Seduction by Query

There’s no wondering why our newest columnist, Elizabeth Creith, won our editorial hearts immediately. Actually, except for Carl Rollyson who I invited to join the BiblioBuffet team, all of our columnists have seduced us with excellent query letters. Each was different, reflecting its owner’s personality. But without exception they were all enticing pieces of writing, showcasing not just the writers’ backgrounds and ideas but their personalities. They knew that we weren’t looking for “content.” They showed us they had things to say that would appeal to our readers.

Elizabeth’s was no different. It was obvious from the beginning that she had read our Write for Us page and followed the guidelines. You’d think this would be common sense for querying writers, but conversations with fellow editors and several years of experience have taught me that common sense is  . . . uncommon. Let me show you. Here’s Elizabeth’s letter:

I’d like to write a regular column for you. I see it as commentary in a light and drily humourous style, covering everything from the physical development of books (because it’s hard to take a stone tablet to read on the bus) to modern reading habits and the advent of electronic books (reading an e-book in the bathtub give a whole new meaning to “Kindle”) and everything in between. I’m a bookmaker as well as a writer and reader, and I have an author’s familiarity with the publishing industry.

Some ideas for columns:

• Basalt to bytes – a race through book formats in history
• How do you dog-ear a Kindle? – a technophobe muses on e-books
• Quarto, folio, elephant – the vocabulary of books
• Librocubicularists Anonymous – a twelve-step programme for those who read in bed
• The Breeding Habits of the Common Book
• The Dictionary Dance – descriptivist, prescriptivist, who cares? (I do!)

I have a track record as a columnist on radio. I worked for CBC as a freelance writer and broadcaster for about a decade, during which I had three regular features. One was slice-of-life humourous commentary, the second a folklore “column” and the third a humourous column about life as a shepherd in Northern Ontario. I also did a pet column for two online newspapers.

In addition I’ve been writing fiction and non-fiction for over twenty years, and have publishing credits both in print and online. I write horror and fantasy as well as humour.

I’ve never missed a writing deadline. You can find my references at my blog, Elizabeth Creith’s Scriptorium.

My reading interests are, in alphabetical order, animals, art, fantasy, history (military, social and scientific), humour, paper arts, physics, poetry, pottery, science fiction, textiles, writing and editing. I’ve also been known to indulge in mainstream literary fiction.

Currently on my night stand – or, more accurately, the pile on the floor by my bed –

• Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”
• Terry Pratchett’s “Nation”
• William Tapply’s book on writing mystery
• Richard Lederer’s “A Man of My Words”
• The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
• Paul Jackson’s book on how to make pop-ups
• Creative Bookbinding
• How to Shoe Your Horse
• I just finished reading “Lavinia” by Ursula K. LeGuin

I don’t have a clip on reading or books, so I’ve written a sample column.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Elizabeth Creith

May I just say that this is a jewel of a query. I sat up. I paid attention. Then I promptly forwarded it on to Nicki for her opinion. And we had a new columnist.

Writing humor is hard. I know. I’ve tried it, and my results were so poor I not only have never attempted to publish any of it, I’ve never even tried to write it again. I’ll leave it to those who can do it well. Thankfully, for our readers, we have one of them. And the fact that she specializes in biblio-humor is fantastic. Where else but at BiblioBuffet will you find someone who knows how to shoe a horse and dance with dictionaries?

Remembering

A few days ago, Gillian Polack sent an e-mail to Nicki and me with the ominous subject line: “Bad news.” Something like that always makes my heart shrivel up a bit with terror; what am I going to know?

Do you remember that one of the first things I did for BiblioBuffet was interview a writer called Paul Haines? How we talked at great length about his use of bad language and how it should be handled? How he was fighting cancer? Well, he fought beyond anything I’ve ever seen. He lasted long enough so that he got to see his child have her first day at school. The doctors kept saying “You won’t see Christmas,” “You won’t see New year” and he did. Today, however, he died.

I thought you ought to know.

Thank you both for letting me do that interview, and thank you especially for letting his language shine there on the page, without any cuts or alternates.

The interview to which she referred was her second column for BiblioBuffet. I didn’t remember it until I re-read it and reached the end where an excerpt from Wives, his novella was.

