More and More Writing Guides

Two interesting Bay Area book deals from Publisher’s Marketplace:

The 826 Valencia writing centers' first 826 VALENCIA GUIDES, one on writing memoir, edited by Jenny Traig, with an introduction by Dave Eggers, and contributions from AnthonySwofford, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jonathan Ames, Phillip Lopate, Tobias Wolff, and others, and the second on writing fiction, to Sarah Knight at Holt, at auction, by Ted Weinstein at Ted Weinstein Literary Management (NA).

Dave Eggers is expanding his brand into writing books. This is a smart move, for there is a huge market for writing books. I should know, since I am an addict. I bought two this past weekend: Ariel Gore’s How To Become A Famous Writer Before You’re Dead, and Telling True Stories, a NonFiction Writers’ Guide from the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University.

Gore’s guide is laugh-out loud funny and full of practical tips on how to push yourself. Her sections include “Give Yourself a Lit Star Makeover,” and “Become a Brazen Self-Promoter.” The Harvard guide is trading on the name of the Neiman Narrative Conference, one of the country’s only conferences devoted to the craft of journalistic nonfiction. It talks about narrative structure and pacing, creating character, and other tips to bring nonfiction to life.

In another deal:

NPR talk-show host Michael Krasny's OFF MIKE: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life, describing growing up tough in Cleveland, discovering literature, and becoming instead radio personality who has perhaps interviewed as many writers as anyone -- with reflections on author encounters from Saul Bellow and Salman Rushdie to Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker, to Alan Harvey at Stanford University Press, in a pre-empt, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency.