Don’t Discount the Little Guys: On the Benefits of Small Publishers

Ask any new author whether they’d rather be published by a big publishing house or a small but attentive local publisher and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t choose big. I’d like to suggest that this is a misconception. Even if it were a possibility, and with all due respect to the five biggest publishers (Penguin, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Random House, Time Warner), getting published by a big press may not be the best option for a new author. Here are some of the key reasons why.

• Getting a first novel or poetry book published by a mainstream publisher is a difficult task by any standard, but the big houses are often constrained by tight quotas, by large overheads and mandated profit margins, by purely commercial (rather than literary) considerations (and the demands of shareholders), and by the need for big name acquisition and the subsequent costs. Most won’t take unagented submissions and even if they do, may not look at them. So the entry portal for a large house is very small.
• Naturally the bigger the house the bigger their resource pool, budget and so on but these funds are often not available to new authors, whose slice of the funding pie may be correspondingly small to fund the famous ‘names’ that the house has. Even if their book is accepted by a big house, first time authors may find themselves receiving surprisingly small advances, and more importantly, very limited editing, publicity, and promotion. With the big houses, you are one author amongst thousands, and your personal success is generally not that important in the overall scheme of their lives. In small houses, your success is critical, and you’re only one of a very small number of authors, so you count.
• One of the biggest problems with big houses is the limited timeframe for promotion. A book is usually only “hot” within the first two months from publication. This means you need reviews from galleys, and if you don’t sell well in the early stages you may be dropped, pulped, or ignored. Large houses will often only do large print runs, which means that a book has to sell significant numbers of books to make back the investment (more than 5,000 copies is an average lower limit for large houses). Smaller publishers generally don’t have those sorts of constraints. A book can be considered viable with much smaller sales than those expected by a large publisher and will often be promoted and kept ‘on the books’ in print (especially if it’s POD and no stock is required) over many years.
• Smaller houses often provide much greater rights to your book, and higher margins, even if the initial advance is low to nonexistent. This may well mean that you end up earning much more from your book sales.
• Smaller house are often faster to market with books (partly due to fewer constraints and a flatter structure), more flexible, and more willing to personally edit your book to perfection.
• Small publishers often have much closer contact with their authors. They collaborate on covers, work together on galleys, and can even involve authors in the production process. There is a wonderful intimacy which you will never find in the large houses.

There was once a time when the small houses produced poorer quality printed books, but this is no longer the case. The cost of printing is cheaper than it ever was, and most small press books are printed on the same quality paper and with the same quality printers as the big house books (some have higher printing quality than the big houses because they are able to focus their resources). The Internet too has given smaller houses a leg up, and they are making the most of global promotion opportunities in a much faster way than the big houses – utilising Amazon and reaching targeted markets with the kind of dexterity that can only come when you aren’t hampered by the constraints of a pro-forma performance appraisal.

There’s also a broader aesthetic implication to consider when sending your work out for publication. Small presses tend to support diversity and innovation. As they aren’t reporting to a board of directors or stockholders, there is much more freedom for them to make selections based on quality rather than sales potential. So supporting small presses means that you’re supporting diversity in publishing and ensuring that the wide variety of stunning voices that are out there continue to be available. Poetry in particular has always existed outside of financial considerations, and the number of poetic titles being published by large publishers is miniscule. Good poetry books are being published almost solely by small presses, which continue to support new poets out of very small funding pots, and primarily for the love of it. Most small presses work primarily for the love of it anyway, regardless of what they publish, and choose books based on that one criteria that every writer wants his or her reader to have – a deep and abiding love of the book. In other words, if a small press is publishing you, it isn’t because you’re Ethan Hawke or Jewel, but because they absolutely love your work. What more could a writer ask for? How about a long book life, small (possibly very small) but steady profits, superb, thoughtful, personal and collaborative editing, and aggressive, innovative marketing? If that’s what you’re looking for, small presses are the way to go. Of course not all small presses are divine. There are plenty of sharks out there. But a majority of small presses are operating on a tiny budget and a massive heart. It’s enough to keep you writing.

Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won local and international awards for poetry (including this year's Roland Robinson literary award), and fiction. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment: How to Review Anything and three other poetry chapbooks Quark Soup, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Cherished Pulse and She Wore Emerald Then. She runs a monthly radio program podcast www.blogtalkradio.com/compulsivereader

Magdalena Ball: A Voice in the Wilderness - Part Two

Part Two

The road from New York to the outback and writing success was a winding one.

She said: “When I was an English major at CCNY, a counsellor suggested I apply for a Rhodes Scholarship. I didn’t get it, but in the process, I became enamoured of the idea of going to Oxford, especially since I’d just finished studying Jude the Obscure and those spires were as appealing and seemingly distant to me as they were to Jude, so I applied anyway and got in. I went, but the college I got into (St Cross) didn’t have any permanent accommodation for me so I had to find a place to live.

“I did find something at Crowley; a cute house which was being sublet by an even cuter guy with round glasses like John Lennon, and who, despite his gentle demeanour, was wearing black leather trousers and had some amazing looking motorbikes parked outside the door. It didn’t take us too long to fall in love. When I moved in, Martin had just quit his DPhil in Philosophy to do a PGCE teaching certificate and then did some teaching of French and History. His BA was in French and Philosophy.

“I was totally awed by Oxford and had the silly idea that I could write something new about James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and WB Yeats. The bulging bookshelves already full of theses on these authors, as well as my own lack of linguistic capability made it quickly clear to me that I was off-track. But I knew I wanted strongly to write about the limits of language and how these three authors were able to move beyond those limits. Although I passed my qualifying exams and a VIVA – the little thesis I wrote for that was pretty much all I was able to do on the topic using academic prose. I tried a few different supervisors but it was clear that I had nothing more to add to an already bulging canon so I left.

“I was also working at a language school, waitressing (research for Sleep perhaps, though I didn’t know it at the time) at a restaurant called The Crypt, and eventually got a secretarial position at a biotechnology company. And there was my advancing relationship with Martin, who was an active member of Oxford University Motorcycle Club. We had a reasonably strong social life, so leaving the university wasn’t that difficult. It just began to assume less and less of a role in my day to day life until I decided there was no point continuing to pay fees.

“Though I hate not finishing something I’ve started – my thesis topic is, in a way, covered by the themes in Sleep, so I feel like I’ve now finished it. I even sent a note to my old supervisor telling him. Being a Yank I’ve never had much notion of protocol.

“So we were bumbling around in Oxford. Martin was teaching and I was doing secretarial work, both no longer tied to the university, and we decided to get married. After the wedding and a wonderful honeymoon in Brittany, we knew we wanted to buy a house, but house prices in the UK were high.

“As Martin’s folks had migrated to Australia some eight years prior, and Martin had just returned from a long visit when I met him, and loved the place, we decided to apply for migration. I had never been to Australia, but what the heck – I was young and adventurous. It sounded remote and exciting.

“It took over a year though for the application to be processed, points tallied, qualifications assessed, so we decided to try our luck in the US for a bit first, ending up in North Carolina, which completely cured me of any desire to return to the US permanently. It’s hard to go back. When the Australian migration came through, we went, staying initially with Martin’s parents who are still within walking distance from where we currently live.

“And now this is home and our three children were born here. They’re all gifted; charming, gorgeous, challenging, and outrageously and sometimes terrifyingly intelligent (I’m not exactly objective). My daughter, for example, yesterday asked me to explain to her how liquid nitrogen could be ‘boiling cold’ – and she was only satisfied when I looked it up on the Internet and gave her the appropriately specific scientific answer. My eldest son has been reading her passages from Sophie’s World and he asked her if she understood it. She said, ‘I understand all the words you’re saying and can picture the scene and the girl, but I don’t quite get all the rubbish about existence.’

“My children are certainly my biggest inspiration as a writer. Dom is a pianist and he was practising Dvorak’s Largo while I was writing Sleep – which is exactly why I used the music in the book.

“One of the things I love about Martin is how engaged in the family he is because my parents were divorced so early in my life; before I was one year old. The whole missing father thing in the novel is a key element in my life, although my own dad has always been around – seeing me on weekends, taking me to the zoo, planetarium, etc – all that paternal stuff Marianne’s grandfather took her to.

“Martin has, on occasion, criticised me for being a wee bit secretive about my writing – doing it on the sly and not talking about it much. I guess I’m conscious of it being something of an indulgence (maybe having a novel out will change that – giving me a mandate), and also conscious of the juggling act in my life. I try to focus on whatever I’m doing at the time and not let anything suffer too much from the diversity of my roles. And I’m still turning a buck at a steady day job. I kind of like to hedge my bets on the Hopeville thing – doing it while earning at something that has no element of hope in it.

“I do have to combine writing heart wrenching life or death scenes with ironing. I do sometimes burn dinner because I’ve had to write something down. My typical afternoon could easily involve the following simultaneous activities: breaking up fights between my children, making dinner, writing a scene from novel number two, working on a poem for a competition, fixing up a spreadsheet error for my day job, assessing someone’s manuscript, and talking on the phone to the rural lands department about the fox that keeps eating the chickens.

