When I went into the publishing business after graduating from college, I discovered a literary culture so lastly different from the ones I had studied that I could scarcely find any common ground between them. This world was populated by romance, science fiction and fantasy, and male action-adventure writers, by pulpsters, pornographers, and countless others who earn their living producing genre books.

Since then, I have become a citizen of that world, both as a writer and as a literary agent representing other writers of category fiction. I have come to know and respect, to admire and even love this world and its denizens and have had the privilege of attending the birth of some works that have come to be regarded as masterpieces of their genres. But I have also become increasingly concerned about how little is known about this world by the writers and critics who dominate the world of serious literature. And I’ve concluded that we are all a little poorer for these gaps in awareness, appreciation, and communication.

To read more, click here.

Richard Curtis

Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed

Marty Clark “spent over two years with Harlan in the enviable position of personal secretary, administrative officer of his professional corporation, and occasional grammarian.” Those who have experienced the master’s bark and bite might choose a different adjective than “enviable”. Clark not only lived to tell the tale, but went on to assemble, from hundreds of rare and previously unprinted works, this breathtaking collection of twenty wide-ranging essays that demonstrate why the monstre sacre of imaginative literature won the prestigious Silver Pen award of P.E.N. International in 1982.

Clark’s introduction is filled with insight into the essay form and Ellison’s place in the tradition that began with Montaigne.

You can download the e-book of Sleepless Nights, but before long we will have it in print format as well. Just keep an eye on our home page for an announcement.

RC

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INTRODUCTION BY MARTY CLARK

For the serious Ellison reader, there are few tasks more difficult than staying current with his nonfiction output. Harlan’s work appears all over the literary map, so that it is impossible to know where he will turn up next. This is also true of his fiction, but one can always count on the publication of a new fiction collection every few years to gather together those stories which one has missed. Until now, this has not been so of his essays. They have occasionally been included in other collections and, as with the four essays which appear in Harlan’s short story collection Stalking the Nightmare (Phantasia Press, 1982), have received raves. Also much in demand are The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat (Ace, 1983) which collected the columns of television criticism which Harlan wrote over a period of four years in the Los Angeles Free Press. However, Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed marks the first time that a book has been devoted exclusively to the best of his general essays. The twenty reprinted here are from such disparate sources as Video Review, Heavy Metal and the Saint Louis Literary Supplement.

To read Clark’s full intro, click here.

After talking a hotheaded author out of beating up his copyeditor, I began to reflect on some of the unusual things that agents are called upon to do in the course of their careers. I am often asked to speak to groups of aspiring writers and explain just what literary agents do. I wonder how the audience would react if I told them that among other things, literary agents babysit for their clients’ kids, paint their clients’ houses, and bail their clients out of jail. They even fall in love with their clients and marry them. In fact, I have done all these things and more.

If you think that all agents do is submit manuscripts in the morning, collect checks in the afternoon, and go to lunch for three hours in between, you’re in for some interesting insights. Click here for the inside dope on the secret lives of literary agents.

- Richard Curtis

Are literary agents friendly with each other? Are they mutually suspicious or hostile? Do they steal authors from each other at every opportunity, or do they cooperate with one another? Do they have a code of behavior? Are they too competitive to act collectively? You may be surprised to learn the answers. For the complete article, click here.

I’m not sure that authors understand the structures of literary agencies much better than they understand those of publishing companies. For those of you who are shopping for an agent or thinking of switching agencies, or who are simply interested in organizational dynamics, it might be interesting to compare agencies of different sizes and structures and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type. In the first installment of this piece we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of sole practitioner literary agencies.

With the introduction of a second person into the agency – even a secretary with no discretionary power – the dynamics of the firm usually alter sharply

To read more, click here.

The good news is that book editors are now reading manuscript submissions on Sony E-Book Readers and Amazon Kindles. But agent Richard Curtis reminds us that one unwelcome byproduct of this innovation is that Word for Windows documents, the format of choice for most authors, display typographical and grammatical errors in the form of glaring red and green underlines that distract editors and might even make them question your writing skills. To read Curtis’s analysis of what writers should do about all those “Reddies” and “Greenies”, click here.

I’m not sure that authors understand the structures of literary agencies much better than they understand those of publishing companies. For those of you who are shopping for an agent or thinking of switching agencies, or who are simply interested in organizational dynamics, it might be interesting to compare agencies of different sizes and structures and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

To read more, click here.

Whenever authors gather to discuss the merits of their agents (it may legitimately be wondered whether they ever discuss anything else), the word “clout” inevitably enters the conversation. Clout is the measure of an agent’s influence over publishers, and though it is by no means the sole criterion by which agents are judged, it is certainly the ultimate one. What is clout? How do agents wield it? And is it everything we crack it up to be?

To read more, click here.