Let Me Whisper In Your Ear

by Helen E. H. Madden

Digital vs. traditional. What a discussion! I've always considered my writing career one giant experiment, so it should be no surprise that I'm quite happy being e-published. I've even taken to reading e-books myself (yes, really!) now that I have a decent device to read them on. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to have a library of books on my little Asus EEE netbook. But the net book wasn't my first means of getting my fiction fix digitally, nor were e-books my only means of getting electronically published.

A few years ago, at a science fiction convention not too far from my home, I attended a workshop on podcasting. I had no clue about what podcasting was, only that it had something to do with iPods. This particular workshop was billed as a must for writer interested in promoting their work. Since I was a new writer who had just signed a contract for my first e-book, I decided to look into it. That's where I met Tee Morris, the godfather of podcasting.

Tee is one of many authors, and I believe the first, to create an audio recording of one of his book and post it to the internet for free. He has not been the last, not by a long shot. That weekend, I sat through several hours, listening to Tee and Rich Sigfrit and others talk about the benefits of creating free these free audio recordings and giving them away. I got my degree in broadcast journalism, so it wasn't hard to convince me. that this was somethng I wanted to try. All I would need was a USB mic, some audio recording and editing software (which I could get for free), enough space on my hard drive to store my recordings, and a website to post my work.

Oh, and I needed a topic.

Yeah, that last part was tricky. I was all a-buzz with the want, the need, to get my work out there on the intertubes, but I had no idea what to say. The one thing Tee Morris had emphasized over and over again in his workshop was the need for good content. A podcaster could get away with an okay technical set up, so long as what they recorded would grab the audience's attention.

In search of ideas, I bought a tiny little iPod and downloaded a bunch of other people's podcasts. I listened to fiction and non-fiction, full length books and short stories. There was Tee Morris' Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword, Scott Sigler's Ancestor, Mur Lafferty's I Should Be Writing, Danni Cutler's Truth Seekers, and dozens of others. Pretty soon, I was getting my geek fix with Escape Pod, Psuedo Pod, and then Podcastle, all podcast magazines of short genre fiction. There was even an erotica author out there, Nobilis Reed of the Nobilis Erotica Podcast. I was in heaven, listening to all these stories while I exercised and cleaned house, taking them with me anywhere I wanted to go.

But I still didn't know what **I** wanted to podcast myself. I was getting desperate. I so wanted to get out there on the net and have my own show. The amazing ability to whisper my thoughts, my stories, my ideas, into people's ears seemed like such power ot me. The answer of what to record finally came to me while listening to Jared Axelrod's Aliens You Will Meet. This was my favorite podcast of them all. It was simply a very short spiel told by a computerized assistant to a galactic ambassador, detailing the aliens he would meet that day. It sounds strange. It's hysterically funny. As a story telling device, it's brilliant. Imagine what your day-planner would say to you if it could talk!

But the thing about it was, it was short, really short. I suddenly had the idea that perhaps I could write a series of flash ficiton pieces and record them. Writing flash fiction made sense. I had a tight schedule. Any new project I took on couldn't take up too much time. So I made a plan to write twenty or so pieces of flash fiction, to see how that would fit into my schedule. I would write the stories first before recording a single line, to give myself plenty of lead time on the techincal aspect of things. I knew it would be important to keep up with regular output. Once I got started, I'd have to keep going to build an audience, and that meant writing in well in advance of recording and producing and posting my work. What I didn't know, didn't count on, was that I would fall in love with what I was doing right off the bat.

I wrote my first piece of flash fiction for the podcast, a horror piece that I submitted to the storytime group at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. No sooner was it done than I was suddenly inspired to write a whole series of horror stories. "That's it!" I thought to myself. "I'll start in October, with a monthly theme of horror stories. Then in Novemember I can write about feasts. For December, I can write about gifts..."

It was already the first week of September. My plans to write 20 stories in advance went straight out the window. I spent the rest of that month knocking out four more horror erotica stories, buying a mic, setting up audio software and getting an RSS feed for my show. I mixed my own music from some free sound loops I had, and over that in as sexy a voice as I could muster, I recorded the following:

Warning, this podcast contains sexually explicit material, and is only intended for listeners ages 18 and older...