Now I remembered. I remembered the discomfort with which I read it. I remember the struggle within myself as editor and reader, the former arguing that my personal boundaries should not transcend my responsibilities as editor, the latter cringing at the scene depicted and the language used. And I remembered the discussion with Nicki over that discomfort. She had no problem with it, but it wasn’t her personal take on it that mattered. Nor, as we talked it out, was it mine. Ultimately, it came down to editorial accountability. Was BiblioBuffet willing to stand behind its motto of “writing worth reading”? If so, I had to face the fact that this might mean, as it did then, printing material that I personally found offensive.

Nicki and I both eventually won myself over. I didn’t have to like what went up all the time, nor did I need to print everything that came our way, but I did need to be true to the mission statement that I originally wrote for BiblioBuffet. For the first time I had to face, squarely, the fact that running a publication that possessed integrity meant going beyond personal boundaries. I couldn’t control what the contributors chose to write, nor did I want to. I don’t believe in hiring the best and then trying to stifle that excellence. Prior to opening BiblioBuffet I learned a lot of lessons as a writer. This was the beginning of my lessons as an editor.

To Paul and Gillian I owe a great deal of thanks for their contributions to my life—as a person, a writer, a reader, and as an editor.

Valid Criticism or Mere Anger?

It’s rather a shame we can’t share some of the e-mails we at BiblioBuffet receive. Some are absolutely wonderful, others . . .  less so. The most recent was one of the latter. It was addressed to Pete Croatto who, in “The Athletic Supporter,” reviews sports books. Not much controversy there, right?

You’d think so, but Pete’s current column combined a book review with the story of its author, Paul Shirley. Shirley had been a ESPN.com columnist when he made a couple of controversial comments on sites other than ESPN about the Haiti relief effort and the Haitian people soon after the  massive earthquake in 2010. The fertilizer hit the fan of course, and Shirley was fired. Pete addressed both issues.

Yes, what Shirley wrote was tasteless, insensitive, and mean, but that he got dismissed for it should give every professional writer serious pause. The man was fired for doing his job.

Shirley, who’s not playing pro ball right now, had the misfortune of being a dissenting voice on an issue that united the world. Maybe he didn’t express his thoughts in the best way, but it wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t right. It was his opinion, and for ESPN, a journalistic enterprise, to punish him is unconstitutional. . . .

Is it possible for writers to represent a company and be themselves? Shirley already had that question answered for him. He won’t be the last writer who is unable to speak for himself.

Pete’s words hit sore spots with several readers, but it was one reader who furiously responded:

1.  Your right to exercise free speech only guarantees that you can say what you want, not that what you say be rendered immune from critique or other consequences. What you propose is the palin [sic] definition of free speech. Firing him is unconstitutional? You are way, way off.

2.  You presume that in saying something objectively awful, Paul was “doing his job.” Paul doesn’t get to determine whether doing that is his job or not. His employer does. He was employed at will, correct? Its not a gov’t job. Paul being shitcanned doesn’t “chill” the exercise of free speech. It’s more of a place and manner restriction. Paul is totally free to bloviate on his exerable blog and twitter about his nursed grievances against Mark Madsen, Jamaal Tinsley, black players in general, his crappy love life . . . and tiny penis. It wasn’t “misfortune” that he chose to write that crap and then double down with a non-apology apology.  It was Paul’s choice. How about some accountability for that assclown?

3.  It’s dumb for ESPN to fire him? You make this assertion but do not say why.  You want to have the tail wagging the dog. Sorry but in the real world, your private employer can fire you for almost any reason. You seem to be saying that Paul’s “rights” trump the people WHO ARE PAYING HIM. . . . Who cares if its marketing or why they did it. They have the right to.

Pete’s brief but calm response to him only appeared to anger him further so I suggested the exchange be discontinued on the grounds that neither one was going to change the other’s mind. Nicki Leone, however, had a far more eloquent response, and I quote it in full because it clearly defines the original problem and the reason why the firing should raise alarms.

