Dave Weich

Where To Find Me

2010-07-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

Visit Sheepscot Creative, my new company (as of January 2010). Browse our client list or the videos we've made.

Follow me on Twitter or connect on Facebook and LinkedIn.

ReadRollShow Goes Live!

2010-03-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

This week, I launched a new web video series for Live Wire! Radio and the Wordstock Book & Literacy Festival. It's called ReadRollShow, and the first guest is Joshua Ferris. In the 13-minute interview (distilled from an hour-long conversation), the author of Then We Came to the End and The Unnamed talked about 20th Century American literature, effective dialogue, making it happen at the hardware store, and coworkers who announce their bowel movements. It makes a lot of sense in context, really it does.

Special thanks to Live Wire! and Wordstock for entrusting me with the gig, and to Justin Alpern, for the incredible generosity and patience in helping me set up a production studio from scratch. And then of course thanks also to Joshua and his publisher, Reagan Arthur Books.

If you like what you see, become a fan of ReadRollShow on Facebook or follow the show on Twitter. And by all means, don't be shy about sending feedback or letting me know about guests you'd like to see in the future. (Already booked for the coming months: Sam Lipsyte and Brady Udall.)

Daniel Pink Thinks about Work

2010-01-28T08:50:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, I interviewed author Daniel Pink for an upcoming series of podcasts. In Portland to promote his new book, Drive, the former speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore hung out for an hour or so in the studio and discussed, among other things, baseball. He brought up the subject himself, I swear.

Here's a short clip.

Read more about Drive (and Pink's previous book, A Whole New Mind) at the official web site.

Book Tours 2.0

2010-01-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

"I thought to myself that they weren’t a standard literary audience, they were better," author Stephen Elliot remarks in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, describing the groups he encountered on a rather unconventional book tour. In 33 cities, Elliot read not in bookstores or other typical, public venues, but instead in the living rooms of existing and potential readers. He explains:

Before my book came out, I had set up a lending library allowing anyone to receive a free review copy on the condition they forward it within a week to the next reader, at their own expense. (Now that a majority of reviews are appearing on blogs and in Facebook notes, everyone is a reviewer.) I asked if people wanted to hold an event in their homes. They had to promise 20 attendees. I would sleep on their couch. My publisher would pay for some of the airfare, and I would fund the rest by selling the books myself.

Booksellers, see an opportunity here?

For all the good will and conversation fostered by successful in-store events (not to mention the foot traffic), the troubles, as Elliot notes, are many. Tours represent an expensive enterprise for beleaguered publishers in an era of ruthless cost-cutting. Crowds can be sparse, despite free admission. And when seats do fill up, it's often not fans you'll find in them but aspiring writers (the same faces again and again) in search of inspiration, advice, or connections. While hosts are thankful those folks attend, the truth is that they rarely buy books. (What's the old saw about poetry? If every aspiring poet actually bought a few books of new poetry every year, the form would thrive.)

Bookstores pride themselves on being community centers. As they should. There's a danger, however, in interpreting the role too literally. The desired third place need not be the store, itself.

Lease these opportunities to your book clubs. Reward your best customers with the chance to host an author. Impose requirements similar to Elliot's — minimum attendance, for example, and overnight lodging — but let go of the reigns. Not every author will submit to this, of course. But some will. More than you'd think, I bet. Enhance your privileged position as a partner with authors and publishers by leveraging local expertise and personal relationships. (Isn't that what you do already?) Bring these parties together in new and constructive ways.

Last year I attended a like-minded function staged by an entrepreneur who lives just a few blocks from my house. Molly hosted, in her home, the season's only Portland appearance of Kristin Hersh, founder of the bands Throwing Muses and 50-Foot Wave. Hersh has been traveling this way for years now, using the connections she established over the course of her former, traditional touring career to support more recent, independent pursuits. Early one Sunday evening, we mingled with Kristin, snacked on hors d'oeuvres, drank wine...and then sat down for what must have been the most intimate musical event many people in the room would ever experience.

