Working Titlez

Writing is a solitary endeavor, and save for some tweaking by an editor, the storyline and characters are the author’s own. The author is in charge of what happens when, what each character does, says, and even looks like. So how did seven of the region’s best authors, all tremendously accomplished in their own right, deal with having to share?

John L. Smith said, “In school I often got into trouble for failing to work well with others, so I wasn’t optimistic that I could cooperate on a story with six  writers. Collaborating on a writing project was pretty new for me. But it was intriguing to participate in a collective creative writing project. And I think the story works.”

RESTLESS CITY will debut at this year’s Vegas Valley Book Festival. A signature project of the festival organizers, editor Geoff Schumacher invited seven of the area’s best-known authors to each write a sequential chapter in a yet-untitled book. The only provisions were it had to be set in Las Vegas, be fiction, and each chapter was limited to 3,000 to 4,000 words. Oh, and they’d have a short couple of weeks to write their chapter.

H. Lee Barnes. John Irsfeld, Brian Rouff, Leah Bailly, John L. Smith, Constance Ford and Vu Tran were game for this admittedly experimental project. Barnes set a high standard with the first chapter, and introduced his colleagues to a story we’ve come to label Vegas Noir. By the time John Irsfeld added his contribution, the title RESTLESS CITY was coined by editor Geoff Schumacher.

The concept of a serial novel was recently a bestseller in THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT by thriller-master Jeffery Deaver and a team of likewise bestselling mystery and suspense writers. I read THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT with great curiousity, wondering if I could sense the different voices from chapter to chapter. Yes, I could.

As I can in RESTLESS CITY. But not in a negative way. It is more of an undercurrent that something has shifted as the story moves on. Too, there was a greater anticipation as to where the story would go next as each new author took the reins.

According to author Brian Rouff, RESTLESS CITY required him to “step up my game”. Rouff said “Chapter three was a great opportunity because I got to delve into back story. John Irsfeld gave me a lot to work with. In turn, I finished my chapter with an old-fashioned cliffhanger for the next author. I hope the readers had as much fun as I did.”

THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT was such a success, that Deaver and his colleagues have produced THE COPPER BRACELET. Deaver was fascinted to “see how a group of authors with vastly varied writing styles and approaches to creativity produced such a cohesive thriller with a relentlessly fast-paced narrative”.

Vu Tran, the final chapter author said, “Writing the last chapter and trying to tie up everyone else’s plot and character threads was in turns a unique, infuriating, and fun experience. Complementing and resolving other people’s ideas was even more difficult than I thought it would be, but I ultimately found it very satisfying and educational.”

RESTLESS CITY is available at www.RestlessCity.com and will be available on Amazon and in local bookstores shortly. Both a print and eBook formats are being published. The book will debut at the Vegas Valley Book Festival with a reading by final author Vu Tran on Saturday, November 7 at 4:00 PM at the Historic Fifth Street School (on Fourth Street). Authors will be available to sign books.

P Moss, well-known Las Vegas cultural figure, pens dynamic short story collection.

CityLife Books, the new imprint of Stephens Press, has signed its first author, P Moss, a fiction writer and owner of the famous Double Down Saloon. His short story collection, Blue Vegas, will be released this fall.

PHOTO BY BILL HUGHES P Moss in his office. Okay, it's actually the Double Down bathroom.

“Blue Vegas is the perfect book to launch the CityLife Books imprint,” says Geoff Schumacher, editor of CityLife Books and publisher of the Las Vegas CityLife newspaper. “Moss has produced an incredible collection exploring the dark, human stories lurking in the shadows of the neon sheen of Las Vegas.”

The stories, Schumacher says, represent the work of a writer who knows Las Vegas and is a keen observer of its diverse population.

“Moss’ stories are a visceral exploration of the clash between old and new Las Vegas,” Schumacher says. “They shine a light on the hard luck and lingering anguish faced by Las Vegans who’ve been trampled by this single-minded city.”

After working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, Moss came to Las Vegas in 1992 and opened the Double Down Saloon on Paradise Road. Dubbed a “clubhouse
for the lunatic fringe,” the Double Down soon became internationally famous, drawing a lively mix of tourists and locals. A second Double Down opened in New York’s East Village in 2006, and Moss recently opened a new Las Vegas establishment, Frankie’s Tiki Room, on West Charleston Boulevard.