I think your letter-writer is hiding behind technicalities. It’s true that freedom of speech is a constitutional right, and therefore, narrowly interpreted, means simply that you can’t be arrested for expressing your opinions. But a narrow interpretation of freedom of expression is a philosophically lazy position. I’d say that Shirley’s situation is more analogous to that of a whistle-blower. The question is not whether Shirley has a right to say something. But whether ESPN has a right to fire him for saying it. In our current near-laissez-faire capitalist culture, corporations work hard to maintain absolute control over their image, and since thanks to the Internet there is no longer a line between the “public” and “private” life, companies feel entirely justified in firing people over things they say on Facebook, for example.

Our collective response to this has been troubling: we self-censor ourselves in public forums because we know that now these are no longer places for personal freedom of expression. They are de facto public statements for which we will held accountable, and which will have farther-reaching repercussions than might be expected for a simple amusing post of the photo of the night you spent hanging out in a bar with your friends. We have ceded, almost without a fight, the encroachments of corporate interference into our social lives and their right to enact judgments upon us when our personal inclinations run against their perceived corporate interest. In its own way, it is not dissimilar to living in a religious state.  Somehow being a “good citizen” means being a good company man.

But freedom of expression shouldn’t be interpreted narrowly. Its power is in its universality. At the heart of the First Amendment is not a simple guarantee that you won’t be thrown in jail, but a promise to the country that an individual’s opinions will always be honored, and a recognition that in diversity of opinion is strength. And the First Amendment is founded on the assumption that we can judge for ourselves who is and isn’t worth listening to. Any governmental—or corporate—attempt to make those judgments for us violates the fundamental principle of Freedom of Expression.

Shirley’s case is a little more nuanced, because he is a reporter for a news organization, which by definition holds itself to certain standards of neutrality and objectivity. ESPN would never, for example, decline to report on an NFL team just because the team owner or manager cussed out the organization on THEIR Facebook page. They exist to report, not to judge. And in the case of Shirley, it sounds like ESPN is on even shakier ground because he was hired as an opinion writer—he was a blogger, with a specific abrasive style which the powers that be certainly knew about when they first offered him a contract. So unless that contract stated “thou shalt not give thy opinions upon any subject but basketball,” they didn’t have grounds to fire him. He wasn’t giving false information, he was giving his opinion. He was doing his job.

I think ESPN displayed a corporate cowardice in firing Shirley. They should have relied on the universal caveat I’m sure is printed somewhere on their site—that the views and opinions expressed by the writers do not necessarily reflect those of the organization. That is all they needed to say.

This country is on a disturbing road. Our constitutional liberties, which have defined the freedom America stands for, are under relentless if fairly quiet attack. I am not going to get into a political discussion, but the issues brought up here by Pete, by the letter writers, and by Nicki highlight what should be of concern to everyone. Certainly, Pete has the right to express his views. BiblioBuffet is not going to tone them down, or nor will the editorial team suggest that he stick to a straightforward review of a book and an author/commentator he cares about. Is the issue worth talking about? It’s up to you and me and Pete and ESPN. But it is not one BiblioBuffet is going to sweep under the rug.

Moving On

Mr. Unhappy, the source of last week’s post, continues to remain unhappy. It still amazes me how some people become so obsessed with an issue that it dominates their lives and even precludes living. In this case, the man has taken offense to a book a family member wrote and has apparently dedicated the rest of his life to harrassing anyone who has reviewed it or otherwise written about it.

Not that it is doing him any good. He was not given space at BiblioBuffet, as he demanded, to put forth his arguments. His claim that he has enormous amounts of paperwork and files to back him up are of no importance and certainly of no interest. The man is, frankly, a bore and a jerk. And worse.

And I am amused that he continues to think I care. Or that I cared.

We will continue to review good books. And if they happen to be nonfiction, and if someone is unhappy with the author’s presentation … well, all those someones can continue to be unhappy in one another’s presence.  At BiblioBuffet, we are now moving on.

When Less is More

BiblioBuffet has changed its Write for Us page. The reason? We are now closed to those who seek to be regular contributors, that is, writers who want to have a column. However, we are still open to guest contributors who want to submit pieces to BibliOpinions.

As you may know, Nicki Leone and I have full-time day jobs. BiblioBuffet must be produced in our free time, and there is only so much of that to go around. Especially in Nicki’s case, as she works more than one job. Nicki is the content editor behind what you read on BiblioBuffet, and she works hard at it. She works hand-in-hand with the contributors to ensure that their writing, already top-notch, is flawless.

I focus primarily on copy editing, proofreading, and posting. I also pay the bills. Since we do not accept advertising (yet), the money comes out of my pocket; there is only so much to go around.

These are both important reasons for closing our application process at this point in them, but there is one more reason. And it may be even more important. We don’t want to get too big. We want to keep the spotlight on the writers we have now because we believe we have some of the best. The larger a site grows and the more writers it has, the less opportunity each writer has to shine. And we think that would be a shame.

We hope you enjoy reading the wide variety we do offer: Carl Rollyson on biography, Pete Croatto on sports, Lindsay Champion on modern memoirs, Laine Farley on bookmarks, Lev Raphael on anything that catches his literary eye, Gillian Polack on science fiction, fantasy, science, and Australia-iana, and Nicki Leone on, well, on anything except self-help.

We believe that by having less we actually have more. We give you a good look at some damn good books through some damn good writers and we don’t worry that we cannot cover everything. 

Still, we are open to many things we do not cover regularly through our BibliOpinions page. That’s where you’ll find things you won’t find elsewhere on our site, and where writers who are looking to share their work can still come to be part of our team. And when we do open up again to new regular contributors we will look to our guest contributors first.

Content or Discontent?

Were Shakespeare alive today he might well have written the famous question this way because it seems as if many blogs and websites prefer “content” to thoughtful, well-written articles and essays.

BiblioBuffet’s editors see this in queries much too often. The worst ones even offer us “content” even though our guidelines are clear about our desire for writing that possesses not only quality but individualism and personality.

We are not looking for journalistic type of pieces that are “here today, gone tomorrow.” Because we are a weekly publication, we cannot and do not compete in breaking stories. Rather, we specialize in presenting thoughtful pieces that use personal perspectives and individualistic approaches to explore anything that catches our contributors’ interests.

[W]e believe that BiblioBuffet’s strength lies in the personalities of its writers. So what we are looking for are those who are interested in writing about books, reading, and related issues with voice, passion, and individualism. The standard book review of “here is the plot and this is what I think” is not for us. If you are writing a review, we want to know about the book through you. Our writers, past and present, have been selected not only because they have excellent writing skills but because they have a intriguing point of view or a unique personality from which they write. It is that style that is BiblioBuffet’s strength.

The reason, we think, that more writers are writing with an eye to content is that more websites are demanding it. Quantity over quality. More. Faster. Cheaper. There are blogs I no longer read and websites I no longer to go for this very reason. One popular bookish blog in particular has no fewer than one link in every sentence. It’s impossible for me to read because she demands that the reader go off, come back, go off, come back, ad infinitum. And websites and online publications are heading in that direction.

Lindsay Champion, one of BiblioBuffet’s contributors, recently submitted a knock-your-socks-off review. It was obvious she had been not only working very closely with Nicki but had taken her editorial suggestions under her wing and been working hard on her beginnings and endings (formerly weak areas). Her response to my congratulatory e-mail was touching:

Wow, I am completely bowled over by your kind words. Thank you so much; it comes at a time when I’m feeling particularly discouraged. I think this is one of those emails I’m going to have to print out and save forever. Thank you so much for giving me the chance to learn so much while I’ve been writing for Bibliobuffet. I’ve had so much fun!

Don’t be discouraged, I told her in response.

Easy to say, I know. I’ve been there from a writer’s perspective, and I find myself there from an editor’s. Rejecting submissions is my least favorite part of being part of the editorial team. But it’s a necessary part if we are to keep our standards to the level we’ve set.

But for her and for other writers, however, the search continues for places to publish.

I’m sure most writers and editors are all feeling the recession right now, combined with the influx of content mills and that more and more employers have decided they’d prefer bad-quality writing in exchange for lower rates. When I first started submitting my writing, everything was going like clockwork—probably because the economy was good! I remember the editor of the Village Voice having a long email discussion with me about how to get my idea to work in the paper, even though I had just started and had no idea what I was doing. It seemed like everyone was interested in hiring new writers. Now, it’s the complete opposite. It feels like I’m in the Twilight Zone. I’m so glad to have supportive and nurturing editors like you and Nicki to keep me on track through the rough patches.

