Litopia After Dark : Author 2.0
Welcome to our podcast! Looks like this is your first time here - you may want to subscribe to ourRSS feed - it'll keep you up to date with our latest shows. Thanks for dropping by - and don't be a stranger!
Tonight on LITOPIA AFTER DARK we’re delighted to have as our special guest an acclaimed author who could be considered a signpost to the future. In the words of publishing maven Martyn Daniels (who was our guest on “The Money Issue - How will Authors Survive in the Digital Future?” April 5th) Kate Pullinger is one of the few authors who “gets it” about the new digital media age, and who is already using it in highly creative ways.
Reader in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University, Kate currently teaches the online MA in Creative Writing and New Media. She could well be considered the prototype “Author 2.0″. So join us as we ask her all the most important questions about the next step in the evolution of the author.
Also on the show this week:
- In a wonderfully virulent attack, legendary science fiction author Orson Scott Card lays into JK Rowling.
- Louise Hay is a one-woman publishing phenomenon and one of the best-selling authors in history. We discuss what has got her to the top and kept her there.
- Also: music and politics - the campaign soundtracks are put to the test and we ask whether original creative works are used or abused by politicians.
- And HarperCollins are making hundreds of videos of their authors - we ask why?
On the panel this week are Donna Ballman, Richard Howse, Eve Harvey and very special guest Kate Pullinger. In the Ustream chatroom 8pm GMT, everyone was amazingly polite and attentive. Join us next week to try to get us as off-topic as possible!
JK Rowling is attacked
A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.
Louise Hay cures all
In the New York Times, Mark Oppenheimer says…
LOUISE HAY IS ONE OF THE BEST-SELLING AUTHORS IN HISTORY, and none of the women who have sold more - like J. K. Rowling, Danielle Steel and Barbara Cartland - owned a publishing empire. They did not change the spiritual landscape of America and several of its Western allies. They were not pregnant at 15 and they did not lack high-school diplomas. Finer writers they may have been (depending on your taste), and wealthier women, but it would be hard to argue that any was more interesting than Louise Hay.
In any event, none of them ever touched my arm so intimately.
Classical Music - use or abuse?
Ian Bostridge in the Times Literary Supplement…
Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise tells the story of what happened to Western classical music in the twentieth century. We all know that the invention of recorded sound around 1900 made possible an extraordinary dissemination of the riches of the classical repertoire - largely composed for the rich and powerful - to the mass of ordinary people. On the gramophone, the radio, television and, subliminally and hence more powerfully, through the movies, the classical sound in all its variants (even the supposedly rebarbative confections of the Second Viennese School) has insinuated itself into the culture at large.
Harper Collins launch in-house video
In Publishers Weekly, Rachel Deahl…
Showing its commitment to video as a promotional tool for books, HarperCollins has unveiled plans to launch its own in-house production arm. The studio, which will make internet video, will be, according to the house, “modeled on a newsroom environment.” Lending to that newsy feel, HC has tapped former Wall Street Journal multimedia producer Marisa Benedetto to run the new division, which will fall under the auspices of HarperMedia.
Main Topic : Kate Pullinger - Author 2.0
Things get easier all the time - blogging templates, think of how that has changed the way people interact on the internet and look at us broadcasting live… that would have been unimaginable two and a half years ago.
This very fixed idea of the novel as a 70 - 90,000 word tome has a relatively short history.
Kate gives us some very interesting and informative opinions on the future for writers in the digital age, tune in to find out more.
Links for Kate
Kate’s Website with a list of her books
Article on Digital Downloads in the Guardian
Night Walking article in the Guardian
Tags: getting published, publishers