Lawrence Schimel

I didn't mean to go out looking for more stuff again last night, but I'd helped a friend with her move earlier in the morning and she invited me to dinner and I found this framed poster on the way home afterward. It was interesting enough to schlepp home and consider in the light of day.

Although the truth is that even after 8+ years in this apartment, I still don't have anything hung on the walls so the likelihood of my actually hanging it is slim.

I also have an enormous mirror that was also a street find years ago... sitting on the floor...

I heard from my editor today that BOS BRAL KNJIGO Z MANO?, the Slovene translation of my picture book ¿LEES UN LIBRO CONMIGO?, has been published, and my copies are en route to me. How exciting! :-)

Skuc did a lovely job with their edition of my picture book AMIGOS Y VECINOS last year.

¿LEES UN LIBRO CONMIGO? was published by Panamericana in Colombia and was chosen by IBBY for Outstanding Books for Young People With Disabilities 2007.

When the copies arrive, I'll post photos. :-)

I'd spent the early part of the week with too much socializing or meetings, so last night I just hit bottom and put on my pjs, made a pot of tea, and curled up with S J. Rozan's THE SHANGHAI MOON, which I'd been saving for just such a moment. and it's just lovely! I've only managed 90 pages but lots of twists. And best of all, Lydia Chin is back. It's been too long since the last chin/Smith book.

Last night I was torn between wanting to put it down so it would last longer and reading right through it in a single sitting.

Today, alas, I didn't get to grapple with this dilemma, since while I was at lunch with some friends, I got a call with a ridiculous rush translation assignment. Ridiculous because it was over 5000 words and they wanted it by tomorrow. clients never have any understanding of what's feasible or reasonable.

But I must be as foolish as they are, since I agreed to do it, at my rush translation rate, and have just emailed a draft of the finished translation to the client, so they could look it over and we'll discuss tomorrow morning.

So today was a lot of typing, since on the metro to my friend Sofia's house I also wrote 400+ words on a new short story I started a few days ago. (I had brought my laptop with me, thinking we might have a work session after lunch, although with the new rush translation I came right home to get to work.)

I can't just go right to bed, as fuzzy as my head is after so much translating, so am in my cool-down period.

I've been meaning to post about going to see SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, but I think that typing more (such as LJ posts) is not quite what I need just now. (Aside form the fact that coherence and I are not on speaking terms just now.) So perhaps more on this tomorrow, once I've slept.

I buzzed my head last week and a friend took some photos and just sent them to me.

Huge bags under my eyes but I think buzz cut looks good.

(The books in the background, FYI, are his bookshelves not mine. You can tell because they're so orderly, and nothing is double-shelved!)

For a number of reasons, I had already decided to skip my planned trip to the US for BookExpo/The Lammies, even though it's in NY this year. On the one hand, is simple finances. Another is I'm exhausted from so much travel, in general, but especially so many working trips across the puddle. Especially trips like this last, where I'm not just going to NY (exhausting in and of itself) but the internal travel to Chicago, while exiting and all, just knocked me out.

Mostly it was this self-imposed feeling of obligation that I wanted to get rid of.

Sure it would be nice if I went and maybe even useful, but it's not actually necessary. In terms of what I manage to achieve, in terms of contacts with editors or promoting my work, the benefits are negligible. And this year, so many publishers are pulling out or scaling back their participation because of the economic stiuation, etc.

(I regret more not going to the Bologna Children's Book Fair, which started today and which I've attended for the past five years, but again I think it was the right decision.)

Anyway, today I was invited to a poetry festival in Palma de Mallorca for the first few days of June. So deciding not to force myself to make this work-related trip (and one that comes out of my pocket) for BookExpo was obviously the right decision since I'm now available for this serendipitous invitation. (And while it is another trip, it's something I'm looking forward to, and it's also a short hop and in the same time zone--same country even. Quite a difference, having to go to the US for work or to a Mediterranean island to be feted as a poet!)

Just back from the hospital. I was supposed to have a cyst removed; it's become inflamed twice in the past few months and my primary care physician sent me to have it excised (while also giving me antibiotics).

But since my appointment today was six weeks after the end of the antibiotics, the doctor decided not to do it; no, I need to wait until it gets infected again and THEN come back.

Sigh.

Been busy these past few days with the social whirl of visiting writers, so have hardly been home and have huge backlog of unanswered or unread emails.

Colombian writer Jaime Manrique was in town so had a chance to catch up with him, since we've not seen one another in close to ten years.

Then two poets from Malaga, Maria Eloy-Garcia and Carmen López, were in Madrid for a reading and overnight trip, so there was a fun group of people who all got together to meet up with them while they were in town.

One thing that's been so lovely about having published DESAYUNO EN LA CAMA is that I'm suddenly discovering and meeting people from and being welcomed into this great network of Spanish poets. It's much more of a community than what happens for/with many other genres, at least here, and as that is something I'd been missing these past years, I am very much enjoying becoming part of it.

Just came across this call for submissions, and while I normally just forward these sort of things to friends and writers I have worked with who might find it of interest, I thought I'd post it as part of the whole ongoing RaceFail discussion. While not a genre market, per se, that doesn't mean they might not be interested in genre material.

I don't even know if they are interested in fiction, but since they pay three times what most genre mags pay, it's worth a query; they might also be interested in a personal essay about one's experiences as a genre reader/writer. Lots of ways to possibly slant or pitch something, it all depends on how you approach things.

