Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 13:04:19 -0400 From: richard seltzer Subject: Chat reminder -- Thursday, May 16. Roberta Kalechofsky -- novelist, essayist, speaker, and publisher BUSINESS ON THE WEB -- Where "word of keystroke" begins This Thursday, May 16, from noon to 1 PM (Eastern Time -- GMT -4) we'll be talking to our guest Roberta Kalechofsky, novelist, essayist, speaker, and publisher (http://www.micahbooks.com). We'll be talking about her works and also about experiences and learnings from the realms of traditional small press publishing, print-on-demand, and marketing over the Internet. I first met Roberta in the mid-1970s when we were both exhibiting frequently at small press books fairs. Now that my venture of publishing books on CD ROM is taking off -- with good response to collections of public domain books -- starting with Roberta, I'm going to begin publishing contemporary, copyrighted works, paying royalties to authors. I hope to have a CD with half a dozen of her books available in a few weeks. (Please check out my other offerings at my online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat). To connect to this chat session, go to http://www.samizdat.com/chat-intro.html We'll be on, as usual, from noon to 1 PM Eastern Time (GMT -4) this Thursday. For links to transcripts of previous sessions, check http://www.samizdat.com/chat.html We tried to do a chat with Roberta on April 25, but were undermined by bandwidth problems. This is our second try. Here's a sample of what we managed to say last time before we were interrupted -- Richard Seltzer: From the wide range of your activities as author and publisher, what is it that you take most pride in today? Roberta: What I take most pride in? good heavens. I have a problem that people perceive me differently from how I perceive myself. I find it hard to take pride in anything, because I always feeel as if I'm struggling to accomplish more writing. If pinned down, I suppose I would say my novel, bodmin, 1349, because it was such a mammoth undertaking. After that, I would have to list my work in the animal rights and vegetaian movements, because it has meant so much to people there. One of the reasons I take what you call "pride" in it is because in order to write about vivsection coherently I had to educate myself about medicine and the history of medicine and science, in general--fields that were utterly outside my normal pattern of interests. Bob Zwick: Are you speaking of animal rights as far as using them to test drugs etc. ? roberta: Absolutely. I had to narrow my concentration in this area--because it's so huge--to two primary interests, viviesection and animal agriculture. One of the things I discovered about animal research was the way it led to research on human beings. It took a lot of digging on my part to make that connection. My research for my novel, bodmin, which is about the black Death, later fed into my interest in disease and medicine. It seems funny how these things tided up for me. Bob Zwick: can you explain what "vivisection" is ? roberta: vivisection means cutting up living animals. dissection is cutting up dead animals. Yes, anmal agriculture is rasing livestock for food. the public does not know that there are no laws governing what you can do to a livestock aimal. Richard Seltzer: Bodmin is an amazing book. It must have taken lots of research to provide such a real-feeling picture of life in an English monastery in the 14th century, during the plague. What led you to that topic? Also, I'm curious, how you seem to be drawn to topics relating to Christianity, while you are very active and eloquent on Jewish topics as well. roberta: You ask what led me to Bodmin: it was a reference to the Black Death in a footnote. It seems amazing to me that the greatest natural catastrophe to hit the human race was relegated to a footnote. and yes, I am drawn to material about Christian-Jewish relations. For me it is 'the matter of Europe," in the way the Knights' tales were the matter of medieval Europe. **************** Roberta is the author of seven works of fiction, a monograph on George Orwell, poetry and two collections of essays. She has been published in quarterlies, reviews and anthologies, and was the recipient of Literary Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts. Several of her stories, and two novellas, La Hoya (AKA View from Toledo) and Stephen's Passion, have been translated into Italian and published in Italy. La Hoya received excellent reviews in major publications, such as Corriere Della Sera., and was included in a college curriculum in Italy under the title, Veduta di Toledo.. Stephen's Passion has also been included in a college curriculum in courses in American Fiction in the University of Florence, under the title, La Passione Di Stephen. Her novel, Bodmin, 1349: An Epic Novel of Christians and Jews in the Plague Years, was included twice in a college curriculum in the United States. She began Micah Publications in 1975 and has received publishing grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, in addition to her literary fellowships. As a publisher, she created The Echad Series, which includes five anthologies of Jewish writing from around the world, and has published 40 different titles in poetry, fiction, scholarship, vegetarianism and animal rights. She is active in the animal rights and vegetarian movements and began the organization, Jews for Animal Rights, in 1985, and coordinates publishing projects with this organization. The full text of three of her books is available at my Web site now: Justice My Brother http://www.samizdat.com/micah/justice.html View from Toledo http://www.samizdat.com/micah/toledo.html Orestes in Progress http://www.samzidat.com/micah/orestes.html Please read and enjoy. Please let me know your suggestions for other guests and topics. I'm looking for interesting and innovative business models, products, and services. seltzer@samizdat.com Please send email with your follow-on questions and comments, and requests to receive email reminders about upcoming sessions. Best wishes. Richard Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com Internet marketing consultant www.samizdat.com/consult.html For a library for the price of a book, visit our new online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat Buy my new book Web Business Boot Camp at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres 617-469-2269 PS -- To see what's possible with CD ROM books, please take a look at our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat And check our Teachers/Students Guide at http://www.samizdat.com/guide.html _______________________________________________ Cone-cal mailing list Cone-cal@blu.org http://www.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/cone-cal