Authors and Money

ALCS, the Authors’ Licensing and Collection Society, has released a report based on a survey of 2454 working authors: “The Business of Being an Author.” The 2014 survey was conducted by Queen Mary University of London, and looks at authors’ earnings. Here are a few of the more interesting points to emerge from the report:…

Midnight in Mexico – by Alfredo Corchado

Alfredo Corchado lives a charmed life. Son of a cook and a bracero (seasonal U.S. field worker from Mexico), the eldest of eight, he worked his way up the journalism tree to the lofty heights of Mexico City Bureau Chief of the Dallas Morning News. He has known personally the last four Presidents of Mexico….

Confessions of a Carnivore – by Diane Lefer

Wow. Diane Lefer’s new novel is one wild ride. With all the animals involved, I mean that literally. She somehow mixes activism, alcoholism, protest theater, cat-love, animal observation in L.A. Zoo, and race politics in one story and comes out the other end smelling of roses. This novel is about all of those things and…

RIP Eduardo Galeano

The great Uruguayan writer has died aged 74. He was a giant of the literary left, a novelist, journalist, cultural critic and soccer aficionado. Some of his best lines: “The purpose of torture is not getting information. It’s spreading fear.” “We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.” “Disasters…