What About the Writing? New York Times on Pushing Writers to Produce

Recently, the New York Times featured an article by Julie Bosman, “Writer’s Cramp: In the E-Reader Era, a Book a Year is Slacking,” that described new ramped-up expectations on 

writers.  Previous to the digital literary bonanza, a genre writer (romance, mystery, thriller) could whip up one book a year and keep her audience satiated.  These days, that amounts to hardly a snack.  In the interest of satisfying impatient readers habituated to instant gratification, as well as nervous publishers who want greater exposure for their authors, Bosman reports, “authors are now pulling the literary equivalent of a double shift, churning out short stories, novellas or even an extra full-length book each year.” 

In order to keep up with the increase in demand, authors have found various ways to assist their productivity.  There’s the nose-to-the-grindstone approach of author Scottoline, who endures a self-imposed, grueling 2,000 words a day schedule, keeping her busy from morning to late night.  Then there’s the clever marketing approach of writing a short story directly to ebook and selling it for 99 cents, with the hope of enticing readers to fork over $15 or, better yet, $25 for a hardcover novel released shortly thereafter.  And finally there’s the hire-another-writer approach–popular author James Patterson produced 12 books last year, with the assistance of co-authors.  British thriller writer Lee Child comments, “it seems like we’re all running faster to stay in the same place.”  

Though Fuze shares in the excitement of the digital age, we have to ask ourselves, what’s happening to the quality of the writing?  Under such pressure, it doesn’t seem possible for writers to maintain the same caliber of craft, which for us is the main point of it all.  At Fuze, we prioritize skillful storytelling at the expense of a time line.  We work hard to get our writers into the public eye, but we don’t shackle them with creativity-draining demands.  Steve Berry, thriller writer, said it best when discussing the new writing expectations:  “It does sap away some of your energy. You don’t ever want to get into a situation where your worth is being judged by the amount of your productivity.”

Read the entire New York Times article.

 

 

Saving Effort, One Blog at a Time

Last March, I participated in what’s known as an online book blog tour. It’s sort of like giving a reading at a book store, only in your pajamas and from home. Basically, I contracted with a service (Thank you, Tribute Books) and they arranged for me to write guest posts for a select number of book sites. In my case, the number was 14. I thought it would be fun to recycle, ahem, repost a few of my favorite blog posts. I’m keeping it to five blogs, starting with the first one I did, which was for The Book Connection.

Recycled Blogs, #1 in a Series (Collect ‘em all)

Book Blog Site: The Book Connection

Their request:
Let’s have Mark write a guest post about anything funny that happened with the pets either during the trip or after they arrived

My post:
Making a road trip with pets is much like making the same trip with kids, except pets never complain about your choice of music or pinch each other when you’re not looking. Furthermore, you can’t leave your kids behind in the car with a window cracked while you go inside to get something to eat.

In my case, we were making a six-day drive with a dog who had a bladder the size of a caper, a Standard poodle named Cassie, as well as a cat named Sadie, who believed a cat’s reach should never exceed its claws. We were traveling from Portland, Oregon, to San Miguel de Allende, in the middle of Mexico. By the end of the trip, we were all tired of the road and of each other.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

In an amazing feat of both endurance and stubbornness, our poodle stood the entire way, in the backseat just behind the driver. Not only that, she had to have the window rolled down, at least halfway, so she could stick her head out. We suspect Cassie was prone to motion sickness and required deep breaths of whatever was passing for fresh air at the time. By the end of a typical 10-hour day of standing in the car, our black poodle had usually turned green.

Sadie was a different story. Once she was inside the car, you barely knew she was there.
The catch was getting her in the car, a cross between a Herculean task and a Three Stooges routine.

The morning after our first day on the road, Sadie hid under the bed, hanging tough on a carpet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since Y2K. When my efforts to grab her failed, we tried Plan B and began sweet-talking her with soft chants of “Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.” When that inevitably failed, it was back to Plan A, only this time I used a long piece of wood, sweeping it under the bed like a broom, which worked.

