The Grub Street Rag, 6/25/07

"Language is the dress of thought."

--Samuel Johnson

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the couture fashion atelier in the back room of Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Selling books, old-school style
F.O.G. (Friend of Grub) and local author, Jon Papernick, and Back Pages Books in Waltham, have teamed to create the 1001 Book Project, which was written up yesterday in the Boston Globe. The project aims to sell 1001 copies of Jon's amazing new novel, Who By Fire, Who By Blood, and gain the interest of a U.S. publisher by creating buzz at the community level. We're huge supporters of both Jon and Back Pages, and urge you to check out the article, the bookstore, and Jon's dazzling novel.

All of Grub's your stage
Did you take a writing workshop at Grub Street this spring? Or do you have a 5-minute long piece you've been dying to read at an open mike night? Then Grub's the place to be this Wednesday night, when Grub students, instructors, and community members have a chance to show off their scribbled stylins' at our Spring Season Showcase.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Tom Champoux)
ANDOVER –This week’s “Softball in a word”: Audacitude. Part audacity, part incertitude. The dauntless, plucky gang of Word-Slingers took on the Channel 4 news crew in Andover. Our beloved team put on quite an impressive display at the plate, spraying singles and doubles around the field.

The leather, too, flew wildly, if not always on target, and the team put up an impressive 5 quick runs. But, unfortunately, the Channel 4 news crew displayed a not-so-surprisingly fair aptitude for the sport themselves, quelling the Word-Slingers valiant effort. The final score isn’t really as important as, say, feeding hungry children or curing cancer, but suffice it to say we didn’t even cover the spread. The team did stage a late, smallish rally that included Laura's head-first, dust-generating slide.

Tom Meek showed off some great stuff and on the pitcher’s mound and Becky Tuch beat out a wicked throw for an infield single. Ethan Gilsdorf scored twice and Jon Papernick scooped up everything hit his way. No bumps or blood, and the only bruising afflicted our collective egos.

Great to see new players on the field and we hope lots of other folks are inspired to show up and root, root, root, for the home team. Alright, for those of you who just can’t squelch that yearning to know, the game ended with the fairly ugly score of 19-7.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like a bicycle built for forty-eight, we offer you the chance to win a prize. This week it's another question about Whitney's favorite author. Has Ian McEwan ever been convicted of a crime, and if so, what is it? Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: In Ian McEwan's astoundingly good novella, On Chesil Beach, Florence plays in the Ennismore quartet. Winner: Sandra Pianin. �