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Arts

The Arts are the quintessential expression of our humanity. In these articles we’ll dive deep in search of discernible patterns and defining moments  in American culture.

Why Is Culture Important?

By Daniel Dessinger on · Follow: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
college students celebrating outdoors with hanging lights

There are only so many decisions you can make in isolation. Without other people’s input, your perspective is limited and restrained.

Socially speaking, something magical occurs when you add three or more people to an individual: A culture is formed. A hierarchy of thought, of expected behavior, etc.

Why is culture important?

Because HOW we interconnect completely affects the results of our coming together. In one social group, the loudest, most obnoxious individual sets the tone for the whole. People want to avoid criticism and rejection, so they pander to the loudmouth. The person who does not defer sets most of the cultural guidelines.

It’s the same with someone benevolent or charitable or kind. Culture is important because it is both the atmosphere in which we live but also the historical account of where we’ve been and the prediction of where we are headed.

Culture has been defined as:

  • The arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and other products of human work and thought considered as a unit, especially with regard to a particular time or social group.
  • n.These arts, beliefs, and other products considered with respect to a particular subject or mode of expression.

According to Wikipedia, “Culture is a word for the ‘way of life’ of groups of people, meaning the way they do things. … An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior. The outlook, attitudes, values, morals, goals, and customs shared by a society.”

Our commonality determines our identity. Whatever we share is a type of behavioral glue that is rarely undone. Culture speaks to who we are, both the limitations and the liberties.

Remember the Seven Mountain Mandate?

There are 7 mountains of culture. In essence, our culture will be fashioned and altered by the influence of the people at the top of each mountain:

  • Media
  • Government
  • Education
  • Economy
  • Religion
  • Entertainment
  • Family

Along with Health, Science, and Technology, these are the most critical sectors of American civilization. Our infrastructure, if you will.

Whoever leads the conversations leads our direction.

Whoever leads the direction of our culture determines our norms. Whoever determines our norms determines what you and I think is possible and what is impossible. We make decisions based on that foundation. And our decisions shape our future.

So why bring a culture blog back to life?

Because the conversation is already happening. And we have an obligation to be a voice in the discussion that shapes our future.

Growing Up with Harold Bloom

By Ersin Akinci on
Harold Bloom

Going through my library this weekend, I came across an old copy of Harold Bloom’s classic, The Western Canon.

When it was published, Bloom’s book was (and remains today) controversial among educators and academics for its unshrinking advocacy of intellectual elitism and its defense of Western canonical literature.  That is, the European literature that most people who went to American public high schools encountered at some point, such as Shakespeare.

His work was a fitting find.  I moved to my new apartment some months ago, yet the floor is still strewn with boxes full of books, most of which I still haven’t read.  For Bloom (and indeed, his is but one opinion), the fundamental need for a canon of literature stems from our lack of time: “Who reads must choose, since there is literally not enough time to read everything, even if one does nothing but read.”

There’s a little more to this than just assembly line efficiency.  Even if we did nothing but read, doing any activity always involves a choice, and choices always involve the question “what should we do?”  To spend our time is ethical.

To a twenty-something like myself, it also occurs to me that to spend our time is to grow up, though growing isn’t limited to young people.  Sometimes we spend years dividing our energies before we find focus; more often, we never find focus.

That society is also “grown up” or “adult”, that we should make those ethical choices collectively and decisively, is an underlying reason why Bloom’s book remains controversial.  Beyond the politics of having children read Dead White Males or dismissing the democratization of literary education, there is an assumption that we’re capable of making such decisions; also, an that there is a “we” to speak of. 

These are not easy in a postmodern age, where positive absolute assertions about culture and society are to be deconstructed and exposed as frauds.

Critics In Love

By Ersin Akinci on
critic

This blog isn’t wont to dole out dating advice.  Thinking upon my own predicament trying to find romance, however, I realized that there’s something unique and highly peculiar about trying to date a critic.

By “critic”, I don’t just mean “film critic”, “food critic”, or any particular occupation.  I mean someone who is genuinely critical, which shouldn’t be confused with that abused term “critical thinker”.  Intellectuals may be brave, but they aren’t necessarily critics, for instance.

At his core, a critic is essentially a destructive person.  Critics are Shiva.  They have no respect for established traditions, boundaries, all the molehills we’ve spend generations accumulating, nor for our mores and accomplishments, including the critic’s own.  