In the background, you could hear what sounded like the engine of a space ship revving up. Then the bomb sirens kicked in, along with the music, and "Welcome to Heat Flash..."

Heat Flash, the intense burst of heat that accompanies a nuclear explosion. Also, short erotic fiction available in audio format every week. That was my show. And it all started two years ago. Since then, I've written, recorded and produced over 100 stories for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. It's science fiction, fantasy, and horror erotica, the stuff I love the most. It's also completely free to anyone who wants to listen. I don't make any money off of it, at least not directly. I do think it keeps me out of the slush pile when I submit for anthologies, and it goes a long way toward promoting me and the other projects I work on. Last winter, I was picked up by Radio Dentata for part of their erotic story time line up on Thursday evenings. Again, still no pay, but you know what? I don't care. I'm addicted to the format. Each week, I can't wait to sit down and read my stories into the mic. I can't wait to mix those recordings together with some music and then send it out to whole wide world. I've had over 40,000 downloads of my show in the last 2 years. That's a lot of ears to whisper into. And I'm no longer the no-name writer with a handful of publishing credits to her name.

I'm a podcasting star, baby. And you could be one too. All it takes is a USB microphone, some free audio editing software, a little hard drive space and a website with an RSS feed.

Oh, and content. Something you want to record, something you desperately need to share with the rest of the world, to whisper into eveyrone's ear. That's the hard part, but it's also the best part.

Words, words, words

By Ashley Lister

The written language, as we all know, began from the oral tradition. Before ebooks, before print books, even before we started engraving lists in tablets of stone, people were telling stories from mouth to ear. This is not to suggest that any one of those methods is superior to another (although I wouldn’t want to carry the latest Stephen King novel in my back pocket if it had been carved in tablets of stone). This is just a prefatory reminder that the most important point in storytelling is not the medium: it’s the message. Or, to quote Hamlet: Words, words, words.

I was part of a poetry recital last month. Along with several other poets, I was reading some of my work at a local library. The audience was a modest crowd of poetry enthusiasts and my fellow poets were local writers of different levels of skill and ability.

As a writer, and to distract myself from the worry of performance anxiety, I took to watching people and trying to pre-guess the quality of their work through their personal presentation. This probably sounds like the worst sort of judgemental snobbery. It is. However, because it helped calm my nerves, I still feel as though the exercise was justified. And, I wasn’t judging people on their personal appearance. I was judging them on the appearance of their poetry.

Mary-Ellen was the first poet to take the microphone. Mary-Ellen reads from type-written versions of her poems that are protected by stiff laminate covers. Her poems use flowers as a metaphor for sex. Long slender stems plunge into open, moist vases. Petals unfold for the wanton/welcome penetration of Mr Bee. I only had to hear one of her poems to understand why her poems are always laminated. It must make them easier to wipe clean afterwards.

That said, I have always put forth the opinion that Mary-Ellen’s poetry is not bad. It’s certainly not good, but I will always tell people it’s not bad.

Then there was Bertram. His last name sounds very posh and has hyphens. I won’t repeat his surname here. He’s rich enough to be litigious and I don’t need the hassle. Bertram’s poems are not just written: they are presented on parchment-coloured pages and inscribed in the sort of calligraphy that would make a Trappist monk curse with jealousy. They look absolutely beautiful. The only problem with Bertram’s poems is that they sound fucking awful.

I’m being a bit unfair here. I shouldn’t be so harsh about other people’s poetry. Poetry is a lyrical medium and, to that end, what’s lyrical to one person might not strike the same resonance with another. However, whilst Bertram was reading from his elegant parchment-inscribed calligraphy, I watched half the audience rush to the emergency exits in order to meet ‘suddenly remembered’ obligations.

And, finally, there was Bob. Bob’s face has clearly never seen a razor blade. His cheeks are as hairy as a dog’s arse – and not nearly as kissable. He dresses as though his clothes came from the wastebin outside the back of a thrift shop. And his poetry was written on the back of a cigarette packet.

But Bob’s words had every remaining member of the audience held spellbound. He recited his poetry with a majesty and authority that proved captivating. His use of language was thoughtful, measured and eerily beautiful. Admittedly, I think it was a mistake for him to also read the government health warning at the back of the cigarette packet, but that’s just one critic’s opinion.

