Philip Turner – Page 84 – The Great Gray Bridge

About Philip Turner

My formative experience in the book business was running the chain of independent bookstores, Undercover Books, which I founded with my siblings and our parents in Cleveland, Ohio. During my seven years with the stores I served as a personal bookseller to thousands of readers and customers. Following bookselling, I’ve worked in publishing almost forty years. Through it all, I remain a bookselling-oriented editor, passionately devoted to helping authors connect with readers.

I am an editorial advocate for writer and reader. I edit with the author perched on one shoulder, the reader on the other, fostering a virtual dialogue between the two and creating mutual benefit for each. I am a hands-on line editor, of both brief and lengthy texts, with a generous feel for what a writer is trying to convey, and an intuitive sense of how to help them communicate their ideas as efficiently and memorably as possible. I welcome queries from new and experienced authors, predominantly in nonfiction, and some fiction, with fees quoted upon receipt and consideration of material.

Entries by Philip Turner

Book Expo America–Off to a Quick Start on Day I

May 29, 2013/4 Comments/in Books & Writing, Publishing & Bookselling/by Philip Turner

#BEA2013 At Buzz panel Liese Mayer of Overlook Press giving boffo perf on her novel THE FACADES, citing Kafkaf&Batman twitter.com/philipsturner/…

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) May 29, 2013

Although the exhibit floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, there was lots of activity at the Javits Center today. My wife and I stopped in the hall just before 10:00 AM and got our badges as certified press, covering BEA for this blog. In the late afternoon, was the annual Editors’ Buzz panel, where a select panel of editors get to pitch their favorite titles of the coming fall season. By far the most exciting presentation was made by Liese Mayer [spelling corrected here from above tweet], of Overlook Press who touted the novel she acquired just after joining the company, The Facades, a first novel by Eric Lundgren. She said the novel combined elements of Kafka’s forbidding city and Batman’s modern Gotham. I grabbed one of the galleys and, after her compelling presentation, am eager to start reading the book. I also was interested in the presentation by Picador editor Anna deVries of The Affairs of Others, a novel by Amy Grace Loyd and so took a galley of it. Now, running off to evening activities!

A New NBCC Award for a First Book, in Honor of John Leonard

May 29, 2013/1 Comment/in Books & Writing/by Philip Turner

I am an associate member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), the only association of freelance and full-time book critics in the country. Readers of this blog may recall the superb literary event, with readings and awards, they put on every spring in NYC. This link is for my coverage of the most recent celebration this past March

This morning I was excited to learn that the NBCC is adding a new category for their annual awards, a citation that will recognize the best first book of the year. It could be a novel, a book of short stories, a memoir–it will not be limited to a particular genre. The award will be given in memory of the late John Leonard, longtime NBCC member, and eternally effervescent man of letters. The announcement was just emailed to members, with the screenshot of it pasted in below these lines. The NBCC is a great organization of dedicated readers and writers. You can follow them on Twitter, @BookCritics and check them out on the web, NBCC.

The POT THIEF Mystery Series–Licensed to Open Road Integrated Media

May 28, 2013/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner Book Productions, Publishing & Bookselling/by Philip Turner

I’m happy to announce that as literary agent for author J. Michael Orenduff, in conjunction with the Silver Bitela Agency, my company Philip Turner Book Productions recently licensed the six-book POT THIEF mystery series to Open Road Integrated Media, a major player in digital publishing. The books, previously self-published by Mr. Orenduff, are The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy, The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein, The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier, The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence, and The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid. They will all be published by Open Road in print and digital editions beginning in 2014.

As a devoted mystery reader myself, I adore the POT THIEF books and have earlier written about them here. They are set in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico, featuring dealer in Native America pottery Hubie Schutz and his sidekick in sleuthing, wise-cracking Susannah Inchaustigui, a descendant of one of the region’s old-line Basque ranching families. They meet most afternoons at Hermanas Tortilleria, to sip margaritas and discuss their latest puzzler. After years running Undercover Books, a bookstore where I sold lots of mysteries, and as an editor publishing mysteries, I know the mystery market well and am particularly excited that the many readers of Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn mysteries, also set in the American Southwest, will now also be able to discover the POT THIEF books. In their earlier editions, the POT THIEF books won numerous awards and raves from mystery readers, including this one from Anne Hillerman, the late mystery master’s daughter: “I inhaled this book. Witty, well-crafted and filled with unexpected plot turns, The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid will delight J. Michael Orenduff’s many fans—and win him new ones.”