The second morning gave Sadie new hope, since the night before we had upgraded to two beds. She scurried back and forth, from bed to bed, until I tipped one of the mattresses on end. She hit the mattress, scaled it like a rock climber on amphetamines and reached the top, just as I grabbed her.

The third morning, we checked everywhere, from under the bed to behind the armoire, as well as all points in between. I turned on the closet light to find Sadie crouching inside a trough of transparent plastic that served as a tacky storage unit above the closet rod. Cat nabbed, case closed.

Three weeks after we arrived in Mexico, Sadie disappeared. We searched every corner of our house, inside and out. We walked up and down the street, calling her name as if a cat would ever deign to respond.

We found her, of course. Sadie had burrowed her way inside our bed’s mattress batting. Even with six days of cat retrieval experience, it took me twenty minutes to extract her.

But now, with the mystery solved, we knew Sadie’s hiding spot and the next time she crawled in there, we let her stay.
###

I’ll post another “recycled blog” soon and it’s a doozy. The site asked me how we handled the issue of racism in Mexico. Stay tuned for my answer.

 

Parents Pressured into Skipping Picture Books?

Recently, The New York Times ran an article by Julie Bosman, “Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children,” which discussed a downturn in picture book sales.  Speculation as to the cause mentioned economic hard times, but focused mostly on the pressure parents feel 

to advance their children academically, beginning well before kindergarten.   Bosman said parents “are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.”   Dara La Porte, manager of the Washington D.C. independent bookstore Politics and Prose, comments on the bizarre connection:  “It’s a terrible pressure parents are feeling — that somehow, I shouldn’t let my child have this picture book because she won’t get into Harvard.”

Literacy experts, however, don’t agree with the bypass.  Chapter books, Bosman reported, have more text, but don’t necessarily offer a more complex story or vocabulary.  “From picture to picture, as readers interact with the book,” Karen Lotz, of Candlewick Press points out, “their imagination is filling in the missing themes.”

Within hours of the NYT article release, more experts in the field chimed in on the value of picture books and decried their supposed “death.”

Picture books offer “the precious chance for the child…to talk about the pictures and how they make him feel; to turn the pages backwards as well as forwards; to get to know the characters through the way they are represented in art as well as the way they are described in words.” -–Tessa Strickland, Founder of Barefoot Books Publishing

Picture books “inspire children not only to find answers but to ask their own questions.” -–Tami Lewis Brown, author of Soar, Elinor!

“What greater gift can we give our children than to open the door to words and pictures? What greater gift than to show them the power and wonder of imagination, which keeps us company in the loneliest and darkest of hours–-and is there for all the good times, too.” -–Holly M. McGhee, President of Pippin Properties

As our first picture book, The Pepperoni Palm Tree,  by the father-son team Jason Killiam Meath and Aidan Patrick Meath (age 9), takes shape in pre-production under the skilled hand of illustrator Kirk Parrish, we appreciate how the visual panels enhance and expand the text, allowing for that space in between the words where images and symbols simmer and gestate.   Our children need books like these, this space to activate their imaginations and daydreams.

Fuze is excited to reveal a sneak peek at illustrations from The Pepperoni Palm Tree in the weeks ahead — stay tuned!

 

We’re Getting the Band Back Together, Dude

I was thinking of getting one of those rock band tour tee-shirts made, the kind of shirt that features a crazy, wild-eyed, horned and drooling creature with blood-dripping fangs on the front, and lists the dates and locations of the band’s latest tour on the back, to promote my own recent book tour. But, alas, I only had four cities to list and, with the possible exception of our dog, Duke, I don’t have any groupies. So onay to the tee-shirt idea.

Instead, I’m going to share a few photos.

The first photo is of the amazing, incredibly talented Melinda Pittman holding a copy of my book and mugging for the camera. This took place at my Portland book party, where I gave three readings and more than 75 people attended. The turnout warmed the cockles of my heart, which needed warming since the weather was both cold and wet, a chilly combination I rarely experience in the middle of semi-arid Mexico. However, thanks to Foster Church, who generously hosted my book party at his house, warm cockles were had by all.

