What the NSA would find in my Google searches

by Libby Sternberg

I'm innocent! I swear, officer! 

Well, yeah, I was looking up stuff online about weapons and explosives and getaway cars and….

But if I don’t get it right, my boss will be awfully mad, see? They double-check our work all the time. No, no, my boss isn’t involved in anything nefarious. I’m telling the truth here! Yes, I had to get accurate info on Colt 1911s and 9mm guns and powerboats and Humvees for her. I wasn’t intending harm at all. Just the opposite.... Yeah, Plexiglas, too. I confess—I looked that up. No, no, I had no intention of…  Well, yes, I do keep referring to Chicago. No, I’m not planning to go to Chicago. I live in Pennsylvania. 

I’m just a suburban housewife, I swear, with no ties to terrorist….well, yes, you’ve got me there – I was Googling al Qaeda recently. And, yes, I did look up information about Navy SEAL operations. But I wasn’t building any connections or networks or…. I don’t even know how to speak the terrorists’ language, for crying out loud! 

Uh, what’s that? You have records of me using online translation software to look up some Pashto phrases and some Spanish ones, too? Um, yes, I’d forgotten about the…but, hey, since when is it a crime to speak Spanish?

As I said, I’m just a housewife…a grandmother, for Pete’s sake!  Well, uh, yes, I admit it, I also searched more than once for information about SIG SAUER guns! But…I couldn’t remember if the name is hyphenated.

No, hyphenated isn’t a weapons-making process! It’s a dash, see, like an en-dash… No, en-dash isn’t a code. It’s a typography designation for, well, something like a hyphen. Oh, good grief, I just told you that the hyphen doesn’t mean anything! No, “hyphen” isn’t the code word giving a green light to some plot to take down a Chicago building.

Chicago is the Chicago Manual of Style, see? No, no, it’s not some handbook for terrorist plots. It’s a book for copy editors. Like me. I copy edit novels, and some of them are suspense books, thrillers, and…we use Webster’s 11th, too.

No, no, Webster’s 11th isn’t a special cadre of bad guys. It’s a dictionary! I swear. Look it up! 

Anyway, these are our tools—copy editing tools! Not real tools! For the love of…. And sometimes I need to refresh my memory to see if words like powerboat are closed compounds or open compounds or hyphenated….

No, no, I’m not talking about compounds for training terrorists! I just told you about hyphens, right? And that’s part of being a copy editor, making sure you have the compounds right…. Oh, Lordy, can’t you understand, I’m a writer! And an editor! Nothing important!

When I research Colt 1911s, it’s to see if it’s a semiautomatic, as the author indicated. When I look up SEAL training, it’s to validate the author’s description of those programs. 

And Plexiglas…I bet you thought that was an un-trademarked word spelled “plexiglass,” didn’t you, mister? Nope, trademarked. Lots of common words are—Band-Aid, Dumpster, Jacuzzi, Formica, Styrofoam, even Realtor….  Yeah, that’s right. Realtor. Start uppercasing it, buddy. And lowercase the “x” in x-ray when you use it as a verb. But uppercase it when it’s a noun. Got that? 

And dash that dash in lighthearted—it’s a closed compound while light-headed is hyphenated…Write it down so you don’t forget, sweetheart. And when you’re taking down a suspect’s words, use hyphens to indicate stuttered letters, but em-dashes—longer hyphens—to indicate stuttered words, okay, bub? And watch out for those dangling modifiers, Smartypants, you with your “Googling all this violent stuff, we need to ask…”  “Googling all this” has to agree with the subject of the sentence, see, which you meant to be me. Get yourself some Strunk & White and memorize that section, Muscle Head. And stop using “like” when you mean to say “as if.” I might seem as if I’m engaged in suspicious activity. Not like I’m engaged in same. Got it, Officer Krupke? Don't get me started on punctuation, either, junior. We take the Oxford comma very seriously around here....

Are you yawning? 

As I said, I know you found all these things on my computer through random NSA searches, but I swear, I’m not a terrorist. I’m nothing! Really. Nothing. I’m a copy editor. Nothing…..

In addition to being editor-in-chief of Istoria Books, Libby Sternberg copy edits for a major romance publisher. She is also a novelist. Her latest book, After the War, is now available in print and digitally.

A Sentimental Journey: AFTER THE WAR by Libby Sternberg

by Libby Sternberg

Authors often talk about their "writer's journey," the path that led them to writing, the obstacles they faced along the way, the methods they used to overcome those obstacles, the self-examination that led to their works, to expressing ideas through stories.

My writer's journey began with After the War, the novel I just released through Istoria Books. Oh, it wasn't called After the War when I started it. At first, I called it The Conversion of Paula, then just Paula, then Margaret (for another main character in the book) and only after something like a dozen years did I light on After the War.

You read that right--a dozen years. I started writing this story more than a decade ago, just around the time I decided to stop denying my desire to be published and to get serious about becoming a real author.