The true critic is ready to abandon his entire life, in principle, were he to know deep down that it wasn’t the truth.

But what people don’t realize is that the critic’s destruction is never absolute, because the critic destroys the world according to certain standards, that is, particular assumptions and rules about how the destruction and the subsequent genesis should emerge.  

He maintains these standards because if he didn’t his destruction would be completely unrecognizable, and without recognition, it would be meaningless.

It’s not that people have to recognize those standards: just the opposite, since if the world recognized them then the jig would be up and the world’s destruction wouldn’t be complete.  The trick is that the world has to recognize it’s own destruction and it can only do so through some standards, which is what the critic secretly supplies.  

Critics of critics, sometimes not actually critical themselves, point out these standards in critical articles as flaws in the critic’s argument, as unsubstantiated and underlying assumptions that must be exposed.  In reality, the critic has been fully aware of them all along, but he doesn’t voice and defend them the way that a scholar or a journalist would write, “Albeit, the other party has…”, to be followed with, “That notwithstanding, they have…”  

If he did, the destruction would be exposed for the incomplete and fixed sham that it is.

Thus, the critic’s first dating dilemma: finding someone who can understand and handle that contradiction that the critic bears constantly.

But it’s not enough for the destruction in itself to be complete, or to have the illusion of being complete.  For just as unrecognized destruction is meaningless, the standards that give it meaning have to be recognized eventually or else they would be meaningless, too.  Yet as we’ve said before, the critic can’t open those standards up to the entire world.  So what to do?  

The critic seeks a romantic partner, just one person (or maybe a few) that can recognize the secret standards and keep them secret.  To be a critic in love is to be a villain with a partner in crime.

How is this any different from non-critics, though?  Isn’t this need for recognition basically the same principle that any romance follows?

The difference lies in the nature of that need.  The great majority of people’s social anxiety stems from a deeply seated fear that, beneath it all, they are outsiders and outcasts, and so they seek a fellow pariah to console them.  Their romantic ideal is to “stand apart”, like a city upon a hill.  

A critic’s social anxiety on the other hand is completely the inverse, because the critic is always worried about being a perpetual insider, since he’s the only one who really understands what rules the world is being destroyed and recreated by.  By the same token, the critic is subversive, never revolutionary.  Remember that Socrates was murdered by the state for contaminating the minds of the youth, not for leading them in revolt.

Does the critic need another insider to recognize his standards?  Yes, because of how recognition works.  The word “recognition” comes from the Latin “cogito” (to think, to understand, to comprehend) and the prefix “re”, which implies repetition.  

Recognition isn’t just sight, it’s the rethinking and recomprehension of something that’s already been thought and comprehended.  Namely, the thing outside of us that we comprehend when we recognize it is within us already.

So when the public recognizes the critic’s destruction, it means that they have a little bit of that destruction as well as its structure, its branches and foliage, within them, though they might be unaware of it.  Recognizing the seeds of that destruction, however, demands someone else who has them as well.  

This necessarily means another critic and so another insider precisely because the roots are secret.

Now another difficulty lies in finding a fellow insider.  Finding an outsider is easy enough, first because almost everyone is one and second because outsiders’ outside status by definition must be known to all.  Insiders, however, are much fewer and, clearly, more secret.  We can find outsiders outside the city walls, roaming in the fields.  But how do you pick an insider from within the bustle of the market?

Moreover, one insider can’t just approach another and reveal the other’s insider status.  When they do, their status is jeopardized because it’s under threat of being made non-exclusive.  Thus the second major question with finding love as a critic: how do we approach other critics?

This threat of being revealed adds to the romantic pressure, and the critic who is revealed by another critic either has to unite with them or part ways completely.  

Herodotus tells us the story of Gyges, servant to the Lycian king, whose master wasn’t convinced that his court recognized the full beauty of his wife.  The king leads Gyges behind the door of the royal bedchamber one night so that he can see the queen naked, but when the queen notices Gyges she says that he must either submit to execution or kill the king himself, for no two men can have seen the queen naked.  Gyges murders the king, thus becoming king himself, and marries the queen.

Baudelaire once wrote that men seek to be two, but that the man of genius seeks to be one.  The critic seeks to be one alright, but he can’t do it without uniting with another.  His entire enterprise is based on a grand and secret hypocrisy that doesn’t need validation but rather genuine recognition.  

