Good News, Not So Good News

In the spirit of the Friday the 13th

At the end of the last week, I applied for a job as a writer for an online magazine for women. A couple of days ago, I found out they didn't accept me. Too bad.

On the other hand, yesterday I found out that my story was accepted for a vampire-themed anthology in Serbian; it should come out in September. Yay!

For the end, something that's not writing-related: on Monday, I made a pizza for the first time in I don't remember how many years, and it turned out good. Another Yay!

Have a nice weekend, everyone! And remember to be nice to cats!

The Great Belgrade Book Fair, Part II

Belgrade Book Fair

The Belgrade Book Fair is too big to see everything and to get everything you want during the first visit, so I went again. This time, I didn't buy as many books, although I did buy some great ones:

Wittgenstein's Nephew and Auslöschung. Ein Zerfall by Thomas Bernhard - Bernhard is always good
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco - a new novel by Umberto Eco, should I say more?
Rechnitz by Elfriede Jelinek - a play by a Nobel prize winner
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson - again, should I say more?

The books I bought this time.

This time, I saw a bunch of schoolkids at the Book Fair; it is a tradition here for teachers to bring the schoolkids to this Fair -- they basically just let them loose at the Fair and pick them up at the appointed time, and it seems to work, the kids have a good time (one bookseller told me they were so cute, they wanted to but so many books, but never had money for any), and I've never seen them get into trouble or cause any.

Schoolkids coming to the Book Fair

I also managed to get money for an earlier translation -- the guy I translated a story for lives in another country, and he managed to send me money through his fellow bookseller who was at the Fair (he was hoping to come himself, but had an injury). I mentioned it to a friend who is a publisher, and we agreed that for us who have some business with books (as writers or translators or publishers or editors or a little bit of everything) it's impossible to be just visitors at the Book Fair, there's always business involved.

Overall, it was another pleasant visit to the Book Fair; I'll be going tomorrow again, mostly to attend some promotions -- and to bring you more pictures. I hope more people will come; while it's easier to move around if there isn't too much crowd, overcrowded Book Fair is somehow nice to see, not to mention it means better business.

And now for some more pictures:

You don't have to know Serbian to recognize this, do you? :)

Two girls taking a break.

A plenty of comic books and graphic novels, too!

Books!

There could be more visitors, though.

The Great Belgrade Book Fair, Part I

The Great Belgrade Book Fair

The last week in October is a great time for every book lover in Belgrade, Serbia -- and not just in Belgrade, people from other cities and countries come too. It is the time of the Belgrade Book Fair. The big publishing houses are all present, but the Fair doesn't mean all that much to them, they have other ways of selling books. However, it is the time when the small publishing houses manage to earn some money (typically used to pay their debts), and thus survive in the market.

As for the readers, it is the time when they can find a lot of books from the domestic and foreign publishing houses, some of them rare and old and otherwise difficult to find, and the prices are lower than the usual.

And, you get to look at a lot of books at one place.

I went to the Book Fair yesterday and will probably be going again tomorrow and on Friday. I bought 8 books: 30. februar by Jelena Đurović (she is a former University colleague and the novel is part science fiction, part romance, part poitical satire), Vrtovi nestvarnog by Sava Damjanov (the title translates to The Gardens of Unreal, it is a book of essays about Serbian fantastic literature), All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, Goethe schtirbt by Thomas Bernhard (stories which haven't been translated to English yet), Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, Abraxas' Guide Down the Documentary Movie, 2nd edition by Bojan Pandža (weird, bizarre documentary movies, serial killers, Zeitgeist...), his blog is here, it's a great place if you want to download various interesting documentary movies), a book about No and Kabuki theater, and Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko (a Russian urban fantasy). What made me very happy was finally getting my hands on my copy of another translation of mine, this one is a book of essays by Norman Spinrad, I translated two of them (two essays, not two Spinrads :) ).

Other than seeing a lot of books, which is always a joy, it's great to see dear people I know there -- and it happens every year, because we're all book lovers. One of them bought my book, which is another great thing; since we happened to be there at the same time, she got her copy signed.

Going to the Belgrade Book Fair was a great pleasure -- and there will be more of that pleasure in the days to come. I look forward to it.

My book is there!

P.S. If it doesn't seem crowded to you, it's because i went early, while most people are still at work; the big crowd comes later, making it difficult to see the books and sometimes even to move.




Here are some more pictures, just for you!

Portugal is the special guest this year.

Come back soon, there will be more!

A Book and a Story

A book and a story on the same day!

I received my copies of the translation of the Cassandra Clare's City of Glass today. It still feels great being able to hold my translations in my hands!

Also, it's Friday today, meaning Flash Fiction Friday's at Karen Wojcik Berner's blog -- and this Friday, my story Golden Eyes made it there. It's a Nightmare month over there, so if you're in the mood for it, go check it out!

Holding My Book!

Graceling by Kristin Cashore in Serbian edition, translated by me.

Well, not really my book, it's Kristin Cashore's Graceling, I just translated it. But it's the first book I translated and then got the chance to hold in my hands -- I've just received my copies. You can see on the picture what the book looks like in the Serbian edition. Holding your first published (not just awaiting-being-published-which-might-even-happen-someday) translation is so exciting, not as exciting as holding the book you wrote, but still, so I thought I'd share.

Crazie

The translation I was talking about in the previous posts went well; it was accepted, and I got another book to translate. A longer one, this time - I can't tell you what book it is, I'll just say it's the third in a YA urban fantasy series, and, according to Amazon, it's 560 pages long.

Now that will take a while.

My plan is, of course, to read that book before I start translating it. I also intend to read the first two books before I start translating the third one. And there's this book, about 700 pages long, that I've started to read, and which i intend to finish before I begin reading this YA urban fantasy series. That's about 2000 pages before i even start translating.

Now, do you think that such a plan means I'm too ambitious? Too confident of my abilities? Too optimistic? Or just plain crazy?

If nothing else, I'm going to have fun with it. And it's a great relief that things are doing well.

Completely non-related, but fun, is the Photoshopped pic of me, done by my SO. Judging from the picture, do I look weird? Maybe it's the hair. What do you think?

Do I look different to you?

Activating This One Again

En Shi Yu Lu Tea - Wonderful Taste to Help With Writing

Once upon a time, I was using this blog to follow my writing. After that, it served several purposes, and now it will go back to the original thing - except that I'll be using it to follow my writing in English, since I already have this one to follow it in Serbian.

My today's good deed, while drinking tea and preparing some lunch and trying not to feel too bad, was writing a review of Robin McKinley's beautiful novel Sunshine, and posting it at Suite101. So, if you're in a mood for a beautiful novel with vampires who are not sexy and don't sparkle, if you love intelligent prose and captivating relationships in a fantasy novel, go read about Sunshine. And about a vampire who loved Sunshine.

And I'll think about making some more wonderful tea.

Oh, and you can also read this recipe for the yummy tzatziki sauce.