My dad's WWII uniform

After the War began as the story of two women--Margaret (Sister Francis Marie) and Paula--in post-World War II America, both on journeys of love and faith. Paula was to be a Mary Magdalene-like character, fallen from grace and seeking...something meaningful in her life. Margaret was to be something of a zealot for whom faith was more a "bribe or even a dare." As I wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote (at one point, I had at least three versions of the book printed out, from which I was cobbling the final story), other characters called to me. Tell my story, they shouted, whispered, beckoned. And so I did, adding in the tale of Margaret's nurse, her psychiatrist, her brother--Paula's husband--and that of the priest, Father Al,  who guides Paula to baptism.

But if this is a story of faith, it is not a theological treatise. After the War explores faith from the perspective of the ordinary man and woman, who wrestle with questions of the injustice of the death of good people, of sin and forgiveness, and try to make sense of what is expected of them, who God really is.

My mother

Throughout every iteration of the story, however, I found myself confronting another theme: the war. Specifically, how World War II touched the lives of each character and how its effects shaped their current lives. Eureka! I thought when I discovered this theme. Of course. Of course I was writing that story. I am a baby boomer. And like all baby boomers, I grew up in the shadow of the war. Or rather, in the great warm sunlight of relief that followed it. My father's Army uniform hung in the basement. My parents' wedding photo featured him in uniform and my mother in a fine suit. My friends had had parents who'd served in the war. It was a visceral presence in our lives.

So ultimately, the book became a sentimental journey exploring how all the characters' lives were shaped by the cataclysmic event of a world at war, whether they served in the military or not. As Father Al muses when thinking about his own losses, which were not from direct military actions: "That was the reach of evil. It touched the lives of far more than those who stared it down outright. It oozed as well as marched to claim its victims."

I hope all readers enjoy After the War, but I'd be particularly interested in hearing the reaction of baby boomers to its tale--whether it strikes a chord with them and takes them on a sentimental journey to that bright summer afternoon that was our youth, released from the perils our Greatest Generation parents had faced on our behalf..

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After the War by Libby Sternberg

A decade after the war, its devastation still haunts them...

In the summer of 1955, a young nun awakens in Johns Hopkins Hospital after suffering an overdose, unable to remember the events that brought her there. As she recovers, she becomes the center of quiet struggles among those who surround her: her brother, a former GI still stung by betrayal during his years of service; her sister-in-law, a beautiful woman seeking love at any price; her confessor, a Jesuit priest who lost everything during the bombing of London; her nurse, a war widow whose sunny optimism leads to repeated disappointment; and her doctor, a psychiatrist beset by survival guilt and doubts about his profession's ability to heal. Suffering from unseen war wounds ten years after the fighting ended, they each find their way to a very personal peace.

"...a touching novel of faith and family...an evocative story of love lost and found, told with beautiful language and emotional clarity. A novel to savor."  Christy English, author of The Queen's Pawn.

Barnes & Noble forgets it has an online business

by Libby Sternberg

First came the digital revolution with Amazon leading the charge. No longer did readers have to browse bricks and mortar bookstores looking for a specific read. Amazon brought it to their fingertips.

Then Amazon pushed the revolution farther still when they realized their customer base included writers and not just readers. The bookselling behemoth reached out to writers, making it easy for authors to self-publish and reach readers on their own without a publisher middleman, and offering them royalty deals no publisher would ever dream of handing over to a lowly scribe.

But what about print? Authors love the feel and smell of a print book. Amazon had that covered, too. Through their CreateSpace services, authors can easily upload their manuscripts, even design a cover (or contract with Amazon's services for one) and, voila, within an amazingly short period of time--nothing at all close to the year-long wait most authors face from signing a publishing contract through til actual publication--a print book is in the writer's hand.

These innovations have also made it much easier for small publishers, such as Istoria, to get up and running, securing a boutique position in the publishing marketplace.

Amazon's innovations have been applauded by everyone in the industry.

Uh, no, scratch that. Actually, several of the Big Six (make that Big Five now) publishers allegedly colluded with Apple to keep ebook prices higher than Amazon wanted. In the ensuing legal battle, Amazon was treated like the Big Bad Evil Corporation Out to Destroy All that Is Good and Holy about Books (BBECODAIGHB, for short).

Speaking of BBECODAIGHB's, though, one of them used to be Borders.. Remember Borders--the Big Box bookstore everyone loathed for quite some time, seeing in it portents of the End of Bookselling as we know it? Funny how that attitude changed when Borders went belly up. Then, everyone was mourning the loss of this bookselling giant.

Now the only bookselling giant on the block is Barnes & Noble. B&N got into the digital field with the Nook (see this post about a marketing opportunity the Nook missed), but they've not embraced the other parts of the digital revolution as nimbly as Amazon.

And the latest news from the B&N front is this: they're limiting Simon & Schuster titles in their store because the publisher won't dance to their tune on ebook discounting and "costs associated with in-store promotions," according to a Wall Street Journal article today.  In-store promotions, by the way, include publishers paying for where books are displayed. Don't assume when you go in a bookstore that the managers and staff choose which books go on the tables that catch your eye. Publishers pay for that in-store real estate.

