I first met Charlie through the Del Rey online workshop ten years ago. His intelligence, friendliness, and passion for writing came through clear and have only grown over the years as he’s become a well known and very well respected writer. Fame has only made Charlie a nicer guy. He’s the author of five books, including The Patriot Witch, the first in the Traitor To The Crown series published by Del Rey Books. He was born in New York but grew up in rural Ohio, where his appetite for story was satiated by comic books and paperbacks. He saw enough episodes of Gilligan’s Island to know that how you make a radio with coconuts but he would still prefer a satellite phone and an ereader. His website is at http://www.ccfinlay.com/

1. Why did you choose publishing for a career?

I chose story-telling for a career because I believe that stories matter. Stories are the way we make sense of the world. Publishing seemed like the best way to reach people with the stories I want to tell.

2. What’s the future look like for book publishing?

I think the real question is what does the future look like for book distribution? Will people prefer electronic books, and if so, what will be the best delivery method? Will cheap print-on-demand change the way physical books are made and distributed? Will specialty publishers who make beautiful collectible limited editions come to be the standard for print? I can make up stories about any of those futures but I don’t really know.

3. What advice would you give someone looking to follow in your footsteps?

Make your own footsteps. Every writer has to forge their own trail. No two creative careers are exactly alike.

4. What author or publishing insider living or dead would you like to meet and why?

Edgar Rice Burroughs inspired me as a kid, when I was ten, twelve, fourteen years old. The musty-smelling Grosset & Dunlap hardcovers at the old Carnegie library, the brand new Ballantine editions with Neal Addams covers, the yellowed old paperbacks I scavenged at yard sales — I loved them all. He clearly had so much fun writing. A lot of people look down at his books for being escapist literature, but I was an unhappy kid with a life I wanted escape from and those adventure stories were like a map to somewhere better. I wouldn’t mind telling him thanks.

5. If stranded on a desert island without the cast of Lost (or the S.S. Minnow,) what five books would you want to have with you?

Couldn’t I just have a solar-powered e-reader with all the books I ever wanted?

6. Why do books matter?

People are hard-wired for story. It’s our most basic form for understanding cause and effect, why things happen. In its crudest form we’ll take completely unconnected events and construct a narrative out of them: the rain falls because we sacrificed a goat and prayed for rain. In its refined form, story is the way we make sense out of and give purpose to our lives: where we come from, why we do the things we do, where we hope to end up. We compare, contrast, and model our own lives after the stories we are drawn to, taking on the values portrayed in those stories. Story provides us a way to connect to other people and events that are larger than ourselves. Those stories can be biographical or historical, they can be fiction, they can be transmitted by word or film, they can be drawn in pictures, they can be the narrative of sport written in events as we watch them unfold. Books matter because they are still the best way for many of us to get at story. Books matter because story matters.

Thanks, Charlie!

I LOATHE hypocrisy. Loathe it with as much venom and indignation that my internal workings will tolerate before the bile becomes too much and I must write some of it out of my system, like now. The ridiculous over-reaction to the Canadian women’s hockey team celebration last week got me fired up. The horror of seeing young female athletes enjoying a celebratory cigar and passing around beer and champagne was too much for some of the more misogynistic among the IOC, but luckily the Canadian Olympic committee is a little more progressive and no sanctions will be forthcoming. In fact, it seems the overwhelming number of Canadian women athletes winning medals (something like 70% to just 30% for the men) has the government reviewing the national anthem and its biased line “in all thy son’s command”. About time. While they’re at it they might want to look at changing the line about god keeping Canada “glorious and free.” I was a historian before becoming an editor and author and in all my research I never once found Zeus, Apollo, Buddha, Muhammad or any of the others on the slopes of Vimy Ridge, or storming ashore on D-Day. None are currently listed as being part of Canada’s contingent in Afghanistan, either. It’s mere mortals that keep Canada glorious and free, and it’s long past due the anthem acknowledged that.

UPDATE – Cowardice wins. The Canadian government has now decided NOT to revisit the anthem because they got scared. Apparently, women don’t serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, but gods do.

It’s highly apropos that this week’s guest on Six with Chris is my amazing and highly talented agent, Donald Maass. Last week’s guest, Shelly Shapiro, introduced me to Don and the rest is history in the making.

If Don’s name rings a bell, it should. He heads the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City, which represents more than 150 novelists and sells more than 150 novels every year to publishers in New York and overseas. He is a past president of the Association of Authors Representatives, Inc., and is the author of several books of interest to fiction writers: The Career Novelist (now available as a free download from his agency’s website – http://www.maassagency.com/), Writing the Breakout Novel, and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. In May 2009, Writers Digest Press published his latest book, The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great.

1. Why did you choose publishing for a career?

Isn’t it obvious? Books! As to why I’m an agent, it’s because I get to work more closely with authors than I did as an editor.

2. What’s the future look like for book publishing?

There’s been a lot of excitement and hype about e-books in the past year. Funny, it’s been like that for the last 15 years. The truth is that the growth of e-books (and so far it’s been pretty small) isn’t going to change our industry’s fundamentals. Books will still have to be good. They will still have to be published well. There also will be no successful e-books without paper books. You can see that now. What are the best selling e-titles? The same as the best selling paper titles.

3. What advice would you give someone looking to follow in your footsteps?

Working as an agent means not only loving authors and books, but having a head for editorial work, pitching and selling, contracts and networking. It’s an unusual combination of skills. One minute you’re talking story, another you’re hashing out the legal language of a film option, another you’re speaking at a conference, another you’re holding an author’s hand as they angst. Overall, I’d say love books, authors, publishing, legalese and learning.

4. What author or publishing insider living or dead would you like to meet and why?

Irwin Shaw: an under-appreciated American novelist. Second, Neville Shute: a forgotten best seller and amazing story spinner.

5. If stranded on a desert island without the cast of Lost (or the S.S. Minnow,) what five books would you want to have with you?

If stranded with “Lost” cast: “How to Survive the Smoke Monster”. Otherwise, impossible to choose. Perhaps the complete works of Shakespeare, that would keep one busy for a while.

6. Why do books matter?

Books change the world. If you don’t believe that consider the countries in which authors are banned, arrested, jailed or even murdered.

Thank you, Don!

I screamed myself hoarse and threw out a shoulder celebrating Team Canada’s amazing win in overtime to take the gold and set a new winter Olympics record with 14 gold!

Wow, wow, wow 🙂

Having lived in the US for over 9 years I have started to think of myself as Camerican, but I can’t deny I was rooting for the Canuck girls tonight and they put forth a tremendous effort to win gold. Congratulations to both teams for an incredible game.