She’s right. The quality of writing in far too many places is low. Some writers accept that. But Lindsay hasn’t, and I am proud of her for that. Even though she was a good enough writer to capture our attention when she first came aboard, she has dramatically improved. I told her I expect to see her name in some major publications in the future, and I do. It’s why, regardless of how discouraging her search might be right now, I am insisting she and our other columnists maintain their pursuit of places seeking excellent writing rather than sites and publications that prefer content. Then the question of “content or discontent” will remain, as it should, a moot one.

Literary Undergarments

Editing should be like undergarments that do their job without showing up. You don’t need to see them nor should you see them, at least in public, but good ones are always there doing their job in a comfortable, unobtrusive manner. It’s when those undergarments become outwear that they cease to be effective supporters and instead displace the rightful outfit.

However often they are worn in public, there’s something that’s not at its best when these undies turn into outies. A variation of the same idea can be said about editing. Editing should be like good undergarments, best appreciated when undetected.

I’ve experienced a variety of editors—some rude, some effective, some kind, some a combination that taught me a lot. And I’ve learned something from all of them. But the greatest learning experience was also the worst experience  I ever had. It happened with the owner-editor was at the newspaper where I wrote reviews for nearly three years. The editor was a terrible joke. With the exception of two staff writers, he went through personnel at the speed of light. I could quickly tell where anyone was on his radar depending on what office and/or desk they were on when I went in once a week to pick up my mail.

Because I worked on a freelance basis, I wasn’t subject to that. But he did attempt control of my column through the editorial ropes he dangled. We had disagreements, but two incidents made a lasting impression on me. In the first he changed a short, snappy column title to one that publicly and brutally mocked the subject of the piece because of his political differences with the man. I was appalled especially because he had to squeeze the title into the space where the original one had been. Second, he rewrote the final paragraph in another column (while keeping the same word count) so the ending reflected his extreme views rather than the inclusive one I had written. I was livid in both cases not because I didn’t want to be edited but because in the first case he used my words to take a cheap shot at someone  he hated, thus making me look like a nasty person, and in the second he again used my words to promote his rabid political beliefs. It was his belief that he, not me, should “write me” when it suited him. I was so outraged that in each case it required much calming by friends to prevent me walking out the door. But I vowed that were I ever in a position of editorial trust and responsibility, that I would act in the most honorable and respectful manner of which I was capable. I would never repeat his actions.

Those two episodes, more than any other, became the editorial spine of BiblioBuffet. I determined that courteous communication and respectful editing would be the soul of our site, and I am extremely fortunate in that Nicki Leone also feels the same. We carefully select our writers, and then we trust them. The editing process has to honor that, and it does as can be seen in Nicki’s recent comments:

I liked your enthusiasm and your contemplative tone when you were talking about both books, it was a good fit for the subject matter and the angle you took to discuss it.

That said, you are going to see a lot of red commenting and edits, especially in the first part of the column. Don’t be scared off! On the whole your piece was very smooth, so there are only a few places where I made edits for tense agreement or for subject clarification, things like that. You can accept or revise those as you see fit.

What you are reaching for, I think, is  . . . If I’ve got that right, then that’s a great way to lead into the piece, and to connect for the reader why . . . these books connected for you, so that is what you should be emphasizing.

The other thing you will notice in the comments is repeated notes to “be concrete, be specific.” You sometimes fall into abstract language, . . . Writing about abstract things like “truths” has to be done with care and always is more effective when done with concrete examples. Jesus knew this—hence all of his parables. . . .

Your thoughts?

The e-mail was longer and detailed, but the gist of it can be seen here. Nicki’s editing is clear and she pinpoints what she sees as problems and offers ideas for the writer to fix them. But at no time does she “take over,” and overwrite the writer. Which is as it should be, and as BiblioBuffet is. So when you read the writers of your choice you get those writers dressed in their best with their literary undergarments unseen.