Anyway, according to the article, B&N "worries that consumers use its stores as 'showrooms' to find titles that they then order online at a discounted price."

Sure would be helpful if B&N also had an online business, too, wouldn't it? Then customers who can't find books in their stores could order a book through the B&N online service. They could have a short and snappy URL, too. Oh, something like, maybe, www.BN.com? Just sayin'....



The cheese stands alone

Sarcasm aside, if Barnes & Noble is worried about losing customers to online retailers who can offer discounts, why doesn't B&N beat those etailers to the punch? When you walk in the door to a Barnes & Noble store, you should be walking in the door to their entire inventory, whether it's in the physical store or online.

Okay, for free, B&N, here are some ideas:

In every store, vigorously promote this slogan: Can't find it on our store shelves? Buy it on our eshelves! 

And then place computer screens around the store -- how about at the end of every other bookshelf?  And next to those screens (which are only linked to the BN.com website, of course) place coupons with discount codes for various genres. Mix it up, changing the discounts from week to week. It will draw folks in to see what kind of deal they can get the next time they come in. Even if some folks think they can get a better deal elsewhere, there is nothing like taking care of a purchase when you're thinking of it.

Barnes & Noble now stands virtually alone as the one bricks-and-mortar Big Box bookstore in the U.S. That's a tremendous advantage. They should stop sniping at publishers and competitors and start thinking about how they can use their advantage to attract customers to their physical and online stores.
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Libby Sternberg is a novelist and editor-in-chief of Istoria Books.
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Nook misses its niche

by Libby Sternberg

The news in the publishing world is that Barnes & Noble's tablet/e-reader, the Nook, didn't fare so well sales-wise this past year.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal last Friday, "Nook revenue plunged 26 % to $316 million for the fiscal third quarter ended Jan. 26 and the segment posted a larger loss." 

While Nook languishes, profits have improved at its retail stores business. In other words, folks might not be buying Nooks, but they are buying books.

A day before the negative Nook news appeared, another story circulated: B&N's former owner and now chairman and largest shareholder, Leonard Riggio, wants to buy the company's retail assets. This means the Nook side of the business would likely be separated from the general retail side.

This represents something of an about-face for Mr. Riggio, who introduced the new B&N CEO William Lynch three years ago by saying the chain needed to be "more than a retail bookseller." Mr. Lynch had come from a tech background, and, according to news reports, spent "almost all of his time" on the digital side of B&N's business.

Now it appears that time was ill-spent. Nook never managed to capture the e-reading public's fancy in the same way the Kindle has, or even the way the iPad and its newest iteration, the iPad mini, has.

Why not? The Nook is a solid e-reading device. Although I'm in the Kindle camp, a close relative has a Nook tablet, a gift she received about a year ago. She checks her email on it and surfs the web when traveling. And, oh, yeah, she can read books on it, too.

She's not a techie--neither am I--so I have no first-person analysis of the relative advantages and disadvantages of Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad (another close relative owns one of the latter--and asked for a Kindle as a gift within a few months after discovering that reading ebooks on an iPad in bright sunlight is a bear).

Therein, however, lies an advantage for the Nook that has never been exploited, certainly not in any promotions I've seen. If anything, after seeing a Nook ad, it's hard to remember if it was for Nook or Kindle.

The advantage for my relative with the Nook was this--she's no techie, as noted above, so when she went to set up the device, she immediately hit the brick wall of tech blah-blah-blah, the usernames, the passwords, the configure-this and download-that. She has little patience for all that. So, she took herself and her Nook to the nearest Barnes & Noble store where a real-live person cheerfully helped her set it up. A real live person--not a name at the end of an email or a voice on the other end of a phone! She loved this aspect of owning a Nook. Amazon's customer service might be good, but nothing beats talking to someone face-to-face.

So, my question is: how did Nook miss this promotional niche? They certainly used up a bunch of precious store real estate on Nook displays. Why didn't they market the fact that while Amazon's Kindle does everything a Nook does, Nook has real people to talk to when you have questions, problems or even suggestions. People who happen to be in their...stores. Smiling at you. Waiting to talk. And, you might buy some print books while you're there.

That seems to me a tremendous marketing advantage Barnes & Noble never even mentioned, let alone exploited.

Mr. Lynch might have missed the proverbial forest for the trees. He didn't see the vast opportunity Nook had to attract non-techies (the majority of folks who probably use these devices) to his product.

But who am I to suggest what captains of industry should do? Just a lowly editor who likes to occasionally mouth off on what's wrong with this business or that one.

_____
Libby Sternberg is editor-in-chief of Istoria Books. She is also an author.

MYSTERIOUS MONDAY: A President's Day Mystery

by Libby Sternberg

Today is President's Day, an appropriate time to reflect on a real presidential mystery, one covered expertly in a nonfiction book released by Chicago Review Press in 2011. Here are just the facts, ma'am:

The president: Grover Cleveland
The year: 1893
The mystery: the president vanishes

For five days in the summer of 1893, President Grover Cleveland was incommunicado, out of sight and out of touch. In those days before instant communication, even this blackout of presidential contact was still unusual.

