I don't understand why people are so upset with Susan Patton. As a proud Princeton alumna, mother of two Princeton sons, aspiring radio host and Bunny MacDougal doppelgänger, Susan is simply looking out for all of us. And by 'us,' I mean young women too shortsighted to see...

With the penultimate episode of The Walking Dead behind us and the (presumably) final battle between the prison and Woodbury about to ignite, it's time to take a look at where Season 3 of The Walking Dead has taken us, analyzing what's gone right in this season and what should...

This is a story about two writers. Writers whose works couldn't be any more different, but whose recent forays into publishing signify a drastic sea change in the way books are acquired and published, both by independent authors and traditional publishers.

I first heard of Alan Sepinwall a few years...

Being a professional writer is a strange and wonderful thing -- kind of a combination of philosopher and hobo. It permits experiences that a fortunate few will ever get to have, and many more that would make most normal people wonder why on earth someone would purposefully subject themselves to...

No doubt the reelection of Barack Obama as President of the United States will have tremendous impact on numerous industries. Here are my predictions as to how Obama's second term will impact the book publishing industry, which Nate Silver has said are 90.9 percent accurate. (OK, maybe not, but I'm...

The publishing and media worlds were abuzz on Monday with news that Lena Dunham, creator and star of HBO's Girls, received a reported advance between $3.5 and $3.7 million from Random House following a heated bidding war for her first book. There have been enough opinions offered about this sum,...

Dear Mrs. Rowling,

Let me state for the record that I have not read your new novel, The Casual Vacancy, and though I have not skimmed one single page, I must be honest about the depth of your deception, lies, and skullduggery. I am writing this letter on behalf of...

When Breitbart.com posted a story this week presenting a pamphet Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, published in 1991, it raised a firestorm of controversy due to Obama's biography listing his birthplace as Kenya as opposed to Hawaii. And while the Breitbart editors clearly state they do...

With Amazon's unveiling of their new Kindle Fire tablet, much has been written about Amazon leaping into the fray to possibly challenge the iPad's dominance of the tablet market. Estimates show that Apple has sold over 28 million iPads, and sold 80% of all tablets in North America...

Inspired by Charles Warnke's "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl"

Date a guy who doesn't read. You'll find him in a bar, already on his third or fourth smoky glass of amber, staring at you through glassy eyes that say he was hoping someone like you would come...

After the media tsunami surrounding the Casey Anthony trial and verdict, 'analysts' have come forward stating that the most reviled mother since Faye Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest" could reap nearly seven figures for a book deal. I think that's a crock.

Many people have pointed to other controversial...

James Andrew Miller is the co-author, with Tom Shales, of Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, as well as Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, which spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was chosen by...

I'm a huge supporter of ebooks. Ironically when I speak about them online or at conferences, and caution aspiring authors on the perils of e-publishing their works, they take that as an attack on the format or on the entrepreneurial spirit. That couldn't be further from the truth. I caution...

By now, the entire publishing world, as well as millions of people, know that the veracity of the stories included in Greg Mortenson's two bestselling books Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools have been called into question by 60 Minutes. For those unfamiliar, you can read the story...

Dear Mr. Trump,

After reading your letter to the New York Times regarding Gail Collins's article about you, I had to clarify one thing: you are not a good writer. Calling other writers talentless does not make you a good writer. Slagging other peoples' book sales does not...

Publishers are always in search of "The Next." The Next Harry Potter. The Next Twilight. The Next Dan Brown. And with the release of Taylor Stevens's debut novel, The Informationist, her publisher clearly has designs to position Stevens's heroine, information bounty hunter Vanessa Michael Munroe, as The Next Lisbeth Salander....

In an article published February 9 on Salon.com, Laura Miller examines the long-argued notion that women are underrepresented in book criticism -- both in terms of what books are covered, and who covers them, expanding on a piece in The New Republic by Ruth Franklin. Now,...

We all have them: writers who reached us at an early age, wrote something that penetrated our minds, our hearts, our souls; writers who captivated us when our minds were soft and ripe, eager for stories to get lost in. Today, one of mine passed away. His name was Brian...

About nine years ago, I was a college senior, struggling with what to do with my post-college life. I'd always had somewhat of an itch to be a writer, or at least try my hand at writing, but other than a few pale short stories and a navel-gazing attempt at...

A few years ago, I was watching television when I saw an advertisement for a new horror movie. There was something different about this ad, however--it used a tactic I hadn't seen very often in film advertising. The film was called "Cabin Fever", and the ad proudly trumpeted a laudatory...