Coyote Canyon Press

Stephen King’s print-only book is now a pirated ebook

Thomas Fasano — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:09:35 +0000

Stephen King during the “Kennedy Library Forum Series” at The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on November 7, 2011 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Marc Andrew Deley/Getty Images)

Stephen King’s latest novel, Joyland, was supposed to be published in a print-only edition by Hard Case Crime. The move was roundly applauded because it demonstrated some real faith in traditional print publishing. It was also a savvy business decision driving sales sky-high.

But as soon as it was released in paper, the book popped up online as a pirated ebook. In response, Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai had a few things to say about it in an interview with Jason Boog at AppNewser:

“We’ve seen dozens of websites over the past year purporting to offer pirated downloadable copies of JOYLAND, and so far they’ve all been frauds – if you try to download the file, you get malware or a virus instead. But inevitably the book will eventually be pirated for real, just as every best-selling book and popular movie or TV show or piece of music is. As a publisher, you try to prevent it or to stamp it out when you discover it, but it’s like the “war on drugs” – good luck. Seize a boatload of heroin, and what does it get you? There are more boats, there’s more heroin. . . . In the end you have to rely on the good behavior of the vast majority of the audience – I see no reason to think that pirates represent more than a small fraction of all consumers. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about piracy – we do. But it’s just one of the many punches you have to learn to roll with in the rough-and-tumble world of modern publishing.”

It’s hard to see though how some pirated copies have actually slowed Joyland‘s meteoric rise up the bestseller charts. The book is currently the number one selling book on Amazon and has been in the Amazon Best Sellers Top 100 for the last two months.

Of course this feat is not likely to be replicated by many other writers. As everyone in the publishing business knows, people buy authors, not books. And the King brand name, along with a splashy publicity campaign, created a momentum guaranteeing massive sales. I don’t think King is losing sleep over these pirated copies, unless he’s thinking of using the idea in yet another novel.

Amazon hiring in Southern California

Thomas Fasano — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:38:55 +0000

San Bernardino Amazon Center

The opening of the Amazon facility at the former Norton Air Force Base has proven to be a boon for the city of San Bernardino, which is reeling from a recent bankruptcy filing and workforce layoffs.

The facility, which was completed Oct. 1, handles shipments of products purchased online. City leaders hope that the tax on sales will help turn the city around since California law allows Amazon to designate which city is a “point of sale” for sales tax purposes, thus allowing San Bernardino to pocket 1 cent on the dollar for all sales processed through the center.

The wages are also a big plus, averaging about 30 percent higher than most traditional retail work. Those interested in working for Amazon, can apply online.

David Foster Wallace’s Kenyon commencement speech video

Thomas Fasano — Sat, 18 May 2013 03:18:07 +0000

David Foster Wallace’s famous 2005 commencement address begins:

(If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I’d advise you to go ahead, because I’m sure going to. In fact I’m gonna [mumbles while pulling up his gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].)

THIS IS WATER from nathan m peracciny on Vimeo.

“This Is Water” is the title of the Little, Brown hardcover of the same speech, which The Glossary animated and released a few weeks ago, just in time for commencement season.

A compelling visual presentation of Wallace’s speech, the video features rush hour traffic, a frustrating wait in a grocery line, and of course fish asking about how the water is. For much more of the speech, listen to the full audio on YouTube or read a post concerning the legacy of the speech at the Kenyon Bulletin.

Winners of 2013 Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards

Thomas Fasano — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:51:20 +0000

Poets Heidy Steidlmayer and Marianne Boruch (photos from The Poetry Foundation)

Claremont Graduate University is handing out a couple of huge poetry prizes here in Claremont, California.

Earlier this month in a press release, CGU announced Marianne Boruch won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for her book The Book of Hours. The prize, given to a mid-career poet, is one of the largest cash prizes a poet can win in the United States. Boruch teaches creative writing at Purdue University and is also involved in the low-residency Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Heidy Steidlmayer of Vacaville, California, won the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for her book Fowling Piece. The annual award is given for a first book of poems. Steidlmayer’s poems have appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, and in other prestigious poetry journals.

