Local author reading from short stories
Publishing can break your heart. “Legitimate” publishing, that is.
Ask any writer you know and you’re likely to hear stories about agents and editors and other aspects of the New York-based book business so horrible that you’ll end up reaching for Zoloft.
Michael Hendryx can tell you all you need to know. Like a number of contemporary writers, frustrated but intent on seeing their work in print, the Spokane author ended up turning to a publishing house (PublishAmerica) that is perhaps a half step up from self-publishing.
The difference, though, between Hendryx and any number of other would-be authors/self-publishers is that he actually can write.
He will prove that at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday when he reads from his short-story collection “Amusing Tales of Suicide and Loneliness” (PublishAmerica, 215 pages, $19.95 paper) at Auntie’s Bookstore.
“I went the traditional route,” Hendryx said in a recent interview. “I tried to find agents and I sent my stuff off to them. And several wrote back to me and said, ‘We think your writing is great, but we can’t take it on because we can’t sell it.’ “
And why couldn’t they sell it? Hendryx shrugged in reply.
“Because I’m unknown, I guess,” he said. “Because it’s a little unusual. There’s no market for it. It doesn’t fit well.”
Whatever the reason, he said, he ended up discouraged.
“So after a while I put this collection together on my own,” he said with a laugh. “And I sent it in to this publisher that takes just about anything.”
It’s not as if Hendryx doesn’t have a track record. An associate professor of psychology at Washington State University, Spokane, the married father of three sons has published stories both online and in the literary journal Rosebud. And his story “Counting Zeroes” won the 2003 Pacific Northwest Inlander Fiction Contest.
So however shabbily the “legitimate” publishing houses treat him, Hendryx isn’t going to put away his pen anytime soon.
“I just don’t know if it’s going to work out for me, the way the market is,” he said. “But I’m going to keep writing. I’m just going to write what I want to write.”
More English errors
It’s not as if I’m an expert in the English language. I teach it, and I have some experience writing it. But I make mistakes regularly in conversation, and I sometimes fumble while trying to put words on paper (mea culpa).
Still, anyone can make a mistake, especially if you listen to television advertisements. I heard an ad for Slim-Fast earlier this week that talked about “less calories.”
Oh? How about “fewer” calories.
The difference involves measurement of amount (e.g., volume) versus number (e.g., quantity). As Dr. Paul Brians of Washington State University – whom I cited in last week’s column – says in his book “Common Errors in English Usage,” “The confusion between the two categories of words relating to amount and number is so pervasive that those of us who still distinguish between them constitute an endangered species.”
Brians’ example: “You can eat fewer cookies, but you drink less milk.”
Mine: “You can drink fewer beers, but you swill less ale.”
For more on the language, go to Brians’ Web site at www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/index.html.
Books for sale
The Friends of the Cheney Community Library will hold its annual Used Book Sale on Friday and Saturday at the library, 610 First St., Cheney. If you have any old books in decent shape, the library can use the donation.
Hours are Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. For further information, call Jan Matthews at (509) 235-8151.
Book talk
•Gay & Lesbian Book Group (“Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral,” by Kris Radish), 7 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
•Literary Freedom Book Club (“The Glass Palace,” by Amitav Ghosh), 1 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. Call (509) 838-0206.
The reader board
•Michael Hendryx (“Amusing Tales of Suicide and Loneliness”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Donald Deiser (“The Adventures of Hoosier Daddy”), William N. Edwards (“Twin Vendetta”), readings, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Frank Zafiro (“Under a Raging Moon”), signing, 4-7 p.m. Saturday, South Hill Hastings, 2512 E. 29th Ave. Call (509) 525-4342.
•Akiane Kramarik (“Akiane: Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry”), signing, 2 p.m. Saturday, Valley Barnes & Noble, 15310 E. Indiana Ave. Call (509) 922-4104.