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Stories To Tell is a full service book publishing company for independent authors. We provide editing, design, publishing, and marketing of fiction and non-fiction. We specialize in sophisticated, unique illustrated book design.
Call it a journal. Call it a diary. Call it a writer’s notebook. Call it what you will. If you are contemplating or working on a major writing project like a memoir or family history you should keep one.
Who knew that Canadian author Margaret Atwood was a stand up comedian, too? She appeared this year at the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference to speak about "The Publishing Pie: An Author's View". Her humor and intelligence make this a wonderful presentation.
The author, Atwood says, is the original source – the one who generates the content that keeps the whole publishing world in motion. Yet authors are getting less of the pie. Ebooks, in particular, make it unsustainable to write as a career. Atwood explores new publishing models and the concerns of the changing marketplace.
Atwood discusses many ideas about the value of stories and books. And, for those of you who have been forced to read too many PowerPoints, she even drew cartoon illustrations for her slide show!
In this interview with artist Nancy Gershman, we discuss the design of family history books and memoirs, and the benefits of adding abstract images to a book cover.
“Who are editors and what are they good for?” asks Anita Roy, a senior editor a Zubaan Books and associate editor of Geo magazine...Roy creates a list of the aspects of the craft of editing. Here are some excerpts from the list.
A fellow member of the Association of Personal Historians recommended consulting Maureen Taylor, whom the Wall Street Journal called “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective.” The Journal’s article describes how Taylor unravels the mysteries contained in old photos. It’s a fascinating process.
How do you create a “living” person in a memoir or family history?
We’ve talked about several approaches here. Today we’re going to look at some ideas from Phillip Lopate, essayist, writer and poet and author of The Art of the Personal Essay. These thoughts originally appeared in an interview with Lania Knight for the online edition of Poets and Writers Magazine.
I love mysteries. As a historian I have always found the search for the evidence that would unravel the mystery surrounding a historical event fascinating. Reading mystery novels is one of my favorite pastimes. A friends, knowing this propensity, recently sent me a story that the Associated Press reported a few years ago. It’s too good not to share.
What if you could reinvent the camera? Just as all our technological tools are moving toward miniaturization and wireless connections, cameras are undergoing a makeover. Photography designers Artefact have developed the prototype, the WVIL, which stands for "Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens.”
The whole idea is that in current camera design, the viewfinder is shackled to the lens. What is the lens was in one place, but the viewfinder and controls were somewhere else, say on your computer or an iphone-type console? You could wireless adjust the lens through software, making the kind of rapid, minute calibrations that our clumsy fingers often fail to achieve.
But wait, there’s more! Why just one lens? What if you could position multiple lenses around a subject, and control them all wirelessly? Photography is then transformed to a simultaneous input 3D art.
To learn more, check out this article in Fast Company. There's a fascinating video, too. “Artefact claims that the WVIL concept is less about redesigning the digital camera as it is about redesigning digital photography itself.
"It's about defining a platform for innovation in both hardware and software -- a camera operating system," Ronning says. "We've seen the effect that iOS had on phones. Now think of what effect a camera OS could have for photography."
I can imagine, and like the fanatical iphone buyers, I would stand in line all night to buy this.
I walked into my hometown branch of the Shasta County Library on Monday afternoon. Near the front desk a colorful sign invited me to Celebrate National Library Week. As it so often happens, I missed the memo. The celebration was last week, April 10-16. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to join the celebration, no matter how tardy I might be
The Black Book, a journal of political aphorisms, quips and observations from four generations in the Adlai Stevenson family demonstrates the value of journaling for family historians and memoirists.
"No one’s family history is compelling and interesting, until you make it compelling and interesting," said family historian Sharon DeBartolo Carmack.
Absolutely! But how do you do that?
One important part of the process is recognizing that there is an critical difference between genealogical research and writing a family history.
