When people found out that I was going out of town the weekend of the Brooklyn Book Festival to speak at the (Downtown) Omaha Lit Fest, they were surprised. “But you’re missing all those writers!” they told me. “All the Jonathans are going to be in Brooklyn!” Not all, it turns out: Here’s Jonathan Segura of Publishers Weekly and Jonathan Messinger of Time Out Chicago, who’s also the author of the short story collection Hiding Out. (Segura’s also sold a novel to Simon & Schuster, but it doesn’t have an official name yet.) I snapped their picture right after they finished speaking on a panel called “Save Your Soul: Did Literature Survive the 20th Century?”, where, as you can imagine, technology was much discussed—but not in the alarmist tones the subject evokes in some circles. “Blogs are a great way to share opinions and book recommendations,” Segura said, adding, “I don’t think readers have changed in the last five years, but the way they look for information has. The reading community is in a good spot now, with more attention paid to smaller presses and independent publishers.”
“I think that in 100 years, people will look back and laugh at us for saying that nobody will ever read books online,” Messinger said in response to another question. “And that’s okay. Eventually, there will be an iPod for books and then you know how there are people who still collect vinyl? Print will become the new vinyl.”
Another of the day’s highlights (for me, at any rate) was a discussion about “how to cultivate a cult following,” where Monica Drake talked about the impact of the recommendation her novel, Clown Girl, received from Chuck Palahniuk. “My book is not a Chuck Palahniuk novel,” Drake pointed out. “It’s not a spinoff. But nobody has complained yet about being duped by his blurb.” Transgendered memoirist Aaron Raz Link cited the importance of staying true to your own voice as a writer: “The people that think I’m Satan are going to think that I’m Satan, and I’m going to have a good time.” And, at the level of practical advice, when it was suggested that reviews don’t necessarily sell books, festival organizer and local author Timothy Schaffert said, “It’s the booksellers you want to charm. They’re the ones who are going to introduce the readers to the author.”
I have more photos from Omaha on my Flickr account.