The critic lives in a state of sin, perhaps closer than anyone else to it; and so Baudelaire, who recognized that the sweetest love always has a little evil:

Pour châtier ta chair joyeuse,
Pour meurtrir ton sein pardonné,
Et faire à ton flanc étonné
Une blessure large et creuse,

Et, vertigineuse douceur!
À travers ces lèvres nouvelles,
Plus éclatantes et plus belles,
T’infuser mon venin, ma soeur!

Movie Review: Intermission (2003) A “Romantic Thriller” That Parodies Itself

By Ugur Akinci on
Poster of film called Intermission, 2003

Intermission, director John Crowley’s first film, is supposed to be a film about “life is what happens in between” two major events; that is, an intermission.

But the ending proves the reverse – that, no matter what happens during the intermission, the RESUMPTION of the pre-intermission process towards the MEANINGFUL CULMINATION of one’s life scenario is what counts.

That’s why this successful romantic-thriller (a rarity in itself) ends up becoming its own parody. A good film with the wrong log line.

The setting is Dublin, a city of misfits with heavy accents, egomaniac police detectives and supermarket bosses, spurned lovers, middle-aged cheaters with the gray-itch, small-time crooks, simple hearts yearning for undying love … in short, a city like many others around the world.

This is the story of John (Cillian Murphy) and his girlfriend Deirdre (Kelly Macdonald) who takes up with a middle-aged bank manager who leaves his wife for Deidre’s much younger offerings. Then there’s Lehiff (Colin Farrell), good for nothing bum who is chased and humiliated by the sadist gas-bag cop Jerry (Colm Meaney) whose main mission in life is to become a TV celebrity starring in his own cop reality show.

When John agrees to be part of a heist plot to win back Deirdre, the story engine shifts into high gear. After some obligatory twists and turns the story reaches its nerve-soothing climax that again revolves around our two main characters: John and Deirdre.

Colin Farrell and Colm Meaney are so good as villains one wonders if they are actually acting or not.

The bottom line is this: are you ready to affirm your love upfront and confirm the responsibility of that decision, or will you continue to dance around waiting to be “discovered” as a lover? That’s the main question asked in Intermission, a question that’s answered well, in  nuanced strokes.

There’s one late scene between the two lovers, talking straight from the heart for the first time with zero BS, that almost brought tears to my eyes. That’s the kind of “thriller” this is. It’s a man’s action thriller that crosses the finish line as a chick-flick. That’s a hard balance to toe.

Recommended.

José Saramago and the Reconstruction of Novel as an Inner Monologue

By Ugur Akinci on
Jose Saramago

After having weathered the post-modernist deconstructionist storm of the last fifty years, I think the novel format has found its reconstructionist master in the person of José de Sousa Saramago (pronounced Sa-ra-ma-YU in Portugese), the late Portugese writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 and passed away in June 2010.

Saramago writes in long breathless sentences and paragraphs, long freight-train of a narrative that usually runs for pages before breaking for a breather. Compared to commercial titans of the novel format like James Patterson, for example, who writes in easily digestible chunks of description and dialog and chapters as short of two pages, Saramago is an anomaly.

However, whether he outsells Patterson or not (and the answer is decidedly NOT), from a historic perspective I think he has accomplished something revolutionary: he revived the novel form as a pure unadulterated inner monologue. He is a “fundamentalist” and “purist” in that regard.

First, consider the following typical passage from his novel CAVE:

This was when Cipriano Algor said, Don’t worry, we’ll get there on time, I’m not worried, replied his son-in-law, only just managing to conceal his anxiety, Of course you’re not, but you know what I mean, said Cipriano Algor.

Normally, we would expect this passage written as:

This was when Cipriano Algor said:

“Don’t worry, we’ll get there on time.”

“I’m not worried,” replied his son-in-law, only just managing to conceal his anxiety.

“Of course you’re not, but you know what I mean,” said Cipriano Algor.

So, what happened here? The quotation marks have disappeared, together with the pause and white space which usually signals shifting from one character to another or from dialog to description, etc.

The traditional spatial arrangement of the narrative is broken and then slammed together into one seamless string of inner monologue.

I say “inner monologue” because isn’t that really the way we “think” inside our heads? Isn’t it the way we end up vocalizing internally what we read, as a raging river of ideas, images, linguistic components, sounds, etc?

There are no quotation marks in that inner monologue but an internal recognition, a mental bookmark that the speaker has changed, or that we are thinking of a description instead of a dialogue, etc.