My Portland book party took place on a Sunday; two days earlier I had been interviewed by Jody Seay, in Corvallis, for her televised show “Back Page,” an Oregon Public Broadcasting series about authors. My interview hasn’t aired yet, so stay tuned. That is to say, do not stay in front of your television set waiting for the show to suddenly appear. It’s okay to go outside, get in your car, and drive around a bit. I’ll let you know when my interview is available. I asked the producer to “photoshop” the face of Matt Damon over my face, which might account for the delay. Apparently, acquiring the rights to use a movie star’s image is not as easy or as cheap as it used to be.

The second photo is of the backs of a bunch of lovely people who attended my Ashland reading at Bloomsbury Books, where it was standing room only. Well, at least I recall standing while reading. Truth be told, it was, indeed, a packed and enthusiastic house and I would like to thank Bloomsbury Books, as well as the fronts of those lovely people, for making me feel so welcome. Ashland rocks!

I also want to thank Geoffrey Riley and the Jefferson Exchange of Ashland, a radio program on the regional NPR station, for interviewing me live (which is always preferred to being interviewed dead). Geoffrey is a true pro and has a mellifluous voice and infectious laugh. As mutual bonus points, we learned that we are both huge Robert Benchley fans (Las Los rocks!). Geoffrey performed feats of on-air magic and made me sound taller than I am. If you don’t believe me, here’s a link to the interview:

http://hw.libsyn.com/p/2/3/f/23f21837f5a2dc77/The_Jefferson_Exchange_5_03_2012_Hour_2.mp3?sid=2719cd978df0f4329dbc18db0563ed17&l_sid=31985&l_eid=&l_mid=2996427&expiration=1336322271&hwt=9059f2bd75ebd2206e81dae1a863ee57

And the third photo is of my long-time friend, former neighbor, and relative by marriage (my sister married her cousin), Annette Rodriques of San Jose, who hosted a book party for Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak at her gorgeous house. Annette has a beautiful singing voice and opened the reading by leading us in a round of the popular Spanish song De Colores. Unsurprisingly, my Spanish isn’t any better when I sing. (In fact, I believe I am the only gringo in all of Mexico who has been told not to sing in the shower because of his voice, instead of for that other reason.) What was surprising, however, was meeting someone who has a close friend in the Bay Area who owns a condo unit in San Miguel de Allende. After the reading we conversed with her friend via text messaging and learned that her friend owns the condo above two of our closest friends in San Miguel. It is a small world, after all.

Corvallis, Portland, Ashland, San Jose: thank you, one and all, for your support! And thank you, FUZE, for making it all happen.

Maybe that’s what I should put on the back of my book tour tee-shirt. The names of those who cheered me on, laughed at my corny jokes, bought copies of my book, and struggled to decipher my handwriting after I autographed their copy. Now that shirt makes perfect sense to me. I might even put Matt Damon’s image on the front.

Questions, suggestions, objections?  Feel free to contact author Mark Saunders (Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak) at: msaunderswriter@yahoo.com

 

Amazon, Elephant in the Room?

In last week’s newsletter we profiled an independent press, McFarland & Co., and its struggle with Amazon, reported by Amy Martinez in a Seattle Times headline article.  Martinez described how numerous small presses and distribution companies throughout the country have locked horns with Amazon, after the company demanded greater discounts on book sales and no room for negotiation.

Amazon’s grasp on the publishing world reaches further than their squeeze on small presses.  According to Martinez, in 2009, the mega-company branched into the world of publishing by launching its first imprint, AmazonEncore, for “publishing overlooked books and authors.”  Soon after followed a number of other imprints focused on niche books, and finally Amazon established a New York office dedicated to publishing books of general interest. 