Where was the president? Why had he disappeared? When did the true story finally surface?

Author Matthew Algeo answers all these questions and more in his tightly written story of a secret medical emergency involving the country's CEO: The President Is a Sick Man.

When President Cleveland was diagnosed with a cancerous lesion on his soft palate, drastic action was recommended--surgery to remove the tumor. But in 1893, health issues of public figures were not publicly discussed, especially if the health issue was serious and could have an impact on the leader's ability to....lead. So the president and his doctors decided to keep his condition secret and to deal with the surgery where no one could find him to question what was going on.

The operating theater for this delicate procedure was none other than a friend's yacht, sailing the "calm, blue waters of Long Island Sound" as the president's physicians cut out the malignant growth in the summer of 1893.

Despite the concealment efforts, one intrepid reporter sniffed out the story. When he started reporting the tale, he was mocked and derided, called a "disgrace to journalism," only vindicated a quarter century later with the publication of a story in the Saturday Evening Post about the operation and the journalist's role in digging it up.

That journalist, by the way, ended up doing all right, despite his public condemnation. He went on to write for the Wall Street Journal in 1909 and became involved in a legal case that helped set the precedent for reporters' protecting anonymous sources.

These details and more set the stage for an intriguing little story. When I first picked up this book, I knew nothing about Grover Cleveland and was only vaguely aware of the issues of the day. But Matthew Algeo weaves in history about the gold vs. silver currency wars of the day, the Panic of 1893, railroad bankruptcies and more.  In a mere 228 pages, Algeo relates the mystery of Cleveland's "vanishing," and gives readers a neat little history lesson about fin de siecle America.

An informative read, a good mystery, and some great storytelling. Highly recommended for this President's Day!

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Libby Sternberg is an Edgar-nominated novelist and editor-in-chief of Istoria Books.

Istoria Books's "Mysterious Monday" program features posts about mystery writing, reading, bookselling and more by writers from beyond the Istoria stable. Stop back on Mondays for insightful posts on the mystery genre. Check out Istoria Books's mystery offerings here.


Mysterious Monday posts from the past:

• Mystery writers' and readers' mystery pet peeves, part deux 
• Mystery writers and readers' mystery pet peeves, part one
• Carola Dunn writes about her experiences with a mysterious bookstore display: Downton Abbey, Barnes & Noble, and Carola Dunn
• JennyMilchman writes about "Putting the MIST in mystery: obscuring facts"

Coming up: Authors Gary Alexander and Joyce Yarrow talk about favorite characters and favorite character types in mystery, and book blogger and reviewer Marlyn Beebe shares her thoughts on what she likes in mysteries
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MYSTERIOUS MONDAY: Pet Peeves in Mysteries, Part Deux

by Libby Sternberg

Last week, we featured comments from mystery writers and readers about their pet peeves in mystery stories. The post was very popular, and even after it was up, I was still receiving "peeves" in my email. So -- drum roll, please! -- here's Part Two of that post, with a few more comments on what gets mystery writers, in particular, riled up when reading or watching stories in their favorite genre. Enjoy....and know that some time in the coming months, I will feature a post on the opposite topic -- what do mystery writers and readers particularly like about mystery stories, and what kinds of storytelling help them look past their peeves and keep turning pages.

Convenient time-eating explanations
"An annoyance. The book is told in first person. At the end, the killer has the protagonist at knife/gun point and is planning to kill her/him, but goes into three of four pages describing how he/she executed the crime -- giving the protagonist just enough time to reach the paperweight with which to bash the criminal over the head.  (Also)...The protagonist receives a phone call from someone who says that he/she has an important clue but can't divulge it over the phone, so the protagonist must come over to her/his place AT ONCE.  When he/she arrives -- SURPRISE! -- the caller has been killed."--Mary Devine, from the DorothyL mystery readers/writers group

The discarded weapon
"I hate it when the protagonist throws away a weapon (usually a gun) and says, "EW!," generally carelessly leaving it where the perp (even if dying) will grab it and shoot the protagonist & kill a beloved secondary character who in a better novel or movie would have gone on to be an enjoyable secondary character."  Brenda from the DorothyL mystery readers/writers group

Confusion masquerading as complexity
"One thing that bugs me is when the author makes the set-up super complex, just to hide the fact that it doesn't make sense. I think this happens a lot in spy thriller/mystery movies -- often I have this moment where I realize that the reason I don't understand everything is not because I failed to follow the story correctly; it's because it really makes no sense." Hannah Sternberg is the author of the young adult novel, Queens of All the Earth

The day job with lots of time for sleuthing
"Amateur sleuths who have a job, or even run a business, but seem able to take unlimited unscheduled time off to sleuth." Carola Dunn is the author of the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries
 
The dead...phone
"Cell phones that go conveniently dead just as the bad guy is zooming in on the protagonist. Darn those cell phones, anyway. They make it a lot harder to get the sleuth out of the shop to investigate, and to get her into trouble she has to work her own way out of." -- Leslie Budewitz is an award-winning mystery author and a lawyer who blogs regularly about how to write accurately about criminal law and courtroom procedures at the Law and Fiction blog.

