An Anagram for Author Blog is "Laugh Robot"

by Marta Acosta


I remember the moment I first heard the word "blog." My friend, Michael, who is so far ahead of trends that international corporations hire him as a visionary, said to me, "You should start a blog."

It sounded like blah and ugh, two things I try to avoid, along with balancing my check book, movies billed as cute, and snarling pitbulls. "A what?"

"A blog. It's short for web log. It's an online journal and it's a lot easier to maintain than a website."

I gave him a look that was supposed to convey my deep suspicion. He's brilliant, but he embraces all technological advances; my geek skills are limited to fixing things by turning them off and then on again. "How easy?"

Three blogs later, I realize that my initial skepticism was well-founded. I still haven't figured out why blog programs arbitrarily change line breaks and replace punctuation with symbols.

Mrs. Sarah Winchester, the widow of the rifle manufacturer, believed that the souls of murdered people would wreak vengeance upon her if she did not continue to add onto her 160-room mansion. I think with envy about Mrs. Winchester as I toil on my blogs, convinced that my career as a writer is dependent upon maintaining an online identity. At least that crazy bitch was wealthy enough to hire contractors to do the work for her.

And I wonder if this time-consuming blogging is as futile as the construction on the Winchester Mystery House, where staircases lead nowhere and doors open onto walls. Because when I'm blogging, I'm not working on my fiction. Nope, instead I'm looking for links to Kurt Russell movies, or rambling inanely about cannibal zombies in literature. I realize that those are both really, really important activities, but they aren't as important as meeting the deadline for my next novel.

The author as a personality is nothing new. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain were hugely popular public speakers. Magazines and newspapers have long done profiles of writers as Class D celebrities (below actors, politicians, and serial killers, but above academics). However, the internet has made it easy for writers to blab to the world at large about anything that strikes their fancy. Altogether too many pictures of authors' cats are posted on blogs, as are tedious details of home life.

Oh, I'm as bad as all the rest. I have one blog that lists vampire stories in the news. (Stop sneering: I'm appealing to my vamp peeps.) On another blog, I wrote about the death of my dog, Dr. Buddy Valentine. I have a page on that glitter-graphics, pervert-enabling horror show that is MySpace. On these sites, I pathetically flog my own book and use altogether too many exclamation marks to show my excitement. I resist the calls from my own dark soul to rage online, and try instead to be polite and friendly. I worry that I've morphed into an odious sub-urban Latina Eddie Haskell.

If I can tear myself from the compulsion to blog, I'll be reading at Book Passage next Tuesday, August 8, about my novels. Happy Hour at Casa Dracula was a Book Sense Pick and Catalina Magazine's Humor Book of 2006. Christopher Moore called it, "a comedy of manners with fangs." Publishers Weekly called the second in the series, Midnight Brunch, "an addictive combo plate of vamp romance and satire," and Booklist said it was "sexy, sardonic...Acosta's terrific new adventure."

Stop me before I blog again.

Post Potter Party Pictures!

Our Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Release Party was a huge success & tons of fun! Thanks to all who turned out to make it an especially magical night! Thanks to Richard Baguley for these wonderful photos!

Tonight is the Night! Do You Believe in Magic?!!!

The fun begins at 9:00 pm tonight at Book Passage in Corte Madera. Come in sleepwear! Come in costume!

9:00 pm PARTY BEGINS

ACTIVITIES: Sorting Hat Game, Meet with a Witch to Predict the Future, Facepainting, Make Your Own Wand, Who Wants to be a Wizard? Trivia Game with prizes, Hogwarts Banquet Buffet in cafe with Harry Potter chocolate cake, homemade butterbeer, and other delicious Potter snacks. Harry Potter movies will be playing nonstop in the cafe as well.

CHECK IN TABLE: Customers who have preordered a book must check in and talk to our booksellers! Check in is open until we start set up distribution tables nearer to midnight.

10:00 pm YPI BAND PERFORMS SONGS FROM THE HARRY POTTER MOVIES, and other magical tunes! Do you believe in magic?!

10:45-11:00 pm BAND WRAPS UP...ACTIVITIES RESUME

11:00 pm HOGWARTS FASHION SHOW! Strut your stuff and your costume for our judges and win prizes!

12:00 am HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS BOOKS DISTRIBUTED!!!

Harry Potter WRocks!

