http://www.matchstickmarvels.com/MinasTirith.htm

I received this heartening note from my friend David Bratman:

I am reading a small book called Shakespeare's Modern Collaborators by Lukas Erne (London: Continuum, 2008), and found this gratifying, and rather familiar-sounding, statement in the Introduction (p. 1):

"Shakespeare's play texts as they reach us are the result of collaboration. What this emphasis on collaboration entails is a view of Shakespeare that contradicts a Romantic understanding, or misunderstanding, of Shakespeare as a solitary genius whose original ideas found direct and perfect expression in his plays, unhampered by any material and social constraints.  Rather, a well-informed view of Shakespeare needs to start with the acknowledgement that what we think of as Shakespeare's plays have been shaped by at least four different forms of collaboration."

And he enumerates them:

1) Actual co-authorship of some plays
2) Collaboration with actors, including writing parts with specific actors in mind to play them, and playhouse alteration of the text, particularly abridgment
3) Printers, who introduced "alterations, omissions, substitutions, transpositions, interpolations, as well as additions"
4) Modern editors, whose choices of texts and of corrections tremendously affects our view of the text.

And #4 is what the book is about, hence the title.

Yessir. That's what I'm talking about.

PW:  The theme of what it means to be/to have a dad in Cosmic is wonderful. Did that emerge on its own, or was it deliberate?

FCB:  No it emerged on its own, rather late in the day. People think that inspiration comes at the beginning but one of the joys of writing is the late moment of inspiration that comes after months of slog. Cosmic was just about cars and laughs and then I woke up one morning and thought, "Oh, THAT's what it's about" and started all over again.

It's priced at $9.99, but you can get an extra 10% off with the coupon code GREATBOOK.

More soon.

Every year, students in APU's Freshman writing program submit essays and compete in three catagories: best personal essay, best argument, and best research paper. APU welcomed more than a thousand new students this year. Competition? Yea, more than a little.

I'm so proud that one of my students took first place in the personal essay catagory and second place in the researched argument category! Alyssa Hetschel was honored at the recent FWS Academic Conference.
Alyssa writes with a confident voice. She is gifted at recognizing the telling detail, and she knows how to edit distractions to make every word tell. That is what makes her a Great Writer.

Remember that for one more week, HERE, THERE BE DRAGONS can be read for FREE over at the Simon & Schuster site here: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Here-There-Be-Dragons/James-A-Owen/Chronicles-of-the-Imaginarium-Geographica-The/9781416912279

working cover design by The Seven-Seventy Design Group