From Adult to YA: Crime to Kids by Theo Gangi

I'm really pleased to have here today one of my favorite writers, he's such a favorite of mine that I acquired his debut novel Bang, Bang. Theo Gangi is an exciting writer. His characters are honest, daring and very human. His writing has equal parts muscle and heart. Theo is also one of the smartest writers I know and I so enjoy talking to him about literature and life. He's passionate about all things, and he injects this same passion into his work making his books an edge-of-your-seat pleasure. So without further ado, I'll step out of the way. Let's welcome Theo.--Stacey

When you’re 19 years old and you go out to a bar, you hope you don’t get carded. When you’re 34, you hope you do. The way we relate to our own ages undergoes many facelifts. Teenagers often brag about their ‘old souls’, while the middle-aged are proud to be ‘young at heart’. No matter how many birthdays we’ve celebrated, we want to be any age but our own.

One of the perks of writing works of fiction is an outlet for fanciful desires. Draw a character, and jump into his or her shoes, or his or her age. When I was in my mid-twenties, the protagonist of my crime thriller Bang, Bang was 38 years old. Why make Izzy 38? I honestly couldn’t say. I didn’t know anyone who was 38. I had no real personal insight into the mind-set of a man two years away from 40. It sounded like a good age to be tired enough of whatever you were doing in life to stop doing it (in Izzy’s case, robbing drug dealers). 38 sounded grizzled and world weary, and likely just enough distance from my own age so that I couldn’t possibly confuse my protagonist with my self.


Seems only right that now that I’m in my mid–thirties, I’m subtracting years instead of adding them. I keep thinking 11 or 13. I’m drawn to odd years rather than even. There is again enough distance from my own age to make the character a separate creation. I’m less romantic about the veiled, edgy dangers of the real world, and more prone to nostalgia. I’d rather spend time with good kids with good hearts than lost causes and small-time drug dealers.

As I read and reread young adult novels,  

certain characters, scenes and dynamics would trigger almost physical memories. Good YA has the power to recall moments that moved your world when you were a child, like Harry Potter’s first birthday cake, or when Bambi was running away, the gunshot fired and you knew (spoiler) that Bambi’s mother was gone forever. A YA novel can make even an adult reader more vulnerable to its story, as the tales recall a time when we were more vulnerable to life. Every experience was newer, more magical, and more devastating. I don’t remember when my parents had that dreaded conversation with me about death. I’m sure they did; they had to. But I do remember when faceless hunters shot Bambi’s mother dead.

It wouldn’t surprise me if most of our earliest exposures to death were presented to us through the fictional lens of our favorite young stories. Kids grow at such a rapid clip, and the stories they digest serve a more vital developmental purpose. They see their heroes leave home, confront their fears, and return stronger—almost a psychological metaphor for getting through 3rd grade. A child’s responsibilities are to read, experience and learn. They aren’t’ reading as downtime from their jobs, right before they pay the house bills. They aren’t taking a break from life when they read; they are living it.

One of my old favorites was a Japanese manga (though I didn’t know that term then) called The Lone Wolf and Cub. It was the story of a father and son, roaming feudal Japan as the baby cart assassin. Something in those stories has influenced most everything I’ve written in one obscure way or another. That feeling of complete immersion is what I’m trying to replicate when I tell any story. I recall those books as a waypoint for my writing. The old style ink-penned, black and white art of the father and son resonates to this day. I even pick up a charcoal stick and draw them from time to time.

Theo Gangi is the author of the breakout crime thriller Bang Bang. His stories have been anthologized in First Thrills, edited by Lee Child, The Greensboro Review, The Columbia Spectator and the Kratz Sampler. His articles and reviews have appeared in Buzzfeed.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mystery Scene Magazine, Inked Magazine and Crimespree Magazine. A graduate of Columbia University’s Masters in Fine Arts program, he teaches at St. Francis College and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. You can find him online at: http://www.theogangi.com/index.html

