BookOpinion

Long before Orange County, Calif. became “The OC”, a young Steve Martin used Disneyland and other county landmarks as backdrops for honing his stage and comic skills.
Martin’s book, “Born Standing Up“, is his memoir of the first half of his life…including an Orange County from a different era.

Martin and excerpts from “Born Standing Up” were recently featured in an article in the OC Register:

Take a tour of comedian Steve Martin’s Orange County
The comedian and writer grew up in Garden Grove, worked at Disneyland as a kid and cut his teeth as a performer at Knott’s.

By Peter Larsen

If we are shaped by the places we go and people we know in our childhoods, then Steve Martin is an absolute product of Orange County in the ’50s and ’60s.

Young Steve Martin worked at the magic shop at Disneyland. (courtesy Steve Martin)

From the well-known outlines of the actor-comedian-writer’s life we already knew that Martin grew up in Garden Grove, worked at Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm as a teen, and launched his career as a comic in the long-gone folk clubs here some 40 years ago.

But with the recent arrival of “Born Standing Up” (Scribner, $25), Martin’s memoir of the first half of his life, the details of his years here – the significant places on the map of his life – are revealed in the star’s own words and memories…

Full story/OC Register

Janet Maslin of The New York Times writes that “Born Standing Up” is a “lean, incisive new book about the trajectory of [Martin’s] life in comedy…”Born Standing Up” does a sharp-witted job of breaking down the step-by-step process that brought Steve Martin from Disneyland, where he spent his version of a Dickensian childhood as a schoolboy employee, to both the pinnacle of stardom and the brink of disaster…tightly focused…”Born Standing Up” is a surprising book: smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin.”

This from Jerry Seinfeld in GQ: “Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written.”

Time Magazine’s Richard Corliss reviews: “The writing is evocative, unflinching and cool. When Martin takes a scalpel to his life, what you feel is the precision of the surgeon more than the primal scream of the unanaesthetized patient…”Born Standing Up” is neither fanfare nor confession. It gives off a vibe of rigorous honesty. With lots of laughs.”

Having lived “behind the Orange Curtain”, Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up“ is an inspiring break-out story, also reminding me of the sweet smell of orange blossoms that once permeated the air.

- Alexander

There is a service called 123PrintFinder.com that can help self-publishers and authors find great prices on their next print job.

The site has a proprietary database of printing presses across the U.S., Canada and overseas in countries such as South Korea or China. They will take your specs and find the optimal press for that book. The savings can be thousands of dollars depending on the size of the print run. Since they work with publishers on printing a wide variety of different books, they can also suggest small changes to optimize your book that could save you a bundle.

“We’ve definitely been able to save many book publishers thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars simply by placing their project in a plant that better suits them,” said Josh Prizer from 123PrintFinder.

123PrintFinder can print as few as 25 books or even larger print runs of up to 100,000 or more, which they have for major corporations.

Click here to find their book printing request form which will allow them to send you a quote.

Not sure where to start? Send them an email. Prizer says they have also walked many first-time publishers through the entire process.

Borders along with Court TV and Gather.com has announced a crime and mystery writing contest. ”The Next Great Crime Writer” contest is open to anyone with a completed, but unpublished manuscript. First chapters will be voted up upon by the Gather.com community.

Among the panelists of judges include authors David Baldacci, Sandra Brown and Harlan Coben. Winners will receive a book publishing and distribution contract and an advance.

Complete contest details can be found here.

“Driving quality manuscript submissions is the key to any successful writing contest,” said Borders Group, Inc. Executive Vice President, Merchandising and Marketing, Rob Gruen. “By joining forces with Court TV and Gather.com, we exponentially enhance the quantity and quality of submissions. This puts Borders in a unique position to make a dream come true for an aspiring and deserving writer.”

“We are thrilled to launch yet another groundbreaking marketing initiative, which, for the first time, partners Court TV with Borders and Gather.com,” says Mary Corigliano, senior vice president of marketing for Court TV. “Taking advantage of this multiplatform environment, we are extremely well positioned to lead the search to bring national attention to an unpublished mystery writer primed for his or her big break, while at the same time ultimately driving tune-in to our hit series Murder by the Book.”

Court TV’s “Murder by the Book,” which premieres Monday, November 5, 10 p.m. ET, is a 13-episode, one-hour series featuring best-selling crime authors including David Baldacci, Sandra Brown, and Harlan Coben. Court TV’s promotion for the “Search for the Next Great Crime Writer” Contest will include on-air, Internet and guerilla marketing. Gather.com members and fans of crime fiction will have a unique opportunity to pose questions and interact with the authors via web site postings and interviews.

“Clearly, we are setting a trend here, using our base of loyal members in our strong social network to partner with two leading companies in their respective fields,” says Tom Gerace, founder and CEO of Gather.com. “The Gather.com, Borders and Court TV alliance is a powerful mix of media that delivers a multi-faceted platform to identify, vet and elevate aspiring mystery writers.”

THE COURT TV SEARCH FOR THE NEXT GREAT CRIME WRITER CONTEST TIMELINE
Round 1: October 1 - November 11, 2007
Submission period

Round 2: November 15, 2007 - December 9, 2008:
1st Chapters posted of all eligible entries on Courttv.Gather.com, where the community will help narrow the pool down to 25 semifinalists.

Round 3: December 13, 2007 - January 2, 2008:
The 25 semifinalists will post their second chapters on Courttv.Gather.com, where the community will help narrow the pool down to
5 finalists.

Round 4: January 3, 2008 - January 22, 2008:
The judging panel will select one talented mystery novelist as the Grand Prize Winner.