Pets and children who fade away
"Characters who have pets that are only seen for a comedic moment but never mentioned again, even when the character is home." Pat Brown is the author of a series of L.A.-based mysteries.

The unmistakable and villainous car
"My most irksome peeves involve cars. I lose all suspension of disbelief when our hero is on the run in an unmistakable car, the special-order British Morgan sport car in the case I'm thinking of, and doesn't think to DUMP THE CAR until it's too late. Also, I hate cases of The Sinister Car, where the glimpses of a certain make or model of vehicle provide the only tension for great lengths of narrative. But, most of all, I hate when women in danger carrying guns just FREEZE and can't use it before the villain disarms them. Please. I'm not buying mothers needing assault rifles to take down gangs of terrorists storming their housefuls of cowering children, but one woman and one gun can do a lot of self-defense if necessary." Carole Nelson Douglas has been published in several genres, including suspense.

Oh, baby..."My most hated (peeve) is when the female protag suddenly zeroes in on the magnificent pecs straining the cop or detective's shirt. OMG! You were just mugged or cheated, honey--this is not kissy time!" Star Lawrence is a member of DorothyL, a mystery readers/writers group


The cliched detective
"I personally am sick of the alcoholic, depressed detective. Yes, characters should be flawed, but I'm tired of this cliche. I also dislike the clever ending that is unbelievable but chosen because the author wants to come up with something that no one will guess. I have a couple of books in mind with that flaw." Susan Oleksiw is a member of DorothyL, a mystery readers/writers group

The cliched pantry...

"Add me to the list of those who are annoyed at protagonists who have refrigerators with moldy cheese and pantry shelves with crackers that have no snap left and--maybe--coffee. OR their cousins who eat junk food all day and gain nothing." -- Radine Trees Nehring, is a mystery author, and a 2011 Inductee: Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame

So much to do...except solve the mystery
"One of my pet peeves is 'the stall'-- when a character gets a promising clue but has to delay following up or else the mystery will be solved too soon. I know this happens in real life because I put off doing things I ought, but in a mystery I find it annoying. It usually goes something like this: sleuth is given phone number for pawn shop that deals in stolen
 goods, but can't call because she has a yoga class in fifteen minutes. Then after yoga class, she gets asked to go for ice cream by cute cop and by then it's too late to call, but she will the first thing next morning except that her dog has a vet appointment and then her cell phone battery dies. Three chapters later she finally calls the guy, who immediately gives her a name or Big Clue and case is solved. Or else she never calls, is in danger, but saved by cute cop who did follow up on the lead. On the other hand, there are authors who do 'the stall' so well that I only realize there was a stall in retrospect. I really admire them." Jeanne of the Bristol Public Library

The bridge to nowhere

"I read a lot of historicals, and it really irritates me when I come across something that I know is an anachronism or distortion of fact that isn't otherwise explained in an Author's Note. Example: going under the Veranzanno Narrows Bridge in 1936, when I know it wasn't built until the 1960s. Something like that destroys the entire 'suspension of disbelief,' and takes me right out of the story." -- Roberta Rogow (who has "fudged" a date or two, but nothing quite so horrendous as that!) is the author of several mysteries

Hacking away
"The super hacker buddy (mentioned in previous Pet Peeves post) was going to be mine, as well. And it's not just cops; it's P.I.s and reporters, etc. They all know someone who'll be able to hack into something and get them the exact piece of information they need. Happens on TV, too, though there it's usually just easily found computer information instead of hacking. Everything is found with a few clicks of the keys." Jane Joregenson is a member of the DorothyL mystery readers/writers group

But what about the mouse?
"Jane's peeve reminded me of one of mine that I see on television shows a lot -- when the crime-solving computer whiz starts clicking away at the keyboard to bring up pages of info. Usually those kinds of searches don't involve keystrokes as much as mouse clicks. Nobody uses the mouse. They type away as if they were Googling on an old Remington." Libby Sternberg is editor-in-chief of Istoria Books and an Edgar-nominated author

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Istoria Books's "Mysterious Monday" program features posts about mystery writing, reading, bookselling and more by writers from beyond the Istoria stable. Stop back on Mondays for insightful posts on the mystery genre. Check out Istoria Books's mystery offerings here.


Mysterious Monday posts from the past:

• The original pet peeves post
• Carola Dunn writes about her experiences with a mysterious bookstore display: Downton Abbey, Barnes & Noble, and Carola Dunn
• JennyMilchman writes about "Putting the MIST in mystery: obscuring facts"

Coming up: Authors Gary Alexander and Joyce Yarrow talk about favorite characters and favorite character types in mystery, and book blogger and reviewer Marlyn Beebe shares her thoughts on what she likes in mysteries
___
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No sex, no swearing, no drugs, no alcohol: Istoria Books YA line

by Libby Sternberg

During the Christmas holiday, I received a charming card from a family we know. On it, the twelve-year-old daughter had written her own message to me: "I love your books! When I'm not reading them, I'm thinking about them!"

