Working Titlez » The Guardian http://workingtitlez.com Book Publishing News and Resources for Authors Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:26:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 “Best Las Vegas Books” — The Guardian http://workingtitlez.com/2011/11/17/best-las-vegas-books-the-guardian/ http://workingtitlez.com/2011/11/17/best-las-vegas-books-the-guardian/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:53:07 +0000 carolynhayesuber http://workingtitlez.stephenspress.com/?p=1795 Oh! Oh! Oh! The UK’s Guardian has named FADE SAG CRUMBLE (www.fadesagcrumble.com) one of the ten BEST BOOKS SET IN LAS VEGAS! Right alongside Hunter S. Thompson, Larry McMurtry, James Ellroy, Tom Wolfe, Dave Hickey, Charles Bock, and John O’Brien. Whoa, that’s exalted company! So proud of our editor Scott Dickensheets and our amazing gang of ten authors! Danielle Kelly’s essay on decay and the Neon Museum is quoted in the article. Thrilled!!
The book is the signature project of the 2011 Vegas Valley Book Festival and features ten of the finest Las Vegas writers exploring decay.
10 of the best books set in Las Vegas
]]> http://workingtitlez.com/2011/11/17/best-las-vegas-books-the-guardian/feed/ 0 The Serious Case of the Serial Comma http://workingtitlez.com/2009/01/29/the-serious-case-of-the-serial-comma/ http://workingtitlez.com/2009/01/29/the-serious-case-of-the-serial-comma/#comments Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:48:43 +0000 admin http://carolynhayesuber.wordpress.com/?p=402 comma1Occasionally, the journalist’s world in which I reside collides with the publisher’s world where I work. Print journalists follow the Associated Press style guides like a sixth sense. Book publishers, on the other hand, refer to the Chicago Manual of Style as “the Bible” and we defer to Chicago for the “right” answer to every sticky grammar or punctuation question. The serial comma has been a thorn in my side from Day One and I’ve recently made an executive decision!

The serial comma, for all of us who didn’t know it had a formal name, is the final comma used in a series of items before the conjunction (usually an “and”).  It is also known as the series, Oxford, or Harvard comma.

Chicago “strongly recommends this widely practiced usage . . . since it prevents ambiguity.” Meanwhile, AP says don’t use it. Other newspaper style guides such as the New York Times and The Guardian concur with AP, while lining up with Chicago are the Elements of Style and the Oxford University Press.

With all these comma experts disagreeing, what’s a book publisher who frequently publishes the work of newspaper journalists to do? Why, adopt the serial comma as our Stephens Press house style, of course.

If anyone ever wondered about the role of the editor, this is yet one more example of the myriad of details that must be checked and rechecked during the editing and proofreading stages of every book.

I am not a user of the serial comma, myself, so it will take some extra effort to retrain this over-stuffed brain, but I’m working on it!

Here are some examples from Chicago of the erstwhile serial comma:

She took a photograph of her parents, the president, and the vice president.
The owner, the agent, and the tenant were having an argument.
I want no ifs, ands, or buts.
Paul put the kettle on, Don fetched the teapot, and I made tea.
The meal consisted of soup, salad, and macaroni and cheese.
John was working, Jean was resting, and Alan was running errands and furnishing food.

If the last element consists of a pair joined by and, the pair should still be preceded by a serial comma and the first and (see the last two examples).

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