From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #489 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, October 22 2001 Volume 01 : Number 489 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 20:52:07 -0700 From: Jana Remy Subject: [AML] Book Review Selections Here are the review selections for the 10/10 "Up for Review" list. If you've been selected as a reviewer, please send me your snail-mail address so I can ship the book to you. Thanks to everyone who participates in the AML-List Review Program!! Jana Remy AML-List Review Editor - -------------------- > > My People > Gordon Laws Todd Petersen > > Chamomile Winter > Anne Bradshaw Katie Parker > > Bridge to Forever > Rachel Ann Nunes Barbara Hume > > 16 in No Time > BJ Rowley Terry Jeffress > > The Heart Only Knows > Kerry Blair Valerie Holladay > > American Tapestry (music CD) > Jenny Richards and Jenny Oaks Baker Ivan Wolfe > > No Doubt About It > Sheri Dew Cathy Wilson > - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 23:07:59 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Joseph Smith as Character robert lauer wrote: I've never been satisfied with DIGGER from a structural point of view, but haven't touched the script in over 20 years. If anyone out there would care to read it and give me some criticism and suggestions, I would really appreciate it. I've read it and it's fine just the way it is. If Scott Bronson and I manage to pull of this exclusively LDS theatre we've been working on, I would consider it an honor to produce the play. Thom - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 01:40:06 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Gideon Burton on _Left Behind_ Brown wrote: > Cedar Fort just accepted one of my "best" > manuscripts, but on the premise that "it is one of those intellectual things > that doesn't sell--a great story that should be done. But not many will read > it." How do we overcome that? The starving Van Gogh in the attic comes to my > mind. You are SO RIGHT! But I would MUCH rather have written that "best" > manuscript I wrote rather than what we have from Gerald Lund, for example. Perhaps we need to take a page from Hollywood, and print some Gerald Lund blockbusters that can finance the "best" manuscripts that may not sell much, but should be in print. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 08:41:43 -0600 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] Audience for Journals Well, Paris! I think you have YOUR life's work cut out for you, too! If you and Ben don't do these stories, I will! Cheers! Marilyn - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 08:39:22 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Missionary Bibliography Andrew Hall wrote: Duncan, Thom. Matters of the Heart. 1985. Missionary comes home early. Would you also consider my one-man show Preposterous Parley P. 1987. Based on Parly's autobiography. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 07:59:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Veda Hale Subject: Re: [AML] John D. Lee (was: Stories about War) Lee had a lot of faults, zeal and fanaticism among them. And he wasn't= innocent. Some say he was sent to Southern Utah because Brigham Young got= tired of him. But have you read his journals through? A good point for= the value of writing a personal journal. If he hadn't been faithful in= that admonition, we wouldn't have another side of him. Who knows but what= you, yourself, could be cast in a tragic roll and would like to tell your= own story. Then that journal kept for just yourself would be invaluable. = Veda Hale =20 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 09:38:51 -0600 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] BROWN, _The Wine Dark Sea of Grass_ (Review) Thank you so much, Scott, for an ACCURATE and HONEST review of WINE-DARK SEA OF GRASS! I even appreciate the negatives! I totally agree with you it is a ROMANTIC HISTORICAL. (And you're right--Maggie is a strange bird, and perhaps a big shallow since she can't speak for herself. In the original version she did write some poorly spelled journal entires, and I cut them for streamlining purposes! I was hoping the reader would say "Aha! She must have enjoyed that rape by the soldier," and then discover that wasn't it at all, either.) Not many in our audience are as astute as you are. I guess I was hoping twenty years ago (which is when I wrote this) to capture some of the audience that Anita Stansfield and Rachel Nunes have worked so well. No one would publish my massacre romance and "Literary war memoirs." I do have to admit that I am so fragile that after a few rejections I didn't try very hard. (An echo to encourage Thom Duncan and all of you who are still struggling!) (And then there is always the MORMON-NATIONAL thing--you try to write for a national market also, and the Mormons reject it.) I was hoping to establish a CAREER twenty years ago, but at least now I have that chance. I still have six books to go to "catch up." The next one is my memoir of WWII, HOUSE ON THE SOUND. (WASATCH REVIEW published the first chapter in 1992 and now it will be out in a week!) That book comes MUCH closer to being what I WANT to do, not something I "hoped would sell." And we are certainly "pussy-footing" on it at the press, publishing only a few copies and "testing the waters." I've tried so hard to sidle up to the audience. When my staff says, "Marilyn is too literary," I