Anyway, FWIW, for Writers of Color who may be looking for additional/interesting markets:

Kraze magazine (USA) is looking for freelance contributors. The new quarterly publication targets African American/Multicultural women and contains various types of articles. Payment: US18 cents per word. For guidelines contact Candra Jolly at editorial@krazemag.com.

I guess I'm still cranky today, so let me set forth some GENERAL guidelines about Social Media and Author-Editor Etiquette. These are not response to anyone in particular who may have posted or commented on recent entries or status updates, but are GENERAL ideas about social interaction between authors and editors, some of which I have been mulling about for some time.

Let me say up front that I'm a big fan of various new and less-new social media tools, on both a personal and professional level.

As a reader, I love talking about books with other people who love books. As a writer, it's great to be able to hear directly from people who have read my work (and maybe let them know about new things they might also be interested in), and also to interact with other writers, whether in celebrating or commiserating about the ups and downs of this crazy field or discussing aspects of craft or other parts of the business. As an editor, it's useful to be able to get the word out about various projects to contributors and potential contributors.

I still don't quite grok twitter, but I haven't been on it very long; I have much fun on facebook; Myspace hurts my brain from all the visual and other noise; and of course, I have this blog, which is perhaps the most public or open of all these tools.

I think many authors lose sight of the fact that blogs or these other social media tools are PUBLIC forums. Even though it may SEEM like an intimate conversation, it is not one; it is public, and it should be treated as such. (And while something like Facebook is more of a "closed" forum, since I now have over 3500 contacts on my Facebook page, this is a rather sizeable audience that is potentially looking over one's shoulder at anything posted there; not to mention the fact that my Facebook page is publicly accessible since it's become one of the ways people find me and interact with me from many of the different genres and areas in which I write and work--not to mention in my social life.)

Most authors would not stand up in the middle of a panel discussion and ask, from the audience, if I was accepting or not their submission.

This is, essentially, what many authors do however, when they ask such questions in the comments of a blog entry instead of in a private message, which is where such material belongs.

Yes, it's often easier to just hit add comment instead of opening your email software and typing in a private message to me. Taking the time to do that is, however, the only professional way to act.

That, at least, is my personal stance on the subject.

If you have questions or concerns about a project, ask me about them in private.

It is humiliating both for the author in question and for me when wearing my editor hat to have to discuss such things in public, especially if the answer is negative. Maybe I'm just not enough of a sadist to reject someone in public, but the entire situation makes ME uncomfortable, so I seek to avoid it (and as authors, you should seek to avoid putting editors in uncomfortable positions). I'm hereby publicly asking people not to put me in such positions. And if you do go ahead and put me in such a position, I will likely ignore you, or if I get cranky and pushed too far, I may use you as an example of why this is not a good thing to do to an editor, though I hope not to get that cranky or pushed that far.

As an editor, if I talk about projects online, I do so in the most general of terms.

If you wonder if what I have had to say applies to you directly, DROP ME AN EMAIL.

Especially if I am complaining about something, in general terms, I am absolutely boggled that anyone would post "I hope you're not talking about my submission" in the comment section. I can totally understand FEELING that, and even dropping me a private message to say so. But in the event that I were talking about your submission, do you really want me to reply to your comment, IN PUBLIC, and SAY SO?

Think about it.

The biggest issue is the fact of these being PUBLIC SPACES and what is appropriate author-editor interaction.

Just as I won't reject someone in public, I'm not going to accept someone in public, either--aside from not considering it appropriate behavior as an editor, there may be other contributors who are reading the status update or blog entry whose work I have rejected or have not yet responded to. This is also why I tend to wait until all responses, both yea and nay, are ready before making any official acceptances or rejections, especially for projects with open submission calls. (Aside from the fact that the final balance of the book may still be tottering until the very end as subthemes and threads and so on are considered and counterweighed, or if there are multiple editors involved, until we come to a consensus on what to include or not, or if we're waiting for rewrites which may or may not in the end work, or etc.)

I'm sorry that it slows the process down, especially when I'd also like to share the good news and celebrate the great work that was submitted and I'm using, but as a courtesy to everyone who submitted, I want to avoid having people who haven't heard yet read elsewhere about acceptances (and it's normal to blog the good news of your acceptance, I expect it, which is why I wait until all decisions--to accept and to reject--are made and communicated) when they're still waiting to hear.

So, to summarize: These various social media are great, fun, useful, etc. And also, they're PUBLIC spaces. Please remember this, and act accordingly.

I've been reading the submissions for I LIKE IT LIKE THAT: TRUE TALES OF GAY DESIRE, forthcoming from Arsenal Pulp Press in October. My co-editor, Richard Labonté, has already read everything and I'm trying to catch up now.

And I'm boggled at how many people missed the mark on this project.

Whatever happened to the first person personal essay? There are so many people who write so smartly about sex and desire. For previous books, the slush pile has been an embarrassment of riches. Obviously, we didn't do a good enough job in getting the word out or they've all stopped writing or were too busy with other projects or a myriad of other possible problems.

Why did so many people write things in second person for a book titled *I* LIKE IT LIKE THAT?

There are, of course, some exceptions, which are beautiful and lovely and APPROPRIATE submissions, but...

Right now the slush pile (and I've only just dipped a toe in so maybe all the dross floated to the top) is making me very cranky. And it's a lovely spring day, around 21º c (70º F). I may very well shut the computer and go for a walk through the Retiro or something to clear my head.

The other day I tried on my friend Gonzalo's glasses, but I don't think I like this frameless look, even though these are a better size for my face than the last time I tried on a friend's glasses.

For one thing, chunky plastic frames might better hide the bags under my eyes! :-)