So Amazon’s little secret is out, even though it has downplayed its presence in thepublishing world.  Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, called the imprints an “in-house laboratory where authors and editors and marketers can test new ideas.”  Paired with their pressure on independent presses, however, and their attempts to undercut the prices of other companies, especially in the digital book realm, it is clear that Amazon’s intentions have moved well beyond those of a simple experiment.  It seems that if there is a way to encroach on the competition, even the small players trying to give voice to unheard authors overlooked by mainstream publishing, they proceed full throttle.

Can Fuze withstand Amazon’s power grab?  Fortunately we are under their radar.  We have elected not to use a book distributor—an expensive endeavor which produces truckloads of books returned from bookstores in unsalable condition, both a financial and environmental bad move.  Still we continue to grow despite Amazon’s significant demands for a large discount from our titles: they take a whopping 55% cut from every sale! 

Our experience communicating with Amazon has been as frustrating as that of McFarland & Co. There have been numerous “glitches” over the three years we have engaged with Amazon, from repeated missing book cover images to announcements that our titles are “out of stock.” These glitches then take days or even weeks to sort out, as discussion is restricted to anonymous email communications, leaving us to wonder how many sales have been lost.  Along with other small presses, we continue to evaluate the question:  should the visibility and easy access we gain from an account with Amazon override its business practices, which display at best an indifference toward helping emerging small presses?

Read the entire Seattle Times article.

 

Is Amazon Taking Over the World?

Last week in a Seattle Times article entitled, “An Amazon.com Powergrab,” Amy Martinez reported on Amazon’s questionable treatment of McFarland & Co, a small press.  Apparently the mega-company, via email, demanded from the small publisher nearly twice their usual discount.  Adding insult to injury, they gave the press only nineteen days’ warning of this change.  Since Amazon accounts for a sizable portion of McFarland’s sales, and since the small press offers all their retail partners the same discount, it was, in the words of Karl-Heinz Roseman, director of sales and marketing at McFarland, “the apocalypse.  We couldn’t exist like that.”

According to Martinez, many in the book world are concerned that “Amazon will use its pricing pressure to crush publishers. They say Amazon’s demands for deeper discounts threaten already-thin profit margins, and some warn of a coming Amazon monopoly.”

When a company corners more than 70% of the market, and engages in predatory activity, it is considered a monopoly; currently, Amazon controls between 55 and 60% of the ebook market, and the figure is climbing.  Mike Shatzkin, founder and CEO of The Idea Logical, a New York publishing consultancy warns, “There’s never been anything like the potential for domination by a single company in the U.S. book business like what we see now with Amazon.”

 The issues get even more complicated.  Readers may recall that two years ago, Amazon attempted to price ebooks significantly below what major publishers wanted to charge.  Macmillan Publishing tried to gain control over the pricing of their ebooks, which 

prompted Amazon to remove the “buy” button from Macmillan titles.  The U.S. Justice Department is now investigating Macmillan and five other companies for possible violation of anti-trust laws via price-fixing, but this doesn’t erase the fact that Amazon appeared to be attempting to control the market by undercutting its competitors.  “When you sell books at a loss, by the millions, to corner the market, you’re not interested in competing,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo, about Amazon business practices.  “You’re interested in burying your competitors and then burying the shovel.”

Macmillan had the clout to retaliate against Amazon.  But inasmuch as Amazon’s current (mis)treatment of McFarland reflects their habit with small presses, we have to wonder—has the behemoth simply chosen smaller presses to pick on, those that don’t have the economic power to fight back?

 Tune in next week for more on the Amazon powergrab, and Fuze’s subjective experience.

 Read the entire Seattle Times article.

 

 

 

 

Fuze Team Celebrates Our Third Anniversary!

What started as two friends meeting over lunch has blossomed into a small company of eight. This week, we spoke with the rest of the Fuze team, from our book designer to our accountant, asking them to reflect on our third anniversary.

Several team members recently joined Fuze.  Sarah Blankenshipmanages our shipment department and shared the many favorite parts of her job:  “Since I am also a stay-home mom, I like that it is not a typical 9-to-5 job. I can work from home (and the post office), and the days/times are fairly flexible.  I like that it is with a publishing company, as I love books and reading, and look forward to being exposed more to the world of publishing. Another bonus is thewonderful people I work with!”