And I mention these three examples to show, whether they’ve been saved under laminate, inscribed in calligraphy, or written on the back of a cigarette packet: it’s only ever words. Spoken, carved in stone, printed on paper or published electronically: it’s only ever words. Nothing less and nothing more. Words, words, words.

Which pretty much sums up how I feel about the debate between print and ebook publication.

The first story I ever had published was in a print magazine. The publisher was slow at getting out contributor copies. I think this was because, like so many print publishers, sending out the contributor’s copy meant they would also have to send out payment. This meant I got to see my first short story on the shelf of a local newsagent. It was a truly exciting experience. It was an experience that was only bested when I received the printed and published copies of my first novel.

My first e-publication was a poem. It received a runners-up mention in an online poetry competition. (Ironically, now I think about it in this context, the prize I received was a copy of a printed book). I was truly overwhelmed that my poetry had merited such a prestigious response. The memory of that accomplishment is up there with the treasured experiences of my first magazine publication and my first novel.

And this is why I don’t like to differentiate between print and ebook publication. I’ve had good (and bad) experiences with both media and I’m loathe to say that one is superior to the other. It’s true that the standard of writing in some ebooks is far from spectacular. But, without being so crass as to mention specific authors and titles, the same accusation can be levelled at so many print books the argument quickly becomes redundant. I’ve read Dickens, Kafka and De Sade in ebook format and I’ve enjoyed them to the varying levels at which the classics merit being enjoyed. I’ve read some authors in print whose work is akin to the wilful and sacrilegious desecration of a tree.

Regardless of the format – carved in stone, printed on paper, or published electronically – to me, it will only ever be about words, words, words.

Pulp Fiction

I push open the door of the Antiques Bazaar on Broad Street and step in out of the heat. The first thing that hits me is that the air conditioning is busted, and they’re running the place on fans. The musty odor of old attics, bars, dives and garage sales washes over me, and even the ghosts are suffocating. The air is full of emotion, a sense of homelessness and nostalgia. Antique stores creep me out a little, because I’m old enough to know a lot of the junk here when these things weren’t considered antiques. A life size cardboard standup advertising Blue Hawaii with Elvis. A bin of old LP records, most of it by people I’ve never heard of. Some old radios. I come here sometimes looking for old fountain pens, which I like to collect and fix up. I pass by the junk cases where the pens usually land, but there’s nothing there. Some kitschy souvenirs from Florida that invoke images of small motel cabins off the county roads where men and women hid themselves and made love with an electric fan in the window. A sword on the wall, which may or may not be an actual Civil War cavalry saber. Golf junk. Augusta is home of the Masters tournament. Lots and lots of golf junk. Then I see the typewriters.



The typewriters always draw me in when I pass them and I stop and take a look. A black Royal Portable in fairly good shape, just like the one I had in high school when I used to pound out stories thinking I might be a writer someday. There is a romance, a panache about old typewriters a laptop cannot attain to. The typewriter is the axe of the old school writers and newspapermen. Grim faced, cynical men working late in the night at news office desks onesey twosey finger pecking at the keys the way I do, cigarette butts floating in coffee cups, working the phones with scribbled note pads. Fiction writers, a guy in a rented flop house room at a little table, a cigarette dangling from his moving lip as he mutters the dialogue, a bottle of beer or something stronger on the floor and his fingers snap snap snapping the keys, working like a dog for peanuts. I love typewriters the way I love fountain pens. I love the old technology for its soulfulness. I run my hands over the black round keys, dipping them with their little white letters as the hopeful steel bars rise, and there is a sense of calling out. Write on me again. Use me to dream, darling. Let me be good to you.



The books and magazines are kept in the back, on the perimeter, probably because they have the most turnover. Some of the books are antiques too. Odd, forgotten stuff. "The Misplaced Daughter” by some guy named Hamilton. The Webelo Boy Scout manual from 1956. “The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore” by Laura Lee Hope. Now, I vaguely remember owning that book when I was a kid. And there were these Whitman Books for kids you bought at the grocery store, like “The Diamond Cave Mystery”. It’s spooky to see these things that had their halcyon time and then fell forever. Dead dreams. Some authors are immortal, but most of us sink out of print and are forgotten. Every one of these books was a masterpiece to the person who wrote it. Every writer took what the story fairy gave him or her and ran with it as far as they could go.