More Contributor Birthings

Last week I talked about an e-mail fluke that resulted in our newest contributor, Carl Rollyson. More commonly, though, we hear from writers who find our website through various means. Some are referred by current writers. Others appear to stumble across it. These are mostly single applicants. But when it is listed on a writers’ blog or website as a paying market we tend to get a slew of applicants all at once. That happened about three weeks ago.

It must have been posted in the evening because I received two interested queries that night. The next day brought about a dozen  more. And the day after that another dozen or so.

When we receive a number of applicants at once, the winnowing down is a multi-step process. In this case, I sent responses to almost everyone requesting more time though I did quickly review the submissions. The level of writing from five applicants was not even close to what we require; they received a form rejection immediately.

This still left me with more than twenty queries for one or at most two openings for regular columnists. About a week later, I read the remaining queries more carefully, separating the applicants into three folders: Yes, Maybe, and No. I then let myself think about my decisions for a couple of days. The rejected applicants in the No category received semi-personalized rejections.  Another seven eliminated.

The third step was breaking apart the maybe category into Yes and No folders. This is where the real difficulty began. “With sufficient editing . . .” I’d hear in my head as I read a piece, so  I had to repeatedly remind myself that I already had more than enough strong applicants, and that we didn’t want to take on applicants who would need a lot of editing. Out of necessity most of them received rejections. End result: one Yes folder, five semi-finalists.

So last night Nicki and I had a phone meeting to discuss the candidates. It was a long conversation but not because we disagreed. We rarely do. But we had reasons and expectations—not just of the candidates but of ourselves and of BiblioBuffet—to discuss.

Even though we pay relatively little, we offer our writers some things they have difficulty finding elsewhere. A “writer’s playground,” as Pete Croatto once phrased it, is one because the columnists have the right, indeed, the obligation, to write what they want, how they want, and when they want. As long as they say it well, we will run it. It’s a heady freedom for most of them, but for us, it’s simple common sense. Hire the best and then get out of their way. And at BiblioBuffet we do get out of their way.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a lack of editing. On the contrary, we are committed to excellent editing, which means that we, Nicki in particular, help the writers find their best writing while keeping our voices (and opinions) out of their work.

Our newest potential contributors haven’t experienced that yet. They are going to be providing individual pieces to BibliOpinions, our guest section for a while. This gives us a chance to see how they write, how much editing they need, and how they meet deadlines. It also gives them an opportunity to learn what it is to work with us and to see if they like it.

While I am always honored to hear from writers who wish to write for BiblioBuffet, it has its difficult moments. I hate sending rejections, especially to those who might make it with more experience. But because it is the readers who come to BiblioBuffet with high expectations—we do promise “writing worth reading, reading worth writing about”—we must adhere to our own standards much as we expect the writers to meet them.

The Birth of Contributors

Electronic spam is never welcome, but on rare occasions—okay, once, recently—it turns into gold.  Was this some kind of twenty-first centory alchemy? Not at all. But it was an extraordinary event nonetheless.

Two weeks ago I was skimming the e-mails caught in my spam filter when, just as I pushed the Delete key, I noticed the name of Carl Rollyson as the sender. It was instant recognition from the long-gone days of the now-defunct readers’ forum, Readerville. Carl is a serious biographer and reviewer of biographies (as well as a professor of journalism) with even more serious credentials to his name. He writes for the “big boys,” currently including the Wall Street Journal. I have always admired his writing from afar but never had the courage to even consider approaching him about BiblioBuffet.

Then the spam showed up. I desperately tried to reverse the deletion. No luck. I couldn’t recall the subject line but I knew it had not struck me as a personal one. And the main question in my  mind—why would Carl be contacting me after all these years?—was one I couldn’t answer.

So I googled him, found his university address, and e-mailed him. He responded quickly, saying that since it was probably a Viagra ad sent by a hacker I was fortunate in that I did delete it. My answer was a quick note of thanks and a (very) brief comment that if he ever did want to consider writing for BiblioBuffet we would be honored.

E-mails flew back and forth over the next two days. He said he hadn’t been on the site since its early days because he remembered we didn’t pay much and straight reviews simply did not allow him to stretch his writing wings in the way he wanted. He was trying to get, he said, a column about biography. A column where he could “write reviews from a biographer’s perspective, drawing on my experience in order to discuss the biographer’s sources and methodology, and, most importantly, addressing the question of where a particular biography fit into current practice, as well as in the history of the genre.”