Lenore Elam, C.P.A., handles all accounting aspects for Fuze. Though a newcomer to the publishing world, she “enjoys being involved with the publishing field and watching Fuze grow.”

Erin McDowell, a Spring semester intern from Southern Oregon University, said this of his time with Fuze: “I’ve learned that I have a decent hand at editing, and it’s something that I really love to do. This has helped me realize how more effectively to decide what classes I should betaking, and it’s also given me a feeling of accomplishment that keeps me going when class work seems pointless.”  Erin also told us he’d “love to be a line editor, and hopefully I’ll be able to find a similar position with a publishing company when I graduate.”  Good luck, Erin!

Mary Lee, a long-standing intern from SOU, whose many responsibilities include managing our twitter and facebook accounts, shared what she learned this year:  “Persistance!  Once someone subscribes to your social media, it’s even more important to keep up. Fans want to know what you’re up to 24/7.”  She also aspires to a career in publishing, saying, “I love helping transform someone’s literary work into something special!”

Ray Rhamey, who’s been with Fuze for nearly a year, designs the book covers and interiors, and promotional materials such as postcards and bookmarks. A publisher and talented author in his own right, (http://www.rayrhamey.com

Ray comments on the future of the publishing industry and Fuze:  “As volatile as publishing is and the Internet as strong as it is, and considering the vast changes in the last five years with ebook publishing, it’s impossible to make sound predictions five years out. Where Fuze might be depends on the success of its business model, and that’s still, in a sense, being tested. As for the industry, I think print books will still be a strong factor and will be the dominant mode even then, though ebook publishing will be a larger proportion than it is now.”  In a more playful moment, Rhamey said, “Fuze will be huge and I will be wealthy!”

Our Director of Marketing and Public Relations, Meg Tinsley, joined the Fuze team a year and a half ago, as the editor of the Fuze weekly enewsletter, but as is often the case with a small company, she began doing a bit of this and that, including developing Fuze’s social media department. “Fuze has grown from a small enterprise to one that has a significant social media presence,” Tinsley comments.  “Bloggers are eagerly reviewing our books, and our newsletter has quadrupled its audience.”  Her vision for the future?  “When I put my practical hat on, I see Fuze growing steadily and surely, becoming more established in the publishing world, perhaps branching out into a few more genres, but sticking to what we do best–quality writing, quality stories.  Our digital sales will continue to rise, though I think our print copies of books, at least close to each book launch, will have a solid sales record.  We will have lots more authors, several more staff people, more editors, a larger marketing department, and a bunch of 20-year-old’s who tweet for us all week long!”

 

Happy Anniversary Fuze! Three Years of Innovative Publishing

We at Fuze Publishing have plenty of reason to celebrate our third anniversary!  As an independent press with a cutting-edge business model, Fuze has achieved remarkable success in a world dominated until recently by traditional publishing paradigms.  We have released six books, with five more in the editing pipeline, and we have grown from two founders, to a team of five employees and two interns!  This week, Karetta Hubbard and Molly Tinsley, Fuze co-founders, discuss their unusual journey and their vision for the future.

 

Five years ago, two grandmothers—one, a seasoned writer and former college professor, the other a successful businesswoman—decided, on a whim, to write a thriller.  Both recall the excitement and challenge of collaborating on Satan’s Chamber.  But when it came time to get the book published, the economy had tanked, and publishing companies all but suspended acquisitions. 

 

After aggressively marketing Satan’s Chamber according to traditional protocol, a light bulb went off for Hubbard–why not start  their own publishing company?  Tinsley agreed, and Fuze Publishing was born.

 

The two mavericks originally intended to sell their own thriller, and its sequels.  But as Hubbard remembers, “Other writers with similar frustrations came to us, asking can you publish my book?”  Soon they had crafted a business model, with a little start-up capital, and a requirement that authors participate in the growth of the company in return for substantial royalties. 