“We are delighted to honor these poets and celebrate their achievements,” Wendy Martin is quoted as saying. Martin, who is vice provost at Claremont Graduate University and director of the Tufts Poetry Awards program, goes on to say, “These Awards will help them gain wider recognition and will sustain their continuing commitment to writing outstanding poetry.”

The press release describes The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards as having been established in 1993 at Claremont Graduate University by Kate Tufts to memorialize her husband, a Los Angeles shipyard executive who had a passion for writing poetry. The goal of the award is recognize a poet who is no longer a beginner but is very much in mid-career.

A ceremony will be held at Garrison Theater (231 E. 10th Street in Claremont) on Thursday, April 18.

Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem ‘One Today’

Thomas Fasano — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:37:01 +0000

Richard Blanco speaks at the Capitol during preparations for President Obama’s inauguration. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / January 20, 2013)

The following poem was delivered by inauguration poet Richard Blanco at President Obama’s second inaugural today. The text of the poem was provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

“One Today”

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper — bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives — to teach geometry, or ring up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind — our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me — in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always — home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country — all of us –
facing the stars
hope — a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it — together

GERTRUDE publishes as part of Hermann Hesse Project

Thomas Fasano — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 21:50:10 +0000

Front cover of Gertrude

Coyote Canyon Press has just published the first of two novels by Hermann Hesse, an endeavor we’re calling our Hermann Hesse Project. Just published is Gertrude. The text for this edition is taken from Adele Lewisohn’s translation of 1915, Gertrude and I, published in New York by The International Monthly.

Gertrude was the first novel by Hermann Hesse published in English and not part of an anthology. The novel deals with the destructive nature of love, its central theme the narrator’s enduring and hopeless passion for Gertrude, whom he meets through their mutual love of music. “Music was important to Hesse,” says Thomas Fasano, who wrote the Introduction to the book. “As a child he loved to listen to the church organ, learned to play the violin, and developed a passion for Chopin. His interest in music and painting and his lifelong association with musicians and painters greatly informed his writing.”

Fasano writes in the Introduction:

Hesse’s pre-World-War-I heroes are esthetes who live only in their own world of dreams, who shrink before bold action. Temperamental artists, they are paralyzed by their chronic indecision and consumed by loneliness—timid souls to whom the art of life and the art of love are forever unobtainable. They ask little of life and expect much. Such is the nature of the child of nature, Peter Camenzind, and the timorous composer, Kuhn. Such too was Hermann Hesse.

The second book in the Hermann Hesse Project will be a rediscovery of sorts: In The Old Sun, a novel published in English over one hundred years ago and essentially lost since then — until now. We’re planning a beautiful edition of the novel both in hardback and Kindle. In The Old Sun was actually Hesse’s first book published in English in the United States. It was part of an anthology called German Classics and has never been published as an individual book until now.

Poet Richard Blanco to read at President Obama’s Inaugural

Thomas Fasano — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 03:50:36 +0000

Craig Dilger for The New York Times

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has announced that Richard Blanco has been chosen to read a poem at President Obama’s inauguration ceremony on Jan. 21. The choice marks a couple firsts: Blanco will become the first Hispanic and the first gay poet to read at a presidential inauguration. He will also, at 44, be the youngest poet to do so.

In a recent posting on the NPR website, Blanco said, “Even though it’s been a few weeks since I found out, just thinking about my parents and my grandparents and all the struggles they’ve been through, and how, you know, here I am, first-generation Cuban-American, and this great honor that has just come to me, and just feeling that sense of just incredible gratitude and love.”

The New York Times writes that Blanco, a son of Cuban exiles, has felt “a spiritual connection” with Obama from the moment he burst onto the political scene. Like Mr. Obama, the Times reports, “Blanco has been on a quest for personal identity through the written word. He said his affinity for Mr. Obama springs from his own feeling of straddling different worlds; he is Latino and gay (and worked as a civil engineer while pursuing poetry). His poems are laden with longing for the sights and smells of the land his parents left behind.”