She was referring to my first two published novels--the Edgar-nominated teen mystery Uncovering Sadie's Secrets, and its sequel, Finding the Forger. There's a third book in the series, Recovering Dad, that I will dispatch to her this week.

Not only did her comments warm my heart, they affirmed for me a commitment I, as an author, made to myself when I first wrote "young adult" fiction. That is, I would write the kind of YA books that I enjoyed reading as a preteen, books that didn't shock or startle or depress but instead invited the reader into a world worth visiting. In this world were people who set good examples, tried their best, loved their families, and didn't try too hard to be part of the cool crowd.

Notice, by the way, that I mention "YA books that I enjoyed reading as a preteen."  Many preteens read YA, while teens themselves have moved on to adult fiction. So, when I write YA, I assume my audience is more likely to be nine- to twelve-year-olds than it is older readers.

In my YA mysteries, the characters don't swear. They don't use drugs or alcohol. They don't have sex or talk about it. And I know--this doesn't reflect reality for all teens. But for a good number of kids, it does; or, at least, it's the life they aspire to. Their parents scold them if they swear. They're expected to abide by their family's rules. They're expected to try to be good, even if they sometimes fail. They're not trying so hard to be cool that they'll fall into trouble easily.

Many teen novels don't follow this pattern. Many YA novelists believe their books would betray the worlds they want to create and a sense of verisimilitude if the characters don't confront coarse situations and use coarse language. Some of these authors, I learned from participating in a YA writers email group years ago, take a perverse pride in being provocative, as if shocking parents of teen readers with dark tales is the goal, rather than telling a good story or even offering a good lesson.

The Wall Street Journal's children's book reviewer shared some thoughts on the dark state of YA fiction in a June 2011 article that generated controversy. Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote in that article:

How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.

Pathologies that went undescribed in print 40 years ago, that were still only sparingly outlined a generation ago, are now spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it.

If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is. There are of course exceptions, but a careless young reader—or one who seeks out depravity—will find himself surrounded by images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds.

Don't get me wrong--I don't begrudge YA authors success if they happen to tell grittier tales than mine. And I'm not suggesting that YA fiction should be censored or have the real world whitewashed within its pages. (Neither was Gurdon in her article.)  But I do think there's a place--an important place--for YA fiction that does not focus on what's wrong in a teen's world, for stories that make readers feel good about themselves and perhaps even affirm the good choices they are making.

These are the kinds of YAs Istoria Books is looking for.

That kind of "clean" YA fiction doesn't have to be boring. In fact, this spring Istoria Books is proud to release a sweet and fun YA, The Body Electric by Allie Duzett, that doesn't include a single curse or reference to sex or substance abuse. It's a rollicking journey to the "end of the world," an exploration of young love and ancient curses. It's the exact opposite of boring. But it doesn't have a single element in it that would make a parent cringe.

Editing Allie Duzett's debut novel reinforced my belief in this kind of YA fiction. It's the epitome of our mission: we publish "good stories, well told."  Good stories--where you want to keep turning the pages to see what happens. Well told--where you want to keep hearing that author tell the story to you (instead of jumping ahead to the finish). And while our adult fiction does handle adult themes, sometimes explicitly and realistically, our young adult fiction will be a place of refuge for the preteen and teen reader who wants stories where they feel comfortable with the characters and don't mind inviting them into their own lives.

In The Body Electric, an eighteen-year-old Colorado girl meets and falls for an odd new fellow in town. He seems to possess heroic strength, is a gentleman of the old school, dresses as if he stepped off the pages of a menswear ad spread, is cheerful, honest and...has a family of grudge-bearing maniacs. As Lena learns more about Zach, she finds more to admire...and also fear. She learns just as much about herself in the process, about what values she holds dear, about what is most important in life.

I hope young readers will enjoy The Body Electric as much as all of us at Istoria have. Watch these blog pages for an interview with Allie Duzett in the weeks before its spring release!
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Libby Sternberg is an award-winning novelist. She is editor-in-chief of Istoria Books. If you have a young adult novel you'd like to submit to her, send a query to IstoriaBks@gmail.com

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The Iconic Cowboy: The Virginian

by Libby Sternberg

My first encounter with The Virginian was the television show of the same name back in the 1960s, the one with James Drury in the title role and Doug McClure as his pal, Trampas.

The Virginian, TV style

His pal? In the book, Trampas is The Virginian’s adversary, not his friend. 

But I didn’t make that shocking discovery until thirty-some years after the TV show, at a period in my life when I was reading absorbing old stories I’d passed over during my teen years. The first in this reading journey was Catherine Marshall’s Christy set a few decades after The Virginian, not in the wilds of Wyoming but in the equally foreign (to me) terrain of the Smoky Mountains.

Both stories have similar themes, however. They deal with questions of morality in the face of lawlessness. The heroines of both books have to reconcile their church-and-school-learned views on right and wrong with the reality of wrongdoers. The heros in both books have to actually deal with the wrongdoers. In the Virginian’s case, action involves painful decisions.