To this day, I still tell friends about that house concert. And I always mention Molly, who pulled the whole thing together. What if your store created such memorable, personal, and distinctive experiences? Imagine how far the kind of passionate, word-of-mouth publicity that they generate might spread.

Seth Godin on the End of Bookselling as We Know It

2009-12-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

From a post today on Godin's blog:

Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one book a year for pleasure. Those people are meaningless to a bookstore. It's the heavy users that matter, and now officially, as 2009 ends, they have abandoned the bookstore. It's over.

What I find surprising isn't so much his conclusion but the way he reached it—and the boldness to say so. Either he truly believes that bookstores are no longer relevant or his career has reached a point where his brand is worth more than his books. Probably both. Today's comments won't endear him to the buyers at indies or B&N, but clearly he's not relying on their support.

My suspicions about old-style bookselling's future are hardly a secret among colleagues. Still, I wonder what made Godin publish this right now. It's not hard to find people in business or in publishing who believe that bookstores as we know them are screwed, but it's incredibly rare for anyone to say so on the record, and with so little ambiguity.

Though I agree with his logic—if high volume customers migrate away from bricks and mortar retail at the rate he suggests, few stores will survive—surely Tower's demise (see Godin's full post) wasn't as straightforward as he suggests. And his directive to "get out now" strikes me as melodramatic and curiously simplistic. Ebooks and Internet retail will continue to radically alter the landscape, but that won't prevent traditional stores from adapting. Undoubtedly, some will find a model that sustains them...and plenty of others will join Tower out of the game.

The Big Burn

2009-12-21T13:57:00.000-08:00

When Kathleen Holt at Oregon Humanities asked me to review a new book for the organization's Fall/Winter magazine—the issue's theme, she told me, would be Away—one title immediately came to mind.

The Big Burn tells the story of a hundred-years-ago wildfire that consumed three million acres of PNW forest in only three days. Author Timothy Egan structures the book around two principal figures, Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot.

My interest was sparked as much by Egan's track record, which includes a National Book Award for The Worst Hard Time, as his focus here on Pinchot. How many times have I ventured out from Portland to hike in the forest that bears Pinchot's name? Those day trips had proved so restorative, in fact, that when a canvasser showed up at my door after one of my earliest excursions, I signed up as a dues paying member of the Gifford Pinchot National Task Force, which (quoting from its web site) "supports the biological diversity and communities of the Northwest through conservation and restoration of forests, rivers, fish, and wildlife."

But years after writing that first check, I still didn't know who Gifford Pinchot was. Egan's book offers an engaging introduction—and much more.

After the Lunch Rush

2009-11-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

Years ago, I tended bar at a restaurant that might as well have shut its doors between lunch and dinner. Afternoons crawled by in the company of one or two quiet drinkers. Recently I wrote about the experience—specifically, about something that all those dull hours taught me—for Oregon Humanities. Here's a snippet.

Come a time, I’d earn a night shift. Changing kegs, running food, pouring drinks more complicated than draft beer...with so many customers to serve, the passing of work hours would no longer depend on the elocutionary skills of clinically depressed layabouts. With tenure, someday I would stop working lunches. All I needed was patience and possibly for one of the night bartenders to die. [Read the rest ⇒]

Interview Index

2009-10-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

Since 1998, I've had the privilege to interview more than 200 authors and artists. Some interviews were conducted in person, others on the phone. Typically we spoke for between 30 and 60 minutes.

