Between the Lines

Popular BookRix author Steven Nedelton says that American fiction is far from “culturally irrelevant”, as cultural critic Lee Siegel recently wrote in The New York Observer.

WRITING ANOTHER ‘FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS?

They say this is the end of American fiction. “For about a million reasons,” Lee Siegel claims.

I believe I heard of Mr. Lee Siegel, but I doubt that he is right in his rather far-fetched prediction. For most of fiction comes from actual events and characters disguised into the fictitious, and so, fiction and non-fiction are inseparably intertwined.

L.A., June 17 (UPI) — Film stars Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman have been cast in an upcoming HBO film about late U.S. author Ernest Hemingway, TVGuide.com said.

Hemingway, even vampires, are still very much alive. Thank you UPI.

The first books I had read were Gogol’s short stories and then Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, my presents for my twelfth and thirteenth birthday. And they hooked me. Since then, I never stopped reading.

I began writing seriously about ten years ago. My first novel ended after thirty thousands words with a firm writer’s block. Whatever it was, I was flat out of ideas. For a while, I thought I would never write again but then, quite unconsciously, I recalled a short sentence I read in a major newspaper back in ‘92. And that was it, I just had to write a suspense novel based on paranormal. My Crossroads was the result, the novel of espionage, of international and extrasensory, and based on true happenings. I did a lot of research for that book and rewrote it — at least twice.

By then I had started my second one, The Raven Affair. I was almost done with my third, Dawn for the Fearless, when I found a publisher interested in Crossroads.

I would say that in order to get accepted by a publisher, one must have a well-edited manuscript. A high score in BookRix competitions is a great help, witness Scott Kelly’s Frightened Boy.  However, getting published is only the first step along a very muddy road to acceptance by readers. Good reviews are important, yet, I am not yet sure which ones are the most beneficial. Midwest Book Review is one of the prestigious and so is the Kirkus Review. Which one results in a larger readership, if any, I really don’t know. I must add that Preditors & Editors is a very useful service for all, published and unpublished writers.

You can read samples of Steven’s published novels on BookRix. They’re also available for purchase at Amazon.com and other major book retailers. You can also learn more at his website, snedelton.com.