On Children's Books--Award Fever

This weekend is one of the most exciting and well-awaited weekends in children's books--midwinter ALA (American Library Association). It's a weekend that, in fact, makes me giddy. Why? Well, this weekend in kidlit is akin to the Oscars. All last year, wonderful books were published and the kidlit community of authors, editors, agents, publishers, librarians, teachers and, of course, kids(!) read these wonderful books and speculated which ones would get recognized as standing out for particular merit and distinction. This is the weekend we find out if our horse has won. A sundry of awards will be given this weekend. The most noted being the Newbery, an award typically given to a middle grade title of distinction, the Printz, an award given to a teen title of distinction, the Caldecott, an award given to an illustrator who has illustrated a picture book of distinction and the Pura Belpre and Coretta Scott King awards, which honor authors and illustrators of Latino and African American heritage respectively. These awards are important for a couple of reasons: first, they can often move the dial on sales for a book that may not have received due attention during its first year of publication; second, it's a major recognition by one's peers that you (author, agent  and yes editor, and everyone who works so hard, whether in Sales, Marketing, Publicity or Subrights, to bring quality children's books to children) have done good. It's a public and coveted pat on the back and can potentially change lives. You can become a children's books rock star overnight. Recent overnight rock stars include Clare Vanderpool, author of Moon Over Manifest and Rebecca Stead, author of When You Reach Me, both winners of the Newbery. And before John Green's The Fault in Our Stars was a Time magazine Book of the Year, John Green was a Printz Award winner for Looking for Alaska. These awards highlight who are the authors to watch and who are among the leaders in their field.

So every year around this time, kidlit people who have a horse cross their fingers and wish upon a star and hope that when the awards are announced, maybe, just maybe a book we bled, sweat and cried over it might have made enough of an impression for an award committee who reads hundreds of books every year looking for the one, to be the anointed one this year. But even if your horse isn't the anointed, we legitimately are happy for the winners and if we haven't already look forward to reading those recognized and learning from them and utilizing those lessons as we all go forward. It's a time in children's books when you realize just how amazingly generous kidlit people are and how incredibly happy we are doing what we do and how incredibly lucky we feel to be doing it.


If you're already all about children's literature, I don't have to tell you to tune in to watch the hoopla live, so if you're curious about the hoopla and want to find out what makes kidlit peeps so great, tune in 5 days, Jan. 27th at 8amEST, right here: http://live.webcastinc.com/ala/2014/live/ and watch us do our thing live.

And if you want to check out who might be in the running for these prestigious awards, check out the Heavy Medal Blog: http://blogs.slj.com/heavymedal/ and for two really poignant views on what happens when you book doesn't win from two talented kidlit vets, check out Don Tate's recent blog on not winning last year: http://dontate.com/2014/01/medal-worship-how-i-stuck-my-head-in-the-clouds-and-got-crushed/ and Kate Messner's poignant poem, "What Happened to Your Book Today": http://www.katemessner.com/what-happened-to-your-book-today/. And then be sure to join us all on Monday morning as we wait with breath that is bated.

Stacey

In The News--A Response to Gender Wars

Last week EG's "In the News" feature discussed the idea of gender wars in publishing. An EG member James D. King, had a very thoughtful response that we share for today's "In the News" feature. Read the original EG post here and the original New Yorker article that spawned the discussion here.

And here is James King's response to to it all...

The EG blog of January 13, 2014, entitled “Gender Wars”, was about women writers not getting a fair shake in the writing world. EG saw the argument as being not so much about gender, but more about concept. Concept in the view of whether a piece was judged by The New York Times Book Review to be great literature or ignored as run of the mill genre writing. I agree with the author’s analysis of the situation that could be characterized as a “tempest in a teapot.” These are my thoughts:

My view of great writing can be summed up in the old saw about art; “I don’t know what great art is, but I know what I like.” In other words, a New York Times reviewer may tout an author as a fabulous literary writer, but I won’t buy the book if I don’t like the writing. Like vast majority of America, I don’t read The New York Times Book Review. I know that defines me as a literary troglodyte only capable of appreciating Spiderman comic books.

When you think about it, 99% of all books that have ever been printed no longer exist. Both pulp fiction as well as great literature went to the recycle bin side by side.Why? Because they served their momentary purpose of entertainment. Sure, some books educate, illuminate or fascinate the reader, but most exist to amuse us, to take us away from reality, to remove us from our daily lives. Some may quibble about the reasons people read books and I admit they are varied, but I would posit that all of those reasons can be summed up by the word, entertainment in its broadest sense.

Ultimately, what the book industry does is sell books. Without the profit motive we would be in the same situation as the 14^th century world where only the rich could afford expensive hand written books. Taken a step further, the books that I buy provide the profit margin that allows for the production of the often less profitable “great literature”. 

