Get Your Short Stories Ready!
 The 5th Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest has begun!
The rules are simple. The stories must be no longer than 2500 words and subject matter is completely open to the author. Judges will be announced shortly. The goal of the contest is to encourage and publicize the short story as a viable and quality literary form. Cash prizes will be awarded and the winning stories will be posted on our website.
For complete details please visit the Contest Page.
What's Next for Authors
 The inevitable battle between e-book reader devices has begun. Unfortunately the author, the creator of the raw material that will be the principal fuel for the e-book is the least powerful voice in the battle. He or she is the stretcher bearer while the big guns around him or her boom, threaten and destroy.
As an author, I have been a pioneer in the e-book revolution. The earliest meeting I attended with people gathered to promote the vision of the future for the e-book was ten years ago. Most were techies and start up hopefuls. I was the only author in the room. Since then, many were bloodied and bruised and opted out of the battle.
Last week I attended an e-book meeting sponsored by the Authors Guild. The audience was packed with authors. There was standing room only. Four panelists: a hopeful e-book publisher who was a former top gun of a print publisher, an executive of a major traditional publishing company, an author and an agent led the discussion.
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posts about Technology.
The iPad. Not For the Dedicated Reader
 Ten years ago, I digitized all of my then published novels and short story collections. There were twenty odd then. There are now thirty and counting. All had been published by mainstream traditional publishers and required getting rights reversals from all of them.
I had two motives in mind. I wanted to be sure my books never went out of print and was looking ahead beyond my lifetime to a reading public that I felt certain would exist in the eternity of cyberspace. It would be hugely immodest of me to claim that I was the first author in the world to do this, but I didn't know any who had. Nor had I encountered any in the organizations I joined that were pounding the drums for content digitization.
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posts about Technology.
Why I Love the New York Times
 For most of my life I have read the New York Times. It is more than merely a habit. It is a way of life. For years, I truly believed it was the paper of record and offered all the news that was fit to print. Some of its stories and pictures are irrevocably implanted in my mind.
Among those that continue to resonate was the story written by the late Meyer Berger of the senseless serial killing perpetrated by Howard Unruh. I was so absorbed in that brilliant journalist's tour de force that I missed my subway stop and would not rise from my seat until I had come to its end. It took my breath away. Berger received a well deserved Pulitzer Prize for his superlative minute by minute account of Unruh's rampage.
I continue to revel in the Times' masterful feature stories, its coverage of the arts and its occasional in-depth exposes of business corruption. In its coverage of the Madoff ponzi scheme it has been superb. Although its theater, movies and book reviews are still of interest, they seem to have less and less influence than in by-gone days when a bad stage review made for a sure fire flop and a smash book review assured a best seller.
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posts about Literature.
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