EDITORIAL

There are a LOT of good articles coming in from authors, reviewers, writers, and publishers around the Net. Thanks, one and all. So it’s time to make this more reader-friendly.

I’m going to do a “front page” in “weekly issue” format. (Everybody cheer.) What this means to article authors and to the reader is:

Your article stays up in front of visitors for a full week, Friday through the following Friday morning.

Then, everything that was posted during the previous week will take its place in the spotlight, the previous “issue” going to a link on the front page.

PLUS: new articles will show up, too, as a LATEST ARTICLE inset, these articles put into the following week’s issue as “front page material.” (Oh the joys of cyberspace and its freedom!)

Hope you like what’s happening. If not, you can always leave a nasty note, you know!

Oh, and how each issue will be identified: Since I’m not constrained by some official anyone to do it “traditionally,” I’m going to call this Issue 11.21.2008 of The Deepening’s new format. My own numbering system, 11 for the month, 21 for the day the front page comes out with the previous week’s articles that it covers, and, obviously, 2008 for the year. (The previous weeks will also be put into this format, but third things first, you know.) Now, I may regret this numbering system, and you are all welcome to scream, holler, jump up and down, AND offer me a better way, but I know I don’t like the traditional method, so…here goes somthin’!

DLKeur, owner, The Deepening

MANAGING EDITOR: Author P.D.R. Lindsay (Her blog is HERE) (Genres: Historical, Literary, Mainstream, Mystery/Thrillers, Paranormal, Short Stories, Anthologies)

SITE ADMINISTRATOR & EDITOR: Author Bosley Gravel (his blog is HERE) (Genres: Literary, Literary Anthologies)

EDITOR: Author Marva Dasef (Her blog is HERE) (Genres: Childrens’, YA, MG)

EDITOR: Author Elizabeth Bonecher-Brenaman (Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Chick Lit, Mom Lit)

EDITOR: Author Celia Hayes (Genres: Historical, Americana, Westerns)

The Deepening was re-opened November 1, 2008 as an independent trade and reviews magazine which focuses on the world of fiction from both sides, reading, and publishing. The Deepening, the online glossy fiction magazine, ISSN 1559-7733, suspended publication as of September 2007 due to illness as well as lack of sustainable funding.

DEPARTMENTS (Sort of and So far…though we’re still working out a good organization scheme. Next issue I’ll probably have them linked up, plus more fun and goodies…provided that the cybergremlins don’t get me!):

• “THUNK“
• REVIEWS
• “THE TRADE” (Criticism and Opinion About Fiction Publishing and the Fiction Book Trade)
• ARTICLES

Get a peek at next week’s issue. See the LATEST ARTICLES SUBMITTED TO THE DEEPENING (link pending me figuring out how-to. Looks like I’ll have to code up another template. Working on it.)

Frontier Surgeon

by Celia Hayes, author of The Adelsverein Trilogy

The practice of medicine in these United (and for the period 1861-1865, somewhat disunited) States was for most of the 19th century a pretty hit or miss proposition, both in practice and by training. That many sensible people possessed pretty extensive kits of medicines – the modern equivalents of which are administered as prescriptions or under the care of a licensed medical professional – might tend to indicate that the qualifications required to hang out a shingle and practice medicine were so sketchy as to be well within the grasp of any intelligent and well-read amateur, and that many a citizen was of the opinion that they couldn’t possibly do any worse with a D-I-Y approach. Such was the truly dreadful state of affairs generally when it came to medicine in most places and in all but the last quarter of the 19th century - they may have been better off having a go on their own, at that.

Most doctors trained as apprentices to a doctor with a current practice. There were some formal schools of medicine in the United States, but their output did not exactly dazzle with brilliance. Scientific method – eh, what was that? Germ theory? A closed book. Anesthesia – a mystery. Successful surgeons possessed two basic skill sets at this time; speed and a couple of strong assistants to hold the patient down, until he was done cutting and stitching. Most of the truly skilled doctors and surgeons had their training somewhere else – like Europe.

But not in San Antonio, from 1850 on – for there was a doctor-surgeon in practice there, who ventured upon such daring medical remedies as to make him a legend… .

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Honor Killing by David E. Stannard

a review by P. D. R. Lindsay

Don’t let the racy title fool you. This is not a sensational rehash of the 1930s Hawaiian rape trial. It is a non-academic, for-the-general-population, non-fiction book and a stunning read.

In September 1931, an American naval officer’s wife claimed she was gang raped by a group of Hawaiians. Five young men were arrested and tried, despite having alibis. The jury could not reach a decision, it was a hung verdict. A retrial needed new evidence against the young men but there was none. The mother of the officer’s wife, planned, with the husband and two sailors, to force a confession from one of the accused. Instead they… .

