BlogSpotted!

OKOK, I'm reaching for the egoboo today. But I want to write a post and all of my Top Secret Activities are, well, Top Secret, so I don't want to write about them just yet. Instead, the egoboo. Got the headsup on a nice little blog called Lobster and Canary by Daniel A. Rabuzzi. I know it's a nice blog because look what he wrote:

Finally, I want to read Finding Creatures and Other Stories by C. June Wolf, brought out by Canadian publisher Wattle and Daub Books. I say this because I enjoy her blog--her thoughts are round, warm, and witty--there is a humane and gentle strength that runs just below the surface of her sure words. For their part, Wattle and Daub is apparently a one-woman labor of love, with a goal of putting out three books a year.

He tells us, by the way, that '"lobster and canary" is a Norwegian expression, meaning "odds and ends, a bit of this and a bit of that."'

More to the point though, is the gist of the entire post this paragraph was nestled in. Daniel visited the Book Expo America in Manhattan and came away inspired.

From BEA, part I

With so much distress in the economy generally, and within the publishing industry specifically, I was pleased to find BEA relatively crowded and the mood fairly upbeat. As several industry veterans told me, this year "it's all about the books," meaning less focus on gimmicky giveaways and over-the-top hype. I felt this as well, having attended or worked several BEAs, and many other trade shows.

From BEA, part III

One of the many things I love about the BEA is that it brings together all members of our far-flung, disparate literary family: the giant publishing houses-cum-media conglomerates, the one-person presses held together by passion and a willingness to disbelieve in gravity, and everything in between...

... This then is our miracle: superb books can emanate from the steely matrices of the corporations or be found nestled in the felt weft of the tiny independent. Who cares the provenance, so long as the tale is a good one!

The energetic Daniel has written three long posts about this most recent Book Expo America. You can find the beginning post at http://lobsterandcanary.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

And at last the penny drops.

How, I have wondered, has Daniel A. Rabuzzi come to hear of me? Book Expo, Book Expo - oh, right! Wattle and Daub put an ad in the New York Review of Books' Book Expo Issue. So we were there, too, in our teensy, flat, unassuming way. (Flat as in a picture in a magazine, you understand. Not flat as in boring, of course...)

You mean people read that stuff? Huh.

Daniel has a book, The Choir Boats, coming out this summer from Chizine Publicattions (Toronto). Excellent luck with that, Daniel.