Consider this. The bestselling author in modern history is Dame Agatha Christie. Her writings have sold well over two billion books, not to mention inspiring movies, television and radio shows and the longest running play in London. Was she considered a great literary writer? No, but her books sold well because they did what the reader wanted, they entertained. When she wrote she had the reader in mind, not a New York Times critic. I’m thinking that a top literary critic would rather take poison than read one of her books. I’m also thinking that the profit from her books allowed more than a few publishers to print great literary works that were lucky to break even and that book critics approved of.

 Do I think that great writing should be abandoned? Of course not, it has its place as part of the writing spectrum. I envision this spectrum to be a bell curve, like the ones that were used to grade tests in high school. At one end is great literature, with a capitol “L”. At the other end are cheap, formulaic, genre paperbacks. In the middle is everything else, that is, what the majority of the public actually buys and reads.

I have purposefully ignored defining what should be considered great literature. I’ll let others more knowledgeable and caring argue that. I do know that really good writing can be entertaining and sell well. I also know that poor writing can be entertaining and sell well. I believe that writers are compelled to write and can only do the best that they can. The public will let us know where we fall in the literary spectrum. Erudite literary critics will continue to babble to those who will listen.

Jim is a native of Washington, DC and still lives close by in the Maryland suburbs. He has held a number of occupations some of which are, taxi cab driver, electronics technician, police detective, antique dealer, school security guard, real estate agent and author.

Jim has penned many articles for periodicals, such as “The Art Theft Archive”, “American School and University”, and the “Maryland Writer’s Association Newsletter.” His first traditionally published book, with co-author, Jack Burch, is “Ghost Burglar”. It is about a case that as a detective Jim investigated. “Ghost Burglar” won the Independent Publisher’s Associations 2013 “IPPY” National Bronze Medal in the True Crime genre.  Jim belongs to two author critique groups, is a board member of the Maryland Writer’s Association/ Montgomery County Chapter and also blogs about his book at www.ghostburglar.com. He also works occasionally at an independent book store.  

Ghost Burglar details the criminal life of Bernard Welch who ravaged the Washington metropolitan area and became America’s most “successful” burglar. It is estimated that in a few years this man stole over fifty million dollars in property. In the process he became a serial rapist and murderer. Welch lived openly in a Virginia mansion and had a summer home in Duluth, Minnesota, both with indoor pools. During his life Welch escaped from two escape proof prisons. Jim was a lead investigator in these cases and over a five year period met many obstacles, both personal and professional until Welch was arrested. One of the twists to this case is that it was responsible for stopping the funding in America of international terrorist groups.

 

Jim grew up reading science fiction and as a writer it has become his true passion. Since working security at middle and high schools his focus has been on the young and early adult markets. His stories do not contain the high tech aspects that are currently popular in sci-fi movies. Rather, he imagines the future to be a background to display the human ability to overcome problems and change.

Don't Pronounce The G by James D. King

EG is very pleased to have here today James D. King, author of Ghost Burglar: The True Story of Bernard Welch, Master Thief, Ruthless Con Man, and Cold-Blooded Killer and his very funny rumination on the literary agent. Prepare to chuckle...

As an author I have asked myself what in the hell does an agent do? I answer myself because I live alone: the agent’s job is to find a company that will publish my product and pay me for it. I use the term, “product” advisedly. A book is a product and has to be marketable. It can be argued that a novel is a non-essential entertainment product like professional football or daytime television. It has to be good and entertaining. Note that I am excluding reality shows which are neither good, nor entertaining.

The book industry is a business and businesses are supposed to make money. In essence the literary agency-publishing business is like a cow. It grazes, eating manuscripts and authors. From that it produces the milk of profit and out the back end comes books. Think of your book as fertilizing the grass to make it grow so the cow can eat more and make more milk. (Yes, I agree, as analogies go that wasn’t a great one.) 

The book industry money trail starts with the 

literary agent. To keep things simple I'm excluding anything an author may do pre-agent such as buying stamps or number 2 pencils. Literary agents usually specialize in a few related genres such as cooking and paranormal romance. They are, in effect, specialist in certain products. They know what is currently selling and who is currently buying. Knowing what’s hot and what’s not is important to agents as their salaries depend upon it. He, she, or it gets 15% of what the author earns. The math is simple; MB=MM; more books equal more money. Yes, I know Albert Einstein would be envious of that equation.

