Martha Silano, poet

One of the blogs I've followed since I first got into this whole realm is Martha Silano's Blue Positive. Her blog talks about, among other things, being a poet while also teaching and raising young children. Occasionally, she'll even share a poem of her own, often one she's working on.

But don't let her down to earth approach fool you. Silano is playing in the big league of contemporary American poetry. And as the blog post you may have just clicked on will show you, you don't have to rely on my discernment about that. Her poem "Love" has just been collected in The Best American Poetry 2009. A copy of this book actually rather magically floated into my hands yesterday--well, I work in a bookstore, so maybe not that magically, but it did just suddenly appear without my having to hunt it out--so I quickly turned to the appropriate page.

Some readers might be put off by a title like "Love". All I'll say about that is, don't let it stop you.

Congratulations, Martha.

Not Quite Lost in Translation

I just learned of the American Translators Association's compiled list of blogs on translation. Since the subject of translation does come up on some of the crime fictions blogs I visit, particularly on Peter Rozovsky's Detectives Beyond Borders (this link taking you to a case in point), I thought it would be good to pass this along.

Thanks to Erika Dreifus's Practicing Writing for the link, and in turn to her source, B.J. Epstein's Brave New Words, both worthy of your attention.

Some Good News About Troy Davis

Occasional readers of this blog may already know the story of Troy Davis, serving time on death row in Georgia, and of my personal interest in his cause. I found the recent directive by the Supreme Court that a Georgia court reconsider his case to be not only hopeful but reaffirming of my own sense of the situation. The justices were not, of course, unanimous in their decision. It may be worth highlighting opposing points of view.

Here's Justice Stevens on the matter:“The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing.”

But then here is Justice Scalia: "This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

I'm sure Justice Scalia and I don't match up very well on our ideas of jurisprudence in general, and I'm also sure he knows a lot more about matters of law than I do. Nevertheless, it was odd reading his statement just as I was in the midst of reading a novel of suspense by Tom Rob Smith called Child 44, which is set in the Stalinist era of Russia. True, it's 'just a novel', but I think Smith probably pretty well understands the mindset of those who are willing to sacrifice the innocent for some greater good. There are a great many people in Russia who "failed thrive" under such a mentality.

If Troy Davis is "actually" innocent, then he is actually innocent. And he should not only be "actually" set free, he should actually be set free.

Good luck to you, Troy, in presenting your case. For anyone who would like to be further involved, please go here.

What The Guardian Knows that The New York Times Doesn't.

Sorry, American newspapers. You had your chance, but you got scooped. You could have been the first to give a rave review to Fifty Grand, the wonderful stand alone novel by Adrian McKinty. And it had everything a good American paper might want: celebrities, a thoughtful critique of Cuba, an American setting, even the illegal immigrant issue. Frankly, it was made for you.

So where did I read the first major newspaper review? Here.Some sort of English rag. You might have heard of it. It's called The Guardian.

Yeah, I've got a bit of an ax to grind. I'm a bookseller, and I've been trying to sell this book all summer. And actually, I have sold a few. Not as many as I would have liked, and definitely not as many as I could have or would have if American newspapers, despite their financial woes, had gotten behind this one. I know everyone wants to read Michael Connelly and John Grisham and the tried and true, but isn't anyone looking to the future? Isn't anyone thinking, maybe we ought to be cultivating some other excellent writers?

As our Guardian reviewer mentions, McKinty has already written a major crime series focused on a very complex character, Michael Forsythe. Unbelievably, the first novel in this series, Dead I Well May Be, is out of print in the U.S. (Don't let that stop you, though--once again, the Brits have picked up our slack, and you can get a very nice paperback edition from Serpent's Tail.)

I have to say that when a writer this good doesn't get the attention he merits, it really makes me wonder about the state of American publishing. I know that editors and even editorial assistants still can spot great writing, so where is the bottleneck, exactly? Is everyone in publishing so attuned to what the televised media says that they don't pay any attention anymore to people who actually read?

Well, I'm puzzled, and am likely to remain so. But luckily, our friends across the pond are not likely to remain in the dark about this talent. We can rely on Serpent's Tail to keep some wonderful writing in print.

Know Privacy

I picked this up courtesy of local muckraker Bruce Bratton, and thought I would disseminate it for whatever that effort's worth. It's a site called Know Privacy, which monitors web privacy, information sharing and data collection. It's a little weird to post this on Google, which is apparently one of the main players in this game. I think what's odd is that we all know so much of this already. But instead of deciding to abandon the web, credit cards and all the conveniences that make us so very easy to monitor, we shrug it off as one of the 'costs of doing business'. I'm not so happy with all this data being stored somewhere, quite frankly. But I'm even less comfortable with my own passive acceptance of it.

Carte Noire

As all my regular readers know...okay, as I alone know, I am a bit lazy when it comes to the blog posts and will look for almost any excuse to avoid doing any extra work. So I am quite happy to offer random vistors a clue about a great reading series sponsored by Carte Noire. Dominic West of The Wire fame reading a shall we say polemical scene between Lizzie Bennett and posh Mr. Darcy? Do I have to say more than that? Oh, you poor, benighted sots. Just click the damn link.

An essay by Georgine Balassone (But she doesn't like the picture, so ignore it.)

Sometimes I think too hard about something that should have been obvious all along. Here I was, realizing that I hadn't posted here for quite some time, and wondering what little essay or story or whatever I could mention here, when I realized the answer had been staring me right in the face.

My good friend, co-worker and larger than life personality in her own right, Georgine Balassone, has recently published an essay about the forces that made her what she is today. Or, getting right to the heart of the matter, maybe we should just say, The Force.

A little shy to let the world know of this, her first web publication, she first swore me to secrecy, but has since freed me from the vow of silence.

Here, forthwith, What I Learned From My Mother, by Georgine Balassone.

Did I mention she was funny?