I pull out the Bobbsey Twins book and thumb through it looking for pictures. I hold the pages close to my nose and smell the stale old paper. I feel sorry for the books like this one that are in perfect shape. Those are the virgins, the spinster aunts. The ones that sat on the shelves for decoration but were never opened up by kids with peanut butter on their fingers and read.Near a box of old radio vacuum tubes there’s a real surprise.



A little pile of pulp magazines.






Most of them are old detective stories, which I don’t read. I thumb through the pile hoping for a copy of "Weird Tales", or "Thrilling Wonder Stories". There’s a copy of "Amazing Stories" which has a big crack running down the middle. I check the date on the yellow brittle title page and its 1939. Augusta was a mill town back then, shipping textiles down the Savannah River, with trolley cars on rails running from the houses to the mill factories. The guy who bought this in a drug store in 1939 had folded it and stuffed it in his jacket pocket to read on the train or on his lunch break with a Moon Pie and an RC Cola, maybe sitting outside away from the racket of heavy machinery. He read this old thing and escaped from a hard life for a little while. This isn’t something a bank manager would read in his office.


There has always been a high-brow low-brow class structure running through magazines and books from their earliest days in this country. Except for the Bible, books were more the providence of the wealthy and educated. High minded stuff like Shakespeare and Wordsworth. Parlor books for show, many of them bookcase virgins like the Bobbsey Twins book. Now this, this was a working man’s magazine. He read it on his porch with a pipe and a glass of tea in the muggy Georgia night in one of the little shotgun houses by the Canal. If he had money, there might have been a radio playing.




The pulp magazines were the descendents of the 19th century dime novels and “penny dreadfuls”, sold for - yes – a dime or a penny respectively. These were hairy chested stories of high born ladies in the hands of mustache twirling ne' er do wells, and the chaste and selfless heroes who rescued them as “an excellent example to youth”. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, an avid fan of the true crime penny dreadfuls of Czarist Russia, tried his hand at writing for them and came up with “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Crime and Punishment” instead. The pulps and dime novels are the ancestors of popular fiction and romance fiction. We on this list - they are our shared heritage.





The 19th century represented the first time in American history – or anybody’s history – when the common man was literate. A postal service was created for the armed forces of North and South so men could receive letters from home. War memoirs and diaries by Union and Confederate soldiers were written and preserved. Union soldiers camped at Gettysburg, read dime novels by fire light of the adventures of Jesse James and Wild Bill Hickok. Later their sons, the factory workers, field workers and railroad men traveled and labored with stories printed on cheap wood pulp paper of wild escapes and adventures tucked in their pockets. Popular fiction had its super stars too. People lined up around the block of the publishers of “Argosy” for the latest installment of a new Tarzan story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, or the offices of The Strand magazine for the latest Sherlock Holmes adventure.




"Serious" fiction segregated itself into the new catch-all genre of "literary fiction" meaning anything other than the sensational pulp fiction stuff. It represented a minority, if not an endangered species. With the advent of television the pulps began to fade away and now are almost extinct except for a few hold outs.







But just as the dinosaurs evolved into modern birds, the old pulps evolved with the times into the modern anthology. Short story anthologies are pulp magazines with class, particularly the “Mammoth” anthologies which are still printed on something close to wood pulp. It’s still the place to go to read your favorite writers, including some of the ones on this very blog. These days publishing is witnessing the appearance of a new creature – the digital book.



Digital books are in many ways the great grandchildren of the pulps. They are geared to the common man and woman. They represent the same cheerful anarchy of the old dime novels and pulps, because they are the showcases for the hungry new writers, writing for the old popular genres of romance, adventure and sex. But they also represent the disintegration of the old literary structure.