I swooned over the Virginian and his romance with the feisty schoolteacher Molly, two strong characters from opposite backgrounds. She was educated; he was not. She was at ease in society; he was not. They both shared a principled view of the world. His views, however, were put to the test, while hers were tested only by reflection.

Owen Wister masterfully built up their attraction by first building strong characters. From the moment readers encounter the Virginian, they are fascinated by him. He’s the iconic cowboy—strong, fair, a doer, not a talker. Molly, the woman he comes to woo, is equally strong, though, but in different ways. Her character unfolds with relentless drive, as steady and forceful as the train that first takes her from Bennington, Vermont on her journey west.

Bennington—I knew at least part of that journey. Not too long after reading The Virginian, my family moved to Vermont. But I made regular train trips back to my native Maryland, probably following some of the same tracks as Molly on the very first part of her fictional passage to a new life beyond her staid New England existence.

The first time I read the book I became so swept away in the romance at its core that other parts of the story remained in memory’s shadows. Only later when I reread the novel did I become aware of its historical aspects—the Johnson County range wars, the fight against corruption, the moral ambiguities involved in striving for freedom and independence.

Nothing summed up that latter theme better than the final dramatic passages in the book, involving, of course, a shootout of High Noon proportions. I don’t think I give anything away by reproducing part of the argument between the Virginian and Molly just minutes before this scene. It encapsulates the moral debate running through the book:

“I am not going to let him shoot me,” he said quietly.

“You mean—you mean—but you can come away!” she cried. “It’s not too late yet. You can take yourself out of his reach. Everybody knows that you are brave. What is he to you? You can leave him in this place. I’ll go with you anywhere. To any house, to the mountains, to anywhere away. We’ll leave this horrible place together and—and—oh, won’t you listen to me?” She stretched her hands to him. “Won’t you listen?”

He took her hands. “I must stay here.”

Her hands clung to his. “No, no, no. There’s something else. There’s something better than shedding blood in cold blood. Only think what it means! Only think of having to remember such a thing! Why, it’s what they hang people for! It’s murder!”

He dropped her hands. “Don’t call it that name,” he said sternly.

“When there was the choice!” she exclaimed, half to herself, like a person stunned and speaking to the air. “To get ready for it when you have the choice!”

“He did the choosing,” answered the Virginian. “Listen to me. Are you listening?” he asked, for her gaze was dull.

She nodded.

“I work hyeh. I belong hyeh. It’s my life. If folks came to think I was a coward—”

“Who would think you were a coward?”

“Everybody. My friends would be sorry and ashamed, and my enemies would walk around saying they had always said so. I could not hold up my head again among enemies or friends.”

“When it was explained—”

“There’d be nothing to explain. There’d just be the fact.” He was nearly angry.

“There is a higher courage than fear of outside opinion,” said the New England girl.

Her Southern lover looked at her. “Cert’nly there is. That’s what I’m showing in going against yours.”

As I reread and absorbed the themes of the story, I became newly appreciative of Owen Wister’s craft. He’d taken a real part of American history and fictionalized it. In doing so, he probably made it more real to readers than a dry examination of the facts of that time, especially of the gray shades between all those white and black hats. That’s the beauty and power of fiction—to make reality… more real.

When I decided to write a western historical, I have to admit to having The Virginian on my mind. Not the exact details of the story—no, I wasn’t interested in re-creating that. I knew I wouldn’t be able to come close to what Wister had achieved.

But I did want to place an iconic cowboy and a strong-willed, if troubled, woman in a setting where they’d both have to deal with moral questions that challenged their principled views of the world. Thus, my novel Kit Austen’s Journey was born, the tale of a woman trying to escape her past to start a new life only to realize that she cannot stop herself from falling in love, especially when the object of her affection is the archetypal western man—strong, resolute and kind.

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Readers can find Kit Austen's Journey for Kindle here, for Nook here, and for other ereaders here. It is now also available in print.

The Virginian is available for free from Istoria Books. Go to our website at www.IstoriaBooks.com and look for the "Free Favorites" section

Libby Interviews Libby About Aefle & Gisela

by Libby Sternberg

Libby Sternberg

My alter-ego, Libby Malin, has written another book, some piece of puffery she's calling Aefle and Gisela. Aefle and Gisela--what kind of title is that? Hmmph. While I write serious fiction and young adult novels, she continues to waste use her talents to write fluffy comedic pieces. Today I interview her about this latest effort.

Libby Sternberg: Aefle and Gisela is a comedy. Why on earth would anyone want to read it when there are so many other serious books with important topics and themes out there. For example, there's my book, Sloane Hall, a retelling of Jane Eyre that has been praised by Bronte experts and that explores very weighty themes such as obsession and forgiveness.

Libby Malin: Uh, this interview's about my book, right? Aefle and Gisela?