“I court busyness and I do suffer from guilt when anything goes wrong or if I feel I’ve been neglecting the children by working too much. There are a lot of balls in the air. I chose to be a juggler so I’m not complaining. But sometimes someone throws one extra in there and they all fall.

“I could build my Ithaca anywhere now – having my family with me makes anywhere a home. Australia feels safe – clean air, space, peace – I can let my children go out and play and not fear for them (except for the snakes and spiders – another story!).”

• Part One
• Part Three coming soon

Interview by Alexander James

Interview first appeared in Twisted Tongue Magazine

Read an excerpt from Sleep Before Evening

Listen to Magdalena Ball read an excerpt of Sleep Before Evening

View the Sleep Before Evening book trailer

Click here for Magdalena Ball's biography

Magdalena Ball: A Voice in the Wilderness - Part One

Part One

Author and poet Magdalena Ball left behind the concrete canyons of New York and the sleepy spires of Oxford to find her voice in the rural mountains of Australia.

And with wombats and kangaroos for neighbours, she’s producing the best work of her life.

In the past five years alone she’s seen wide publication of short fiction and poetry, non-fiction book, The Art of Assessment, her Quark Soup poetry anthology and, this month, her debut novel, Sleep Before Evening.

With work underway on two other books 42-year old Magdalena even finds time to run her bustling review site, CompulsiveReader.com – and look after her children, Dominic (10), Oliver (7) and Genevieve (4).

She said: “It’s hard to believe that we’re only an hour’s drive from Sydney. It’s very rural here and, as I type, the lyrebirds are singing, kookaburras laughing, bellbirds tinkling. Chickens are tearing up the lawn looking for grubs, and I really do need to follow up on those fox baits

“It couldn’t be more different from the New York I grew up in. There’s anonymity in the country that is actually similar to that in a big city. You’re surrounded by sound and bustling activity, but completely unnoticed. I like that. It makes me feel both ‘in the midst of’ and yet absolutely alone.

“In some ways Sleep Before Evening is an extended love letter to a city I can never go back to except as a tourist. What I looked for when I came here, with my British husband, Martin, and we grew into a family, was Ithaca (in the Homeric sense of the word). And I’m not entirely sure why I had to be so far away from my roots to find it. To a certain extent a door just opened and, young an unencumbered, I walked through it.

“The home I have here is exactly what I always wanted as a child: stable, rooted, safe: two parents, strong ideals, three regular meals on the table – stability.”

Magdalena Ball’s critically acclaimed new novel – released by BeWrite Books – tells the story of a middle class teenager cast adrift by the sudden death of her brilliant grandfather-mentor and her struggle against a self-centred artist mother, a succession of drive-by stepfathers and her desperate escape into a nightmare of drugs and sexual degradation.

Set in and about New York, the gritty, relentless tale unfolds with the same cool detachment that motivates the central character to peel back the layers of her life and expose the painful scalding within. There are lonely vigils in city parks and subway journeys to oblivion. In the city she meets Miles, a hip musician busking the streets and playing seedy venues with a rock band.

Her new, exciting, dissolute world challenges Marianne’s preconceptions about art and life. Here, in contrast to her prescribed upbringing, she finds anarchic squalor, home grown music and poetry, substance abuse, sex and crushing disappointment and fear; but above all, exhilarating personal freedom.

Addictions – of all kinds – and the redemptive power of art and music, love, loss and beauty are all explored in a young girl’s difficult journey from sleep to awakening. The book draws on Magdalena’s own rich life experience as a daughter and a mother to bring Marianne startlingly to life.

“But Sleep isn’t autobiographical at all – I’m happy to say! It’s pure fiction,” Magdalena said. “It’s set in a real time and place where I lived when I was Marianne’s age, and there are flashes of characterisation, dialogue and situations that came from memory rather than pure imagination. There are many reasons for that – the key one being my lack of inventiveness. I need something clear and visual to work with as a writer, and it helped to ground the characterisation in a specific place and time where it seemed to fit.

“The other reasons are that, like Marianne, my mother and stepfather were going through an ugly break-up during that period of my life and there was tamped tension and unresolved pain that I was able to use for verisimilitude by setting the book in that particular time and place.

“And, of course, like most writers, I do tend to be a magpie and have taken all sorts of observations, memories and experiences to put into the fictional situation. For example, I did like to go into NYC from Long Island when I was a teen, and like Marianne, could never find someone brave enough to come along, so tended to go alone.

“I also attended a few of those poetry sessions Marianne goes to, including a gorgeous all-nighter on New Year’s Eve with Ginsburg, Jim Carroll, Lou Reed, Anne Waldman, Richard Hell, etc, at the St Marks Church.

