Tuesday Tidbits

Daniel Olivas has a profile of Reyna Grande, whose new novel about a young illegal immigrant, Across A Hundred Mountains, draws on her own flight from Mexico to the U.S.

“There is no question that Grande is living the American dream. She was born in Guerrero, Mexico, in 1975, and entered the United States at age 9. She earned her bachelor of arts degree in creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz. With that, she became the first person in her entire family to obtain a degree. In 2003, Grande became a PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow, which led to her getting a literary agent who placed Grande's novel with Atria Books.”

Across A Hundred Mountains, which got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, will be released this week.

Edward Guthmann has a sympathetic and moving portrait of Berkeley writer Judith Moore in the San Francisco Chronicle. Moore, a senior editor at the San Diego Reader and the author of the acclaimed memoir, Fat Girl, died in May of colon cancer.

Speaking of the Chronicle, its Sunday book review section has gone from six to four pages – all without any comment from the editors. Bad news. But the paper seems to have increased the number of reviews it is running during the week.

A few new blogs from people in the East Bay:

Wendy Lesser, the editor of the ThreePenny Review, is starting a blog called TheLesser Review. It looks interesting, but it has already raised the hackles of the blogosphere with its slightly better-than-thou attitude. (Naturally Ed and Dan Green are already all over this.) She seems to suggest that most blogs are just a collection of random thoughts strung together without intending to make a point. This is from her introduction:

“Speaking of blog rules, this one is not going to follow most of them.

For one thing, it will be very organized, with listings of its contents (once it accumulates any contents, that is).

For another, I will not be making daily or even weekly postings, and the format will in no way resemble a diary or journal. Each posting will be a little (or not so little) self-contained essay, perhaps more chatty than my usual essays in the magazine, but nonetheless resembling a printed article more than most blog entries do."


And finally, I do not plan to include any photos of my cat or best friends or any other personal items that you would be required to take an interest in. This should come as something of a relief — a blessedly impersonal blog."

Other new blogs include Dibs, by a mystery man (or woman) with lots of access to Advanced Readers copies and Confessions of a Crazy Chick, by an unnamed 22-year old in publishing.