Thus by writing in that format, Saramago is already doing the “internal monologing” for us upfront, just like a mother bird chews the food before depositing it into the mouths of her fledgling chicks.

Let’s remember that quotation marks and the way dialogue is written on its own separate lines in “codex” (book format) have its own history. That is, there was a time way back when writers (or “scribes”) did not write any dialogue in between double quotation marks.

I’ve heard of a history professor at University of Illinois who actually studied the evolution of the format but since I haven’t read her work I don’t want to name-drop here.

But I still feel comfortable in claiming that Saramago’s stylistic preference harkens back to those early times when dialogue and description were not this separated from each other; when the novel was not this “objectified” a format.

Reading Saramago is not easy for the sheer physical effort it requires to go through his long passages and breathless run-on sentences. But if you persevere, you’ll be rewarded with the strange sensation that you’re actually watching your own inner voice taking a walk over a landscape so deep, so nuanced and so delicate that other “objectified” forms of narration like movies or stage plays can never capture the same with their reliance on what can be depicted only through five senses.

Find a quiet corner and dive deep into a Saramago novel today and see what you’ve been missing while chewing and spitting out one formulaic “best seller” after another for all these years.

Welcome Back, Dexter

By Jenni Hammitt on
Dexter tv show

It is finally October. Yes, my favorite month is here. Fall is in full swing. It is the one month a year my bat purse doesn’t make me odd, dark make up is okay, and I get to watch all the cheesy horror movies until I want to gouge my eyes out with a dull spoon (and that is a good thing).

Another thing I love about this time of year, my favorite serial killer is back with new episodes. Yes, I am talking about Dexter.

I didn’t have Showtime during the first season, but CBS aired edited versions of that season during the writer’s strike. I was hooked immediately. I love Michael C Hall from Six Feet Under (another dark cable show). When I moved, I upgraded my cable to include the premium channel.

This season we find our twisted hero…protagonist…eh I’m not sure what to call him juggling the new baby, a life in the suburbs, his job and of course his dark secret. I know I shouldn’t like Dexter. He’s a killer, but they have created a character that you can’t help but root for.

We know he’s a killer. We know he’s sick. However, he kills the bad guys the police can’t take down. We hope week after week he gets his target, doesn’t get caught and keeps it all together. They take a person who by definition we should all hate, and make him some how enjoyable.

Dexter is well written, well acted (most of the time) and tends to have lots of twists and turns every season. They keep coming up with new fresh ideas that keep the show from getting boring or just repetitive. This season it looks like Dexter’s nemesis will be John Lithgow. Lithgow will be playing another serial killer: the Trinity killer.

This guy started his killing 30 years ago in Miami, and now he is back. Keith Carradine returns as Lundy….he’s on the hunt for the Trinity killer. How will this effect Dexter and Deb this season? Will Dexter be able to get a full night’s sleep? Can he juggle it all? Every season he comes so close to losing it all, but he always comes out ahead. Will his luck keep up?

There are other things going on this season too. I am curious to see what they do with Joey Quinn. I wonder how the whole Batista /Laguerta relationship will work. I see Astor getting to the age where she is going to start to rebel. As if Dexter doesn’t already have enough to worry about! Will Rita learn Dexter’s secret?

Only time will tell. For now my calendar is booked on Sunday nights.

Book Review: Warbreaker

By Charles Martin on

lthough there is a sufficient number of titles to grant “fantasy” a section separate from science fiction in most bookstores, they are still grouped together. The irony is, in most cases, a fantasy novel has to incorporate many features of science fiction to create a new world or environment.

Whether it be a new flora, fauna, world, technology or form of magic, it is common to reuse one or more of these devices from other authors, but put it together in a, supposedly, “unique” way. Sometimes this succeeds; sometimes the author’s work is merely a derivative of either Tolkien or Asimov.

In Warbreaker, Sanderson succeeds. The primary form of magic comes from the ability to gain “Breaths” (the most common corollary in our mythology that comes to mind is “soul”) and then put them to use. This proceeds to pour the foundation for the entire story and world.  

It is the basis of two religions within two kingdoms at odds with each other and in danger of going to war. The disagreement is based partly on the morality of using these Breaths (souls of other individuals, dead or alive) for any purpose.

The second issue creating tension is the worship of the Returned, men or women who come back from the dead (granted due to a great deed they performed in their previous life), are treated as gods and must make use of Breaths to stay alive (I know, kinda ironic, but what else do you have when there is a physical presence considered a god and it can be killed?).

