Hey everyone. A lot of you probably know me from Conversational Reading, but this is my first post on the LBC's site, so I thought I'd explain why I'm excited about being a member here.
I can still remember the day I was asked to join the LBC. I had just finished working out at my gym and was walking back to my car when this black Mercedes pulled up. A couple of thugs (who I later realized were Ed and Derik) hopped out and grabbed me. I tried to kick 'em in the groin, but to no avail, and they threw me in the trunk. The next thing I knew, Mark Sarvas was beaming down on me with a look of utter serenity and when he made his offer, I couldn't refuse.
Or, well, something like that. (It may have actually involved e-mail, now that I think of it.) The point is that I felt really glad to be asked to participate and this is why: connections.
For me, by far the best part of lit blogs has been the opportunity to join, on a daily basis, an ongoing conversation about books. I remember in my pre-lit blog days how much I used to love it when the local NPR station would run a show on books and I could e-mail in to participate, or when me and a friend got together to talk about a book. I loved that stuff, but the problem was, I just wasn't getting enough of it to satisfy me, so I started my blog in hopes I could make more connections with bright, literary-minded people.
It's worked out well beyond any expectations I've had. In just these months I've been blogging, I've learned an amazing amount about books. I've participated in some great discussions, connected with some really great people.
And that's why I'm glad to be in the Co-op. Four times a year, I get to read some exciting new fiction and consider the books with 20 other people whose blogs I read constantly. For me, it can't get much better than that. Except it does, because then I get to write about it on this blog, and I'm hoping that this will be a way to extend the discussion past my fellow LBC-ers and into everyone reading.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a little flabbergasted by how much my own blog has gotten me in touch with people--people from right here in the Bay Area all the way to Maine--who are like me and want to talk books. I'm truly amazed that it's worked out so well, and I'm entirely expecting that the LBC get even more connections going. We certainly all want lesser-known authors to get their due, but I think we'd be disappointed if everyone just read the book at home and never talked about it.
Books are great things to enjoy on their own, but I think something that most of people into lit blogs have in common is that reading isn't enough. They want to talk about the books, form their pet theories, compare them to other writers, revile some of them, praise others. What I'm hoping is that the announcement of THE BOOK in May won't be the climax but the beginning. It'll be the start of a lot of people reading, and then a lot of people talking.
I don't write or publish fiction. I write and publish non-fiction. Fiction is too tame. Too boring. Reality is bizarre enough and far more twisted than anything anyone could make up. My books deal with children's issues and specifically pediatric AIDS. You wanna talk about getting consigned to the remainder bin. My books are marked down before they're even released. Books like mine are not considered "commercial" and editors and publishers are LOATHE to publish anything that even remotely resembles or speaks to the truth. Publishing like a lot of whores is not always responsible. So I've taken to blogging where there's a real dialogue going on. I put my experience with and the issues of children with HIV/AIDS out there and to my surprise there's actually a readership (one that editors, and I would love to start naming names someday, insist does not exist; one again, commonly, the editors are wrong)that wants to chew on the reality of things. Difficult or not. I value every single reader that comes my way. Publishing has given up on the notion of the dialogue (I know editors who have told me time and time again that readers are stupid) and thusly the notion of the reader himself has been delegated to a remainder bin tragic in its consequences for everyone.
Posted by: Nasdijj | Apr 20, 2005 at 09:59 AM