My top novels of 2009

Over at BabyGotBooks, I've listed my top 3 novels of 2009.

futureproofisinthepudding

Not to completely overwhelm you, gentle heart, with Russ-generated content all at once, but my BabyGotBooks interview with N. Frank Daniels is up right now.

Daniels is the author of a stunning, harrowing first novel, titled futureproof. Whether you care about that or not is irrelevant; read the interview anyway, as it's one of the most blissfully candid takes on the current state of the publishing industry that you'll experience anywhere:

...More than anything because I only recently realized that the ’story’ behind futureproof’s being published was the main reason why HarperCollins decided to pursue me to publish this book.

Read the rest at BabyGotBooks.

A fish with a bicycle on myspace is still a fish with a bicycle

I generally tend to shy away from posting about my chosen industry, that of publishing (if one can define "chosen industry" to mean something akin to what you'd call it if you keep sticking your finger into the exact same electrical socket, possibly with each new insertion choosing a different angle to approach said outlet, thinking that a new approach, a different technique, might warrant something other than heart-breaking, bone-frying shock), here. It hasn't really been much of a conscious effort, rather my world, after becoming "underemployed", has focused on three things: one, my moving, two, my chronicling of it, and three, finding a full-time job in New York, preferably even before I'm there.

In regards to the third, thanks to a spiffy resume remix by my good friend Wayne Fishell of the wayne fishell experiment and cleaning expert slash resume-rejiggerer for hire extraordinaire, I'm feeling as though what was told to me by the GA Dept Of Labor's Unemployment Office, henceforth called the "unemploymentarium", just might be true: things are looking up.

Don't know what those "things" are yet, or in what relative direction this "up" might be, but it's the name of one of my favorite R.E.M. albums so it has to be good.

Click to read more ...