Despite his success in the bar business, Moss has always envisioned a second career as a writer. “No quality Las Vegas fiction has ever been written,” Moss says. “The soul of the city has never been captured on the printed page. This can be attributed in large part to the fact that writers try to sensationalize the obvious, rather than focusing on the raw human emotions unique to the people who live and work in this unique place. I believe I have done a good job of reversing this trend.”

CityLife Books plans to publish up to four titles per year in a trade paperback format. The books will be available directly to CityLife newspaper readers and at area bookstores and online retailers.

Stephens Press is a division of Stephens Media LLC, and a sister company to CityLife and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Established in 2003, the press publishes primarily regional nonfiction.

“The imprint provides a vehicle to publish quality Vegas-centric fiction with a unique CityLife vibe,” says Carolyn Hayes Uber, president of Stephens Press, “and we’re especially excited to have P Moss’ stories set a high bar for our fiction offerings.”

CityLife Books accepts nonfiction and fiction proposals and manuscripts that speak to regular readers of the alternative weekly newspaper. For submission guidelines and more information, check out the imprint’s website at www.lvcitylifebooks.com.

Our friends at the Vegas Valley Book Festival have launched a new signature event, “Las Vegas Writes,” a collaborative serial novel that is being written by seven local authors over the next five months. The first chapter was completed recently by Stephens Press author H. Lee Barnes. It was released for public reading today at www.lvcitylife.com.

“Some of the city’s best writers have committed to this project,” said local journalist and author Geoff Schumacher, who is coordinating the project for the book festival and serving as the novel’s editor. “The novel promises to be well written, fast paced and drenched in the sights and sounds of Las Vegas.”

Subsequent chapters, released every three weeks, will be written by John Irsfeld, Brian Rouff, Leah Bailly, John. L. Smith, Constance Ford and Vu Tran. The final chapter, written by Tran, will be released and read at the closing of the book festival on Sunday, November 8^th.

Lee Barnes is the author of five books and teaches creative writing at the College of Southern Nevada. His opening chapter sets the stage for a diverse cast of characters in a Las Vegas setting. He’s followed by an equally fine lineup of local writers.

I’ve been enjoying an “insider’s” opportunity to read these chaps as they are submitted, and I can say the entire concept is fascinating. The writers amongst us will marvel at the notion of picking up another’s characters and plot and moving the story along its arc — and be insanely curious at what subsequent authors will do. It has been a lot of fun speculating what each new chapter will reveal. Bookmark the CityLife website to follow along, and I’ll try to post reminders as each new chap is uploaded.

Now in its eighth year, the book festival is presented by the city of Las Vegas, Nevada Humanities, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and the Las Vegas Review-Journal with the local chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts as the official branding sponsor.

My enthusiasm for the VVBF continues to grow. As the largest literature event in Las Vegas, the festival will present more than 100 authors in a full schedule of readings, panel discussions and book signings, with most sessions taking place at the Historic Fifth Street School downtown. Other special book festival programs include the Comics Festival at the Clark County Library, the Target Children’s Festival on Centennial Plaza, the Local Authors Fair in the Fountain Courtyard at the Historic Fifth Street School and Poetry Under the Stars on the Lewis Avenue Corridor. More info: 229-5431 or www.artslasvegas.org\vvbf.

Red Room is the online home of many of the world’s greatest writers. It’s a prestigious place for the literary community to promote their work, express themselves, and connect with their favorite authors. Author Geoff Schumacher is one such member and was recently named Red Room’s ‘Rising Star’. Click here to visit Schumacher’s author profile and discover more about this acclaimed author – from reading his blog to finding out about his writing influences and upcoming projects.

Exciting news! From the press release . . .

CityLife partners with

Stephens Press to publish books

Stephens Press, the book publishing division of Stephens Media, has launched a new imprint called CityLife Books.

CityLife Books will publish up to four titles per year in a trade paperback format. The books will be available directly to CityLife newspaper readers and at area bookstores and online retailers.

CityLife Publisher Geoff Schumacher, the imprint’s editor, said he is looking for nonfiction and fiction proposals and manuscripts that speak to regular readers of the alternative weekly newspaper. “This imprint aims to create a new outlet for local writers who have something provocative or important to say about Southern Nevada,” Schumacher says. “We want to publish books that question the conventional wisdom and offer new ways of looking at this region and its people. Great writing will be paramount.”

Schumacher, who has written two books published by Stephens Press and edited several others, says he expects to receive a great many manuscripts. “I will look at them all, but of course we can publish only a tiny fraction of what we receive,” he says. “Quality comes first, but we also will focus on books that we believe a large number of readers will want to buy.”

