Going Indie: My reflections on choosing an Independent Book Publisher by Roger Drouin

There is a scene in my novel No Other Way when Thomas, the good-guy turned rogue-park-ranger, encounters three of the men working for Centur Corp., the company that wants to drill for natural gas in the national forest where Thomas works.

It is an important moment in the action of the novel and the development of Thomas’s character. When my editor told me he would be “rewriting” this passage, I was a bit worried.

Then he emailed me some of his changes. It turns out he had carefully re-sculpted this scene—revising it in a way that improved the flow of action, while also keeping the “voice” of the writing untarnished by the changes. My editor quoted John Gardner. His changes to this scene, he told me, were meant to keep the reader in the “fictional dream,” as Gardner puts it.

Slowly, line by line, my manuscript has been smoothed over like the rocks at the bottom of a steady stream.

I got lucky. I found an independent press in love with my novel. That press is South Carolina-based Moonshine Cove Publishing.

My editor at Moonshine Cove, Gene Robinson, has emailed me edits at 1:10 a.m.

We spent hours going over possible cover designs.

Gene suggested the title change, from A Long Way to Go to No Other Way. The new title is more reflective of the tone of the book, I think. The new title is taken from a conversation between Thomas and the other main character Samuel.

To top things off, over the past few weeks, I’ve been in touch with some amazing fellow writers, journal editors, and reviewers—such as authors Sheldon Lee Compton and Martin Lastrapes, and Diane Smith, editor of Grey Sparrow Journal, to name just a few. Talented photographer Greg Stahl graciously let Moonshine Cove Publishing use his landscape photo captured in the White Cloud Mountains, Idaho for the cover of No Other Way.

These artists have been supportive and encouraging, and I think it’s genuine. Because just maybe they see something in my writing. I also believe they have faith in the feisty and quixotic independent forces that exist to try to bring literature to an audience. Sometimes those stories may be a little raw, or sometimes hard, or the opposite—just a little too quiet. But the independent publishers publish a book because they love it.

Earlier in the submission process, I heard from one agent, who liked my query letter and then read my manuscript. The agent responded: “…But I’m afraid the story as a whole was just too quiet for me.”

I would have kept down that path, trying to find an agent, but something kept pulling me towards the path of finding an independent publisher. It was just a matter of finding the right one.  

But why did I want to go with an independent publisher?

It is a huge decision to choose a publisher to print your novel, and the decision to go with an independent press is one that many other writers have written about more eloquently than I can hope to.

At this point, the most I can say is we’ll see how it works out. I have a pretty good feeling about the prospects for No Other Way. For a literary novel with a powerful eco-centric undercurrent, (as one of my fellow FAUers has described it) I felt that an independent press was the way to go.

I’m thirty-two, and I’ve acquired a list of things I distrust, yet one of those things I do have faith in are those feisty independent forces that bring literature to life. The ones who don’t shy away from the raw, the hard, the writing that is just a little too quiet.

Of course an agent or an editor at a big publisher can love a work. There are plenty of accounts of agents and editors fighting for an author’s first novel, and then making sure that book is as polished as it can be.

The independent press, however, offers a little more freedom and input. In my case, it has allowed me to work closely with an editor who has, so far in the process, been delicate and thoughtful with my words I’ve written on the page.

As my editor and I continue to work on the galley edits for No Other Way, I feel like I’ve just pulled out onto a nice stretch of two-lane and I’m driving along to see what comes up.

Roger Real Drouin completed his MFA in fiction from Florida Atlantic University this spring. One of his favorite hobbies is to get almost lost way out in the woods.  More information about No Other Way can be found on the novel's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/rogerrealdrouin or on Roger's webpage: www.rogerdrouin.com

Meet Our MFAs

Kel McIntyre

1. Where have you lived?

I'm originally from Chicago but have been in South Florida since my parents dragged me here almost 30 years ago. I pretty much grew up in Miramar, and now I live in Davie.

2. What are some of your favorite places in Florida?

Since I'm not a spend-my-time-in-the-sun kind of girl, the places I like in Florida are pretty limited. Does the Wizarding World of Harry Potter count?

3. What does your writing space look like? 

My writing space looks like any place where my family isn't: My kitchen table when my kids aren't in the house or have gone to bed, Starbucks, my classroom during planning. When I'm in the middle of writing something that has to come out, I write wherever and whenever I can.

4. Are you a pen/pencil, typewriter, or computer writer?

I mostly write on my computer, but I really like to write with a pencil. Only if it's sharp, though--and never a pen.