“I even remember listening to a harmonica player under the arch at Washington Square Park and talking to him afterwards, but I never ended up in Marianne’s situation, falling in love with him. There was a little bit of my brother’s mother, an artist and writer, in Marianne’s mother, Lily, and a little bit of my stepfather in Marianne’s stepfather, Russell. And there are plenty of places in the book I remember being in myself and things I remember seeing, but the overall story is completely made up.

“Having said that, I was worried that my mother would see herself in Lily but instead she identified with Marianne, and reminding me that she lived through something very similar indeed, as she did have a brief dalliance with heroin addiction. So perhaps instinctively, because I never really knew my mother’s full story – it all happened when I was a baby and I was mostly out of the situation, safe with my grandmother – I knew and understood something of my mother’s pain and put it in there. She tells me it’s uncanny, but it was entirely unintentional.

“I think there are aspects of me in every character, from Grandfather Eric to stepfather Russell, to mother Lily and to Miles, to the boy in the park. They all have something of me in them and something of other people I knew in them, but ultimately the resemblance to both people and places was only a starting point. Once the story became strong, it took on its own life, and the characters developed their own imperative which was completely unique to this particular story and these particular characters.”

Part Two coming soon

Interview by Alexander James

Interview first appeared in Twisted Tongue Magazine

Read an excerpt from Sleep Before Evening

Listen to Magdalena Ball read an excerpt of Sleep Before Evening

View the Sleep Before Evening book trailer

Click here for Magdalena Ball's biography

Happy Australia Day

Books for Australia Day

From our Australian Authors:

Sleep Before Evening by Magdalena Ball

This is a remarkable novel, not one detail of which rings false. The setting is New York City and one of its suburbs and the time is the Reagan years. Ball has achieved the remarkable in recovering this particular time past and the drive of the narrative makes this a compelling and an exciting book. Bob Williams

The Bad Seed by Maurilia Meehan

The appearance of a novel by Maurilia Meehan is always an event to celebrate. She writes with a sharp, bold, experimental pen, and takes her readers into realms at once astonishing and familiar. Carmel Bird



The Playmakers by Graeme Johnstone

An absorbing tale of conspiracy, manipulation, romance, and death when two young men (Shakespeare and Marlowe) from vastly different backgrounds are flung together by their passion for the written word.



Death in Malta by Rosanne Dingli

It is a meticulous psychological fable that favours character development and snapshots of village life over racier plot elements. Stephen Bell




Teaching Daedalus by Bevan McGuiness

An unusual romance, with a little mystery thrown in. I'm wondering if McGuiness will use the character Cornelius Monk again ... he has more to offer. S E Crawford



Treason by Meredith Whitford

Treachery in Love and War in the Struggle for the English Crown

Witty & literate. If you are curious about Richard 111, War of the Roses/Tudors, this is an easy fictional approach - which may indeed reflect the truth. Deirdre OShea


Featuring Belinda Lawrence, our Australian heroine:

Capable of Murder by Brian Kavanagh

Mr Kavanagh managed to do what one of my favorite authors, M C Beaton, does so well, incorporate humor within the confines of a credible mystery. Mary Lynn




The Embroidered Corpse by Brian Kavanagh

Superior in quality, this novel will grip you from first to last page and leave you wanting more from this very talented writer! Viviane Crystal




Bloody Ham by Brian Kavanagh

Bloody Ham is a fun, unique read and we look forward to more of Belinda and Hazel in the future. Vanessa Lee, Armchair Interviews




And our acclaimed Australian Poet:

The Way Back by Nana Ollerenshaw

From the underbelly of the world, poems of a nurse, a trekker and a traveller.

Promoting Poetry: Is it a Mug’s Game? by Magdalena Ball

Let me start by saying, right up front, that publishing poetry is generally not a road to riches. Most of us write poetry for reasons other than its hot selling power. Of all genres, poetry is probably the hardest to sell. I’m not entirely sure why this is the case, but I’ll hazard an educated guess that it’s because there’s a kind of misconception that poetry isn’t an engaging read (not suitable for the beach or an airplane), isn’t an easy read (the “highbrow fallacy”), and that it isn’t going to improve you in any way (unlike self-help books, which will cure your diseases, make you slimmer, and attract lots of good stuff to you). Don’t say I didn’t warn you. So why bother? Why not just write a diet book? Here are two reasons why poetry matters.

1. “it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.”

That is, as Auden said so beautifully in “In Memory of WB Yeats”, poetry connects us in ways that go deeper than any other words can. It endures, and continues to move us, in the writing and in the reading, regardless of literary trends, political activity, and its overall saleability.

