Our blog’s “Gone Local” series aims to explore who and what the Ithaca area’s literary community has to offer. Be it bookstores, publishers, or local authors, each contributes invaluably to the bookish zeitgeist. Recently, Swenson Book Development contacted Larson Publications (of Burdett, NY) to get an independent publisher’s views on the literary business, the craft, and the community. Larson Publications started in 1982 as a… [Read More]
Creating Your Author Platform: Your Name is Your Brand Authors’ names are their brands, and satisfied readers exercise brand loyalty. They shop for titles by author name, and when they come across a real find, they recommend it to friends. Those friends do the same, and the chain continues. But a book is more than a cover or jacket. It is the embodiment of a… [Read More]
An attitude of gratitude isn’t just a holiday message. It’s a company philosophy for Swenson Book Development LLC. Thanksgiving is the perfect time to affirm our sentiments that we have so much for which to be grateful. We appreciate all the good books our clients have published: Almost Everything Takes Forever (Antrim House) Dear Friend Amelia (Six Mile Creek Press) Drawing Love (Indie Writers Press)… [Read More]
Remember creating time capsules in elementary school? Perhaps you had to imagine what you would place inside: a front page of the daily newspaper, a cassette tape, or maybe a favorite toy? Such a capsule exists at the special collections department at Cornell University-but instead of relying on a shoebox full of ancient knick knacks, this awe-inspiring collection of literary material uses books to tell… [Read More]
It seems fitting that the People of the Book, known for these words of wisdom—“essen epes” (eat something)—should open a book fair with a banquet. The 28th annual Austin Jewish Book Fair, held November 3-12 at the Austin Jewish Community Center (JCC), started with the Book Lovers Luncheon, featuring five-time National Book Award nominee, Melissa Fay Greene, discussing her memoir: No Biking in the House… [Read More]
In 2009, when my boss offered me tickets to see the musical “Parade,” I of course said “yes.” I knew that “Parade” retells the story of Leo Frank, the German-Jewish superintendent of Atlanta’s National Pencil Factory, who was convicted of slaying 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan, in 1913. Later, when Frank’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison, an angry mob sprung him from… [Read More]
Journalist Cathryn Prince signs book contract with Palgrave Macmillan. Stalin’s Last Torpedo by Cathryn J. Prince—the little known story of history’s largest maritime disaster—is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan. Prince plans to write it largely through the perspective of the surviving eyewitnesses. At the end of World War Two, Soviet torpedoes sank the Wilhelm Gustloff—a cruise liner turned escape ship—sending roughly 9,000 German refugees to… [Read More]
The question is, what can’t Media Bistro do? Welcome to the first post of our Media Bistro series! If you’ve not yet explored this multi-faceted journalism and social media resource, then now is the time to CHECK IT OUT! With everything from Morning Media News Feeds, to Twitter Resources, to a lengthy list of online writing courses, Media Bistro is the ultimate resource for writers,… [Read More]
An endless loop of images, sounds, and events play in the theatre of my horrified mind. Specific details brand themselves red hot into memory. The hour, the day, the week, the month, the year, the decade before it happened replay backward and forward as my mind searches for clues to the mystery of my lover’s suicide two years ago. As a reader, I rode a… [Read More]
This is the second “Featured Local Bookstores” post that has focused on a bookstore located in downtown Ithaca’s Dewitt Mall. Until 2006, The Bookery and Buffalo Street Books used to be known as Bookery I and Bookery II. Now, however, it is the only bookery in town that offers “an extensive selection of used and rare books, available in our store and online at thebookery.com…. [Read More]