love this back-handed compliment! (AML probably doesn't agree about the literary part.) I have to tell you something exciting, though. I did give one of the six unpublished novels to my press (our acquisitions editor) about eight months ago under an assumed name so they would not recognize it, and the other day this editor burst into my office and raved on and on as though he had DISCOVERED someone (besides Cathy Wilson, he acts the same way about her, too!) "Strange, this book about Utah coming from Massachusetts. But it's SO GOOD." (I had sent it from my daughter's address.) He loved it. Kept ranting and raving about what a great story it was. The first two or three pages need work, (I know--the hook is the most important thing, but I can work on it, right?) and he wanted me to call the town by its real name instead of fictional, but I agreed to all of this. (After I finally let him know it was mine--boy was he surprised!) As a clincher--before he knew it was mine, he said, "We'll still have to ask for the [small] author participation plan (which is why we have survived) because it isn't going to sell!" So you see! Case in point! Do not be discouraged, all of you! Better literature is hopefully on its way! And I wish all of you would please consider CEDAR FORT for your work! Honest, we'll grow to accommodate it! Back to the basics! I was SO GLAD for your last paragraph of the review, Scott, because you hit it on the head about Wine-Dark. You really did. And it was EXACTLY what I had hoped to do. I LOVE it when a reviewer does it right! Thank you SO MUCH! (You can review any of mine--I hope you will!) Appreciate you! Marilyn Thank you so very - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 09:47:31 -0600 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] Cedar Fort Publishing Anna, that doesn't happen with me because I have been knocking myself silly (editing, typesetting, acquiring, etc.) working to make up my "funds." It won't always be that way. But to ESTABLISH my career (a very difficult thing to do nowadays with the competition and the fickle market) I was (and have always been) willing to give a lot up front. It's the Mormon market. So young. If we were established, like New York, it would be a different story. As you read on the list not long ago, it has only been twenty to thirty years since these presses have been publishing fiction and making a go of it. Right now your biggies, Gerald Lund and Dean Hughes are still in the Mormon subjects. If you want to go national, you need to go through the sci fi (which is why we have national Mormon artists in that field). Or you can give up your Mormonism, like Brady Udall and Brian Evensen. It depends on what you want. We charge new writers $2900 a book (doesn't cover costs). It is called Author Participation Plan, and you have to be accepted by the editing staff to do it. How many manuscripts we reject because they just aren't well done! No, most books published die an early death. However, we do accept two manuscripts every month that we fully support, entirely. Those two ms we KNOW will sell. And they are usually non-fiction. Thanks so much for asking, and I am hoping you'll send us something! Sincerely, Marilyn Brown - ----- Original Message ----- From: REWIGHT To: Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 1:42 PM Subject: Re: [AML] Cedar Fort Publishing > > > > > The writing is getting better--we are getting national manuscripts and > > developing them. To survive in the publishing market, Cedar Fort has done > > some "author participation" plans, which is close to vanity, but not > quite. > > Hi Marilyn, > > Thank you for the info. What exactly do you mean by "author > participation"? I thought the first rule of being a writer is that nothing > comes out of the writers pocket. Money always flows from the publisher to > the writer. > > Anna Wight > > > > > > -- > AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature > > - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 09:52:43 -0600 From: Terry L Jeffress Subject: [AML] Jeffrey S. SAVAGE, _Cutting Edge_ (Review) TITLE: Cutting Edge AUTHOR: Jeffrey S. Savage PUBLISHER: Covenant Communications, 2001 ISBN: 1-57734-844-3 PRICE: $14.95 Twenty-something Travis Edwards lives in a dot com paradise. He and his pregnant wife, Lisa, move from Utah to Silicon Valley. Lisa didn't want to move at first, but after she and Travis pray, they both feel comfortable with the move. Travis has accepted a new programming job with Open Door, an Internet company that offers high pay, gives numerous stock options, and has an upcoming IPO. Travis's paradise quickly turns sour when he discovers someone inside his new company stealing files from his workstation. Travis tells his boss, Rob, about the files, and Rob suspiciously resigns the next day. Travis decides to present his evidence to the president, but the president fires Travis for corporate espionage and threatens to take legal action. Travis starts to suspect almost everyone he knows, including his home teacher, of participating in the conspiracy to discredit him. Travis wants to prove his innocence and starts to gather more evidence, but he may not have enough time before he disappears too. Jeffrey Savage has a clean and easily readable style. He gets a little too florid on occasion and usually over describes his scenes. I frequently found myself saying, "Ok, I got the point. Get on with the story already." Covenant could