Texas Pages

As with the Editors Buzz Panel I attended earlier, the authors who read at the Emerging Voices session this afternoon are not guaranteed successes. Still, these are new writers who have managed to iimpress, and at least a couple are likely to find success.

First was Nami Mun (who scored a double by winning mention at the aforementioned Buzz panel), who read from Miles From Nowhere. She's not a dynamic reader -- she apologized ahead of time becuase her voice does tend to sound as if she's about to cry -- but her prose was powerful as she painted vivid scenes of a young woman living on some extremely hard streets.

Her editor had gone out of her way to point out that this was NOT a memoir, so I asked Nami afterward just how much of her actual life was in the novel.

For the second year in a row, Rue Judd, publisher of Bright Sky Press of Albany, Texas was able to provide some good perspective on BEA for me.

Rue has been coming to these events since 1981 -- although she says she might have missed one or two. Back then, her press might do half of its annual sales at the convention.

These days, she says, it's about networking. But it's still a selling opportunity, she says.

"The Barnes & Nobles, Borders and Amazons are here," she says. "They may not write their order, but they see us and do a lot of comparing."

I caught the tail end of Thomas Friedman's keynote speech, wherein he recapped his arguments from Hot, Flat and Crowded and encouraged the audience to act NOW to save the world for our children, and ourselves.

I then walked to lunch and ate a sandwich that came in a nonrecyclable plastic tub and soda in a cup that was also nonrecyclable. Both ended up in the trash.

Perhaps I should have listened to the whole speech.

Here's one for the beer lovers. This October, Houston's Bright Sky Press will publish Mike Renfro's Shine On!, a history of Shiner Brewery and beer. To mark the occasion, Bright Sky was to have frosty cold bottles for the enjoyment of all in the main exhibit hall Friday. One problem: the beer didn't show (at least as of early afternoon). Bright Sky's Ruina Wallace Judd had confirmation on the shipping, but the suds were still missing. More to come.

Well, I was supposed to. I checked out the party for Dennis Lehane's new book The Given Day last night at the Mondrian's Sky Bar on Sunset Blvd. (I feel so LA). Hung out with some nice publicists and some beautiful people, but I had to jet to see a movie (Get Smart) before the guest of honor arrived. That's the thing about LA: you have to allow an hour to get anywhere. And pay $20 for valet.

Then, fun after the flick: my buddy Scott took to me a Tiki dive bar in Silver Lake called Tiki T. Told me to order two Ooga Boogas. As the bartender poured, the bar's populace started chanting": "Ooga-Booga, Ooga-Booga" (add your own slurring). The more they chanted, the more dark rum he poured. Imagine a shady and colorful version of Trader Vic's and you'll get the idea. Good times. Hey, you know what Jack said about all work and no play.

Mr. Merschel has already dropped some info on the sheer size of this thing. But it's still hard to comprehend the scene. Row after row after of book purveyors pushing product. Some guy dressed as Shakespeare. People promoting apocalypse books with "prepare to meet thy doom"-style placards. As a newbie I have to say I'm pretty overwhelmed. In a good way, of course.

Gonna spend much of my day checking out Ignatius MacFarland: Frequenaut!, a new kids book by Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig. I'm supposed to talk to him near the end of the day, shortly before jetting (or crawling in traffic) across town to talk to Steve Carell. Stay tuned, and send the paramedics if you don't hear back.

I hope you are getting the sense that this event is definitely a "you'll never know exactly whom you'll run into" experience. For example, you might be sitting in a press office, and suddenly, at the table next to you, is a genuine comedy legend -- Stan Freberg.

He and his wife, Hunter, are here to do business -- they are pitching a book on their life together, and are hoping to sign a deal soon. (Which further blows my pet theory that this event is all about the parties, but at this point, I don't care.)

Hunter has Dallas ties by the way -- her mother was from our fair city.

In an impromptu interview, he told a couple of stories and discussed some ongoing work.

The books discussed at the BEA Editors Buzz panel are not guaranteed to be excellent, or even good. But they are an indication of what some of the top editors at the top publishing houses are most excited about. So one way or another, you will probably be hearing about the titles pitched this morning as the first big day of the big expo.

And it apparently will be a big year for bad kids and witchcraft. Here's what was "buzzed:"

Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, says her favorite book for the fall season is Philip Roth's Indignation, coming in September from Houghton Mifflin.

An acknowledged Roth fan, she says, "I'm not saying it's the best best, but it's up there among his best."

One more celebrity sighting for the evening: At a party thrown tonight by publisher Sourcebooks at the Autry National Center, Marty Stuart performed a few numbers to promote his forthcoming photo book/CD Country Music: The Masters. Wife Connie Smith joined him.

Nikki Giovanni gave an excellent history lesson in discussing her children's book, Hip Hop Speaks to Children. And regular Dallas Morning News contributor Alan Cheuse did a reading from his new novel, To Catch the Lightning, which has already been marked for coveted "buzz" by Publisher's Weekly. Alan did a reading that definitely made me want to go back for more. The book comes out in October.

I met Russ Lawrence this evening. He's a onetime Texan (having attended Southern Methodist University in the 1970s), a current Montanan (operator of the Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton) and as of this week, the former head of the American Booksellers Association.

Russ was quite aware of the bookselling situation in Dallas -- and pointed to the pending arrival of Legacy Books as a sign of optimism for independent booksellers as a whole.

"To have a 25,000 square foot book store opening in Dallas, which has been bereft [of independents], is big news," he said.

Russ said that as chain stores and Internet retailers took over the bookselling scene, the number of independent stores nationwide had dropped from 5,000 to about a third of that. But in the past two to three years, the pendulum has started to swing back the other way, he says.