June 1 Newsletter
Prompt--that old van. More on book reviews...
Zion National Park, spring 2023, waking up to snow…
As you know, if you’re a regular reader of the Unschool, we were off traveling around the States to see the eclipse, cousins, family, and friends. In Colorado, the old campervan started to lets us know she was in distress… Somehow, she hauled up mountains and on highways 1300 miles home. And now, the decision whether or not to put a new engine in her.
Once upon a time I had a 1968 Falcon that was so soggy there was a baby maple tree growing in the carpeting of the passenger side. I couldn’t bring myself to pull it out. It was just doing its thing.
So the prompt: share a vehicle story. Maximum length 400 words. If you post one, please take the time to post responses to others’ stories. Does the vehicle feel like a character? Protagonist or antagonist? I found myself muttering things to the old van, cheering her on through those 1300 miles—no antagonist there. But it could all feel quite otherwise!
Maybe a vehicle has had a role in some sizable life-change… what? how?
Maybe it was a metaphor.
Or a MacGuffin.
Post your stories in the “Leave Comments,” please.
Follow-up on Book Reviews
Early in the month of May I responded to a question about writing book reviews, and noted that I would follow up with thought on the pay for this work, and the ethics around reviewing works that are, inevitably, produced in such a small community that it is more than likely you’ll know some of the writers whose work you are reviewing.
First, let’s talk about payment
My income from reviewing doesn’t pay for my music tickets in the course of a year. Or half a year. But it probably does pay a good long month of groceries. That’s something.
There are many reasons to review books. And yes, I do some reviews for very little pay (the reviews I write on Medium, for example, mostly to promote independently-published books. Reason: I know how HARD it is to get such a book out into the world).
This is a personal decision. So much of the work artists do is either unpaid or underpaid. I’ve chosen to either write reviews for a review journal that pays $100 or I write for those whose books I want to champion on Medium in a publication that I work with, Write & Review. For those, the pay can wildly fluctuate—as you know if you write on that platform. Unfortunately, the readership of reviews can be quite small.
I know how significant it can be to have a handful of people read your work and find personal value in it. You know that, too, if you write and publish. It’s why we’re here.
That said, I won’t review just any book, and I won’t do it for $25. I want my name on reviews of works that are honest. And the pay has to be reflective of some portion of the work. Or it has to be worthwhile on a personal level.
Reviewing works of people you know
Because I’ve been both writing and teaching for decades, I know many writers. Canada is a big place, but the writing world is small. I have one foot in the adult-writing world, and another in the creating of works for young people. If I said “no” to reviewing books of those I know, I wouldn’t be writing many.
Recently, I’ve had the experience of knowing that the opportunity to review a book was turned down first by one reviewer who cited her ancestry as the reason to not review, and second, by another who read the ‘trigger warning’ at the outset of the book, and decided she couldn’t review it either.
The editor then asked me if I would consider the work. For me, word about this YA book had to get out to the world, regardless of my ancestry and my feelings and thoughts about the content.
Again, it’s a personal decision. The choices of the other reviewers are theirs. You have to do what you can live and sleep with.
The book was well-written, with all the elements that make for a review I feel positively about.
My LINE is: I will not hold back my thoughts on a work because I happen to know the writer.
If I really don’t want to say something negative, then I don’t review the book. But before I get to that point I need to question the negativity: is it warranted? is it “just me”? How will other readers experience the book? What are the strengths of the work?
There’s a line between content and execution.
Recently, in my book club group, we read Sharon Blackie’s If Women Rose Rooted, a book that had so much potential but the editor appeared to have been sleeping. It’s a book of which I could speak appreciatively of the content. But the repetitive nature of the thing, the digressions, the lack of cohesion… it was so much sprawl, with themes unresolved; in the closing pages the author was still struggling with what she’d been on page one, with no seeming awareness of it.
I have written reviews that speak to the lack of editorial work. When you’ve been writing and publishing long enough, you gain a sense of what it means to a work when the other members of the team aren’t doing their piece. It frustrates me.
If Women Rose Rooted is the type of book that, after reading, I would take my time to slow and consider what others might find useful about it. I would also take seriously the task to give it a ‘fair’ review. Much of the writing, line by line, is beautiful, but the way it is structured has rendered it tedious, anecdotal, and so self-oriented that there is little room left for the reader to find herself invited inside the pages.
Whew. I don’t enjoy writing that. I would prefer to review works that have nourished my soul, or at least piqued my mind.
That said, it was interesting to look up the amazon reviews of this book. I was rather stunned at the 5-star reviews, then realized that many were unfinished reads, or based on what they’d read and their excitement about the book landing in their mail-box…
Ah, we live in a world of not professional voices all around us. I miss the “books” sections that used to exist in newspapers and journals.
But one lone review gave one star and cited “too many anecdotes,” and in that there was a whiff of reality.