If you haven’t yet heard of Open Road, I suggest you visit their website. They have more than 3000 active titles, including five books by my longtime author Ruth Gruber, as well as titles by dozens of important authors such as William Styron, Rachel Carson, Andre Dubus, and Mary Glickman, always in digital editions, and sometimes in print editions, too. They’ve been operating for three years, innovating and growing along with the emerging ebook market. The company was recently profiled in an excellent piece via this link at paidcontent.org.

I’m delighted for my author J. Michael Orenduff and also very pleased to be working with Ed Silver and Babz Bitela of the Silver Bitela Agency, who are representing the POT THIEF brand for film and TV rights. In fact, they are already sharing with producers an excellent screenplay based on the series, written by previously credited screenwriter, Robert C. Powers. Announcements of the deal I made with Open Road have appeared in Publishers Weekly and in PublishersMarketplace.com, both of which mention the Silver Bitela Agency (these may only be available by subscription so I’ve made screenshots of both to be sure they can be read by GGB readers). Happy I could share this great news the same week as Book Expo America (BEA), the book industry’s annual convention, taking place at NYC’s Javits Center May 30-June 1. Please click here to see deal coverage from the two book industry outlets.

Paul Elie, on J.S. Bach and His Modern Interpreters

May 26, 2013/0 Comments/in Music, Bands & Radio/by Philip Turner

A great conversation this morning on one of my favorite weekend radio programs–CBC Sunday Edition, hosted by Michael Enright–with Paul Elie, author of Reinventing Bach, a National Book Critics Circle finalist in criticism, examining how Albert Schweitzer, Pablo Casals, Leopold Stokowski, Glenn Gould and Yo-Yo Ma have interpreted Bach over the past century. I had heard Elie read from his work last March at the readings hosted by the NBCC with many of this year’s finalists. In a post about that occasion, I wrote,

Like all the categories, Criticism was filled with standout titles. Paul Elie, (Reinventing Bach), read a fascinating passage about the blockbuster album of 1968, “Switched-on Bach,” for which Walter Carlos had played Bach on the recently invented moog synthesizer. Elie quoted Glenn Gould on the fusion of Bach and the new electronic instrument, where the Canadian pianist heard an ideal match. Gould relished the moog’s absence of vibrato and inflection, which I imagine probably had an aural quality for him akin to a harpsichord.

Elie is very knowledgeable but not pedantic in discussing Bach and the modern musicians. Today’s program is highly recommended listening.

Neil Young at Glastonbury Fest, 2009

May 26, 2013/0 Comments/in Music, Bands & Radio/by Philip Turner

Stunning video from BBC Four of Neil Young playing his song “Words (Between the Line of Age)” at the Glastonbury Festival in England, 2009. Pegi Young is singing backup, the late Ben Keith is on pedal steel, Chad Cromwell is drumming, Rick Rojas in playing bass, and someone I can’t ID is on keyboards. This song first appeared as the final cut on Neil’s album “Harvest,” in album in 1972. A number of songs from the festival are viewable via this youtube link. Enjoy!

#FridayReads, May 24–“Before the Frost,” a Kurt & Linda Wallander novel

May 24, 2013/1 Comment/in Books & Writing/by Philip Turner

#FridayReads Henning Mankell’s thriller 2004 thriller Before the Frost, featuring Detective Kurt Wallander and his grown daughter Linda, who like he did earlier in life, chooses to become a police officer. With surprising synchronicity, in Michael Connelly’s 2011 Detective Harry Bosch novel The Drop, (my May 10th #FridayReads), his teenage daughter informs him that she is going to choose police work for her career. I don’t believe these two writers, one in Sweden, the other in Los Angeles, read each other’s work or have directly influenced each other. Instead, I believe that with these authors–who have each written ten or more books featuring their detective protagonist–become extremely invested in their characters and loyal to them, so that in their protean creativity, they endow the two characters–late middle-aged single fathers in each series–with full lives and late-in-life-joy from growing closer to their own child. This highlights one of the things I love most about these books, Mankell’s and Connelly’s, as well as those by other authors I enjoy–featuring characters Travis McGee, Bernie Gunther, and Joe Gunther (no relation to the former), by John D. MacDonald, Philip Kerr, and Archer Mayor, respectively: The author is so devoted to their creation that they give them full lives, and I as a faithful reader, feel obliged to be solicitous of and devoted to them myself.