2. Because “men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”

That is, as William Carlos Williams said so beautifully in “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”, there’s an inherent power in poetry to move beyond the boundaries that divide us; to jump over the cliffs between us; and move beyond those lines of race, class, age, and above all, our innate fears, and reach a place of common humanity. Life is busy, and it’s so easy to forget to look into one another’s eyes; to talk in convenient syllables and soundbites rather than sincerely; to miss what matters under the big pile of what’s urgent. In other words, and let me say this very clearly, good poetry is important. It’s important to our inner life, and where it succeeds, it succeeds hugely, becoming lodged in our consciousnesses. Like the two poems above, which I’ve carried around in my head since I came across them as a young teen, good poetry sticks with the reader. It continues to be recited and cited and in its own beautifully viral way, changes who we are and how we see our lives and our world.

So poetry matters, and we need to keep reading and writing it, even if it isn’t an easy sell, because it will be with us long after the South Beach Diet has been forgotten. But how, as a poet, do you become “lodged?” How do you promote your poetry so others read it?

Firstly, remember that good poetry is as pleasurable to read as it is to write. If you write it, you have a responsibility to read the best work of others. You’ll be a better poet as a result and who knows, you might start a trend. If you don’t know where to start, try Dorothy Porter, Billy Collins, Charles Simic, Les Murray, or Luke Davies. Those are a few of my favourites, and writers whose work is consistently beautiful, passionate, modern, relevant and accessible. Or try the classics, Williams, Frost, Yeats, Auden, Plath, Brooks. Try purchasing an anthology. Black Inc do an annual anthology of Australian poetry (Best Australian Poems 2008 was edited by Peter Rose), Scribner does one for American poetry, (Best American Poetry 2008 was edited by Charles Wright) and there are similar books for Canada and England. Or try a literary journal – there are plenty to choose from. Great poetry will inspire great poetry, even if you write nothing but prose. The perfectly chosen word is always worth reading, and emulating.

Secondly, don’t limit yourself to the printed page. Poetry isn’t sacred. It began as our earliest oral tradition and continues to be most effective delivered orally. Sing, dance, recite, move about, use props. Think Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith. You don’t even have to have a good voice– just confidence (easily feigned), and some performance acumen. Look your audience in the eye, remember they’re on your side, and connect. But just because you’re adding props, music, and chutzpah doesn’t mean you can use cliché, ineffective imagery, or be ridiculous. I once saw a poet perform his work while eating a banana. It wasn’t pretty. There’s a fine line between great work and a fun performance. Find it and walk it. Don’t forget to bring books to sell with you either, because you’ll sell more work at a live performance than anywhere else. Then you can capitalize on the buzz with websites, blogs (like this one), reviews of other poet’s work, and samples.

Finally, network. Poets should support one another. Writing poetry doesn’t need to be secretive, lonely, or tortured. We should buy, review, and talk up each others’ work (where deserved); and if you find something good, by all means, shout about it. Collaborate, coordinate, cross-promote, and above all, celebrate. Because great poetry, and by that I mean words that sear and sting and open every pore, are cause for celebration. You can take that to the bank.


Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won local and international awards for poetry (including this year's Roland Robinson literary award), and fiction. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment: How to Review Anything and three other poetry chapbooks Quark Soup, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Cherished Pulse and She Wore Emerald Then. She runs a monthly radio program podcast www.blogtalkradio.com/compulsivereader

It’s not about the drugs

In my novel Sleep Before Evening, a brilliant teenager named Marianne finds herself slipping down the treacherous path of heroin addiction. While the novel is ultimately redemptive, with a positive outcome and a positive message, it isn’t meant to be salutary or didactic. But fiction writers don’t dabble in solely made-up worlds. If your characters don’t follow a path which is realistic and utterly believable, they won’t work for the reader. As an author, you have to go mentally and sometimes physically to the places your characters go, even when those places are black indeed. It has to be real. It has to have the kind of truth that is truer than nonfiction, because you are also taking your readers there. You’re showing rather than telling, to cite that old writer’s chestnut.

Someone I work with asked me what Sleep Before Evening was about and it was hard for me to convince him that the novel wasn’t about drugs. Of course the protagonist’s heroin addiction is a critical component of the story, as is her recovery through a 12-Step clinic, and other types of support she receives. But the novel certainly isn’t about the drugs, because even a ‘real life’ drug addiction isn’t about the drugs. It’s about the impetus for the addiction—the underlying pain and hunger that drives the addict to seek the kind of comfort he or she feels drugs (any kind of drugs) can provide. And they do provide that kind of comfort, at least initially, while simultaneously increasing the hunger and pain. Because drugs malnourish the pain and hunger, rather than feeding it. It feels good, but only so long as the buzz lasts. And it doesn’t last. It can’t last. There’s always a crash.

