Posts by Fergus Barrowman
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
That would be a question for the Publishers Association.
CLNZ filed a takedown notice on our behalf, and we alerted the Luminaries' international publishers, who have legal departments who deal with this sort of thing.
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In the interest of transparency, the press release was "Issued for Publishers Association of NZ by Pead PR", and was different from the draft I approved. And no, we didn't attempt to download the files or confirm the alleged infringement.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Jolisa,
editor/publisher’s lonely howl of despair
more like a low murmur of disgruntlement
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Islander,
They've loaded now (I think the modem was being taxed by big downloads elsewhere in the house). Wasn't your desk round the other way in 1985?
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Speaking personally, and without slighting the enormous pleasures and benefits I find in reading poetry, stories, essays and all kinds of other things, I have since the age of about nine been able to find a deeper kind of immersion, or empathetic extension, or loss of self, in reading long fiction (obviously not all the long fiction I attempt). So claims made about the value of fiction made in books like Lisa Zunshine’s Why We Read Fiction and Brian Boyd’s On the Origins of Stories ring true (although I’m not a systematic enough reader to follow up). If I lost that ability I’d think I’d have lost my self. Nevertheless, I find it all too easy after a day’s work and an extra glass of wine with dinner to spend an evening drifting between email, internet and the NYRB.
I’m suspicious of broad claims about cultural change, especially when they involve obviously false notions that it’s impossible to read deeply on an electronic device and that reading on paper is inherently deeper, but the novel hasn’t been around all that long so it’s not impossible it’s on the way out.
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The Okarito photos are only half downloading -- is that because you're all looking at them at once? Like what I can see though.
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I'm just back from a seminar in which Harvard folklorist Maria Tatar argued that fairytales are flourishing in the digital age because they're short and depthless (which is not a criticism per se; she was very persuasive on the power of Little Red Riding Hood), and that we're losing the ability to read deeply, especially as required by long form fiction. Sometimes it's hard not to feel like the evidence is all around me...
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Jolisa,
“Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “Well, don’t do that then.”
I'm finding this thread somewhat disheartening. I thought being disappointed sometimes was just what happened if you weren't completely safe in your reading choices? We've had a very open publishing environment for the last 20 or so years: publisher hunger for new writers has seen an awful lot of them into print, but it's as if none of them have made an impression.
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It's to soon to predict, but my hope is that the NZ operation can quickly be cut free from Australia and put back on a sound footing with minimal closures and cuts.
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I hope this isn't your last appearance, Mike. Hard-won real experience is a precious commodity around these parts, and you'll get used to the pace of the conversation. Anyway, that is very good advice.