With digital books, I think the game is changing and becoming more egalitarian. The book isn't confined to a bookstore in a mall, but can be found by readers all over the world if they know where to look. It relies on promotion. The investment in a digital only book is much less than a print book, so the expense and attendent risk to the publisher is much less. It opens the field to crap but also to some real surprises. Anybody can play. Including guys like me, whom big name publishers would never drop a dime on, but who now have an opportunity to carve out a niche for ourselves with a small fan base.

We’re the new pulp fiction writers.

















If you'd like to see a gallery of old pulp fiction magazine covers, go to:

http://home.comcast.net/~pulpgallery/welcome.html


If you'd like to read some of the old stories downloadable in digital format check out:

http://www.munseys.com/

Paper or Electronic?

When I dreamed up this topic, I was so sure I'd have all my answers and ideas right on the tips of my fingers. Not so. There really are so many angles to think about.

To hold a book in your hands, to feel the give of the pages and smell that special smell they have is something I've enjoyed all my life. To hold my own book is enormous. I can't deny that. It's part of why I'm an author. I can't see myself ever becoming a big NY best seller, and to be really honest, I don't want to be. I think the waste of the old way of publishing is horrendous. Runs of thousands of books, many simply destroyed for lack of warehouse space is ludicrous and, I feel, is a slap in the face of anyone who is eco-friendly. That saying, save a tree, read an ebook, comes to mind.

But, having said that, small run presses or print on demand spark a brilliant flash of interest. True, right now it costs more to supply books that way, but that's now. Give it a little time and I'm sure the cost will be more friendly, the concept more acceptable and bookstores will become more used to the idea of ordering ten, fifty, two hundred or whatever of a new release. Yes, there are authors who can sell those enormous numbers and possibly there will be a place for the big printers for awhile, but I truly think the future lies in POD and/or e-books.

E-books, electronic devices for reading them and the environment. Are e-books really all the environmentally friendly? I mean think about it. The author needs a computer to write the book. And software, can't forget those fancy programs we all gush over. A computer is designed to fall apart after a few years, the software is no good on the newer model. Our landfills are growing with the plastics and whatever computers are made of. Manufactured obsolescence is the way of our world and somehow that's got to stop.

Add the cost of e-book readers to this mix and we can see why so many people shy away from this 'new' technology that Ash said has been around since the 70's. I know in my small city there are few people who truly understand e-publishing, and I'm including the bookstore where I've finally managed to get my books on the shelves. Print on demand is still thought of as self publishing. E-books are a mystery. Pirates and readers, and even some authors have no idea what the rules are about giving e-books to friends/families and are shocked to find out it's illegal. As an author, I die of frustration a little bit every time I think about how little the average person knows about what I love so much.

So, print or electronic? Personally, I write for the readers anywhere and everywhere. If I could snap my fingers and educate them all, I would. I believe that's what we all have to do in this every changing world. Educate the masses and show em our books. Sure, there are some authors I may feel aren't up to snuff when it comes to the craft, but readers will discover that in their own good time.

E-book then into print. Yes, to me that's the dream. Cover all the bases. Snag all the readers wherever they are. Yup, I'm greedy. But, I do believe electronic is the future. I also believe there will always be print books out there. Just not as many and possibly priced beyond the average Joe.

I guess we'll all see, won't we? What do you think the future will bring?

P. vs. E.

There's been a lot of talk the past couple weeks about Barnes & Noble now selling ebooks online. Another small victory for small publishers and their authors, who often don't get to see the inside of brick and mortar bookstores. And our topic this week is ebook versus print books, which we prefer and where we see ourselves going in the future.


I think ebooks are cool as hell, and I wish more people knew about and understood them. I still get that blank look from family and friends when I say that most of my stuff is in ebook. Huh? Some of the general public has no idea what an ebook is. The books I have in print are a much more tangible sign of my efforts. People understand those. They don't understand why they can't walk into a bookstore and buy them, but hey. Have you ever noticed how many ebooks, authors and publishers there are online? No one bookstore could sell everything. So, I settle for providing people with the print copies of my work, and that's okay, too.

The advent of e-publishing has allowed a lot more people to get their work out there. Sometimes, I wonder if the quality of writing suffers, but that's not my call. I'm grateful I stumbled across e-Harlequin which opened the door to other epubs for me. It's much more fun to have the ebooks out there than to spend hour after hour soliciting agents and NY publishers with little or no success.