The story isn’t about the drugs or the pain or the crash. It’s about the need that all of us have for self-actualisation; for discovering our voice and finding a way to let that voice out. That’s what the protagonist in Sleep Before Evening finds. She was lucky. And fictional, which makes luck a lot easier. She had help from a benevolent god (that’s me in this case). It isn’t always so easy. But the answers are almost always the same. We all have the need, the hunger and pain, and we all have to find some way – hopefully a way that’s positive and that can last, to feed that need. We all have to find our voice. That’s what the book’s about.

Magdalena Ball is author of The Art of Assessment and Quark Soup. She runs the popular Compulsive Reader website. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in many printed anthologies and journals and have won several awards.


Magdalena's debut novel, Sleep Before Evening, was published by BeWrite Books in 2007.

What’s so Funny ’Bout Fiction by Magdalena Ball

Another day, another literary scandal. First (Well maybe not first. See this list here) there was Helen Darville’s faked history behind her Miles Franklin winning novel The Hand that Signed the Paper, then there was James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, novelist JT LeRoy, who finally admitted to being Laura Albert, Nasdijj, the Navajo memoirist who turned out to be porn author Timothy Patrick Barrus, Misha Defonseca, who turned out to be Monique De Wael, author of pretend memoir Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, and then Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer, who has admitted that Margaret Jones is a pseudonym and that her memoir Love and Consequences was also faked.

So what’s with all these faked memoirs and identities? Does the fault lie with the publishers for not fact checking? Some would have it so. Does it lie with the authors for duping their publishers, their agents, and of course the angry public who feel cheated of a real life story when all they got was fiction? What’s so funny 'bout fiction anyway? A good story is a good story, whether it really happened or whether it was pulled together by someone who imagined it. Frey’s book for example may not be damn good history, but it surely it is still the same damn good fiction that Oprah cried over. Perhaps even the bigger truths of the work – those characters and situations that we find verisimilitude in--remain the same. Writing a novel is no easier than writing a memoir – it takes an awful lot of work, talent, research, and inner searching to produce a full length book that takes the reader somewhere that he or she can recognise as real regardless of genre. The books have to be truthful in one way or another or they won’t touch the reader.

Perhaps novelists are faking ‘memoirs’ rather than writing ‘novels’ because of the public’s insatiable hunger for ‘what really happened’ and the flow on effect this has with publishers, who are much more willing to take on memoirs than new fiction. My own novel Sleep Before Evening, is entirely fiction, but you can’t write a novel without putting an awful lot of yourself into it. There are plenty of moments that really happened, and the novel is full of the truth, because that is the whole point of fiction – to show something real and meaningful in a narrative construct. We don’t live in a linear, narrative type of universe. Our lives are bombarded with a range of sensory perceptions, memories, diffuse narrative threads and anticipations. Both memoirist and novelist take these things and use art to create something structurally accessible that others can understand, but there’s always construct, selection, re-invention. There’s always artfulness. Even relating a recent memory involves that kind of construction. I’m not condoning the literary hoax; nor am I suggesting that these hoaxes don’t matter – of course it’s wrong to go on the record as being someone you aren’t – particularly when you are dealing with sensitive issues or race, experience or influence where you might steer someone wrong because of your pretence or create inappropriate propaganda because of your bias.

But I am suggesting that the kind of reverence that the public places on “what really happened” – the obsession we seem to have with “reality TV” and gritty revelation talk shows – might be misplaced. James Frey was a successful author long before he faked his memoirs, but it was only the attention from Oprah and the ensuing scandal that made him a literary superstar, or super villain if you prefer – I’m not sure there’s that much difference from a sales point of view. But should I really care whether James Frey really went to jail for 1 day or 10? Should I begin investigating because there’s a small discrepancy in the dates in Ismeal Beah’s latest memoir, A Long Way Gone? The key issue here is whether these are good books or not. If we buy them because they’re shocking, or amazing stories (“hey madge, you won’t believe what this kid got up to”) that don’t ring true, and are full of ridiculous rubbish we are happy to believe (“he swore in his memoir that aliens took him to Mars and I believed him”) then we might deserve to be lied to. If the memoir is beautifully written, and full of rich, vivid detail which touches something very real in the reader, then maybe it remains good fiction even if it isn’t good fact. The truth is about something deeper and more powerful than simply the bald facts.

In Jill Lepore’s excellent piece in the New Yorker, “Just the Facts, Ma’am”, she makes this point wonderfully, exploring the relationship between historical writing and fiction: “For Fielding, there are two kinds of historical writing: history based in fact (whose truth is founded in documentary evidence), and history based in fiction (whose truth is founded in human nature).” There are many different kinds of truth, but the memoir, real or faked, certainly doesn’t have a greater claim to it than fiction does.