Ask yourself:
What is it about me that makes this work “a fit” for me to review? (It might be simply that you are a reviewer, and it is a book. Then again, you might have intimate knowledge of writing and/or reading YA novels, picturebooks, poetry… )
Are there reasons I should not review this work? Might someone else be optimal? (Is there someone else?)
What is a “fair” review for this work? And for its potential readers? Who are its readers—are they people I understand? (I think of this when I am asked to review a genre that I don’t generally read and/or appreciate.)
Your experiences? Questions?
~~~
Re-cap of May posts
Each month begins with a potpourri post, which is free for all readers, and serves as a sort of introduction to what The Unschool is about. For May we had a Mother’s Day prompt, and a picturbook-workshop call with some links to archived picturbook-writing posts and words about the nature of this form of writing.
A fourth question came in for your On-the-road Q&A series about writing book reviews.
Picturebook writing is tricky. It can take an unbelievably long time to pull together those three or four hundred words… or seventy! And I speak to the slow process in this piece:
In this post, I looked at developing a contemplative practice of stillness and silence as a path to living with both success (and the lack of it. They’re two sides of the same, right? Dealing with life as an artist includes both).
And it’s a long month, so I posted a piece just mid-week, on “transitions”—moving from one part of a work to another smoothly, with examples.
~~~
Regarding book reviews, I write reviews for an education magazine and the pay is less than $25. However, I justify it by (a) I am helping to get the word out about a book that may help teachers as well as the author, and (b) I learn a lot from reading the books so it's like being paid to study, and (c) it's a bit og PR for my newsletter. That last is not to be discounted lightly, because the magazine reaches thousands of people. As for negative reviews, I don't like writing them either, especially as I know some of the authors and I always have my name in the byline. However, I think the reviewer's duty is, ultimately, to the reader or potential buyer, not the author. A couple of authors objected to my reviews of their books last year, and there were some nasty comments made about me publicly. I never respond to that sort of thing, and it only stopped when somebody tweeted "But Terry recommended it!" . Has that stopped me being critical where necessary? No, because the reviewer has a duty to be honest in my opinion, otherwise what's the point? I have not yet been obliged to open a book review with a sentence I came across a few years ago, in a magazine: "This is the most badly written book I have ever read."
Two Old Guys Talking
“Wow! Look at that! She’s gorgeous!”
Across the street from the coffee shop a Lamborghini-dark green with a red star emblazoned on the hood over the word Heineken-slowly pulled into a parking spot. The driver killed the engine and, after a few moments, opened the driver’s side door and awkwardly got out. He was a tall man, at least 6’ 4”, too tall to sit comfortably in a Lamborghini, thin, greying, probably in his mid to late 50s, and dressed like nearly everyone in Vancouver in early spring, in sneakers, jeans and fleece. He crossed the street, walking stiffly towards the beer and wine store up the block.
“You know,” Ted said, “A car like that is like a gorgeous woman. Sleek, powerful, stunningly beautiful. What a guy wouldn’t do to get inside her!”
Ellrod glanced over a next table where a mother and her young daughter were sitting, both on their phones, oblivious to the conversation.
“Expensive, high maintenance,” Ellrod said. “Probably way more than the average guy can handle. There was a story in the news a couple of years ago. A guy rented a Ferrari for a weekend and took it up the Sea-to-Sky. He got as far as Squamish before he crashed it. It caught on fire. Total loss.”
Ted snorted. “Probably covered by insurance.”
But Ellrod was thinking about his own automotive history. His first vehicle was a white, 1965 Ford Econoline van that his father had purchased for his small contracting firm. When his father sold the company and he and his young son moved to the coast, he kept the van, and Ellrod drove it during his teen years. It helped him make a few friends in high school and get in a couple of bands. He threw a mattress in the back and he and his first serious girlfriend took it camping. He recalled one evening in particular, a campfire, the scent of patchouli, the taste of hashish, an Indian lace blouse, a print cotton skirt. Ellrod felt a stir and took a sip of his coffee.
The Lamborghini driver returned from the liquor store with a case of Canadian under his arm. He placed the beer on the ground beside the car, opened the driver’s door, bent over, and looked inside. There was no room for the beer behind the seats. He popped the trunk lid, carried the beer to the rear of the car, and raised the trunk lid. The trunk was full of engine. He carried the beer back to the drivers door, and, reaching in, pulled the hood latch. He placed the beer on the pavement in front of the car, opened the hood, and peered in. There was no room there for a case of beer. He slammed the hood shut and scratched his head.
He carried the beer back to the driver’s door. Kneeling on the pavement, he placed the beer in the driver’s seat, and pushed it over to the passenger side. Then he awkwardly got into the car, started it up, and cautiously pulled into the street. The Lamborghini stopped at the stop sign and then turned right, onto Athlete’s Way, moving slowly, in first gear, the engine roaring.
Ellrod listened as the sound of the Lambo’s engine gradually diminished. His cars had nearly always been inexpensive, second-hand. Most were reliable. Only a few had ever left him stranded.