5. When did you first realize you have a passion for writing?

I can't really remember ever not writing. When I was six, I locked myself in my bedroom for two days and wrote a "book" on astronomy, but I don't know if you'd call it a passion at that point. The first time I really remember writing something that I just had to write was when I was ten. I wrote a Sweet Valley High-style book that all the people in my sixth grade social studies class passed around and read when the teacher wasn't looking.

6. What's a book you've reread and why?

I've reread Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a ridiculous amount of times. Every time a new movie came out, I started the series over from the beginning because I was afraid I'd forgotten something.

7. What advice do you have for a graduate student in his/her first semester?

Don't wait until a few days before a paper is due to start writing it. No good can come of it.

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Meet Our MFAs

Risa Polansky

1. Where have you lived?

Broward County, Florida (various locations that, now fully grown (I hope), I can't really remember); Orlando, Florida; Centennial, Colorado; Gainesville, Florida; Miami Beach, Florida; Delray Beach, Florida.

2. What are some of your favorite places in Florida?

South Beach, Siesta Key

3. What does your writing space look like? 

A lot like my sleeping space ... I have a study with a real desk and  chair and bookcase and everything, but I find myself more inspired when relaxed (i.e. sitting in bed).  Pool and/or rooftop have also been hotspots for me lately.

4. Are you a pen/pencil, typewriter, or computer writer?

Computer unless I don't have access to one, in which case I take what I can get (a mini-golf pencil and a sales receipt, for instance).

5. When did you first realize you have a passion for writing?

I've wanted to be a writer ever since I learned to write.  Everyone says that, but I have proof: a kindergarten worksheet that states as clearly as anything written by a five-year-old can, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a writer."  Thanks, Little Risa ... no pressure or anything.  My "passion" at that time, if small children have passions, was creative writing (mostly short stories bound with plastic rings).  After a years-long detour into journalism (challenging, enlightening, fun, exhausting) I'm just now pursuing my childhood reams.  (thanks, FAU!)


6. What's a book you've reread and why?

Recently-ish... The History of Love by Nicole Krauss because it is, well, magic.

7. What advice do you have for a graduate student in his/her first semester?

Resist the urge to be utterly intimidated and don't underestimate your own abilities..

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The Last Word on Eula Biss by Michelle Hasler

Eula Biss has come and gone, but her advice is still buzzing around the MFA program. In each of my three workshops, we have adopted her terms, her phrases, her lessons. She has, fulfilling the hopes we have of our Sanders Writer in Residence, left a residual aura of encouragement, of energy, of passion in writing. Here are some of the lessons that continue to resonate:

• ·      Hotspot: a minor reference with major implications. Expand on this. There’s more to this idea than you might have originally thought.
• ·      Cut 50%: on your first draft you should cut fifty percent, expand, cut again, expand, cut again, until you can barely cut anything. Then, cut again.
• ·      Research(!): Even when it is not obvious in the text, your research will add more depth and completeness to the piece.
• ·      In early drafts, write through the white space and the section breaks. Even if you cut all of the information later, you have forced yourself to work through the gaps so that the reader will get a more thorough sense of the message and story you are trying to present.
• ·      Traditional transitions can be an unhealthy habit for writers because they create redundancy at best.
• ·      Your character has to be round; you cannot have a villain on the page. Find information and context that allows readers to better understand and sympathize with that character—even if we still decide to dislike them in the end.
• ·      Use in-text citations for all research so that you save yourself the pain of having to fact check later.
• ·      To make sure that each word has power and impact, you can ask yourself: can this paragraph be condensed into one sentence? And then, can this sentence become a single word?

There they are for those of you who did not know—and for the rest of us who just can’t seem to get enough.

Michelle Hasler is a nonfiction candidate in the MFA program at Florida Atlantic University.

Remembering Kim McCoy

I learned this morning about the passing of one of my former students, our MFA alum, Kim McCoy, who many of you knew as Kim Vann.  She was young, and talented, and sweet, and kind, but, of course, none of those things, as much as we might wish they could, can save your life.  And so I find myself trying to avoid those thoughts of unfairness and a missed future, and trying instead to simply acknowledge my own sadness and the sadness of those who were close to Kim, and for who there will forever be, someone who is missing and missed.  Sometimes, I think so much about my students' futures; it is hard not to consider Kim's unfinished novel--about people living in a house that was on fire (an idea so good I had to sit on my hands not to steal it--still do)--and her unpublished short stories (her thesis was one her committee members and I still talked about some 4 years later).  But I am trying to remember, that what matters really is not a student's future, but their present.  That for the three years they are members of our MFA program, it is our job--my job--to help them live those three years as the gift that they are.  I know Kim valued her time spent with us, as a writer and a teacher of writing, amongst a community of writers many of whom became her treasured friends.  Kim only got thirty-three years, and I really value that for three of them I got to be alongside her.  I know all of us who knew her feel that way.