Winner Announced: February 4, 2008:
The judging panel will announce the mystery novelist as the Grand Prize Winner, the Next Great Crime Writer.

“I have so many more stories to tell,” says Judy Blume in a Meet the Writers podcast at Barnes & Noble.

“I’m a much, much better rewriter than I am a first or second draft writer,” Blume says. In the podcast she talks about not only the writing process, but a variety of other topics.

Asked if she could put one book in a time capsule, which would it be, she said “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”

“It’s the first book where I let go,” Blume said. “The first two books were learning experiences. I was trying to figure it all out. And with ‘Margaret’ it was I don’t care about these rules I’m just going to write what I know to be true because I so remember my own sixth-grade experience.”

Listen to the Judy Blume podcast here.

Pocket Books and Gather.com have announced their top 25 semi-finalists in their romance novel writing contest. First chapters were submitted in August, and second chapters are now up. Five finalists will be chosen and a grand prize winner will receive a contract with the Pocket Books imprint of Simon & Schuster.

“Excitement around the First Chapters competition continues to build as people increasingly realize the power that their participation has in selecting the world’s next great literary talents,” says Tom Gerace, Gather.com founder and Chief Executive Officer. “The high quality of the romance submissions has ignited a feverous flow of activity and engagement amongst our members, who have always been captivated by good writing.”

The contest gives first-time novelists a chance to get their work noticed and printed.

“Romance writers are one of the world’s most passionate groups of people,” noted Louise Burke, Executive Vice President and Publisher, Pocket Books. “The First Chapters Romance competition has allowed Pocket Books to leverage the power of social media to identify undiscovered talent and provide our customers with fresh, carefully plotted, and well-crafted romance writing.”

From now through Oct. 8, 2007, readers may check out the first two chapters for each writer and vote for the finalists. The three chapters with the most “10” votes will proceed to Round 3, along with two chapters selected by the Gather Editorial Team.

Interested in checking them out? Click here to Read the First Chapters.

Last year’s First Chapter winner was recently published along with another finalist. USA Today reviewed the books here.

Powell’s published an exclusive interview with Junot Díaz, who will be at the bookstore Sept. 25. Diaz recently finished his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a decade after his collection of short stories made its sensational literary splash, winning awards and becoming a bestseller.

Diaz fans won’t be disappointed by the novel. It has received superb reviews from the L.A. Times, N.Y. Times and places in between. Publisher’s Weekly says, “this fierce, funny, tragic book is just what a reader would have hoped for in a novel by Junot Diaz.”

Here is an excerpt from the Powell’s interview:

Spend a bit of time in the book business — no, don’t bother, just read a few litblogs — and soon enough you’ll stumble into an evangelist for the story collection Junot Díaz published in 1996. Indeed, Drown delivered ten nuanced, highly original short pieces of fiction. Eleven years ago.

“I don’t write enough,” Díaz admits.

To say that readers have been eagerly awaiting his first novel would be an understatement of significant proportions. Finally, here it is, and — if you can you believe it — The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao arguably exceeds expectations.

Leaping back and forth between the Dominican Republic and New Jersey, pouring across pages in a “combustible mix of slang and lyricism” (quoth Booklist), Oscar Wao bridges several generations and distinct cultures with exhilarating doses of Caribbean history and old-fashioned pulse-pounding drama. Politics, corruption, romance, fantasy, faith, despair — the novel, as Díaz explains, contains multitudes. Kirkus, in a starred review, called it “a compelling, sex-fueled, 21st-century tragi-comedy with a magical twist.”

A few weeks prior to his reading in Portland, Díaz talked about Oscar Wao, bright lights, dialogue that sucks, and the silences that draw writers in.

Dave: Yunior narrates The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, with contributions from Lola. Lola’s mother, Belicia, is a force of nature. So why is Oscar the title character?

Junot Díaz: For Yunior, Oscar is the key that unlocks the whole family. It’s his relationship with Oscar and with Oscar’s sister, but explicitly with Oscar, that makes Yunior’s involvement in the narrative possible.

The other thing is that Oscar is the last victim of the curse, so it made sense to me. He was the life through which I was viewing the entire family’s history.

Dave: The first chapter starts with the curse. Fukú. The curse bridges old world and new, one generation and the next. It gives a cohesion to the various storylines.

Díaz: When I think about this type of curse, I’m thinking about my exposure to them in the Dominican Republic. They’re ominous because of their ability to work generation after generation after generation, and I was always curious about what happens to a generation that doesn’t believe in these sort of narratives.

Can a generation that doesn’t believe in them really understand a generation that believes? Can they understand a generation that used the narrative as a way to understand its personal history?

If Belicia had been the one telling the story, the curse would have gotten a lot more play. Or not even Belicia; La Inca would be a more perfect example. Here you have as a narrator Yunior, who is more skeptical. He’s conflicted and ambivalent about it…

Read Full Interview

Mignon Fogarty, whose popular podcast on grammar rose up the charts of iTunes, now offers this quick, fun and easy-to-follow audiobook. An excerpt from “The Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing” is now available on Amazon, here.

Amazon writes: “Are you a fool for mnemonics? If so, you’ll fall head over nubucks for Mignon Fogarty — a.k.a. the Grammar Girl — and her handy new audio guide to writing and speaking well. It’s chock-full of smart little anecdotes and memory tricks for felling the most common grammatical foes (who can ever remember the difference between ‘nauseous’ and ‘nauseated’ anyway?) and at just an hour long it’s the perfect turn-to resource for students and professionals alike.”

Listen to Amazon’s free audiobook podcast here.