Are you WRocking out in anticipation of tomorrow night's wizardly extravaganza? Well, you should be! Shelf Awareness reports on the phenomenon of Wizard Rock:

What do the Hungarian Horntails, Harry & the Potters, Draco & the Malfoys and the Whomping Willows have in common? According to Salon, these are just four of nearly 200 Harry Potter-inspired bands playing "wizard rock" who "use MySpace for publicity, produce and release their own music, and book concerts at libraries. The Horntails are named after characters from The Goblet of Fire, and their songs have titles like 'Kill the Basilisk' and 'Which Witch Is Which?' Their first album is called 'Burn Voldemort's Butt.'"

Now, that's wickedly wrocking! We'll be wrocking out at Book Passage in Corte Madera tomorrow night, starting at 9:00 pm in anticipation of the 12:01 am release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Preorder now & $10 of your purchase will help provide underprivileged children with copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Let's help everyone celebrate the Potter magic!

Meet the Audio Voice of Harry Potter

The New York Times ran an article in Tuesday's edition about Jim Dale, the actor who just recorded the audio version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which will also be released 12:01 am on Saturday):

Since he first went into the recording studio in the summer of 1999, Mr. Dale has recorded every single word of the Harry Potter series, amounting to 117 hours and 4 minutes of reading time across the seven books--or a lot of long car rides. Including sales of CDs, cassettes and digital downloads, the audiobooks have sold more than 5.7 million copies, according to the Random House Audio Publishing Group, which now owns Listening Library.

For his work on the Harry Potter series, Mr. Dale has won a Grammy Award and holds the record for creating the most voices in an audiobook in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Deathly Hallows, which runs to 784 pages in the ink-and-paper version, took about two and a half weeks, working six-and-a-half-hour days, recording about 18 to 20 pages an hour, to finish. As with the other books, Mr. Dale received the manuscript only two or three days before he was scheduled to begin recording.

"That makes it impossible for me to actually read it before recording it," said Mr. Dale, who does not possess the 13-year-old megafan's ability to inhale the book in a weekend.

So he read about 100 pages ahead, and noted all the different voices he needed for the first few days of recording. The benefit of reading in chunks, Mr. Dale said, is that: "I don't ever know how the book is going to end so I can't unconsciously lead you in the direction that the book is going. I don't know who the villain is because I am just reading 100 pages at a time."

By now the publisher has digital files of all the voices he has used for long-running characters like Hermione Granger, one of Harry's sidekicks, as well as more minor recurring characters like the Death Eaters, so that Mr. Dale can recreate those voices for the latest book. He takes into account the aging of the main characters, who started out as 10 and 11 in Sorcerer's Stone and are now 17 and 18 in Deathly Hallows.

Read more about Jim Dale in the full article form The New York Times. Also, you may preorder the audio version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows online here, or call a bookseller at 415-927-0960.

Don't forget to come celebrate with Book Passage in Corte Madera, starting at 9:00 pm Friday night! We're hosting a wizardly party!

The Magic of Families Reading Together

The San Jose Mercury News has been featuring a series of articles leading up to this weekend's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release:

Beyond the sales numbers, one also can argue that no other book has gotten more families to read together, or been more discussed in print, on the Internet, in bookstores and libraries, and around office water coolers.

Valerie Lewis of Hicklebee's was working for CBS in New York when she became one of the first major media journalists to bring attention to Rowling and Harry Potter. She remembers being happily surprised, as a bookseller, by the reaction to "Sorcerer's Stone."

"That families suddenly discovered that reading together made sense was probably the biggest shock of all to us."

"There's nothing I can think of that compares to reading aloud to children and having them read aloud to you," Lewis says. "What happens is you get to know them at a whole different level. The literary stuff, the academic stuff, is not as important as sitting around finding out what they think."

And at a time when children are bombarded with images from television, movies and video games, Lewis values the way literature gives children the experience of creating images themselves. (Read the full article here.)

Oh, and there are more images to come! Remember to celebrate with Book Passage in Corte Madera starting Friday night at 9:00 pm! Preorder your copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and $10 of your purchase will be donated to The Giving Tree Program, which will help underprivileged children receive Potter books.

The Week of The Deathly Hallows!!! The Countdown is On!

Okay, Harry fans, the countdown begins! Don't forget to celebrate with Book Passage starting at 9:00 pm Friday night at the Corte Madera store!

Preorder your copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and $10 of your purchase will benefit The Giving Tree Program. This program, which began as a holiday project, is now a year-long program in which we arrange for free books to be given to underprivileged children in the community. Let's celebrate the Harry Potter saga together & at the same time help those children, who otherwise may not be able to, participate in the Potter magic as well! Preorder Now!

