Bookish thoughts 20 Aug: publishings dead (again), winning back YA male readers, sexy authorial voices & more!

RIASS stuff:

Other bookish stuff:

Attention aspiring Aussie romance authors: Harlequin Books Aus has just launched'Harlequin Escape, a landing portal for open manuscript submissions to expand on local acquisition and to unearth new Australian writing talent.

The six most certifiably insane acts of writing. And here you are thinking that writers are all about spending their days on Twitter and reading the newspaper and strolling around the house in fluffy slippers. These writers efforts (though probably not insane, despite the article title) show the lengths that some writers will go to in the name of their craft. Ever thought about typing an entire novel with only your eyelid? Or about publishing a novel written (in longhand, and without editing) by a 9-year-old girl?

Print Books vs. eBooks vs. enhanced eBooks. Which ones will conquer the readers hearts?'Im going to go with the good ones.

A round-up of kidlit author interviews from the Sydney Writers Centre'Includes interviews from Cath Crowley, Mal Peet, Margo Lanagan, and Emily Rodda.

New Brooklyn-based SF/F bookstore devoted to rescuing out-of-print science fiction books and making them into free ebooks'The shop aims to select and digitise one such book a month.

What can writers learn from the songs of Morrissey?'Um, that its good for your career to have a sexy voice?

Fear Factor: kids lit style'This is an oldie, but I havent seen it before. If youre looking to the US-based Common Sense Media for book reviews to help guide you in your purchasing decisions, you may want to balance those reviews with plenty from elsewhere (or perhaps just go elsewhere in the first place): the true content and value of the books being reviewed can too easily be obscured by careful counts of how many times hell is used in a manuscript or whether they include stuff like smoking or drinking. According to the author, these counts are rarely contextualised, with reviewers focusing on the negative stuff without extolling the merits of reading widely. Im not sure how much this sort of thing is an issue here in Australia, but it wouldnt surprise me that were becoming more conservative and touchy as well.

Chloe Hooper on her new novel'The Engagement, which she feared might well be a literary'50 Shades of Grey. Even though we talk about people marrying lessthere still seems to be such a lot of pressure on women to formalise things.But, actually, were mediaeval in our attitudes to female desire and sexuality.

A libertarian house on the prairie'With US Vice-President candidate Paul Ryans reading choices including Ayn Rands'Atlas Shrugged, the author suggests that revisiting'Little House on the Prairie might provide echoes of a similar libertarian perspective (if a little more humane). The books'were written in collaboration with Ingalls Wilders daughter Rose Wilder Lane, a woman whose politics took a sharp right after the Depression. Her vision was of a frontier democracy'a Republic of the Fittest'with no handouts or entitlements, and minimal taxation, says the author of the article.

Who needs publishers and bookshops, eh? Oh, wait. Everyone.'Its cynical to simply throw up ones hands and say oh! Who needs all of that stuff? Lets just whack it on the internet and wait for the readers to come, says the author. Not to mention unhelpful. Although independent publishing can be an alternative to traditional publishing, its not'the alternative to traditional publishing.

Mo Willems Secrets For Raising a Reader I kind of love that tip number 1 is yell and scream. But in a good way, of course: its all about hamming it it up. And also choosing books full of naughty words and toilet humour. Willems also points out that its important not to talk down to a young reader by assuming that their emotional lives arent as rich or as deep as adults.

On winning back the teenage male in YA books'In a world where action heroes always get the girl and where computer games are won when the baddie is killed, the world needs a genre where young boys self-doubts and confusion can be tapped. And therein lies the major advantage books have over any other form of entertainment: the ability to relate and connect with ones innermost thoughts -even the notoriously tangled, vague, and suppressed emotions of the teenage boy, says the author.

A curated bundle of articles about race and ethnicity and the arts

Meanie reviewers are being called on it'Ohlin's language betrays an appalling lack of register ' language that limps onto the page proudly indifferent to pitch or vigor is one of many quotable lines out of this review. Is this book truly so awful, or is it a case of the wrong reviewer being assigned to the wrong book? Still, I bet this resulted in more sales than a positive review