have easily cut ten to twenty percent of the book without sacrificing any of the story. For example, the prologue sets up a suspicious tone about the conditions under which Open Door hires Travis, but Savage develops this suspicion adequately in the regular development of the plot, making the prologue unnecessary. Savage starts chapter 1 with Travis running up Provo canyon. In a series of extended flashbacks, Travis remembers among other things, losing both his parents, meeting Lisa, hiking in the Provo canyon, converting to the LDS Church, and proposing to Lisa. Although the flashbacks do explain a lot of the backstory, this information has little direct bearing on subsequent events. In a suspense novel, I expect that any point so carefully explained as Travis's conversion will have an effect on the outcome. Instead, the conclusion relies only on Travis turning to prayer. Travis could have had the same experience as a born-in-the- covenant returned-missionary Mormon, an evangelical Christian, or a Muslim. _Cutting Edge_ reads like an extended tale and not a complex corporate espionage novel. Savage does create some good tension and anticipation by keeping you and Travis in the dark about the corporate espionage kingpins' identities, but Savage gives us one, and only one, storyline to follow to an inevitable conclusion. I would have liked to see Savage heap even more tension upon Travis through any number of possible subplots that use the material he introduced in the flashbacks. Perhaps Travis could get too wrapped up in increasing his wealth -- contrary to his mother-in-law's advice. Perhaps Travis has a serious problem with his new ward and goes somewhat inactive. (In fact, for a recent convert, Travis has an uncanny understanding of Mormon culture and tradition.) Perhaps Lisa faces a serious risk of dying, threatening Travis with the prospect of losing yet another loved one. Savage has the material in place to create a multifaceted suspense novel, but in spite of setting up a lot of background material, _Cutting Edge_ only dips its toe in the font of plot possibilities. Although Savage cannot control Covenant's production process, the poor copyediting and typesetting in _Cutting Edge_ kept pushing me out of the story. Covenant has set the justification parameters in their desktop publishing software so liberally that almost every page has at least one paragraph with positive letterspace and another with negative letterspace. Compound that with errors like the numerous "Travis'ss" and the letters on the page create a negative reading experience that colors the author's story. I think Savage had high aspirations for his first novel, but through inexperience missed some of the opportunities that would have made _Cutting Edge_ a sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat page turner. I look forward to Savage's next novel and think we may yet have an Elmore Leonard or Nelson DeMille among us. - -- Terry Jeffress | The first thing an unpublished author | should remember is that no one asked him AML Webmaster and | to write in the first place. With this AML-List Review Archivist | firmly in mind, he has no right to become | discouraged just because other people are | being published. -- John Farrar - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 09:57:38 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] re: AML-List Proposals (comp 3) [MOD: Responses seem to have stopped trickling in. I'd like to ask one more time for comments on these proposals, before huddling in the back room to try to figure out what to do with the variety of responses we have received...] >From Chris.Bigelow@unicitynetwork.com Wed Oct 17 11:58:25 2001 I vote leaving the list as is. Everyone has a delete key and a down arrow key. Let's not mess up something good. Chris Bigelow - ------------------------------------ >From marianne_hales_harding@hotmail.com Wed Oct 17 12:17:44 2001 I really wouldn't want to decrease the number of posts or discourage marginally related discussions. If I don't have an interest in or the time to read certain threads I just delete them. The marginal discussions and the possibility of posting more than once a day lends to the informal chat-in-your-family-room quality of the discussion. I, for one, really enjoy that quality. I like the fact that this list is moderated as well. Gentle reminders to be on topic or to be careful of people's feelings help to keep the conversation from getting too heated or obnoxious. Compilation posts or weeding of posts helps to keep the "Amen" posts to a minimum (the short posts that someone else mentioned earlier that do nothing but clutter your mailbox). The only thing I would change is that I would ask people to respond to the other post with a post of their own, rather than responding line for line to the entire post. A snippet of the former post to remind us which one you're replying to is fine. The entire post is unneccessary. That's the only thing that really drives me crazy. Oh, yeah, and trying not to use the word "sex" in your subject line. Call me puritanical but I hate to have people look over my shoulder at work and think I'm taking a 5 minute break to check to see if I got any really good porn. :-) I've been on this list for years in various states of lurk-dom and I really enjoy the link to Mormon arts/artists and the Utah arts news (since I'm so far from home!) Marianne Hales Harding For Frank's benefit--Seattle, WA - --------------------------------------------- >From manning_travis@hotmail.com Wed Oct 17 13:03:20 2001 Moderator, With regards to limiting posts, I believe something has to be done. I receive voluminous emails and don't have an hour or two every day to read them all. Posts on topic should stay, if they're stretched connections -- ditch 'em. We ought to encourage person-to-person contacts as much as possible, where appropriate, and only post the substantive comments. Cut the chit chat. I haven't posted because I don't read the AML list for a couple weeks and feel like I'm light years behind on the topics and threads. It's only when I have time to read posts to at least sort of get caught up, that I feel like I can adequately enter a discussion thread. We ought to make reading posts, and posting, a little more user friendly. We ought to streamline the dialogue and spend more time on our own writing. Travis K. Manning - ------------------------------------------------- >From ronn.blankenship@postoffice.worldnet.att.net Wed Oct 17 15:50:21 2001 Jonathan and the list: I have a suggestion which may have the potential of coming closest to=20 satisfying everybody=85 (How's that for a non-threatening opening? ;-) ) =85and should eventually lead to _you_ (or any future moderator) having to= do=20 *less work* than you do now. (Got your attention? ;-) ) Create a _second_ list. Call it "AML-2" or "AML-Discussion" or "AML-Chat" or "AML-Overflow" or=20 "BML" (no acronym, just that "B" comes after "A") or whatever you (or the=20 majority of the list) think is appropriate. When you as moderator go through the messages you receive, post the ones=20 you think are appropriate to this list ("AML") just as you do now. The=20 rest, instead of discarding (unless there is an obvious reason to do so),=20 send to "AML-2". "AML-2" (*Not* necessarily my favorite name for the new list: used here=20 just for brevity. Actually, I think I like "AML-Discussion", which is of= =20 the names above the one I think best describes the purpose I envision, but= =20 I don't really care what you call it.) should be an *unmoderated*=20 list. Anyone who is a member of the list can reply to a message on "AML-2"= =20 and it will automatically go to that list. (The only reason you would have= =20 to step in as moderator would be if things got out of control and someone=20 complained, such as a flame war starting, or someone using inappropriate=20 language or posting something which could potentially lead to problems,=20 such as copyrighted material.) This list ("AML") remains just the way it is: moderated, 3=20 posts/person/day and 30-total posts/day limits. Now, for those who are concerned about volume: Is everyone on the list using a mail program that allows you to set up=20 "filters"? If so, you can set up a filter that will place all the mail=20 from "AML" in one mailbox, and all that from "AML-2" in a separate=20 mailbox. Then, if you don't have time or don't want to read the messages=20 in "AML-2", you can read them later, or, if you decide you only want to be= =20 on this list and not the new list, you can unsubscribe from "AML-2". (I=20 envision that you should copy the membership list from "AML" to "AML-2"=20 when you set it up, and that anyone in the future who learns of and=20 subscribes to either of the lists should automatically be subscribed to=20 both, and sent an introduction explaining the purpose of the two=20 lists. Then s/he can decide whether or not to remain on both lists.) I think this might make everybody happy. (Or at least not drive anyone=20 away. [crosses fingers]) Friends, what say ye? - -- Ronn! :) - ------------------------------------------- >From cgileadi@emerytelcom.net Wed Oct 17 20:38:08 2001 I like the list moderated--keeps everything quality--and I like the amount of posts per day. No changes, from my point of view. Cathy (Gileadi) Wilson Editing Etc. 1400 West 2060 North Helper UT 84526 - --------------------------------------- >From gaelyn@mstar2.net Wed Oct 17 23:27:52 2001 I vote against cutting the number of posts. All the people I agree with should have unlimited numbers of posts a day and the ones I disagree with should be restricted to one very short message, . Seriously, the community feeling is I think much more important than particulars of what is discussed and whether or not it stays on topic. I admit I like the posts that show critcal, on-the-edge kinds of thinking. I'm not very interested in being called to repentence--I go to church for that! Long disserations about doctrine are BORING. I like the list rebels, even if I can't always be that way myself. I want to be exposed to people who think about things in challenging ways. I quit making long posts because I didn't think anyone read them anyway. I like the short conversational posts, but some people are such good thinkers that their long posts are great! My needs are for a community of people who don't settle for easy answers and who aren't afraid to ask hard questions. I want the list to go off topic and be more avant garde than it is, but maybe there is another list that does that? Suggestions? I miss some of the people that used to be on the list that made people nervous with what they said. I think Jonathan does a great job of keeping everything in the mainstream, except I don't much like the mainstream. Gae Lyn Henderson - ----------------------------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #489 ******************************