Is Mary Higgins Clark really the only female mystery writer in the world?
Dr. Ruth with a ghost-written book on Greek and Roman mythology?
No, the only "glamorous" female writer to get a mention in anything but the dusty book trade papers was...
You see the picture. I don't want to mention the name more than once.
The literary darling of America is...somebody famous for taking her top off...when nobody wants to see it? Them?
The sad fact about BEA is that celebrities rule. Long, long gone are the days of Gore Vidal or even Tom Wolfe. Can the average American name any playwright who isn't dead? And who is still actively writing? (That lets out Edward Albee, assuming the average American is over 40).
It seems writers haven't been considered worthy of national exposure since the Carson-Cavett-Frost era. Only Cavett is still with us, he was at BEA, and nobody seemed to cover his latest tome aside from Publishers Weekly). Maybe writers have done it to themselves...with every "best selling novel" by certain authors reading just like the last one they did, only not as good. Even so, an HBO comic who isn't nearly as "smart" and "edgy" or "funny" as people think she is?
Aside from...her...the only other "authors" to get a glimmer of press were Billy Idol and Neil Patrick Harris (the latter may have gotten a tad more if he'd bother to show up on time or stay a while...but if the excuse is that "Hedwig" is an arduous show and he needs his rest, I'll take it).
Was it last year, or the year before, that the big attraction was Neil Young talking with Patti Smith?
I have hopes that maybe next year an actual author will climb into the ranks of "celebrity" rather than a "celebrity" stepping above and rendering invisible all BEA convention authors.
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