Magdalena Ball is author of The Art of Assessment and Quark Soup. She runs the popular Compulsive Reader website. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in many printed anthologies and journals and have won several awards.





Magdalena's debut novel, Sleep Before Evening, was published by BeWrite Books in 2007.

Author Chat with Magdalena Ball

Join LibraryThing to talk to Magdalena Ball, author of Sleep Before Evening. She'll be on LibraryThing to discuss her work and answer questions until July 4th.

Join in the chat here: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=39419#lastmsg

International Writing Award Honours Sleep Before Evening

Sleep Before Evening, a fast paced coming of age novel by Magdalena Ball, has been named as a Finalist in the Regional Fiction category of the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. The heart-wrenching novel, released last July by BeWrite Books, tells the story of the teenager's struggle against a self-centred artist mother, a succession of drive-by stepfathers, her desperate escape into a nightmare of drugs and degradation. Set in and about New York, the gritty tale unfolds with the same cool detachment that motivates the central character to peel back the layers of her life and expose the painful scalding within. There are lonely vigils in city parks and subway journeys to oblivion. In the city she meets Miles, a hip musician busking the streets and playing seedy venues with a rock band. Her new, exciting, dissolute world challenges Marianne's preconceptions about art and life. Here, in contrast to her prescribed upbringing, she finds anarchic squalor, home grown music and poetry, substance abuse, sex and crushing disappointment and fear; but above all, exhilarating personal freedom. Addictions - of all kinds - and the redemptive power of art and music, love, loss and beauty are all explored in a young girl's difficult journey from sleep to awakening.

The Next Generation Indie Book Awards were established to recognize and honour the most exceptional independently published books for the year and is presented by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O'Shea Literary Agency. Additionally, Sleep Before Evening will be listed as a Finalist in the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards catalogue which will be distributed at Book Expo America in Los Angeles.

In addition to her novel, Magdalena Ball is the author of a book of nonfiction, and a book of poetry. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry has appeared in a wide range of magazines, anthologies and review journals, and she has won numerous other awards for her work. She has been a guest on radio stations worldwide, and remains available for additional appearances.

Magdalena Ball may be reached at here. Complete information on Sleep Before Evening can be obtained here.

Information on Magdalena Ball, including publications, awards, and recent appearances can be found in downloadable media kits in the media room at http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/MediaRoom.htm

How to Create Literary Fiction by Magdalena Ball

As a book reviewer, I get anywhere from fifty to one hundred review requests a week. Of these, I might accept five or so. While I do occasionally take nonfiction books, most of what I accept will be in the genre known as literary fiction.

But just what is literary fiction? What differentiates literary fiction from what most publishers class as commercial or genre oriented fiction, and why am I biased towards it? It’s a question I get asked regularly. Some, like author David Lubar ("A Guide to Literary Fiction," 2002) equate the label with work that is pompous, dull, plotless, and overly academic: "If you're ever in doubt about whether a story is literary, there's a simple test. Look in a mirror immediately after reading the last sentence. If your eyebrows are closer together than normal, the answer is yes."

Publishers often use this label for work which defies other genre distinctions, eg it isn’t romance, isn’t "chick-lit," isn’t science or speculative fiction, isn’t a thriller, action, or political drama. It is meant to denote a fiction which is of higher quality, richer, denser, or, as the literary fiction book club states, work which "can make us uncomfortable or can weave magic." These distinctions aren’t always clear, and there are some superb exceptions to the genre rule, such as Margaret Atwood or China Mieville, whose high quality work fits the speculative fiction genre, or Umberto Eco and Iain Pears, whose work is full of mystery and suspense. All writers feel that their work is high quality, and most write fiction with the goal of producing great work. So how can we ensure that our work is literary fiction rather than some other form? Here are five tips to guide writers who are inclined to produce literary fiction:

1. Aim for transcendency. The one quality which seems to be present in abundance in literary fiction and much less so in other forms, is what agent and author Noah Lukeman calls “transcendency.” It isn’t easy to define, and in his exceptional book, The Plot Thickens (St Martin’s Press, 2002), Lukeman presents a number of points, such as multidimensional characters and circumstances, room for interpretation, timelessness, relatability, educational elements, self discovery, and lasting impression. I would say that transcendency equates to depth, to writing which does more than entertain its readers, and instead, changes something, however small, in the way they perceive themselves. How do you get transcendency in fiction? With a deep theme, deep and powerful characters, complex plots, and exceptional writing skills. Sound easy?