Libby Sternberg: Of course it is. But getting back to my question, why would anyone want to read a light piece of tomfoolery that probably only produces a brief and very temporary reaction, maybe a few smiles or a giggle or two, when they can be reading more important books that linger in the mind and heart, such as my mystery Death Is the Cool Night which deals with class differences and alcohol abuse?

Libby Malin

Libby Malin: Well, actually Aefle and Gisela deals with class differences, too. And, uh, I think humorous books can have a lasting effect, as well. Anyway, in Aefle and Gisela, the heroine owns a car dealership, and the hero is a college professor. 


Libby Sternberg: So he's Aefle and she's Gisela?

Libby Malin: Only metaphorically speaking. She's DeeDee and he's Thomas. But he's a history professor whose area of expertise is an obscure poetry-writing medieval monk named Aefle and his secret lady love, Gisela. In some ways, the stories mirror each other.


Libby Sternberg: Aha. So it's a story within a story.

Libby Malin: Mmm, sort of. Mostly it's a satire.


Libby Sternberg: Couldn't make up your mind, could you? Why, that's why I stick to one theme in Lost to the World, which explores the complex questions of medical ethics during the polio vaccine trials of 1954. And, of course, the protagonist's grief over the loss of his wife. And post-war America. But other than that, it's a very clean, singularly targeted look at --

Libby Malin: Uh, could we get back to discussing Aefle and Gisela? I was saying it's a satire. A sharp satire, actually, of the Ivory Tower.


Libby Sternberg: What, ho! A satire of the Ivory Tower?

Libby Malin: Since when did you develop a British accent?


Libby Sternberg: Go on, tell us more about this satire business.

Libby Malin: "Tell us more?" -- How many alter-egos do we have here? Okay, about the satire part -- I thought it would be great fun to write a story about conformity and the courage it takes to resist it. What better place to set it than in a supposedly open-minded environment?


Libby Sternberg: Voila--the liberal arts college campus? Why, I actually think that's a brilliant idea!

Libby Malin: Thank you.


Libby Sternberg: Well, since you're my alter-ego, I can take some credit for it, too.

Libby Malin: Who says I'm your alter-ego? Maybe you're my alter-ego.

(Muffled strangling and growling noises.)

Libby Sternberg: Ahem. Isn't satire a bit on the dry and brittle side?

Libby Malin: It can be, even when it's hilariously funny. But Aefle and Gisela also has a very touching love story in it as two very different people learn to accommodate each other. They fall in love, of course.


Libby Sternberg: Of course, and so you have several things going on here at once, I see. A comedy. A romance. And a satire. You couldn't quite make up your mind, could you? As I said, I try to stick to one broad theme in my  novels. Certainly no more than two. Obsession and forgiveness in one, class differences and alcohol abuse in another, medical ethics and grief in another. And in a book I'm writing now, I'm going to be--

(More growling and strangling noises, this time much louder.)

Libby Malin: Unfortunately, Libby Sternberg was suddenly incapacitated. I'll finish the interview on my own by telling you a little about Aefle and Gisela...

Aefle & Gisela by Libby Malin is available for Kindle, Nook and other e-readers. It tells the story of history professor Thomas Charlemagne as he attempts to shed the "Timid Tommy" reputation of his past by stopping a wedding on a dare. When it turns out to be the wrong wedding, legal problems ensue that could wreck his career as the world's leading expert on a poetry-writing medieval monk, Aefle, and his secret love, Gisela, both of whom provide a template for Thomas’s own struggles with life and love.

Buy the book for Kindle here.

Buy the book for Nook here.

Buy the book for other e-readers here.

Hurry—it’s on sale for only 99 cents as part of a book launch promotion!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: LIBBY MALIN

Libby Malin is the award-winning author of romance, literary, mystery and young adult fiction. In an attempt to thoroughly confuse her reader fans, she writes comedy under the name Libby Malin and serious fiction under the name Libby Sternberg. Her first young adult mystery, Uncovering Sadie’s Secrets, was an Edgar nominee, and her first romantic comedy, Fire Me, was optioned for film. She lives in Pennsylvania, has three children and one husband, and confesses to watching “Real Housewives” shows despite enormous amounts of culture-guilt.

Visit the author’s website at: http://www.LibbyMalin.com

Some praise for Libby Malin's other comedic novels:

• Booklist -- Malin creates a world of wit and chaos that is …smart and insightfully written (My Own Personal Soap Opera). 
• Publishers Weekly -- Malin's latest is heavy on humor… (she) coaxes plenty of laughs (My Own Personal Soap Opera).  
• Jo-Anne Greene Lancaster Sunday News -- Fire Me ...had this reader chuckling out loud.
• Washington Post -- The love story is charming and will be appreciated by any woman with bad taste in men who somehow inexplicably ends up with Mr. Right. (Loves Me, Loves Me Not) 
• Publishers Weekly --  A whimsical look at the vagaries of dating... an intriguing side plot adds punch and pathos to the story...(Loves Me, Loves Me Not) 
• Booklist -- Malin's clever debut toys with chick-lit stereotypes and offers quite a few surprises along the way. (Loves Me, Loves Me Not)