Would I like to walk into the grocery store and see a book I've written on the spinning rack by the checkout counter? Abso-freaking-lutely. Maybe someday. Maybe not. It takes a lot of work and perseverance to succeed in this business, and there are times I'm not sure I have it in me. Then, an idea for a story hits from out of the blue, and off I go again. So, like I said, maybe someday.

Child of the Digital Age

By Lisabet Sarai



“Auntie Lisabet! Tell me a story about the old days.”

“Okay, settle down then.”

My nine year old grandniece Ellie sits down cross-legged next to my chair. She removes her ear-buds, strips off her haptic glove and flips up the VR screen on her glasses. I'm flattered that she's willing to give me her full attention. But then, I'm her exotic, glamorous aunt, who lives half a world away and visits once a year, who has lived through things Ellie can only begin to imagine.

“In the old days,” I start, “all books were paper.”

“Yes, I know! My mom has four paper books. She keeps them locked up in a glass case. She won't let me touch them.”

“Well, paper books tend to fall apart easily, and old ones are worth a lot of money. Anyway, back then, I wrote paper books. I had seven print books of my own. Plus I had stories in lots of other paper books.”

“Wow! You must have been rich. And famous.” These days the release of a paper book is a rare event. Only Pulitzer Prize winners and heads of state are literally in print.

I laugh and run my fingers through her blond curls. “No, not at all. Back then there were millions of paper books. When you signed a contract with a publisher, you would get what was called an 'advance on royalties' - a few thousand dollars at most, at least for me. Each copy you sold would be deducted from the advance. You had to sell thousands of copies in order to start making any money. Only one of my paper books ever 'earned out its advance', as they used to say back then.”

Ellie looks perturbed. “But – I've read some of your stories. You're a great writer. How come you didn't sell more?”

“Thanks, sweetie. I don't know if I'm great, but anyway, remember, there were millions of authors to compete with. And it took a really long time for a book to be published. My first novel took more than a year, from the time I submitted the manuscript to the time it was actually printed. I had one book that the publisher kept for nearly two years. Then they decided not to print it after all.”

“That's a drag! After all your work!”

“That book turned out to be one of my first digital publications. So everything worked out in the end. Anyway, with print books, even if I wrote full time (which I couldn't – I had a full time job), I couldn't publish more than one or two books a year. Everything was so slow – you wouldn't believe it. You had to send a printed version of the book, by postal mail, to the publisher. Then it would usually be months before they read it and gave you their opinion. Then another month or two while you worked out the details of the contract. Months for editing, typesetting, galleys—printed versions of the book that you had to correct by hand, with a red pen, and send back by snail mail... By the time the book finally arrived on the shelves, the excitement was almost gone.

“Also, simultaneous submissions – sending the same book to multiple publishers at the same time—was considered to be unprofessional. So if a publisher rejected your book, you had to start all over again.”

“Bummer. Is that why you began to publish digitally?”

“Not really. I had a regular publishing company, and they were taken over by another publisher who wasn't interested in what I wrote. I tried sending my latest novel to some other print companies, and they didn't even send me an acknowledgment. At the same time, digital books were beginning to become popular. A e-publisher contacted me and invited me to submit some of my writing. After that, more and more of my publications were electronic—even though print books were still common at the time. I discovered that with an e-publisher, I could publish almost as quickly as I could write. The whole cycle was so much faster. The first year I was digitally published, I had four books released. The second year, it was seven. It went up from there.”

“So that's when you started to get rich?”

“No, there were still millions of books coming out. In some ways it was even harder to get noticed. But the money was more predictable, royalties every month or every quarter. And of course, the more titles I released, the more opportunity I had for sales.”

“I don't know why anyone would want a print book anyway.” Ellie does a quick check of her comscreen then sticks it back into her pocket. “You can only read them in one order. You can't add comments or bookmarks. And there's no sound or video or 3-D graphics. Boring!”

“Back then, Ellie, most e-books were just words, too. No multimedia.” Ellie clearly has a hard time getting her mind around this concept. “You had to use your imagination about what things looked and sounded like.”