Marc Acito
Lorraine Adams
Gil Adamson
Sherman Alexie
Martin Amis
Roger Angell
Karen Armstrong
Marty Asher
Nicholson Baker
John Balzar
Melissa Bank
Dave Barry
Charles Baxter
Ishmael Beah
Paul Beatty
Alison Bechdel
Aimee Bender
John Berendt
Bob Blumer
Judy Blunt
Anthony Bourdain (2002)
Anthony Bourdain (2006)
Joshua Braff
David Brancaccio
Ann Brashares
Susie Bright
Po Bronson
Geraldine Brooks
Bill Bryson
James Lee Burke
Robert Olen Butler
David Carr
Stephen L. Carter
Michael Chabon
Deepak Chopra
Mary Higgins Clark
Billy Collins
Jill Ker Conway
Mark Costello
Jim Crace
Matthew Crawford
Michael Cunningham
Christopher Paul Curtis
Charles D'Ambrosio
Regan Daley
Meghan Daum
Frank Deford
Pete Dexter
Bryan Di Salvatore
Junot Diaz
Roddy Doyle
Gretel Ehrlich
Bret Easton Ellis
Jeffrey Eugenides
Joshua Ferris
Helen Fielding
Jonathan Safran Foer
Richard Ford
Jonathan Franzen
Ian Frazier
Alexandra Fuller
Daniel Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert
Malcolm Gladwell
James Gleick
Molly Gloss
Allegra Goodman
Robert Goolrick
Philip Gourevitch
Sue Grafton
David Grann
Brian Greene
Melissa Fay Greene
Linda Greenlaw
Andrew Sean Greer
Lauren Groff
Sara Gruen
Mark Haddon
David Halberstam
Paul Harding
Ethan Hawke
Jason Headley
Chris Hedges
Mariel Hemingway
Amy Hempel
Carl Hiaasen
John Hodgman
A. M. Homes
Nick Hornby
Tony Horwitz
Khaled Hosseini
Pam Houston
Samantha Hunt
John Irving
Pico Iyer
Joe Jackson
Gish Jen
Ha Jin
Steven Johnson
Judith Jones
Heidi Julavits
Miranda July
Norton Juster
Thomas Keller
Christopher Kimball
Haven Kimmel
Dave King
Ross King
Barbara Kingsolver
Maxine Hong Kingston
Elizabeth Kostova
Robert Kurson
Laila Lalami
Anne Lamott
Reif Larsen
Erik Larson
William Least Heat-Moon
Dennis Lehane
Annie Leibovitz (1999)
Annie Leibovitz (2008)
Jonathan Lethem
Michael Lewis
David Lipsky
Jim Lynch
Gregory Maguire
Tucker Malarkey
Ben Marcus
Greil Marcus
Jeffrey Masson
James McBride
Colum McCann
Frank McCourt
David McCullough
Alice McDermott
Ian McEwan
David Means
Lydia Millet
Susan Minot
Lee Montgomery
Rick Moody
Christopher Moore
Bharati Mukherjee
Laurie Notaro
Michael Ondaatje
Susan Orlean (2000)
Susan Orlean (2001)
Julie Orringer
Ruth Ozeki
Michael Palin
Christopher Paolini
Ann Patchett
Ridley Pearson
Jacques Pépin
Arthur Phillips
Tamora Pierce
DBC Pierre
Michael Pollan
Tim Powers
Philip Pullman (2000)
Philip Pullman (2003)
Jonathan Raban
David Rakoff
Ruth Reichl
Mary Roach
Robin Romm
Elizabeth Royte
Rita Rudner
Salman Rushdie (2002)
Salman Rushdie (2005)
Richard Russo
Oliver Sacks
Marjane Satrapi
George Saunders
Eric Schlosser
Sally Schneider
Alice Sebold
Jeff Shaara
David Shields
Gary Shteyngart
David Skover
David Small
Jane Smiley
Alexander McCall Smith
Zadie Smith
Dava Sobel
Art Spiegelman
Wesley Stace
Robert Sullivan
Manil Suri
Sarah Susanka
Anthony Swofford
Colm Tóibín
Paul Theroux
Helen Thomas
Craig Thompson
Miriam Toews
Calvin Trillin
Zoe Trope
Vendela Vida
Sarah Vowell
Barbara Walters
Liza Ward
Alice Waters
Matt Weiland
Alan Weisman
Irvine Welsh
Colson Whitehead
Sean Wilsey
Simon Winchester
David Wroblewski