Everybody Hurts (reprise)

 A  reader asks, “Is it worth it — working so hard and long on a book to see it barely sell and get ignored by the media?”                A writer friend compared publishing a book to bringing a bucket of water down to the sea. I feel this way [...]

The Magic is In the Hole

You know how lots of paperbacks now have those “Questions for Reading Groups” at the back, which could also be called, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” These really idiotic questions that would actually insult a fairly bright fifth grader. Well, check this out. I recently read Elizabeth Strout’s stories, Olive Kitteridge. I was deeply moved [...]

Me, Myself and I

A  NYT article over the weekend talked about Frank McCourt and a host of memoirs in the mid-eighties that were part of a trend that has yet to abate. In the list of memoirs were two books I had edited when I worked at Houghton Mifflin: Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face and Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac [...]

Thank God It’s Monday

A post over the weekend about the demise of literary fiction stirred up some fantastic debate. Thanks to everyone who weighed in. In a June 29 New Yorker, there’s an article about a recently discovered trove of Edith Wharton letters that she wrote to her governess, the one person who encouraged her writing, truly a lifeline in [...]

No I Would Not Give You False Hope on This Strange and Mournful Day

A lot of painful conversations lately about literary fiction and its demise.  Was it ever any different?  When I was an assistant at Simon and Schuster 25 years ago, there was exactly one literary fiction editor. And his position was rumored to be precarious as a result of focusing exclusively on the literary stuff. (In fact, he was let [...]

FAQ: When Will I Be Loved

I received this letter in my askbetsy box: Dear Ms. Lerner, I’m a writer and blogger, and I’m doing my best to promote my work, get an agent, and move to the next level. Can you tell me why it’s so hard to market and sell a literary novel these days, especially for a nobody [...]

There Are Two Kinds of People In This World

Had lunch with two great friends, also agents. After a lot of industry gossip, commiseration about the business being really slow (July is the new August), comparing and contrasting notes on editors, the conversation finally turned to something I could get my brain around: who we would rather sleep with, Jon Hamm from Madmen or Gabriel Byrne from [...]

Electra

Front seat to a conversation at Lincoln Center between Sidney Lumet and his daughter Jenny, the author of one of my favorite movies of last year, “Rachel Getting Married.” I don’t think I have to list Lumet’s movies but just a few: “12 Angry Men”, “Dog Day Afternoon”,”Network”, “Serpico”, etc.  My dad always wanted me [...]

Ashes, Ashes

I know I wrote about Frank McCourt in The Forest for the Trees, using him, among others, as an example of a late bloomer. My books are still packed away, or I’d dig it up. The salient point: McCourt was published for the first time at the age of 66. You see some of these [...]

FAQ: Don’t You Want Me Baby

Anonymous writes: What’s the protocol when an agent makes an offer of representation and there are other agents interested in the book, too (i.e., agents who have requested fulls)?  Is it kosher to ask the offering agent–after expressing genuine delight and great interest–for a short period of time to notify other interested agents before giving [...]