Postscripts

Dear Jeff Bezos,

Thanks for your personalized e-mail of several weeks ago letting me know that the company you own, Amazon.com, now sells toys and electronics. That was a special note considering that the number of books I have bought at Amazon is: two. And then a few weeks later you must have asked your product manager Jane Snyder to also write me (Note to Jane: Write Clay Smith). She revealed that "Amazon.com wouldn't be Amazon.com without customers like you." Really, Mr. Bezos and Ms. Snyder, we don't even know each other. As you know, I live in Texas and so I'm supposed to be real nice to everyone, but your letters induce an arctic chill in me. I really must protest their warm cordiality. And what does it mean when Mr. Bezos writes me that Amazon has been "committed to being the most customer-obsessed company in everything we do. We try to start with customers and work backwards from there." I think that's getting a little fresh, don't you? We haven't even met, and you're "obsessed." I shudder to think what would happen should we ever meet, but there's no danger of that with your line of work, now, is there?

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Room for Everyone

Ever wondered how many writing groups there are in Austin? A helpful list of what can only be some of them appears every month in Austin Writer, the Austin Writers' League newsletter, and according to the latest issue, they are: Austin Hispanic Writers, Austin Writergrrls, Authors Marketing Support Group, Critique Group for Children's Writers, Critique Group (Fiction), Highland Lakes Writers, North Austin Writers, Novel in Progress, Old Quarry (primarily nonfiction), Poetry, Romance Writers Group ... and the list truly goes on and on. Now how about a group for people who spend all day writing and want to meet with other people who spend all day writing but refuse to talk about it?

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Call Me ... Ahab's Wife

The Angry Young Men fussed in the late Fifties that there was nothing left to write about, nothing left to rebel against. Judging from two books that will be out this fall, it's time to say it again. In October, William Morrow will publish Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund (the founding editor of The Louisville Review). Also on slate for this fall is Long John Silver: The True and Eventful History of My Life of Liberty and Adventure as a Gentleman of Fortune and Enemy to Mankind by Björn Larsson, translated from Swedish by Tom Geddes (who also translates Austin resident Lars Gustafsson's works) and published most recently by The Harvill Press in London. (Intriguing difference between standard operating publishing procedure in Europe and America: On the page listing the publishing history of Long John Silver and ISBN information, there's a line that declares "Björn Larsson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.") These are book lovers' books, replete with historically authentic language and, one hopes, sensibilities. But they are more than just sterile postmodern exercises, according to a pre-publication interview about Ahab's Wife the publisher sent along: "As a high school freshman, when we were allowed to report on any book (which meant novel), I wrote about Moby Dick, and the tall teacher, my paper in hand, propped against her desk, asked casually, 'Now, Sena, is this your opinion or some art critic's?'"

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Poets: Make Money!

The New York Poetry Alliance is offering $1,000 to the winner of its free poetry contest. Send your poem of 21 lines or less by August 23 to: New York Poetry Alliance, Box 1588, New York, NY 10116-1588. Or enter online at http://www.freecontest.com