Stephens Press President Carolyn Hayes Uber says she is excited to help talented writers share their voice and vision. “CityLife readers are outspoken and passionate about popular culture, politics and causes,” Uber says. “CityLife Books, whether fiction or nonfiction, will reflect and embrace this perspective the newspaper has fostered.”

Submissions to CityLife Books should follow the guidelines set forth on the Stephens Press website (www.stephenspress.com).

My colleague Geoff Schumacher recently presented a workshop on journalism for the Las Vegas Writers Conference. Included in his handouts was this essay about writing. I thought it deserved to be shared with other writers and lovers of writing, so I sought his permission to post it here.

“I write because I can’t do normal work like other people.”

Orhan Pamuk, winner of 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature

“Words on a page give the world coherence.”

Alberto Manguel, Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World

Photo courtesy Scriatic (CC)

Writers write. If you’re a writer, you can’t help yourself. Putting words on paper, or onto a computer screen, is part of who you are. Writing helps us understand and give order to our chaotic lives and to a turbulent world.

Most writers want others to read their work. We want attention, validation, reassurance, fame. We want to be praised, questioned, challenged. We can’t help but write, but we like it better when our words are disseminated widely.

Despite our economic troubles, there never has been a better time to be a writer, because there never have been so many avenues to publication. Consider: You can set up a Facebook or Twitter page in about two minutes and start publishing your words to your friends and colleagues. Or you can set up a blog in about five minutes and start publishing for all the world to see.

These may seem like mundane forms of publishing, but I disagree. I have 255 friends on Facebook. If I write an essay and post it on my Facebook page, it is immediately available for perusal by 255 people who, because they know me, are likely to take a look at it. How would you have accomplished such an endeavor 30 years ago? If you wrote an essay and wanted to share it with your friends and colleagues, you would have had to make photocopies and either hand them out or put them in the mail to reach those 255 people. That’s a lot of copies, a lot of envelopes, a lot of addresses to track down and a lot of stamps. This process also would take a lot more time – days, maybe weeks.

Of course, we also would like to be compensated for our writing. We want our writing to be a money-making venture, not just an obsession or hobby. This complicates matters, but it’s not an unreasonable request. In order to be paid for writing, though, we must write something that a publication is willing to buy. This often means writing that is substantially different in style and substance from what we might post on Facebook or in a personal blog.

More often than not, what we’re talking about is journalism: facts, figures, interviews, research. We must be thorough, accurate. We must explore multiple perspectives. We must delve into subjects we might not otherwise care about. And then, once we’ve gathered the materials we need, we must organize all those facts, figures, quotes and multiple perspectives into a coherent and entertaining piece of writing.

It looks easy. It’s not.

But it’s also not brain surgery. Journalism is a craft that requires a set of skills that can be developed by most people who know how to read and to write a clear sentence.

The most important trait of a good journalist is curiosity. Successful journalists are innately curious about how things work. They follow a road to see where it leads. They ask lots of questions and genuinely want to know the answers. They aren’t afraid of talking to strangers. They aren’t satisfied with the conventional wisdom.

Successful journalists also are persistent. When they ask questions, they expect answers. They aren’t deterred by roadblocks. They know there is more than one way to get the information they seek.

Sometimes, journalism isn’t such a serious business. But writing a restaurant review or reporting on a ball game still demands the same skills needed to uncover the Watergate scandal.

4-27-09

Geoff Schumacher, a veteran journalist, is the director of community publications for Stephens Media. He is also the publisher of CityLife and Big Island Weekly. He has written two books, Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas and Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue (Stephens Press) and is working on two more. Schumacher was recently named editor of CityLife Books, a Stephens Press imprint. He writes a weekly column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For more information, see www.geoffschumacher.com.

Books about books are a category I didn’t even know existed until my colleague Geoff Schumacher, a true bibliophile, introduced me. Currently I’m reading Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry, of Lonesome Dove fame. His life in the book world is fascinating and who knew he has owned Booked Up one of the biggest used and rare bookstores in the country (300,000 books) in the unlikely location of Archer City, Texas for thirty years. A rare interview with McMurtry in the Houston Chronicle reveals his concerns for readers in a world of technological gadgets taking the place of a good book.