READ THE REST OF THIS BOOK REVIEW

Under Cover

by Elizabeth Bonecher-Brenaman

I still remember the first time I scared the living daylights out of myself with a book. My age, eleven. The book, The Exorcist. The circumstances, under the covers after dark on a school night.

My parents, a product of the 70’s love scene, were, at the time, liberals. They didn’t believe in war, they didn’t believe in Johnson, and they certainly didn’t believe in censorship, not even for their eleven-year-old’s reading materials. So, they allowed me to read The Exorcist; they just didn’t allow me to read it, or anything else, after 9 p.m. on a school night. The whole “freedom” thing didn’t extend to me. Hence, the need to hide under the covers with William Peter Blatty’s masterpiece of terror and a flashlight.

Things in that book shocked even me, the daughter of liberal, free-love hippies… .

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Getting Published (HOT TOPIC)

by Marva Dasef, author of hoards and hoards of good books

I just heard from a friend who used Llumina publishing to put out her first book. It cost her several hundred bucks. Other friends use PublishAmerica, iUniverse, XLibris, and a host of other pay-to-play “publishers.”

Guess what? These are NOT publishers! If you self-publish a book (e.g., become an independent publisher), then that’s great, wonderful, and you-go-girl (or boy). This is totally legitimate. Anybody who’s been querying agents will tell you that your chances are almost 0 of getting one.

Here’s my rant. Agent blogs and newsletters tout their latest books. I’ve seen multiple sexy vampire loves human girl, multiple retarded MC makes good in the world (everybody be inspired by the McDonald’s heart-wrenching), and multiple naked chests of buff gay guys making the story.

ENOUGH! Agents say they want something new, a fresh voice! Well, damn it, quit signing… .

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Comancheria - The Separate Peace

by Celia Hayes, author of The Adelsverein Trilogy

That there would ever be any sort of peace between the Comanche people, the horse-lords of the Southern Plains, and the settlers who steadily encroached upon the lands which they had always considered their own particular stamping grounds in 19th century Texas verges on the fantastical. That it lasted for longer than about a week must be accounted a miracle of Biblical proportions; but there was indeed such a treaty, negotiated and signed about mid-way through the bitter, brutal fifty-year long guerrilla war between the Tribes, and a group of settlers newly arrived in Texas.

The need for a little patch of peace became a matter of urgency upon the arrival of nearly 7,000 German immigrants… .

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Historical Novel Society Says Anti-American? Try: Lack of Research! (HOT TOPIC)

by P. D. R. Lindsay

The American editors of the Historical Novel Society’s journal, ‘Review’ the quarterly collection of reviews written by readers, recently threw me off their list of reviewers of American written historical fiction for writing a review which they called anti-American. In other words it was unfavourable, one of several such reviews I had written for them over the past two years. That last review must have been the review which broke their patriotic nerve, but the book really was badly researched on such simple basic things which many British readers would have known about.

Why is it that even the most well educated and seemingly least xenophobic of Americans will pack a paddy and fly into a pelter of jingoistic hysteria if you dare to criticise things American? If a thing is badly wrong it needs correcting.

In the case of the novels I had criticised it was the lack of research which irritated me so. If a writer of historical fiction… .

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Narrative Magazine Needs Donations

It’s the same old story, the same old song. Writers write, writers read…to test the market, writers submit. Writer’s don’t subscribe…or at least not enough of them do. Genuine readers? There are a few. So money going out doesn’t equal money coming in and money needed to sustain the publication and its payments to writers.

SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, SEND MONEY. NOW WOULD BE A GREAT TIME.

Here’s the note from Narrative I got today. It’s cute, but it’s also a cry for supporting dollars… .

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Happy Readers

“I visited my local library for a couple of hours and was rewarded to see children happily sharing books and their perceptions of the stories inside with each other, no adult supervision required, though an adult sat in the corner reading his own book — some action-adventure novel.

“Children enjoy the adventure of turning the page to find out “what’s next.” So do adults. Books do that in an enchanting way, allowing us to enter their worlds through the gateway of their word-streams. Isn’t it wonderful!”

The Covey Cover Awards

Got an email from someone soliciting votes for their cover in a “Most Eye-Catching Cover” public poll. So, I hopped over to The New Covey Cover Awards. http://thenewcoveycoverawards.blogspot.com/

There was a flash slide show, then, below, the covers presented, one at a time, in a column.

I looked at them all, chose the one I thought most fulfilled the contest’s criteria, and voted, using their POLL feature.

I noted that there is a separate contest for “Most Artistic Cover,” these judged, not by popular vote, but by a team of judges — smart. Popular votes are more like popularity votes. A lot of people vote their friends, not the quality of the entry. I hate that. I think it’s despicable.

Then I got to thinking. There are a lot of independent authors who have some really cool covers… .

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