor against fate.
James Shirley
Born September 18, 1596

Do It Yourself or Use Company "Services"?

It is possible, if you know what you’re doing or if you’re willing to conduct your own on-the-job-training, for you to print a book at Amazon’s CreateSpace for FREE. That’s right! But it means you must also know (or learn) how to manipulate their software once your manuscript is uploaded, to get the fonts you want, positioning text on the page. You must upload your own cover image(s), place them where you want them, select background and font colors and sizes. The final result may be much simpler looking than you would have hoped. But, if your funds are limited and you just want to get a book out there, this might be the route to take.

I would suggest going online to the CreateSpace home page. There you will find six categories. Click on the subheadings to find out more. Also, CS has any number of videos you can view to assist you in every category. I took the path of investing what I think is a reasonable amount of money, largely because I wanted the book to have the best chance possible of having high production values. Having said that, I felt that CS wanted too much money for editing services, given that all my stories had previously been published.

Instead, I located someone local, a friend and colleague named Barbara Brannon, to copy edit the final MS for me. Not only had she critiqued a good number of my stories in the writing group I belong to but she had edited more than sixty books in her career as editor and writer, so I felt quite confident in her abilities. And even though all the stories in my collection had been vetted, in a sense, by way of their appearance in nationally recognized literary journals, Barbara still located errors! And there was stylistic consistency, an overall look of the MS, to consider. She also cleaned up the MS by inserting page breaks where appropriate and using a paragraph indention of .4 of an inch instead of the standard tab indention. She prepared the MS to upload for the Kindle app! And she charged me far less than CreateSpace would have, what the local market would bear.

Depending on where you live, you too may be able to find a competent editor for less money than CS will charge you. And no matter how fine a writer you are, you will need to find an editor or copy editor. If you go it alone, your eyes may overlook the same homonym error a million times or perhaps that unintended fragment or comma splice. A fine editor will not interfere too much with the content of your work; a fine copy editor will see to it that your copy reads smoothly and in a consistent voice throughout the MS. A fine editor will give you choices when it comes to revising the copy so that it reads well and conveys the meaning you originally intended.

CreateSpace offers services to help the writer develop the interior and cover of his or her book. CS also makes available marketing services. Again, I urge you to locate the CS home page online and find out what services it provides. CS also affords you a handy device that allows you to calculate what your royalties might be, thus allowing you to set a reasonable price for your book. Most of all, I believe, self-publishing is about creating a book that represents your sensibilities. The one problem with traditional publishing is that once your MS is purchased, your MS ceases to be yours!

NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2014

DIY Publishing 101-B

9/10/2014

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.
O. Henry
Born September 11, 1862


False Promises

[I always try, at the end of each post, to tell which topic will be next. Last time I indicated that it would be MY BOOK WORLD. Sorry, I've gotten so caught up in the reading of my book's proof that I let my schedule get away from me. Forgive me. I'll probably make that post next week.] RJ

Selecting the Right Company for You

When I began my work of self publishing, I did a Google search, and one of the better sources I located was Writer’s Digest. I began to read down their list of sixty-five recommended companies. The WD list is quite effective because under each company WD delineates the type of printing that the company does: Print-on-demand, e-book, offset, etc. By studying each one, you may in advance develop a good idea of which companies you might most like to contact.

I hoped to receive information from two of the companies I was interested in, so at their websites I filled in online forms, thinking that I would get something by e-mail. No. The very next day I took calls from sales representatives from both companies—both of them under the umbrella of some pretty big corporate names. I won't reveal which ones because I don’t want to be accused of sabotaging their work. But I will say that everything sounded great. Yes, both self-publishing companies wanted more money than Amazon’s CreateSpace, and more than most of any of the other companies on the list. So I conducted a forty-five minute phone interview with each of them, and a week later they called me back  to try and rope me in. When I told one of the representatives that I'd decided to go a different direction, he stopped calling, but the other rep has continued to haunt me with at least one call a week. Annoying.

During each second conference the reps answered my questions. One of their claims was that if the parent company liked my work my book might get picked up. Hm. I asked, “How many of your self-published authors actually get picked up by your parent company?” That’s a good question, one of the reps said and went on to tell me that they actually hadn’t been in business long enough to make that determination. Aha. After we hung up, I then did a Google search for writers' reviews of both of these “new” companies lounging under elite corporate umbrellas. There were no good ones! I read nothing but complaints for both of them, things like royalty structure not turning out to be as good as represented by the company. On the other hand, writers who reviewed Amazon's CreateSpace had plenty of accolades. Not only that but I spoke with two people who've already produced a book with CS, and both parties were positive.

