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by
Stander
book reviews
interviews
articles
blackboard of shame
blog
book promotion 101
bella terra maps
email: readme (at) bellastander.com
© 2009 Bella Stander
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Bella Stander
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Welcome to the home page for Bella Stander, freelance writer and book critic. My specialties are literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, the publishing business, gardening, lighthouses and 18th-century life.
I'm a member of the Authors Guild and National Book Critics Circle. I blog at Reading Under the Covers.
PLEASE NOTE: I only review books assigned by an editor. |
Background:
- Publisher, Bella Terra Maps
- Proprietor, Book Promotion 101
- Consultant, moderator and panelist, Virginia Festival of the Book
- Book editor, Albemarle magazine, Charlottesville, VA, 2000-03
- Contributing editor for Publishers Weekly, 1985-99
- Freelance screenplay analyst, NYC, 1984-88
Published in:
Bella's Rules for Reviewing:
Being a book reviewer may look easy, but there's a lot more to the job than just reading a book and jotting down whether you liked it. Here are some basic rules I've formulated in the 20-plus years that I've been evaluating other people's writing.
- Be respectful. Even if the book stinks, the author worked hard on it. However, if it's obvious that the author didn't work very hard, don't try very hard to be kind either.
- Don't read any publicity materials or other reviews until after you write your review.
- NEVER have any contact with the book's author or editor before your review is published.
- The most important points to cover in fiction:
- Plot
- Characterization
- Writing style
- Setting
- Pacing
- Theme
- Resolution
- Illustrations (for picture books)
- The most important points to cover in nonfiction:
- Author's qualifications/expertise
- Writing style
- Originality
- Book's usefulness or interest to readers--at what level?
- Author's organization of subject matter
- If how-to or cookbook: Clarity of instructions/directions
- Illustrations (if applicable)
- Shun these over-used phrases & words:
- richly textured (my #1 pet peeve; do a Google search & it'll be yours too.)
- luminous prose
- page-turner
- keen eye for telling detail
- a book that you can't put down
- till long after the last page is turned
- gripping, compelling, intriguing, interesting
- [see more in Circle of clichés]
- Things to avoid, per a wise book review editor:
- Describing books in a recipe format: "Take Gone With the Wind, add a dash of The Feminine Mystique and throw in a little Naked Lunch and you've got..."
- Lengthy recitations of the plot that lack any sense of perspective.
book reviews
interviews
articles
blackboard of shame
blog
book promotion 101
bella terra maps
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