Quite aside from being stunningly beautiful from top to bottom, New Zealand is unique, a nation of 4-1/2 million English speakers that is not on the way to anyplace else. When you go to New Zealand, you go on purpose. And you arrive on a large boat or a large plane, not by some improvised […]
Learned (or figured out) at BEA 2012
BookExpo America, trade publishing’s industry-wide gathering, just completed what must be considered another successful year at Javits Center last week. Attendance was pretty much what it had been last year and the lines for autographs on the convention floor certainly gave off the feeling of enthusiasm and excitement that publishers want to see. Convention roundups […]
Long ago at the Los Angeles Times Book Review
Although the decline of newspaper book review sections is just a sub-set of the larger sadness of the overall demise of newspapers, I was struck by the recent report of the mighty Los Angeles Times Book Review being stripped down to practically nothing. I haven’t read it for years, but this news made me think about […]
Music stories: a bit about The Drongos
My wife, Martha Moran, and I managed a rock and roll band 25 years ago. They were called The Drongos. They were four intrepid young New Zealanders who had come to America with an itinerant theatrical troupe and stayed when the itinerants moved on. They made pretty close to a living playing on New York […]