February 9, 2010
Go here to read the interview with WriteOn! Online’s founder/owner Debra Eckerling about the writing and publication of The Metal Girl.
Debra is a professional writer and public speaker who supports writers “of all abilities, genres and specialties” with her live and now online WriteOn! gatherings. Based in Los Angeles, WriteOn! Online networks with writers worldwide.
February 7, 2010
I had the pleasure of covering the Scandinavian Film Festival LA last month for Moving Pictures Magazine. Go here to see the article “Scandinavian Film Festival LA 2010: A Celebration of Nordic Films and Oscar Submissions”.
Here is my unpublished video interview with founder and executive director of the festival James Koenig:
January 28, 2010
My novel, The Metal Girl, will be released in a few weeks. Here’s what happened, resulting in its publication:
This past June, about a week before Father’s Day, I logged into my personal Facebook page. A stranger had written on my wall the following message: ”Hi, Are you the Judy Sandra that wrote The Metal Girl? I found your manuscript in the basement of my church. I’m reading it, and I really like it,” signed Rev. Tom Martinez.
But how could that be? He was talking, of course, about my second novel, which I had written in 1993 when I was still living in Brooklyn, NY. Eight years years after receiving an MA in Creative Writing, I wrote this novel as part of a private fiction writing class at the home of the novelist and translator Ursule Molinaro. At that time, I had only sent the manuscript out to about six or seven literary agents and a few book editors. Tiring of the usual runaround, I plunged into the next creative projects. I let the book go for the moment and moved on, eventually leaving NYC for good in 2001. Since then I gave it another edit and recently was contemplating adapting it for a screenplay. I marveled that any of the few copies in circulation still existed, sixteen years later, in a church basement, no less.
I wrote back. “Yes, that’s me. I’m glad you like the book. But…how did you get it? Can we talk?” I called Brooklyn, and we spoke for quite a while, as the enigma of the manuscript slowly unraveled. Rev. Tom Martinez is the Minister of a small liberal Unitarian Universalist Church–All Souls Bethlehem Church, congregation 30– that took over a row house in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn. The cover page of my manuscript had my Brooklyn address, and he was surprised to learn that I’m now in Los Angeles. Here is Tom’s story:
“It all happened during a basement clean-up party a few months ago (before June). One of our parishioners was reaching into an old wooden file cabinet and pulling out old papers that we were aggressively tossing out. It was time for everything to go. Then she held up a manuscript and said aloud, “What’s this?” The cover page read, “The Metal Girl,” listed Judy Sandra as the author and showed a Brooklyn address. We were determined to throw out everything, and I do mean everything. But I knew I’d never forgive myself and would always wonder what it had been. And, besides, how did the manuscript wind up here, at All Souls Bethlehem Church?
So I set the book aside and later brought it up to my apartment above the church. A few days passed with me running here and there. Every now and then the manuscript would catch my eye and I’d feel that sense of curiosity, till one day I sat down and began to read. I read the first paragraph, and then the second, and before long I was enthralled. As I’ve since told Judy, I was struck by the beauty of the language, the candor and power of the narrator’s journey, and the eternal theme of a wandering artist in a foreign land. How the book found its way here to ASBC remains a mystery.”
I am most thankful and grateful for Rev.Tom Martinez, the parishioners of All Souls Bethlehem Church, and some truly divine intervention. I’m still nonplussed by this miraculous chain of events. In the end, one is left quite speechless.
January 14, 2010
Right now what is needed in Haiti is some warm cash. A few dollars goes far, and many dollars are needed. Here is a long list of places where you can donate some money today [from The Rachel Maddow Show website (MSNBC)]:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34834553/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show
I donated to OxfamAmerica: www.oxfamamerica.org
Do it. You’ll feel a little better. And someone will have water tomorrow.
Peace.
September 22, 2009
I took this photo of Griffith Observatory, one of my favorite sights along my hike around the Hollywood Hills. It was recently reopened after a $93 million renovation and last month was spared from being consumed by the Los Angeles Station fire thanks to the enormous efforts of local firefighters.
I thought it was a perfect symbol for a blog about communications.
I’m so glad the observatory is still standing, as it houses the most visited telescope in the world–the 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope.
Did you know that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), which celebrates the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope observations?
For more information about the IYA and events at the Observatory see the website: http://www.griffithobservatory.org/
For my fellow astronomy lovers…
September 19, 2009
As soon as I posted this I was alerted to Jeff Bercovici’s piece at Daily Finance. Go see here. Is Nikki jumping the gun? Perhaps no firm decisions yet.
September 19, 2009
The only thing that surprised me about the announcement today that The Hollywood Reporter would discontinue its print edition was that it will happen so soon. I must admit, I’ve been predicting this to friends and colleagues for a while, much to their denial and bewilderment, but I was saying, “in a year”…
According to Nikki Finke’s post today in Deadline Hollywood Daily, THR had wanted to go digital as early as next month. It’s not clear if the online edition will still be free but the subscription print edition will be totally digital.
DHD also reports that Variety will start charging for both their online and digital edition. Good luck with that. There will be a core group who will still subscribe to both trades for a while, but I see that audience shrinking over a short period of time as well.