From today's Shelf Awareness:

"The London Telegraph, which has a Harry Potter home page, reported on a "10 million pound sterling [about $20.3 million] security operation" to prevent any detail leaks for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The list of precautionary measures reads like an international suspense thriller, replete with plot devices like storage sites protected by security teams and guard dogs, as well as reports that "print factory workers in Britain have been threatened with the sack if they leak any details, while German publishers banned mobile phones and even packed lunches in the printing plant. Some employees reportedly had to work in near-darkness to prevent them reading the book."

According to the Telegraph, on Tuesday, when copies begin leaving base camps for retailers, the operation will become even more intense: "The trucks Bloomsbury will use are fitted with satellite tracking systems costing up to 1,000 pound sterling each, which will reveal whether any of the vehicles deviates from its intended route. The books are on sealed pallets fitted with alarms to prevent tampering."

Now that's wizardly!

my laptop is four (which translates to 65 in computer years)

by Kiara Brinkman

Only a couple more days until my reading-- I'm looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, I think my laptop is dying. The spacebar has started squeaking, which is annoying.

I tend to get emotionally attached to things that I shouldn't: computers, cars, daytimers (from years ago), pens that are running out of ink, ticket stubs, holey socks.

No, my laptop does not have a name (or a gender), but it definitely has a personality-- it gets fussy in the evening, and this has worked out just fine, because I do my real writing in the morning.

Anyway, I wrote my entire novel, as well as many stories, on my laptop.
Maybe there's some sort of spray for squeaky keyboards?
Or, maybe my laptop is ready to retire.

I'm sure I won't be able to throw it away for years. I'll find a cozy place for it in my closet, next to my collection of trusty, worn-out shoes.

Superstition

by Kiara Brinkman

I'll be reading at the Corte Madera Book Passage this Friday, which happens to be Friday the 13th. I was not a superstitious person until given this date for my very first reading. I've spent the past few months not walking under ladders, not opening umbrellas indoors, and not breaking mirrors. It has been impossible to avoid black cats, because my parents have a black cat (named Boo), and he is not at all scary or unlucky.

For those of you who are curious, the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, and according to The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute, more than 17 million people are affected. (I'm trying not to become part of this statistic.)

Anyway, regardless of the date, I'm happy to be reading at Book Passage. Whenever I return to Corte Madera and Larkspur, I'm overwhelmed by memories of my adolescence-- right down the street is the DMV where I passed my driving test in 1996, and a little bit farther down the road is Redwood High School, my alma mater.

Well, I'm off to practice the excerpts I plan to read, and I hope by Friday I won't be over-rehearsed or suffering from paraskavedekatriaphobia.

The Martini Shot

by Mark Haskell Smith

That's what we call the last shot of the day in Hollywood, once it's in the can you can kick back and have a cold one. So right now you can start icing the vodka (Grey Goose, if you must know), whispering the word "vermouth" over the shaker (that's Luis Bunuel's method), and cracking open a jar of olives because this is the last post I'm posting on the Book Passage Mystery Writer's Conference of 2007.

I don't know about you all, but I had fun. Met some cool people, may have acquired a stalker, and got to hangout with my Norcal (somebody say "Hella!") writer pals, and work with some of the best booksellers in the biz. Am I sucking up to Elaine and Karen? You betcha!

Thanks again for bringing the fun and remember what Turk Henry (protagonist of "SALTY" a Book Sense Notable Book for July) would say...

ROCK HARD!!!

Traveling Solo Contest with Amy Novesky

It's a Traveling Solo Contest on the Book Passage Blog!

Send us a short essay (500 words or less) describing your most memorable solo travel experience.

Author and editor Amy Novesky will be guest curating the Book Passage Blog August 1-5, leading up to her author event on Sun., Aug. 5 at 7:00 pm in Corte Madera with Julianne Balmain for their book Go Your Own Way: Women Travel the World Solo, of which they are each contributing writers. Amy will choose the five best submissions & post one each day during that week. One essay will be chosen as the best & the winning writer will be given a free copy of Go Your Own Way.

Please email your essay to webmaster@bookpassage.com with the subject line "Traveling Solo Contest". Please include your name & contact information, and remember only those essays 500 words or less will be considered. All entries must be received by Fri., July 27. *Although the book profiles stories of women traveling solo, men are also encouraged to join the contest & attend the event! Good Luck!