 

Over the course of the last three years, Fuze has made a successful venture out of violating conventional business sense, by supporting unknown authors, and emphasizing a mission:  to publish stories that bridge diverse cultures and enlighten at the same time that they captivate readers.

 

“Each month we measure incremental financial gains,” says Hubbard, “which means our stories are reaching wider audiences.  In the publishing world, the caliber of the titles, plus the number of titles equals more respect, and after three years we’re gaining our footing.” 

 

Tinsley believes Fuze has accomplished an important mission. “We’ve enabled writers who were on the verge of giving up, and we have published books that deserve to be out there.”
 

Fuze doesn’t have any trouble finding manuscripts.  In fact, “our authors have mostly come to us via word of mouth,” says Hubbard.  Since Fuze remains a relatively small operation, however, she says “we have little time to work with manuscripts that are not Publish Ready.”  That said, Hubbard admits, “When a powerful story crosses our path, begging to be told, it is difficult for us to resist putting the time and effort into making it a publishable work.”   

 

When asked about the most important lesson she’s learned so far, Hubbard says, “It involves working with authors to get their manuscripts in ‘prime time’ shape.  All writers tend to see their work as finished and immutable.  In many cases they have already put a lot of work into rewriting, though publication still eludes them.  To motivate them to engage in more editing, and sometimes rewriting, is a challenge: to read their work as a potential reader might and reshape the story accordingly.” 

 

Tinsley has learned a lot about the internet.  “Cyberspace was foreign territory for us, but today’s business world requires a familiarity.”  Having netted some younger team members–her daughter Meg Tinsley, to create the newsletter and connect the company to the blogsphere, and Mary Lee, Fuze’s long-term intern, to annex Twitter and Facebook, they are on the right track!

 

Both co-founders express the tension that their business endeavor has caused in their own creative pursuits.  “The reason I collaborated with Molly on Satan’s Chamber in the first place,” Hubbard says, was “to learn from the master.  Now that I have discovered the art of story-telling through the written word, I would like to be able to keep writing and improve my skills.  But the demands of the business make this impossible at this time.”  Yet as she goes on to say, “Even so, I would repeat our experience, if only because of the joy we have brought to the authors, whose books might never have seen the light of day, and to the readers who experience these stories.  Ultimately, it’s fun to be able to get out of bed and do something worthwhile.”

 

“My aha moment,” Tinsley says, “has to do with learning my limits, and realizing that I can’t let go of my own writing or I’ll go nuts.  I have to write my own stories and plays.”  Yet she also admits, “It’s really hard to strike a balance, because I want to publish or at least help every writer. I want them to keep on writing. Creativity is drying up in our culture; we are not creating, we are just consuming. I don’t want the voices of the world to go quiet even though I can’t give everyone a megaphone.”

 

Looking toward the future, both founders expressed a desire to grow Fuze, incrementally, by developing more infrastructure: editors to free up personal creative pursuits, a marketing arm, and more quality controls.  “Mostly we’d like to keep doing what we’re already doing, but do it better,” says Hubbard.

 

Tinsley admits they’d “love a big success, mostly so we can launch further successes for everyone else. I’d like more attention from the reading world, so that getting our titles noticed would be less of an uphill fight!”  Each of our books has the potential to be a blockbuster.  The Fuze team is hard at work to make this happen.

 