“But at least you could carry the books with you on your comdev. And you didn't have to worry that they'd get torn or wet. Or lost, for that matter. Plus the fact that e-books saved the forests.” I sigh. Ellie has never seen a real forest—only parks and tree plantations. The last remaining natural forests are off-limits to everyone except the scientists.

“Very true. I have to admit, though, that for a very long time, for me, an e-book didn't seem like a real book. When my first novel came out, and the publisher sent me my author's copies, it was like a combination of Christmas, Halloween and my birthday all together. I was so excited! There it was, in my hands, a real book, with a real cover that had my name on it! I could thumb through the pages and read the words that I wrote. Unbelievable! When I received author copies for my e-books, there wasn't the same thrill. After all, it was just an email attachment.”

Ellie nods. She remembers me telling her about email, which has become nearly extinct with the rise of real-time messaging and tele-presence.

“Getting published became too easy—or that's what it seemed like to me. Thousands of e-books were released every month. Some of them were good, but some of them were awful. Everybody wanted to get on the e-publishing bandwagon.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, that it was the latest trend. Everybody thought they could make money bringing out e-books. Every week a new publishing company opened its virtual doors. The world was flooded with e-books, and the average quality went down, at least in my opinion. I was still proud of my writing, still excited, but getting published seemed like less of an accomplishment. Practically anyone who could string a dozen words together could get published.”

“Like now,” Ellie says wisely. “My friend Judy published a book last week, all about her new dog. She sent me a copy. She's really bad at spelling. But the pictures were fun.”

“Actually, hon, it was not at all the way things are now. Back in the old days, the publishers still controlled the purse strings. These days, most of the publishing companies are gone. People publish on their own and then offer their work, for free or in exchange for other content, or on a sliding scale of payment. You can still make a living as a writer, but you have to have a community to support you—people who really like what you write.”

“Can I see one of your paper books, Auntie? Mom won't let me touch hers.”

“Here's my first novel, published in the year 1999—just a few years after your mom was born. This is a first edition.” Ellie doesn't hear the irony in my voice.

“Wow!” She reaches for the fragile volume. “This is really old. Can I read it?”

“Of course not. You know that my books were written for adults.”

“Auntie, don't be old-fashioned. I know all about sex.”

“I don't think your mom would approve. She's always been a bit embarrassed by my literary career. Anyway, you wouldn't understand this book yet, even if you do know the physical facts about sex. Erotica isn't just about sex. But I'll tell you what. I'll give this book to you, autographed, for your sixteenth birthday.”

“Oh, Auntie. That's years from now.” She notices my wistful expression. “But thanks. And thanks for the story. Things were really weird in the old days.” Her comdev gives a barely audible beep. She checks the screen. “It's Judy. Got to go. I'll talk to you later.”

“Okay.” As she scampers off, donning her various sensory prostheses as she goes, I wonder whether I'll still be around in seven years. Will she'll remember how to read at that point? And even if she can read, will my maiden tale of a woman's sexual awakening will make any sense at all to a child of the digital age?

Philly Is Mysterious

By Joseph R. G. de Marco

Admit it! Philly probably doesn’t make your list of vacation destinations. But it should. Of all the reasons you might consider visiting Philadelphia , I’m guessing that mystery and the mysterious don’t come to mind. Cheesesteaks, mummers, the Liberty Bell but not mystery. Right?

As a guy who was born and raised in the city of Brotherly Love , I think it’s a great place with a lot to recommend it to the mystery lover. Which is one reason I chose to set Murder on Camac, the first of my new mystery series, here and why my detective, Marco Fontana, is a native Philadelphian. More on that later.

Philadelphia has always had a rough and tumble reputation. From it’s earliest days, it was a town overflowing with murderous types. More recently, from the Unicorn Killer to the Lex Street massacre, from the South Street Stalker to the Frankford Slasher, Philly continues adding to its criminally mysterious reputation. This burg has also done it’s bit to keep criminals locked up. Eastern State Penitentiary, opened in 1829, over the years housed such dastardly masterminds as Al Capone and Willy Sutton. Murderers, thieves, bank robbers, and more are said to haunt the place. You can encounter some of them when you tour the Penitentiary which is now a national monument.

