The Guardian writes:

The American writer Norman Mailer is to use a “remote pen” to do a book-signing from the other side of the Atlantic, after age and ill-health forced him to cancel a rare public appearance in the UK.

…Mailer will use an internet-based technique devised by the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood for remotely signing books called LongPen.

Mailer will be at his home in Provincetown on the east coast near New York, while his audience will be in the tented city which is built in a Georgian square in Edinburgh’s New Town each year for the festival.

According to an older Guardian article on the subject of the LongPen’s launch last year (via Neil Gaiman’s blog archives):

LongPen allows an author to see the reader she is signing for, and vice-versa, using a videoconferencing system, and an image of the page to be signed.

She then writes her inscription on a touch-sensitive LCD screen and presses a button. That sends a signal to the remote bookstore, where the robot arm, clutching an ordinary ballpoint pen, copies out the message on to the book.

A signing through the LongPen is certainly better than a complete cancellation, though in my opinion it leaves something to be desired over an in-person encounter with a favorite author. Still, if the alternative is a tired/grouchy/sick author, a signing through the LongPen might actually allow better “quality time” with them.

It’ll be interesting to see whether more authors will begin to take advantage of technology like the LongPen to make appearances at signings they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to attend. Though authors have been slower than members of other employment sectors to take advantage of virtual interaction, there’s been a recent push to take advantage of technology to interact with readers: commonplace videoconferencing at events and George R. R. Martin’s appearance in Second Life are only a couple examples.

Bestselling fantasy author George R. R. Martin (of the amazing series A Song of Ice and Fire, which is right up there on the top of my personal list of favorite books) is making an appearance in the virtual world of Second Life. He’s joining a growing list of politicians, authors and musicians who have been using SL to connect with people in the virtual environment.

Yes, I’m making a virtual appearance in Bantam’s virtual bookstore on Second Life. For those of you who don’t know it, Second Life is… well, sort of like World of Warcraft without the axes, swords, and monsters. Our world, kinda sorta, virtually. Anyway, I’ll be there this Thursday evening, in avatar form, doing a reading from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and doing a Q&A afterwards. Proceedings will start at 9:00pm eastern [2am GMT] and run about an hour. This will be a first for me, so it will be fun to see how it goes. Ah, ’tis a brave new world, surely.

If you’d like to be part of the festivities, get thee to www.secondlife.com. You can sign up there, download the software, and design your own avatar. (I’ve never done a reading with monsters in the audience before, at least not the sort you could tell my looking at ‘em).

The virtual bookstore can only hold about sixty avatars, but the overflow will be able to see and hear the reading from satellite sites, and send questions via IM.

I’ve never done this before either, so that’s about all I can tell you about how things will work… but if you live out in the bookdocks where I’m never likely to visit on a book tour, this virtual appearance could be the next best thing. See you there!

Link to blog post. For those of you with Second Life (and if you don’t have it, get it - it’s very easy to set up), just search “bantam” in the places search tab and teleport over.

See you there!

From The New York Times:

It is rarely a simple thing to be a novelist in Turkey. For Elif Shafak, it has never been more complicated.

Her sixth novel, “The Bastard of Istanbul,” was a runaway best seller in Turkey, with more than 120,000 copies purchased. Ms. Shafak had planned a six-city American book tour to promote it, including stops in Chicago and Los Angeles, but sharply curtailed the tour after the murder of Hrant Dink in January. Mr. Dink was a prominent Turkish newspaper editor of Armenian ancestry and a close friend of Ms. Shafak.

Continue reading on NYTimes.com.

British author Salman Rushdie no longer fears for his life because of the death threats issued against him by Islamic clerics in response to his book “The Satanic Verses” nearly 20 years ago, he has said in Portugal.

“I don’t see what happened as a publicity tool for my books. And if anyone doubts that, I strongly encourage that person to experience what I lived through,” he added, according to the paper.

Rushdie was forced into hiding for a decade after Iran’s late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or opinion on Islamic law, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because the book allegedly insulted Islam.  In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support but could not rescind the fatwa.

Since then his life has gradually returned to that of a literary star, with frequent foreign travel for speeches and public appearances.

Link to the Yahoo News article

Russell Banks, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Ondaatje, and Edward Hirsch will celebrate and read from the work of Canadian-born short-story master Mavis Gallant at Symphony Space in New York City on November 1, 2006. The program is part of the Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story series. Ms. Gallant, who lives in Paris, is acclaimed for her mastery in short story writing that has influenced American writers for nearly fifty years. She has published more than 100 short stories in the New Yorker, the third-most in the magazine’s “storied” history. Gallant will make a rare New York appearance at the event. The event is co-presented by PEN and the National Book Foundation. For more information and tickets, visit www.symphonyspace.org.

Source: Toledo Blade

Either Mercedes Lackey is a good teacher or she had a keen audience last night. Not long into her talk about how one becomes a published writer, the audience of about 175 was finishing her sentences with her mantra: “Glue your derriere to the chair and write.”

Lackey, who has published 70 books, offered several tidbits, such as send a completed book (not the commonly recommended three chapters and an outline), to an editor; do not hire an agent to promote your work (because you can do it better yourself), and be nice to your editor and publisher.

“Don’t make your editor’s life miserable. It’s already miserable: they live in New York.”
(more…)

“On paper, best-selling author Amy Tan’s teenage years — having graduated from high school in a Swiss resort town nestled near the French Alps — are worthy of envy.

“It sounds so hoighty-toighty. … But we got to Switzerland through a can of old Dutch cleanser,” Tan told a large crowd Thursday night at Purdue University.

The author of The Joy Luck Club, which explores the relationship between Chinese mothers and Chinese-American daughters, was relaying the story of how her mother decided to uproot the family from California to Holland.

The decision was made after Daisy Tan, described as a “germophobe” by her daughter, found the cleaner under the kitchen sink.

The tale was one of several Amy Tan shared during her talk before hundreds at Elliot Hall of Music, the third installment in the Purdue University Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series.having graduated from high school in a Swiss resort town nestled near the French Alps — are worthy of envy.

“It sounds so hoighty-toighty. … But we got to Switzerland through a can of old Dutch cleanser,” Tan told a large crowd Thursday night at Purdue University.

“The author of The Joy Luck Club, which explores the relationship between Chinese mothers and Chinese-American daughters, was relaying the story of how her mother decided to uproot the family from California to Holland.

“The decision was made after Daisy Tan, described as a ‘germophobe’ by her daughter, found the cleaner under the kitchen sink.

“The tale was one of several Amy Tan shared during her talk before hundreds at Elliot Hall of Music, the third installment in the Purdue University Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series.”

Read Sophia Voravong’s Article here.

J.A. Konrath loves booksellers. The author, a former bookseller himself, would have to since he plans on stopping at approximately 500 bookstores on his upcoming author tour. In an effort worthy of the record books (if he makes it), Konrath is looking to squeeze in as many valuable minutes of face time, with as many booksellers as possible, on his tour promoting his latest book Rusty Nail.

Konrath sees his tour as an opportunity to make a lasting impression on a bookseller, which might ultimately be more valuable than interacting with his already established fans. “Booksellers are the most important part of the equation. I can sell 20 of my books in one sitting, but if I make a good impression on a bookseller, he or she can keep selling my book long after I’m gone.”

Read the Publisher’s Weekly article here.