Well.

It sounded like he needed a writer’s playground.

We made one for him.

Nicki Leone and I are firmly committed to the idea that when you hire excellent writers you should give them the freedom to do what they do best instead of insisting that they corform to your ideas. The necessity of imposing word counts in an online publication is moot at least as far as formatting is concerned. (Audience attention spans are still a consideration.) BiblioBuffet gives its writers complete freedom to say what they want, review the books they want, write about subjects that interest them. They just need to say whatever they choose to say well.

Both of us knew Carl’s writing from our Readerville days so when I peaked his interest with that heady editorial freedom he agreed. His first column went up this week, and it’s a goodie.

So what am I doing here? Hoping, finally, to write about biography and the practice of reviewing it from a broader perspective than is available in a book review, exploring what I expect from biographies, and commenting on how other reviewers and critics treat the genre.

Every two weeks, I will deal with how biographers are treated in the press, while doing some name dropping and perhaps even purveying gossip about the world of biographers—a cosmos I inhabit that includes the NYU biography seminar and BIO (the newly formed Biographers International Organization), as well as reports from friends and run-ins with colleagues in what has come to be called the life-writing business.

E-mails from potential contributors are always exciting. There is such potential, and it is wonderful to hear from someone who thinks BiblioBuffet is worth writing for. That is how all our excellent writers came to us. What is extraordinary about Carl, though, is that he came to us through the magic of alchemy. If spam could be spun into gold, that is.

The Dark Side of Reviewing

What happens when a book comes in and proves to be (a) badly written, (b) boring, (c) error-ridden, (d) all of the above? Often it’s just tossed aside. There are far too many fine books that will never get reviewed due to space limitations, and there’s no point in wasting needed space.

Frankly, it’s easier and better to ignore them. Our goal at BiblioBuffet is to provide you, our readers, with our honest thoughts on the books we read so that you have the information you need to make a buying decision. Books are no longer inexpensive, and you want to be sure that what you are buying is worth your spending hard-earned dollars on them.

But sometimes, as Pete Croatto once pointed out, for a reviewer “there’s nothing quite so cathartic as writing a review full of vitriol, something that gets agents nervous and fans riled up. It’s like working over a punching bag for two hours. Plus, those reviews are easy to write, rage being an easily identifiable, uncomplicated emotion.”

Pete hit the reviewer’s nail ont the head. Such writing is cathartic but it should never be malicious. In a civilized world there would not be nasty reviews. There would be critical reviews. And there would be negative reviews. But meanness really has no place in the world of reviewing. Even if a reviewer hates the book because it is poorly written, the professional reviewer is morally obligated to tackle the review with strength and grace.

One of BiblioBuffet’s reviewers, for example, is currently struggling with an upcoming review of a “bad” book. Here is a brief excerpt from our  e-mail correspondence concerning why and how:

If a work is bad enough from beginning to end, I may savage it. I start off, you see, being really angry at all the things a book could have been. All my first notes are negative. It would be dead easy to turn into a kind of Dorothy Parker. Except that’s not who I am. The anger stems from concepts or abilities that are wasted, or writers who aren’t quite educated enough to pull off their magnificent plan. This means I spend a lot of time working out what the writer was trying to achieve and who their audience is and measuring them against that, or considering their work in the light of a broader concept. I still put the worries it . . . but I will very, very seldom (and then only with outstanding reason) go apply all those negatives I thought of at first. When I read reviews that do that, I always wonder why the reviewer bothered.

I’m always honest, but I also try to be pleasant.  So there is criticism in the article, but it’s worded as pleasantly as possible—and besides, the idea is to find the right readers for the right books, not to tear careers to pieces!

As far as I am concerned, this is the perfect description of a good book review regardless of what it says about the book. Its focus is the audience of the book. There are no personal attacks, no viciousness, no anger. Because there is no need for that. The work we at BiblioBuffet do—from the reviews that our reviewers write to the brilliant editing that Nicki Leone provides—is geared to and focused toward providing insightful, thoughtful, critical reviews of books we believe are “reading worth writing about.”