He liked it!

…  a provocative novel by an elegant writer who has blazed her own path.

In these days of bite-sized time-bytes into which our days are nibbled, it's a treat to come upon well crafted essay-style blog postings, or book reviews that take time to savour and digest and to analyse the themes of a novel (in this case) within a wider social context. Anyway Dorothee and I were delighted to receive this thoughtful, flavoursome review of The Glass Harmonica: a sensualist's tale by Jim Cullen for the History News Network:
  
"Dorothee Kocks has had an intriguing career. A graduate of the University of Chicago, she went on to pursue a doctorate in American Civilization in the decidedly different climate of Brown (where our paths crossed almost a quarter-century ago). She got a tenure-track job at the University of Utah, proceeding to publish a richly suggestive piece of scholarship, Dream a Little: Land and Social Justice in in Modern America (California, 2000). Then she ditched her teaching post, took up the accordion, and began traveling widely, supporting herself with odd jobs. Last year, she made a foray into fiction by publishing her first novel, The Glass Harmonica, as an e-book with a New Zealand-based publisher. It has just been published in a print edition.

"Kocks's unusual vocational trajectory is worth tracing here, because The Glass Harmonica is an unusual book. A work of historical fiction that bridges the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it also sprawls across Europe and North America. Napoleon Bonaparte makes a cameo appearance, but its core is a love story between a commoner Corsican musician, Chjara Valle, and an entrepreneurial American purveyor of erotica, Henry Garland. The two lovers encounter any number of obstacles -- principally in the form of spiteful people on either side of the Atlantic -- but nevertheless manage to build a life together,  one animated by the mysteriously alluring (and thus to many threatening) glass harmonica, a musical instrument which enjoyed a vogue in the age of its inventor, Benjamin Franklin.

"Such a summary makes the book seem simpler than it is. For one thing, The Glass Harmonica is rich with historical texture. Brimming with research, it vividly recreates any number of subcultures, ranging from continental drawing-room entertainments to the feverish intensity of revivial meetings. As one might expect of a writer who has spent much of her life, and much of her work, exploring the concept of place, Kocks also evokes varied geographies -- urban Paris and Philadelphia, rural upstate New York, coastal New England;  et. al. An afterword limns her sources and provides set of footnotes worth studying for their own sake.

"Kocks also boldly trespasses over contemporary convention in realistic fiction, eschewing the spare, lean quality of modern prose in favor of lush, omniscient narration. 'On the morning Chjara Valle quickened in her mother's womb, the sun reached its red fingers over the Mediterranean Sea,' the novel opens." See the rest …

Last night I dreamed that a rat ran up my leg – friendly though. This one is holding a placard on the end of his pole, that says, Occupy The Glass Harmonica!

The Glass Harmonica in paperback

When I think back over 2010, the year in which I dealt, too often anxiously, with the complexity and challenges of setting up Rosa Mira Books, I recall the relief it always was to sink into the reading, editing and proofing of The Glass Harmonica — appreciating always Dorothee's lyrical voice; her consummately professional approach to her writing and research; the boldness, freshness and sheer joie de vivre of her narrative.

It's a pleasure to be able to offer the paperback version of The Glass Harmonica: A sensualist's tale, with access to sales via Rosa Mira Books, or directly here.

Dorothee's created a terrific website, with a blog as provocative as its title: Beware the Timid Life. On this page there's a sparky Q & A with Dorothee and further down the video of a recent TV interview (do check it out; she's a broadcaster's delight). Then keep browsing the site for its many tasty morsels.

Photo of Dorothee by Claudia O'Grady

Congratulations, Dorothee, on creating such an attractive, intriguing and inspiring home for your readers and fans.

Birdsong, banned books, chocolate and feet.

I'm back, energised by Australian sun, birdsong and good company, and perched much more happily on the edge of my chair than I have been in the last few days, with a pinched nerve I'd like to put down to sedentary hours on trains and planes, rather than to encroaching decrepitude. The wisteria is budding forth, and the cherry, and it's hard to keep up with the spring vege greens.

I note that potential buyers of Rosa Mira's ebooks are acting conservatively as the Euro hovers on the brink of the Zone — but I would (naturally) urge them to act now in their own best emotional and intellectual interests. The Glass Harmonica and Slightly Peculiar Love Stories promise to transport their readers into zones eternally vivid and fertile.

In a few days — I'll remind you again then, and point you to her new blog — Dorothee Kocks's The Glass Harmonica: A sensualist's tale will be available in paperback. Details will appear on the website. It makes a handsome volume.

Talking of Banned Books Week, did you see Dorothee's riveting article? On books such as Henry sells clandestinely in her novel, he "hawking risqué literature from the back of his carriage, including what would become the most banned book in U.S. history, Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure".