Little did I know “Desert Contemporary” is a design style, but now that I’ve seen it, I’m a fan. The Las Vegas Business Press reception for the debut of the 2009 Book of Lists was an elegant affair, held at Blue Heron’s Marquis Las Vegas. The networking event drew over 300 business folks plus Howard Hughes (well, fabulous HH impersonator Michael Parris Newman). Top notch catering was provided by the uber-student-chefs of Le Cordon Bleu who circulated with yummy canapes — the stuffed mushrooms were incredible. But back to this amazing party house — 9,000 square feet on four floors (yes, there is an elevator) of the latest green technologies make it a net-zero energy home. The indoor/outdoor living spaces are jazzed up with an ultra-modern take on vintage Vegas decor. As for outdoor living — the walls disappear, making the transition from in to out seamless. There’s an outdoor living room with a two-story fountain and THREE televisions, an outdoor bedroom and even an outdoor shower. According to the RJ’s article on the New American Home, it is best described as Jetsons meet the Rat Pack. Best yet, Stephens Press was invited to provide the literary vibe, hosting four Las Vegas Review-Journal columnists and SP authors including John L. Smith, Heidi Knapp Rinella, Steven Kalas and Geoff Schumacher. Guests enjoyed the chance to talk to their favorite columnists and we even sold a few books. All in all, a first class event with kudos to Michelle Stewart and her able team from the Business Press.

The "Rock Star" of Writing, author Neil Gaiman (photo by Andrew Taylor)

The annual Vegas Valley Book Festival just concluded. Held for the first time at the Historic Fifth Street School, the new venue helped contribute to the “best yet” festival. What a whirlwind of activities devoted to the celebration of reading and writing! There was something for everyone from the Target Children’s Book Fest to a plethora of programming for aficionados of graphic novels and comic books. The craft of writing was furthered with workshops on everything from character development and point of view to authenticating crime stories. Over eighty individual authors had sales tables and poets performed in the courtyard. Stephens Press was well represented with our own sales area and several of our authors gave presentations in the auditorium. Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment columnist Mike Weatherford interviewed celebrity columnist Norm Clarke, whose newest book, Vegas Confidential: Sinsational Celebrity Tales debuted at the festival, and Norm didn’t disappoint, shaing some “scoops” with the audience that hadn’t hit the media yet. Next up, author and editor Geoff Schumacher (Howard Hughes: Politics, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue) interviewed Laraine Russo Harper, author of Legal Tender: True Tales of a Brothel Madam. Laraine shared her experiences running a legal brothel with plenty of wit and funny stories. Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead: The Bumpy Road to Getting Published author Maralys Wills took the stage along with yours truly. The audience asked many questions following the tips presented for improving manuscripts and seeking publication. The festival was “bookended” by a pair of star authors. The opening keynote, Neil Gaiman drew a capacity crowd of fans for his body of work (Mirrormask, Stardust, American Gods, and more). The Brit-born author gave a long and rambling talk about modern culture, authors who’ve influenced him and his writing, and read from The Graveyard, his newest title. Pulizer Prize winner (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union) Michael Chabon gave the closing keynote address. His essay-like talk covered a lot of territory from Legos to the uber-insulated life our children live today. Interestingly, both Gaiman and Chabon talked about the “crap” their children read — or that they read as children — and observed that while it may not have been literature, it added to their perceptions and body of knowledge. Or, as Neil put it, “great stuff can be grown in crap”. Key sponsors incude the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the City of Las Vegas, the Clark County Library, and Nevada Humanities. It takes a lot of people and a lot of support to pull off such a successful event. I’m heartened and encouraged to see this annual event really come into its own.

L-R Author Laraine Russo Harper, Yours Truly, and Editor Geoff Schumacher

I got to do one of my very favorite things yesterday — present an author with the very first copy of her very first book. There is nothing quite like holding the “real thing” in your hands, the heft and weight of it, turning the pages, the smell of fresh ink — and thinking about the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours that went into the project. From research and fact-finding, to interviews and phone calls, long nights on the computer, writing and rewriting, tweaking and massaging until you have something you can call a manuscript. Then comes the quest for a publisher (which could be the subject of a whole book in itself) and then the editing, production and manufacturing process. Once the book is in hand, “the real work commences”. The marketing, interviews, signings, presentations — there’s a lot to this book biz! The one comment that authors frequently make to me is that it feels a lot like having a baby — all of the work and effort and the lengthy process — and the reward of finally seeing one’s words in print. Of course, I point out, in most cases, one can usually produce a human child on a much faster schedule than publishing a book! More information here: Media Advisory Legal Tender.