That alone helped me make up my mind to use CreateSpace. It has been in the self-publishing business the longest, and its people seem to have the details worked out. When they offer you a service, you can count on it being worth the money. In addition to these larger companies WD’s list includes a number of smaller companies that offer self-publishing at bargain prices. It’s up to you to research the ones you are interested in and make the initial contact. Prepare a set of questions in advance so that when you speak to a sales rep, you’ll be set. And who knows? Maybe you will decide to go with one of the bigs! Best of luck.

NEXT TIME: MY BOOK WORLD
NEXT THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18: DIY PUBLISHING 101-C

NEXT FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19: NEW YORKER FICTION 2014

DIY Publishing 101-A

9/3/2014

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
You can make an audience see nearly anything, if you yourself believe in it.
Mary Renault
Born September 4, 1905

Taking the Plunge

Since 2005 twenty literary journals have published my short stories, and I've featured a number of them under the "Published Stories" page of my website. The conventional wisdom has always been that after one has published at least fifteen stories, one then seeks to publish them as a collection. Well, as conventions go, this one now stands on its head. Companies are usually willing to publish a writer’s collection only after he or she has premiered a novel, preferably a best-selling one—and often editors would prefer that the stories be linked, making a collection seem more like . . . guess what . . . a novel. They sell better.

Short story collections have always sold "poorly," but prior to the turn of the century (this one), publishers had used the sales of their best sellers to subsidize what they called mid-list writers: solid writers, who didn't draw wide audiences but had respectable sales. I wouldn't presume to say that I'm equal to one of those, but several times in the last few years I've almost placed a collection, and yet, for one reason or another certain independent presses passed—while claiming to like my work! Painful. Then I read a short article—"Presto Book-O (Why I Went Ahead and Self-Published)"—at The Rumpus by fiction writer, Steve Almond. He'd already published several collections but decided to publish a collection himself. I believe he makes some great points.

Almond's words inspired me, some years later—I'm not the most courageous person in the world—and my short story collection, My Long-Playing Records and Other Stories will be out later this year. Before that time the PDFs of my stories will come down off the "Published Stories" page of my website, and if interested parties wish to read them they will then have an opportunity to buy a copy of those stories from Amazon. Yes, I chose to go with Amazon's CreateSpace, which will produce the book and the Kindle version, as well. In the coming weeks, though I'm sure other writers have already done this, I will be posting my experiences—from researching companies to seeing the manuscript edited and uploaded to selecting artwork for the cover. All the heartache and love of seeing my work come to fruition—just the way I envision it! As Rachel Maddow says, "Watch this space!"

NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2014
NEXT THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11: DIY PUBLISHING 101-B

Happy Valenersary Through the Years

2/17/2012

 
My lover ("life partner" in modern parlance) and I met on February 14, 1976. We've always celebrated that day as our anniversary and not the weekend four months later when we moved in together. There are two problems with this choice. One is trying to dine out the same evening that every other couple in town is. The other is what to get him. Everything either has hearts all over it or comes in the shape of a heart or is in some way very RED, making it more of a Valenersary present. No matter. For our 25th anniversary we threw our party in June so that we wouldn't have to compete with others trying to hire a caterer (and weather would not be an issue). Some years we traveled. For our 20th, we went to Hawaii. For our 30th we took Amtrak from Ft. Worth to NYC. This year we are planning an overnighter in Archer City, Texas. There we will stay in the Spur Hotel established in 1928. The next day we will peruse the shelves of Larry McMurtry's book store, Booked Up. Frankly, Larry prices his books based on their market value, not to move them. But in the past I have found some treasured first editions of authors whom I adore, and I treasure them to this day. If you can, stop in and browse the shelves of his four-building complex located on the same streets where McMurtry's 1971 The Last Picture Show was filmed. If you take a look at the Booked Up Web site, you may be tantalized by his list of New Arrivals. Be sure and allow plenty of time for your visit because if you leave before you've looked at it all, you may feel like you've left something behind!

Items That Won't Recycle

I’ve displayed some more examples of last month’s “skin of plastic that so often covers a recyclable plastic bottle.”  Surely this skin, too, isn’t recyclable, nor the one covering the tissue box.

Other non-recyclable items: lids or caps found on just about every product packaged in plastic. Again, we might say, 'Why worry?' Well, sooner or later Mother Earth is going to get a belly fully and regurgitate all this stuff from her innards and scatter them at our feet. And what about Braun’s plastic container of alcohol (probably) made in Germany with NO recycle symbol on its surface or the plastic mailers we all receive when we purchase items through the mail?