And I suppose you heard the two radio interviews aired while I was away, in which I spoke about Rosa Mira Books. The first with Ruth Todd (no relation) of Plains FM Women on Air, the second with Lyn Freeman on Radio NZ's Arts on Sunday.

I have a copy of the paperback version of The Glass Harmonica which I'd like to send to someone who could give their review of it wide exposure, besides what's offered here. That and a Whitaker's slab of their choice (alas, the latter an NZ-only offer).

Feet waiting for the Lapstone train.

'dangerous and beautiful'

Here's a new review of Dorothee Kocks's The Glass Harmonica, a sensualist's tale . . .  

Since spring is in the air, I'd like to offer a free copy of Slightly Peculiar Love Stories to the next two buyers of The Glass Harmonica.

And now I'm going to the beach.

Packing a few things

I talked about Rosa Mira Books last week with Ruth Todd of Women on Air. Here's the podcast.

Did I say? I'm away for a couple of weeks, but know of a handy doorstep where I can stay in touch now and then.

I plan to proofread the next Rosa Mira ebook, a rich anthropological and autobiographical journey (a road trip) through New Zealand, by Michael Jackson, NZ poet and anthropologist living in the US. (Alas, that NZ Book Council link isn't exactly up to date but you'll get the gist.) And to do some of my own work on Amigas, the collaborative novel Elena Bossi and I have been writing for the last two or three years. We have some new ideas for working it into shape.

Keep well, read eagerly, write and create joyously, play ludically, and enjoy your people. I will.

With the eye of imagination, a pen. Or a double pastry roller.

Odds and ends

What's happening this week? Well, spring is, in this neck of the woods. It's doing gorgeously.

Blogger has changed its layout so I'm groping my way through it this morning.

Rosa Mira Books is giving away a copy each of Slightly Peculiar Love Stories and Dorothee Kocks's The Glass Harmonica: A Sensualist's Tale. Head to the Facebook page, find the giveaway posting, and in the comment box, write what device you'd use to read your copy. You'll go in the draw tomorrow morning.

Writer Carolyn McCurdie has read Slightly Peculiar Love Stories and says: "This is a collection of astonishing variety, by authors from NZ and around the world. Several are translations. The heart of the reader, therefore, the mind, the hairs on the back of the neck, are guaranteed to be touched at least once, or over and over by something in here. For me, it was 'The Ache' by Elena Bossi (translated from the Spanish), and 'Four Stories' by Tania Hershman, in particular, that demanded I go back and savour."

Also today on the Facebook page we seem to have got into a game of giving someone an age, and you have to answer a few simple questions from that (far off, in my case — 12) time. So far, SPLS authors Sarge Lacuesta, Coral Atkinson, and Tim Jones have also divulged dark, writerly secrets.

On Saturday I talked with Ruth Todd on Women on Air in Christchurch, about Rosa Mira Books. As soon as the podcast is available, I'll put the link here. 

Following up on my last posting, about digital contracts, I signed mine with RHNZ, but stipulated (and they agreed) that it be for two years only. Flexibility is the thing, when so much is changing so fast.

Later this week, I'm off to the Sydney vicinity for a fortnight, but now and then I'll trundle my laptop over to the neighbour's doorstep where (they've agreed!) we can access their WiFi. 

If it's cold on the step, I'll just have to take it a few steps further, to the pub.

Testing the e-climate

Publishers are baffled. No one knows what books are going to look like in 20 years. No one knows what kind of dance the ebook market will be doing a year from now. It's hard for traditional publishers to to figure out what royalty share to offer their authors on digital copies.

One major player, publisher of my books, has recently renegged on the 50 percent author rate in our contract (signed before digital books were more more than a twinkle in Amazon's eye) and has come up with something closer to what they consider 'the market norm' of 20 percent. For various reasons I'm arguing, not signing. Here's an extract from my letter:

…  for an author to be contracted ad infinitum for 20 percent of the digital book price received makes little sense in this changeable climate.

As a digital publisher I'm paying 20 percent to our authors until certain fixed publishing costs are met, after which 60 percent. Each contract is renewable after two years.


I go on to request that the span of the contract be shortened from infinity to two years; or that the percentage payable to the author be increased, or that it be increased after a certain number of sales — after all, there will be no reprint, no ongoing production costs once the book has been digitally formatted.

I suggest that, alternatively, I take back my digital rights, format and sell my own ebooks, and offer the publisher perhaps 20 percent of income from sales . . .

My letter concludes: I don't envy you the task of working through these digital knots, but this is the publishing challenge of the time and vigorous discussion is surely called for now when author autonomy is increasing exponentially.

And that's the rub. Not all authors will be content to sit about catching the drips from the sales of their titles when they now have unprecedented access to their readership, and as long as publishers expect them to behave like compliant children, taking their small portion without fuss.

Of course, I run the risk that the publisher won't budge and I'll be left with no ebook and no 'digital' income from it.

I'll let you know what happens.