Christmas Cards from Robert Frost with his poems printed on them

Thomas Fasano — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 03:56:22 +0000

A 1942 card that includes the poem “The Gift Outright.” (Image courtesy of Rauner Special Collections Library)

Longing for some memorable holiday cards? How about a beautiful Christmas card from Robert Frost with one of his poems printed on it?

In 1926 a recently opened letterpress shop in New York City named Spiral Press printed a book of poems for Frost. One of the owners of the press, Joseph Blumenthal, printed one of the poems as a Christmas card for his wife. Robert Frost loved the card and thus began a working relationship between Blumenthal and Frost and several woodcut artists and engravers.

Frost sent the cards out annually from 1934 to 1962. The last year they were mailed, the print run was over 17,000. Some of the cards ran up to 20 pages and included such well-known Frost poems as “The Gift Outright” and “The Wood-Pile.”

Examples of the cards from the Rauner Special Collections can be viewed here.

Dartmouth College’s Officce of Alumni Relations recently posted the following notice about the cards on their blog:

Dartmouth’s Rauner Special Collections Library has an extensive collection of the cards, including copies of the first-ever example—“Christmas Trees”—which was produced without Frost’s knowledge in 1929. Later, Frost expressed admiration for the card and he agreed to help produce them on an annual basis in 1934.

Rauner’s collection also includes cards with handwritten notes from Frost to librarians at Baker Library and other friends in Hanover. In 1951, Frost accompanied the “A Cabin in the Clearing” card with this note to Dartmouth bookstore employee Ruby Dagget: “in hopes that you will carry it like a lesson to your schoolhouse in the wilds of Vershire.” Vershire is a nearby town in Vermont.

Don DeLillo’s Typewriter

Thomas Fasano — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 20:22:29 +0000

Coyote Canyon Press publisher and author Tom Fasano shares a letter he received from Don DeLillo.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

Don DeLillo at home in Westchester County, N.Y. with his trusty Olympia manual typewriter. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

In late 2000 I wrote a letter to Don DeLillo asking him what kind of typewriter he used. I’d read in the Paris Review interview that he used a manual typewriter. A page from said typewriter (from his novel Libra) was also reproduced in the article, and I found it fascinating because it showed evidence of hard labor — typing and lots of inked-in corrections. Plus, the type style was beautiful and I wanted that typewriter. So I wrote the letter. A few months later I received a letter (unfortunately damaged) in reply from this most reclusive literary genius, who identified his typewriter as an Olympia “SM-something.” The above photo clearly shows an Olympia SM9, manufactured in the early 1970s. A great and reliable machine, one of which I now own. Here’s a link to the manual.

Don DeLillo's letter to me in 2001.

Thomas Fasano is the founder and publisher of Coyote Canyon Press.

The Brontës Rebooted

Thomas Fasano — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 20:48:55 +0000

The Brontë Sisters

Juliet Barker has published a revised edition of her landmark biography, The Brontës with new material, including letters and juvenilia not available when the original edition was published eighteen years ago.

What sets Barker’s biography about the Brontës apart is that hers is not the typical account of a mad, freakish clan of sequestered geniuses, but rather a depiction of a flawed and human family. Barker redeems the much maligned Patrick Brontë, the girls’ father, who is portrayed as loving and sympathetic. She depicts Charlotte not as a saint and martyr but instead as a controlling and self-absorbed young woman with a dash of wicked humor and a taste for sarcasm.

Three Novels by the Brontë Sisters

Concerning Emily, Barker also dispells a long-held belief about her literary output. She never wrote another novel after Wuthering Heights, but Barker insists she would have penned another had she lived long enough — and that, contrary to received opinion, she was not exhausted creatively or crippled by savage reviews.

At more than a thousand pages, Barker has enough canvas on which to flesh out her major theme: the family’s unique intimacy fostered their extraordinary literary output; the family’s closeness and affection helped them through illness and loss; and each family member sustained the others, despite jealousies and temperamental differences.