Therefore the product has to be good enough to compete in a very crowded marketplace. The agent has to believe that your book is so good that Aunt Ethel will forgo buying old Fido a twenty pound bag of puppy chow and buy your book instead. 

The agent has one other consideration, who is the author? The agent knows that after the book is published the author will be called upon to extensively promote the product. The author’s ability to talk about the book, enthuse the audience, generate interest and sell more books is often a prime concern of the publisher and therefore the agent. Of course it is, their jobs depend on it. 

As an example the Romance genre is primarily written by women for women. If a romance author walks into an agent’s office and is a 55 year old, bearded man with a shaved head, tattoos on both arms, wearing torn jeans, a t-shirt with no sleeves and muddy boots (okay, I threw in the muddy boots to be silly) the agent will certainly have second thoughts about taking on this author as a client. No matter how much the agent likes the manuscript she/he has to consider this author's ability to aid in the marketing of the finished product. 

Imagine this guy at a Romance authors awards dinner sitting at a table with a bottle of Bud in his hand, a corsage pinned to his Levi motorcycle club jacket and under it a stick on tag that says, “Hello, my name is Dirty Dutch” How many romance books is this dude going to sell?

In the real, practical world we authors have to deliver a sellable product. We are responsible for the quality of that product and have to represent it in the marketplace. A literary agent is one of the gate keepers to the market. Sorry, but this reminds me of a thing I saw on National Geo channel. It was a nature show about a giant herd of African gnu’s, (don’t pronounce the g), migrating. They had to cross a river that had gate keepers. These gate keepers were crocodiles. Only the strong made it across. The weak, the un-Spell Checked and the unedited did not, especially those that pronounced the g. No comparison of literary agents to crocs is intended. Agents usually have nicer skin.

But times they are a changing.  

Just as the automobile electric starter killed engine hand crank makers, so might the electronic publishing paradigm kill literary agency. Okay, I have to admit that for 30 years or more after the introduction of the electric starter, cars still had a hole in the front grill for an engine hand crank, so maybe it was not a great analogy. Wait, maybe it was. It seems that traditional publishing and e-publishing are running along neck and neck right now and may continue so for another 30 years. Gee, sometimes I amaze myself when I nail one like that.

So in conclusion, (I know you’ve been waiting for this) literary agents are still a necessary evil. Not that agents are evil, well some may be, but they are the rich ones with big clients and you’ll never meet them. Most of the agents I have met are hard-working people trying to do a good job.

Okay, you guessed it. I wrote that last sentence because I’m looking for an agent. Anybody out there know one?

Jim is a native of Washington, DC and still lives close by in the Maryland suburbs. He has held a number of occupations some of which are, taxi cab driver, electronics technician, police detective, antique dealer, school security guard, real estate agent and author.

Jim has penned many articles for periodicals, such as “The Art Theft Archive”, “American School and University”, and the “Maryland Writer’s Association Newsletter.” His first traditionally published book, with co-author, Jack Burch, is “Ghost Burglar”. It is about a case that as a detective Jim investigated. “Ghost Burglar” won the Independent Publisher’s Associations 2013 “IPPY” National Bronze Medal in the True Crime genre.  Jim belongs to two author critique groups, is a board member of the Maryland Writer’s Association/ Montgomery County Chapter and also blogs about his book at www.ghostburglar.com. He also works occasionally at an independent book store.  

Ghost Burglar details the criminal life of Bernard Welch who ravaged the Washington metropolitan area and became America’s most “successful” burglar. It is estimated that in a few years this man stole over fifty million dollars in property. In the process he became a serial rapist and murderer. Welch lived openly in a Virginia mansion and had a summer home in Duluth, Minnesota, both with indoor pools. During his life Welch escaped from two escape proof prisons. Jim was a lead investigator in these cases and over a five year period met many obstacles, both personal and professional until Welch was arrested. One of the twists to this case is that it was responsible for stopping the funding in America of international terrorist groups.

Jim grew up reading science fiction and as a writer it has become his true passion. Since working security at middle and high schools his focus has been on the young and early adult markets. His stories do not contain the high tech aspects that are currently popular in sci-fi movies. Rather, he imagines the future to be a background to display the human ability to overcome problems and change.