After you’ve written it and it’s been published, you’re not going to make big changes anymore. You can’t stop the presses. They’ve already stopped. A second printing might happen, but it’s far away and really a long shot for a pointy headed book like yours. There are people who will be interested and they will… Continue reading The Book Tour
Author: russellv
The publisher’s website
I have now received the page proofs from The Woman in the Window — hurray for page proofs! — as well as the link for the publisher’s new website for the book, which is here. I now need to provide some links that are recommended by the author. I have to decide what the author… Continue reading The publisher’s website
The jacket cover, etc.
I’ve just sent a suggested revised version of the short description that will go on all the promotional materials for the book, and here it is: In The Woman in the Window: Commerce, Consensual Fantasy, and the Quest for Masculine Virtue in the Russian Novel, Russell Scott Valentino offers pioneering new insights into the historical… Continue reading The jacket cover, etc.
This other book
On a recent trip back to Iowa for two MFA thesis defenses in one afternoon (congratulations to my now former students, Alex and Beatrice!), my 12-year-old son recommended for us, and his 10-year-old brother, the book Magyk, by Angie Sage, so we brought it along. Once in a while when you listen to something on… Continue reading This other book
Walking Across the Gymnasium Floor
In Proofingdom all rules of grammar and punctuation may be questioned. Does one quote or italicize the titles of paintings? (The Chicago Manual of Style — let’s say CMS — says italicize.) Oh, no, I have a lot of notes that are only partially complete. Did I really mean a book by Sherry Turkle published… Continue reading Walking Across the Gymnasium Floor
Editing as Rehab
Now The Woman in the Window has entered copy-editing, which is a little like entering rehab. She knows deep down that there’s something wrong with her, a set of outward behaviors that need to be changed for her to get back on track, and she’s hoping to work with someone, a professional, who can help… Continue reading Editing as Rehab
A book from far away
I’ve had the treat of just returning to Yuri Rytkheu’s novel A Dream in Polar Fog (trans. Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse; Archipelago Books, 2005) to teach it in my class this semester. If it were just an adventure story, one would not expect the book to have been published by a press with Archipelago’s literary credentials.… Continue reading A book from far away
Demise of glory
I remember now being inspired earlier in my writing of The Woman in the Window by the idea of glory’s demise. It was a fixation of Europeans following the Napoleonic Wars, and when I discovered it, I suddenly understood a lot of what was going then in literary circles, too. Then I think I forgot… Continue reading Demise of glory
Those 200 words
My publisher says they want 200 words to describe the book. This is what we’ll use to promote it, they say, so no pressure. Just make sure the words tell the story, and please don’t refer us to your preface or introduction because we might not have access to that (really?), and while you surely… Continue reading Those 200 words
Crossing Seven Silences (in two parts): 2
“The silences” suggests a limitation where there isn’t any, a purity somewhat like the absence of mixture I am loathe to credit. And so there are taboo silences, like when your sister marries a black man, and these are closely allied with the silences of prejudice and bigotry, as when your uncle comes out from… Continue reading Crossing Seven Silences (in two parts): 2
Russell Scott Valentino 