The success of the professional blogosphere is history at this point, and so is the tiny entertainment trade business linked to a small B2B audience that finds them relevant. The next generation industry people who I know tell me that sure, they pay attention to the trades, but they read a lot of other online sources as well. If the Hollywood trades still exist at all in a few years, I see them as narrowly focused and run by a skeletal staff. But I’m not betting on it.
While Finke feels that “too many people need the niche content”, the relationships between the trades and the industry may be changing as well. Deadline Hollywood Daily only proves this point, as Ms. Finke broke the Variety story today before Variety. Really. It’s just that the trades had a hold on the industry–and their dwindling advertising dollars–when there was no competition, and no Internet publications to turn to.
Now, not so much…
September 17, 2009
How can we raise the level of civil discourse when we can’t even be civil? Or civilized?
I was going to fill in the blanks of my long absence here by explaining that I had spent so much time watching, listening to and reading about last year’s presidential campaign that I ended up not writing about it. There was so much commentary and drama ad infinitum that I didn’t think another voice was needed in the conversation. However, after all the campaigns were over and I had fully digested the political spectacles on both sides, there was one word left that pretty much summed up those long months for me and what I thought of the level of public discourse: disgusting.
On the Republican side there was the egregious name calling, lying and fear mongering of the lowest levels, and on the Democratic side there was also mudslinging and a well oiled pr campaign that was almost too slick, too seamless, and too flawless. No one’s that perfect. Creating that kind of celebrity status for a presidential candidate left me feeling very uncomfortable, and I’m not sure that I can explain why. We already have too much emphasis on the cult of personality over substance, and I so wanted substance.
It was no wonder that then candidate Obama’s personal and political eloquence was such a breath of fresh air, rescuing us at moments from the hype und drang. Granted, one can argue that that’s what makes presidential politics so much fun, and I must admit, it’s the only sport that I follow with glee. But there was something in all of the primaries and the subsequent presidential campaigns that just left a bad taste in my mouth. It got downright uglier than usual, in my estimation. Having watched for years from the inside of the news when I worked at TIME, where I lived through two presidential campaigns, I perhaps have a different perspective than most casual viewers. Those of us on staff who were curious enough (that would be me) would question writers just off the campaign buses and planes to dish out the gossip on both sides of the political circus. Always yummy fodder. But it wouldn’t get reported or spoken about much outside of those hallowed and, for the most part, discreet halls. I personally wouldn’t dream of repeating hearsay to anyone outside of the office. How unseemly.
But something has changed in our 24/7- live-out loud-in-public-on-the-Internet-with-no-boundaries-or-shame society. It seems to this observer that we now live in a time when apparently nothing is sacred. Now things that might have been told to me in whispers seem to be shouted out loud to the media by the guilty parties themselves. I just don’t know what to make of this. Honestly, I’m in culture shock at my own culture.
In the past few months we have been witness to:
-Governor Mark Sandford’s confession: Yes, I played hooky from my job, disappeared and lied to everyone I know, including my family, to be with a mistress whom I love more than my wife, but you should still want me to work for you because I am the chosen one…
-ditto Senator John Ensign: Yes, I’m an adulterer with a mistress whose family happens to work for me and to whom my parents gave thousands of dollars, but I’m still a good person and I confessed so it’s all better now…
–right wing radio and TV talk show hosts happlily spewing their daily doses of vicious hatemongering, with no censure…
–right wingers carrying signs of the president of the United States as Hitler in a Nazi uniform and pugnaciously shouting down their elected officials in public forums.
But this week left me flummoxed. I couldn’t believe my ears or eyes. Say wha? –
–Congressman Joe Wilson: I can heckle the President of the United States during a serious address to the nation, while the world watches, and I will only apologize when forced to and now you should give me money….
–Kanye West–I am a complete and utter boor in public in front of millions of people (which includes my fans) and I think this is OK because…
–Serena Williams–It’s normal to lose my temper and show off my potty mouth because millions of sports fans are not watching me on TV in one of the most important tennis matches of the year…
and even, heaven forbid, President Obama–Of course I can use foul language in public to a news anchor since my mic isn’t on and, after all, they never talk…
People, please, don’t apologize in public or share your private moments.
Here’s what I want: Be ashamed. Be very ashamed.
Sometimes shame is a good thing. It’s a responsible feeling. Shame says, “I know that I have done something very, very wrong, and I feel bad about that. I should amend my ways.”
What happens when uncivil and uncivilized behavior goes unchecked? What kind of society do we want to have? The word “civil” is derived from the Latin word “civilis”, which means “citizen”. I’m for that. Let’s put civility back in the citizen.
Civility seems not only to have left the building but also the continent. Can we raise the level of public discourse in this frothing fray? I voted for intelligence and rationality. At least in public, we can show a little class. Media training, anyone….?
September 9, 2009
New posts, videos, and a new book. See you soon! JS
September 9, 2009
Boy, where did the time go? I’m back now and will soon be blogging at my new website www.judysandra.com, but for now I’ll post here again for the time being.