Whatever happened to the term “bio-degradable” bandied about in Time and Newsweek articles in the 1970s? It seems that the problem anymore isn’t so much what recycles and what doesn’t (often a recycling process uses yet more energy than it is worth to make the substance useful again), but what will be digested by Mother Earth and what will give her gas. There exist small and pitiful moves among fast food vendors to utilize containers made of corn, but so far, not one of these magnates has signed on to do this in a big way.

Retirement Hobbies?

I never thought my friends and I would be spending our retirement fighting to keep our pensions at their current levels, but that very battle may be on the horizon if certain (Republican) Texas legislators get their way. Yes, these shysters would like to convert our pension from a “defined benefit plan” to a “defined contribution plan.” They would, in essence, like to privatize our pensions. I won’t go into the details because others more articulate than I already have written articles that explore the issues in full, but suffice it to say the former is a promise to deliver the same check month after month until the day a retiree dies, and the latter only promises to take one's money, making no commitment to see that a retiree receives anything.

Look for links at the end of the post for further reading.

I’m largely concerned with teacher/retiree response to this development. The entire time I taught from 1974 to 2002, teachers in Lubbock Independent School District and indeed from across the state belonged to four, count them, four organizations/unions. The state legislators might as well have invented the concept of divide and conquer; they had to have laughed each time four organizations approached them with similar but usually differing goals. When I first taught, many teachers’ incomes often were "gravy" for the household, the spouse (usually the husband) earning more than enough for the family. The little woman’s (or man’s) income was his/hers to do with as s/he pleased. What did s/he care if no raise was offered by the local board or by the state? As time passed, however, reflecting our society at large, more and more Texas teachers wound up being single parents attempting to provide for their own offspring by way of a paltry teacher's salary. And still teachers did not unite in one voice.

Moreover, Texas legislators and the public at large always seem to have acted as if a teacher is some sort of a missionary, that we should be happy to receive what we get, for, after all, we’ve assumed a calling of some sort. Pitooey. Working sixty hours a week without fair remuneration is not a calling. Skillfully raising test scores is not a calling. Inveigling students to learn how to read when they care not to is not a calling. Teaching is a skilled profession that requires at least one degree (which includes state certification) plus much devotion, and, even though districts seldom reward those with advanced degrees in terms of salary (I mean really reward), there are plenty of people who earn advanced degrees in hopes of becoming a better professional. The time has arrived for teachers/retirees to act differently. If local districts are to recruit bright, altruistic young people to teach, the profession must offer them more in the way of salary and benefits (one of which includes a decent pension to offset an average salary package and the lack of social security to boot).

There are over 800,000 Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) members, made up of both active teachers and retirees. I contend that we 800,000 must act differently this time in the face of what the Texas legislators wish to do to our (and it is our) pension fund. We must be pro-active, to use a term we all heard a lot before we left teaching. We must read carefully about what these men (and they are mostly men) intend to do to our fund.

We must be united. Texas Retired Teachers Association (TRTA) works hard to keep us all informed. The organization lobbies without fail during the legislative seasons. But are their efforts enough? Without question we all should pay the yearly fee and join their ranks, but is TRTA adequate in a world where conditions can change in a second? I have in mind the young woman who brought Bank of America to its knees by petitioning them with 350,000 signatures protesting a proposed $5 month fee for using a bank ATM. How about the Egyptians, the Tunisians, who brought down corrupt governments through social networking Web sites? I have in mind the Occupy movement. Is our issue as big as theirs? You better believe it is, or we, too, may wind up getting the shaft like Wisconsin teachers with regard to collective bargaining (which, by the way, is not legal in Texas).

We must not allow anyone to divide teachers from retirees. Retirees must fight the legislators that wish to make current educators pay a higher contribution rate, and current teachers must support the plight of a retiree, who has been living on the same monthly check since 2001 (more than a 30% loss in spending power). We’re two sides of the same thin dime, and we must support one another without allowing the legislature to divide and conquer us.

And we have to figure out a way to bring this issue to the attention of the public, particularly in Texas. We have to bring state legislators to their knees (or at least their senses). Might we write a petition that people can sign online? Might we unite—old and young, people of all ethnic groups, gay and straight—by way of Facebook and Twitter? Might people, right or left, finally tire of the Machiavellian treatment we’ve been receiving for years from these high-handed people, who act without thinking about the larger consequences, who have God-knows-what kind of designs on our $110 billion fund?