2. Read quality literature. This is a lot easier than transcendency, though not unrelated. Since achieving literary fiction is a subtle and difficult thing, you’ve got to develop your literary senses. The best way of doing that is to read books which fit this genre. If you want to create literary fiction, chances are, you probably are already reading it. These are books by the writers we call "great." Your list of names may differ from mine, but these are the writers who win prizes like the Booker, the Pulitzer, the Commonwealth Prize, and the National Book Award to name just a few. The more great literature you read, the better able you will become at recognising the elements which make a fiction literary.


3. Don’t get defensive! Lubar’s article is lots of fun, but literary fiction isn’t meant to be snobbish, academic, plotless, or boring in any way; just well crafted. That may be daunting if you are a writer, but it won't help your work to shrug off quality by calling it dull or unachievable.


4. Re-write. This may be the single most important distinction between literary and other types of fiction. Work which is timeless takes time. There’s no other way to achieve literary fiction than re-writing, dozens, and maybe many more, times. It isn’t glamorous, nor is re-writing dependent on a muse or inspiration like the first draft is. It is just going over and over a work until every word is relevant and integral to the story. This process cannot occur solely in the fingers of the author. Every writer of literary fiction requires an ideal reader, a critique group, a mentor, or someone who can provide the kind of objective advice which will transform your inspiration into a stunning creation.


5. Don't stress about it! Of course there is no point in worrying so much that you get writer's block (and if you do, get hold of Jenna's terrific book on the topic :-). If you read great books, write fiction which is true to your own creative vision, and revise (with feedback from others) until the work is as perfect as you can make it, you will produce literary fiction. That’s all there is to it. Writing a novel is about as hard as writing gets. Writing literary fiction can take years, often with little reward, at least until the book is completed (and in many instances, thankless even after publication, assuming you are published). But if you can’t stop yourself; if the desire for producing something truly beautiful outweighs utilitarianism, then you are really and truly a literary writer and your work will have transcendency. I’ll look forward to reading and reviewing it!

Magdalena Ball is author of The Art of Assessment and Quark Soup. She runs the popular Compulsive Reader website at http://www.compulsivereader.com/. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in many printed anthologies and journals and have won several awards.

Magdalena's debut novel, Sleep Before Evening, was published by BeWrite Books in 2007.

Review: Sleep Before Evening by Magdalena Ball

...the drug scenes are written with an intensity that I have rarely experienced in literature, or any other medium for that matter. The words and sentences beautifully drift through this melancholy, but never hopeless, foggy reality of drug abuse and self-searching and beauty and longing. The change and growth the protagonist goes through from the beginning to the end is nothing short of extraordinary, rendered almost impeccably, and the dialogue throughout feels as real as those dark shadows that hang out on that whiskey corner just down the street from my place, street-talking their way to the next hit, the next kiss, the next anything ... kudos to Magdalena Ball , Sleep Before Evening is a beautiful book. quite the accomplishment...

Reviewed by Tony Nesca, the author of "The Do-Nothing Boys" and "About A Girl"

I’ve never been addicted to drugs, but first-time novelist Magdalena Ball in Sleep Before Evening made me feel as if I had been so, in New York, way back in 1982. When Marianne’s grandfather dies, her innocence disappears with him and she abandons her potential academic career in an effort to find herself and re-establish some much needed stability in her life. All this happens while falling in love, learning about sex, drugs, booze and homeless life, and generally growing up far too quickly with plenty of freedom. The year 1982, a year of torment in the life of sweet Marianne. She’s brave yet she manages to reach the bottom. Will she climb back up?

The characters are the reason I love this book. Their dependence on drugs and their all too human feelings come out vividly. Miles, for instance, might look like the typical bad guy at the bar but he’s real all the way through. His feelings for Marianne and his addictions, hopes, dreams and sometimes even violence are straight-in-your-face all throughout the book.

The writing is deep and memorable making the novel a true page-turner. The words are chosen masterly; the narrative and the imagery are excellent. The book sounds like the music Marianne wants to compose. The frequent flashes from the past complement the narrative and add a certain element of mystery to the story.

The peak of the story is carefully reached, with the reader being let down and thinking it was reached quickly when in fact it was not. Indeed, not even Marianne was convinced by her earlier sudden decision to turn her life around.

Sleep Before Evening is a well-written insight into addiction and the ugly life. A seemingly good girl can be able to let go so much and be thrown in with the most ‘bad’. But if you want to know what happens to Marianne and all the other characters in Sleep Before Evening, you’ll have to read the book!

Reviewed by Maressa Zahra

Excerpt from Sleep Before Evening

Book trailer for Sleep Before Evening

Magdalena Ball biography

Listen to Magdalena Ball read an excerpt of Sleep Before Evening

Sleep Before Evening on Amazon: UK, US, Ca