You can read more about Kim here.

--Papatya Bucak

Jumping In: A Reflection on the Eula Biss Workshop by Kim Pekala

Initially, I had decided not to take the Sanders Writer-in-Residence workshop. Eula Biss, after all, writes creative nonfiction. The Balloonists is categorized as poetry. Neither are genres in which I often write. Besides that, I’m busy. We’re all busy. 
 

What changed my mind was how moved I was hearing Eula read her essay “Time and Distance Overcome” from Notes from No Man’s Land on the MFA@FAU Facebook page. I was also chided by that overly-encouraging-camp-counselor-on-a-megaphone voice in my head that tells me to take every opportunity I can, usually besting that tiny chirping voice that tells me I need take it easy every once in a while. That voice never wins. She’s also super lazy and kind of anti-social.

As I suspected, it was a busy week, but a productive one. Eula asked that we write a short piece to workshop for the class by practicing a suggested research method. I chose her first suggested method, immersion research, because I had already done the work, having recently attended AWP (an immersion to say the least, I assure you). Something was happening in that time that was scrambling in the back of my mind, something that I needed to capture, so I sat down and attempted to do so. The result was utterly displacing – first-person POV nonfiction from a fiction writer. No invention to hide behind and no frills to color the ugliness of reality. I had written the narrative equivalent of showing up to class naked – at least, from my perspective.

We were not limited to writing nonfiction, but if you’re going to practice immersion, you need to go in headfirst. To my pleasure, there was much to be learned. New ideas sparked throughout the week as we discussed the reading assignments, each other’s work, and the suggested readings Eula offered to us individually when considering our writing. Despite the fact that the class incorporated writers of all genres, the contributions and feedback were often universally helpful. As my own essay was scrutinized by my peers, they began to pull out the more emotionally-centered threads, the threads that they could empathize with… the threads I was always seeking in my fiction. Eula pointed out the places where I had moved away from myself in the story, where I had shielded what readers most wanted to see – hidden depths that sought exploration. I never realized how much I held back until I made myself the narrator.

The experience was anxiety-inducing, but revelatory, and left me with tools to make my writing better. To think I almost passed up the chance to have a bonus workshop with fresh perspectives and a chance to make a new friend in the writing world. Opportunities like these are limited, especially in this unique time we spend as writers in an MFA. When the next arises, you can be sure I’ll be the first to take the leap.

Kim Pekala is an MFA student in fiction at Florida Atlantic University.

Digging It: A Dispatch from the Eula Biss Workshop by Mary Ann Hogan

Did I have time for the Sanders Writer-in-Residence workshop with Eula Biss? No.

            Are my other classes suffering because of the workshop? Well… yes.

            Am I glad I'm taking the workshop? No question. In the first two days, I felt my brain matter expanding vis-à-vis my own writing, ideas gelling in fresh ways, moving in more resonant directions, into side trips I hadn’t even considered.  Mostly because of what Eula (“Hello, everyone, I’m Eula”) is teaching us about the wisdom of research:

            Newspaper research.

             Database research.

             Different kinds of databases.  (“You might want to try that same thing, with say, LexisNexis.”)  

             Immersion research.

             Go there. Find stuff out. Soak it in.

             Dig it.

             Key, here, she tells us, is don’t let the research shout, “I’m here!” Keep it invisible. Allow it to inform, to play itself out, on the page. Research is the stuff behind the writing, the invisible mortar that gives depth to a text, informing, rather than directing, how the writing manifests itself on the page. “The page,” what appears there, is what matters, in the end. The poet David Trinidad, Biss tells us, is an avid object-based researcher, finding objects on eBay, including Barbie dolls, various colors of Slicker lip gloss (for the poem “Slicker.”) and even, for his work on Sylvia Plath, a phone just like the one in Plath’s office, wallpaper just like hers -- in the end, a kind of totemic recreation of her writing space.  

             For Biss, nonfiction artist extraordinaire, author of The Balloonists and Notes From No Man’s Land: American Essays, professor at Northwestern, and hero to many of us who write creative nonfiction, genre doesn’t matter. Whether you write fiction, nonfiction or poetry, immersing yourself in research can “move you into whole new territories to explore.” Don’t forget the research that can take you in some other direction – the counter-intuitive, the thing you’re not writing about. It just might lead to a passage on the page that you weren’t expecting.

        I have to go read now for Biss’s workshop today. And then go digging. 

Mary Ann Hogan is working on her MFA in nonfiction at Florida Atlantic University.