The Texas legislators would tell you that the fund is failing. The $110 billion TRS fund is NOT failing; it is not in great need of tinkering. It is among the top six pension funds in the United States. It has a high international ranking, as well. It has taken some hits including the Enron debacle over a decade ago, or earlier, in the mid-1990s, when Texas legislators reduced their contribution to the fund down to a mandated 6%, where it has remained. These far right legislators claim that the fund is “failing,” but it is not. It is healthy, in spite of their efforts to neglect or destroy it over the years. It is well managed by professionals who know what they’re doing. The fund has even recovered from the hit it took in 2008. Instead of seeing how they can dismantle it, Texas legislators ought to be figuring out a way to fully fund the plan. They should not only bring their contribution back to mid-1990s levels, at the very least, but they should pay the fund back for all the money lost during that fifteen year + period. Texas is still a wealthy state. In our oil-rich economy, our legislators could figure out in a minute how to fund this plan if their feet got hot enough. We must hold their feet to a certain fire.

This is not an issue just for whiny teachers/retirees who somehow never appear to be grateful for what they’re given. This is an issue for parents and their children. It is an issue for anyone who lives in a neighborhood with children. If districts can’t recruit qualified teachers who can look forward, at least, to a fair retirement, then what hope is there for improving education? A district can have the newest equipment, the best in technology, but if there aren’t competent and caring teachers to employ the use of these things—and most studies show that teachers are the most important factor in providing a great education—then what hope is there? Please help. Get involved. Act.

FOR FURTHER READING:

Texas Retired Teachers Association

Teacher Retirement System of Texas

READING

I BELONG TO A WRITING GROUP THAT MEETS MONTHLY SO WE CAN ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER AND CRITIQUE EACH OTHERS' WRITING. AS AN OUTGROWTH OF OUR WORK, WE WILL BE READING FROM OUR MOST RECENT PIECES ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 7:30 P.M. @ THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, 2801 42ND STREET IN LUBBOCK, TEXAS. I WILL BE READING ALONG WITH MELISSA BREWER JONES, DENNIS FEHR, AND MARILYN WESTFALL. IF YOU LIVE IN LUBBOCK OR NEARBY, PLEASE JOIN US!

    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

    See my profile at Author Central:
    http://amazon.com/author/rjespers


    Richard Jespers's books on Goodreads
    My Long-Playing Records My Long-Playing Records
    ratings: 1 (avg rating 5.00)


    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011



    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Actors
    African American History
    Aging
    Alabama
    Alaska
    Aldo Leopold
    Andy Warhol
    Arizona
    Arkansas
    Art
    Atrial Fibrillation
    Authors
    Authors' Words
    Barcelona
    Biography
    Blogging About Books
    Blogs
    Books
    California
    Cancer
    Cars
    Catalonia
    Colorado
    Cooking
    Creative Nonfiction
    Culinary Arts
    Deleting Facebook
    Ecology
    Education
    Environment
    Epigraphs
    Essays
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Fifty States
    Film
    Florida
    Georgia
    Grammar
    Greece
    Gun Violence
    Hawaii
    Heart Health
    Historic Postcards
    History
    Humor
    Idaho
    Iowa
    Journalism
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Literary Biography
    Literary Journals
    Literary Topics
    Literature
    Maine
    Massachusetts
    Memoir
    Michigan
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    M K Rawlings
    Musicians
    Nevada
    New Hampshire
    New Mexico
    New Yorker Stories
    Nonfiction
    North Carolina
    Novelist
    Ohio
    Pam Houston
    Parker Posey
    Photography
    Playwrights
    Poetry
    Politics
    Psychology
    Publishing
    Quotations
    Race
    Reading
    Recipes
    Seattle
    Short Story
    South Carolina
    Spain
    Susan Faludi
    Teaching
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Theater
    The Novel
    Travel
    Travel Photographs
    True Crime
    #TuesdayThoughts
    TV
    U.S.
    Vermont
    Voting
    War
    Washington
    Wisconsin
    World War II
    Writer's Wit
    Writing


    RSS Feed

    Blogroll

    alicefrench.wordpress.com
    kendixonartblog.com
    Valyakomkova.blogspot.com

    Websites

    Caprock Writers' Alliance
    kendixonart.com

    tedkincaid.com
    www.trackingwonder.com
    www.skans.edu
    www.ttu.edu
    www.newpages.com
    www.marianszczepanski.com
    William Campbell Contemporary Art, Inc.
    Barbara Brannon.com
    Artsy.net
WWW.RICHARDJESPERS.COM  ©2011-2025
                    BOOKS  PHOTOS  PODCASTS  JOURNALS  BLOG