Ebook Interrupted? New York Times on Tablets of Distraction

Over a year ago, this newsletter reported on the digital book-buying boom which prompted speculation on the future of the publishing industry.  Would the print book survive?  Most thought yes, though hard copy may give way to electronic books.   What will happen, though, to our reading experience, as the options for electronic books proliferate?   According to a recent New York Times article (Finding Your Book Interrupted…By the Tablet You Read It On ), many consumers are choosing tablets, like the ipad, as their preferred vehicle for downloading and reading ebooks.  Simple ereaders like the basic Kindle, replicate the insular world of a book, allowing a reader to lose herself in the “pages.”  Tablets, on the other hand, offer a world of distraction–the ability to skype, email, twitter, surf the web, download apps, etc.  Journalists Julie Bosman and Matt Richtel elaborate that “while a book in print or on a black-and-white Kindle is straightforward and immersive, a tablet offers a menu of distractions that can fragment the reading experience, or stop it in its tracks.”  Tablet reader David Myer equates it with “trying to cook when there are little children around.”  Others confess that the percentage of their unfinished books has climbed to new heights.    Have our hopes that digital books would inspire a well-educated population of prolificreaders crashed on the rocks?  Major publishing houses insist that the market for both print books and simple e-readers “is not going away, despite the pull of tablets.”  Erin Faulk, avid reader, spins a new twist. “I gravitate to books that make me forget I have a world of entertainment at my fingertips. If the book’s not good enough to do that, I guess my time is better spent.”   Fuze Publishing’s mission remains the same– to deliver books with integrity, page-turners whose writing and stories engage and inspire.   You won’t be tempted away from our “pages,” no matter how you choose to read our books!   Check out all the Fuze books on the our website .

 

George Clooney Arrested for Sudan–”All We Ask.”

Fuze has a particular interest in the state of affairs in the two Sudans.  Co-founders Hubbard and Tinsley’s fascination with and concern for the religious and economic conflicts between northern and southern Sudan fueled the plot of their CIA thriller, Satan’s Chamber.  Described by the Island Sounder–a battle of good and evil in a haze of yellow dust; and by Gardner Peckham, former member, National Commission on Terrorism, consultant to the CIA–a spy novel with punch that sweats the details– Satan’s Chamber takes the real-life conflicts in Sudan around oil and power, weaves in the imagination, and offers a plausible story not only of corruption and conflict, but of  hope and redemption.

 

Last year, in July, we alerted our newsletter readers to a dramatic vote that occurred in southern Sudan.  It formalized a division that had already torn the country apart along religious and economic lines, by creating a separate and independent  Republic of South Sudan.  We were hopeful that peace might begin in a region historically plagued with conflict, although there was still the question of how to divide the benefits from the tons of oil discovered in the Republic of South Sudan.  A tenuous compromise emerged, whereby RSS would pump their oil through a pipeline maintained and controlled by the north, for a fee, allowing both countries to profit from the oil reserves.

 

Brought to world-wide attention again last week by protesters, including actor George Clooney–longtime Sudan activist–and Martin Luther King III, both of whom police arrested at the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC, the struggle in the two Sudan’s continues.  According to a recent New York Timesarticle entitled “Clooney Among Protesters Arrested at Sudan’s Embassy in Washington,” 

President of North Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, continues to use “military force to block food and humanitarian aid intended for civilians in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile,” resulting in half a million civilians deprived of food, medicine, and other necessities.  Susan E. Rice, American ambassador to the United Nations, calls the situation “one step short of full- scale famine.”

 

 

According to the recent Voice of America article, “Actor George Clooney Arrested During Sudan Protest,”

before his arrest, Clooney poignantly asked for two things.  The first, with some urgency–”for humanitarian aid to be allowed into the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”  And the second, “for the government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children. Stop raping them and stop starving them. That is all we ask.”

 

 

In a NYT’s article a few days earlier, “On Capitol Hill, George Clooney Testifies About Sudan,”

Clooney claims North Sudan’s military force and blockade not only create a dire humanitarian concern, but also affect American consumers, since they have shut down the Republic of South Sudan’s oil production, thereby causing China to seek oil imports elsewhere.  According to US President Obama, the conflict is a significant cause of the recent spike in gasoline prices.

 

 

For centuries, fiction has described, among other things, politics and culture.  But literature and art have the ability to shed light on new possibilities; the imagination can create new awareness, new doorways in our consciousness.   Does Satan’s Chamber offer a new vision—one of hope in a region plagued by decades of conflict?

 

You be the judge.

 

Find out more about Satan’s Chamber!