Anne Trubek – författare

There are many ways to show our devotion to an author besides reading his or her works. Graves make for popular pilgrimage sites, but far more popular are writers' house museums. What is it we hope to accomplish by trekking to the home of a dead author? We may go in search of the point of inspiration, eager to stand on the very spot where our favorite literary characters first came to life-and find ourselves instead in the house where the author himself was conceived, or where she drew her last breath. Perhaps it is a place through which our writer passed only briefly, or maybe it really was a longtime home-now thoroughly remade as a decorator's show-house.In A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses Anne Trubek takes a vexed, often funny, and always thoughtful tour of a goodly number of house museums across the nation. In Key West she visits the shamelessly ersatz shrine to a hard-living Ernest Hemingway, while meditating on his lost Cuban farm and the sterile Idaho house in which he committed suicide. In Hannibal, Missouri, she walks the fuzzy line between fact and fiction, as she visits the home of the young Samuel Clemens-and the purported haunts of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Injun' Joe. She hits literary pay-dirt in Concord, Massachusetts, the nineteenth-century mecca that gave home to Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau-and yet could not accommodate a surprisingly complex Louisa May Alcott. She takes us along the trail of residences that Edgar Allan Poe left behind in the wake of his many failures and to the burned-out shell of a California house with which Jack London staked his claim on posterity. In Dayton, Ohio, a charismatic guide brings Paul Laurence Dunbar to compelling life for those few visitors willing to listen; in Cleveland, Trubek finds a moving remembrance of Charles Chesnutt in a house that no longer stands.Why is it that we visit writers' houses? Although admittedly skeptical about the stories these buildings tell us about their former inhabitants, Anne Trubek carries us along as she falls at least a little bit in love with each stop on her itinerary and finds in each some truth about literature, history, and contemporary America.

A literary snapshot written by the city’s citizens that serves as an intimate reminder “that strength of character abounds in the Cleveland community” (Freshwater Cleveland).   The past few years have been full of stories about Cleveland’s ongoing revitalization and renewal, mostly from people from outside the city. This collection of essays, photographs, and poems offers an insiders’ view, telling the story of the city as it actually exists on the ground. Citizens of Cleveland will connect to the experiences and locales detailed here. Readers from outside the area will gain invaluable insight into what it means to live in here, why the city is loved or hated, and why some people obsess over it.   The collection looks at popular Cleveland attractions like Harvey Pekar and the Cuyahoga River, but also looks at life on the Number 9 bus and the delis of Slavic Village. Through photographs, essays, and poetry, the collection questions the notion of “Rust Belt Chic” and the truth behind that statement. It includes contributions by: David C. Barnett, Sean Decatur, Mansfield Frazier, David Giffels, Alissa Nutting, Jim Roakakis, Connie Schultz, and many more.   A wide-ranging portrait of a city of contradictions, written by those who have lived the story.  “Touching always on the idea of a post-industrial landscape as a form of innate and historical beauty and integrity, this book creates a genuine and intimate look at Cleveland. Those who hail from “rust belt” cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Milwaukee will find a special place in their hearts for this book.” —Riffle NonFiction

"Persuasively argues that our fixation with writing by hand is driven more by emotion than evidence, as it is perceived to be inextricably linked to our history, core values and individual identities."--Los Angeles TimesThe future of handwriting is anything but certain. Its history, however, shows how much it has affected culture and civilization for millennia.In the digital age of instant communication, handwriting is less necessary than ever before, and indeed fewer and fewer schoolchildren are being taught how to write in cursive. Signatures--far from John Hancock''s elegant model--have become scrawls. In her recent and widely discussed and debated essays, Anne Trubek argues that the decline and even elimination of handwriting from daily life does not signal a decline in civilization, but rather the next stage in the evolution of communication.Now, in The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, Trubek uncovers the long and significant impact handwriting has had on culture and humanity--from the first recorded handwriting on the clay tablets of the Sumerians some four thousand years ago and the invention of the alphabet as we know it, to the rising value of handwritten manuscripts today. Each innovation over the millennia has threatened existing standards and entrenched interests: Indeed, in ancient Athens, Socrates and his followers decried the very use of handwriting, claiming memory would be destroyed; while Gutenberg''s printing press ultimately overturned the livelihood of the monks who created books in the pre-printing era. And yet new methods of writing and communication have always appeared. Establishing a novel link between our deep past and emerging future, Anne Trubek offers a colorful lens through which to view our shared social experience.

The founder of Belt Publishing demystifies the publishing process, offering some insider how-to advice for aspiring authors.This slim but insightful guide offers concrete, witty advice and information to authors, prospective authors, and those curious about the publishing industry''s inner workings. The chapters are chock full of important advice and information, including:·       How advances and royalties really work·       The surprising methods that actually move books off the shelves·       The art of pitching to agents·       The differences between Big Five and independent presses·       The ins and outs of distribution, direct sales, and selling through AmazonWritten by an industry veteran who''s been on both the writing and publishing side, So You Want to Publish a Book? is a refreshing, no-nonsense, and transparent guide to how books get made and sold.For readers and writers looking for a straightforward guide for publishing, promoting, and selling their work."A compact, practical manual . . . a wealth of information usually only available to insiders." —The Times Literary Supplement