Philly is fertile territory for a mystery writer and we’ve also got the literary pedigree to prove it.

Edgar Allen Poe was at his most productive and inventive when he graced Philadelphia ’s cobblestone streets.

Poe invented the detective story while living in Philly. It was here that he wrote the Murders in the Rue Morgue (credited as the start of modern detective fiction). C. Auguste Dupin, Poe’s creation is thought to be a prototype for Sherlock Holmes. Dupin was invented here in Philly. Poe’s sleuth solved cases creatively using a combination of techniques and appeared in three of Poe’s stories, the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, and The Purloined Letter.

Philadelphia ’s rich traditions of the gothic, of murder, and of the mysterious made an indelible mark on mystery in general. Gothic lit was big in Europe , featuring romance, horror, the supernatural, and plenty of heaving bosoms. In the 18th Century, Philadelphian Charles Brockden Brown, Americanized and urbanized the gothic literary tradition. Others followed. Robert Montgomery Bird did his part and George Lippard wrote The Quaker City, the best selling novel in America for several years in the mid nineteenth century. Lippard’s work featured Philadelphia elites in acts of murder and depravity unmatched.

These Philly traditions were undoubtedly an influence on Poe who took them to a new level right here in the city of cheesesteaks.

We still have plenty of mystery greats living and working here. Lisa Scottoline, a Philadelphia lawyer writes about her protagonist, also a Philadelphia lawyer (go figure). Gillian Roberts features Amanda Pepper, a prep school teacher, who finds herself in one crime ridden situation after another. And there are more.

With all that tradition, how could I not set a mystery series in Philadelphia ?




When the characters of my current series began to take shape in my mind, there was nowhere else they wanted to live but in Philadelphia . Of course, they like to get out of town as I do, but this is home base.

The P.I. in this series is Marco Fontana; like me, he’s an Italian with roots in South Philly which retains a fading touch of Italy . Most of Marco’s family is still there with the exception of a brother or two. But even Marco moved to Philly’s gayborhood in the middle of town.

Marco also owns a troupe of male strippers who keep him busy, get him into trouble, and cause lots of heads to turn.

The first novel in this series is Murder on Camac and, though it has connections to the thirty year old death of a pope in Rome , takes place mostly in Philadelphia ’s center city area. You’ll meet Marco’s love interests Luke and Anton (Marco can’t make up his mind or maybe he doesn’t want to – it’s not an easy choice), his strippers, his secretary Olga, and his sleek and sultry nemesis on the police force, Gina Giuliani.

It’s a story which haunted me for a long time before I began writing it. I’d made lots of notes but it took a while for me to get the whole tale on paper (okay, onto the computer and then on paper). Writing it was fun, even if it was hard work. Watching the characters do what they do fascinated me each day I worked on the book. It's set to be released in August.

Marco is already deep into his next case and he keeps reminding me that I’ve got to get back to the computer to tell his story.
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J.R.G. DeMarco lives and writes in Philadelphia and Montréal. Though he concentrates on his own fiction and nonfiction work, he is also actively engaged in other endeavors. Currently the Editor of Mysterical-E (www.mystericale.com), he has written for a number of publications including The Advocate, In Touch, Gaysweek, PGN, The New York Native, GCN, The Philadelphia Inquirer, KLIATT, and Chroma, to name a few. His work has been anthologized in the Quickies series (Arsenal Pulp Press), in Men Seeking Men (Painted Leaf Press), Gay Life (Doubleday), Hey Paisan! (Guernica),We Are Everywhere (Routledge), BlackMen WhiteMen (Gay Sunshine), Men's Lives (Macmillan), Paws and Reflect (Alyson), Charmed Lives (Lethe), The International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family (Macmillan); the Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinites (ABC CLIO) and others.

One of his greatest loves is mystery (all kinds) and he is currently working on the next installment of his Marco Fontana series as well as developing a second series. He also has an abiding interest in alternate history, speculative fiction, young adult fiction, vampires, werewolves, science fiction, the supernatural, mythology, and more. He is editing two anthologies and working on an alternate history series. His first published novel, a mystery, Murder on Camac, will be released in August 2009, for more information go to www.murderoncamac.com