This story pushes against the boundaries of what we human-beings would consider as “gods”, and, thus, a new world is born in the hands of Sanderson.

The impetus for the events in Warbreaker is that a treaty is forcing the daughter of the king of Idris, Vivenna, (whose nation separated from Hallandren in opposition to worship of Returned and use of Breath) to prepare her entire life to marry the God-King of Hallandren (where the gods live in seclusion from the world at its capital, T’Telis, and only interact with their own priest/guardians and the worshipful petitioners).

Events conspire to send Siri, the youngest sister of Vivenna, in her place. This creates sufficient confusion in both kingdoms and causes factions on both sides to question the motives of the king’s decision.

Brandon Sanderson intertwines the storylines of three primary characters: Siri, Vivenna, and Lightsong, one of the gods of Hallandren, who is consistently the most lazy of the gods, at least until Siri arrives to fulfill the treaty of Idris. The most significant factor in all of this is Breath, which manages to grant the bearer the ability to see perfect tones and colors, hear perfect notes and sounds, and produce an aura of brighter color wherever they travel.

Most importantly, it grants the ability to be an Awakener, an individual who uses the Breath to bring to life something that was, at one point in time alive, but is now dead, such as cloth (cotton), sticks (living trees), and human bodies (who are now dead, but are turned into a “Lifeless“), all of which perform duties based on Commands.

What I loved the most about this book was not the imagery and magical world, but the verbal interaction between characters. Sanderson has a true talent in bringing alive discussions in a way that makes it seem so real.

I honestly laughed out loud at the following quote from Lightsong who conjured up a mental image he’d rather forget: “Make a note to have my imagination flogged for its insolence in showing me that particular sight.”

This truly made me realize that Sanderson could expand on this world, already quite full of beautiful landscapes and imaginative magic, by providing lifelike, funny, heartwarming, characters to dwell within.

Overall, it is a vibrant story with a very rich other-worldly feel without duplicating a bunch of common tropes in fantasy. As I read Warbreaker, I yearned for it to be made into a movie where it would be quite the visual treat.

However, as I, personally, am a stickler for spelling/grammar, I was disappointed at how many mistakes made it into the final version, but this did not detract from the story (some I’ve read in the past such as the later titles in the Wheel of Time series where the editors seem to get lazy could be rather frustrating). Brandon, find better proofreaders.

On the subject of the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and his recent demise, Brandon Sanderson is an excellent choice for completing Jordan’s work and he has an eye for detail and originality that should be a real treat when we see his first entry, The Gathering Storm, hit the bookshelves in November.

I look forward to more of Sanderson’s works as it appears that we’ve not seen the last of the world introduced in Warbreaker.

Order your copy of Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson today.

Growing Up with Science Fiction in the 1940s

By Ugur Akinci on

When I was a kid, I bought my first science-fiction magazine at the age of thirteen. All older science-fiction fans remember when they bought their first magazine, and we were all about the same age – twelve, thirteen, maybe fourteen.

In the 1930s and 1940s we were all pretty much alike as well. We wore knickers, sat down to a chicken dinner every Sunday, and spent Saturday afternoons at the movie theater where we saw two features, three or four cartoons, and got a free candy bar – all for a dime.

Nobody had a television set, though every family had a radio. Our parents tuned in to Lux Radio Theater and Fibber McGee and Molly but most of us kids listened to Lights Out! and Inner Sanctum and Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. We made model airplanes out of balsa wood and tissue paper and rubber bands, telephones out of string and two tin cans, and occasionally we tinkered with crystal sets.

Most of us were skinny, wore glasses, were not very adept socially, and were usually sent out to left field – way out – when the Phys Ed class divided us up into baseball teams.

As writer Joanna Russ put it many years later, young science-fiction fans were “… nervous, shy, pleasant boys, sensitive, intelligent, and very awkward with people. They also talk too much.” It was an accurate description (And yes, almost all of us were boys – though with the passage of time girls became welcome).

When we discovered science fiction, we were consumed by it. We haunted the library for books by Verne and Wells and read and re-read the cheap Grossett & Dunlap editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs that we were given for our birthdays or at Christmas.

But the real epiphany came when we discovered the magazines with their fascinating covers of aliens, rocket ships, and distant planets. We read them under the tree in the backyard on sunny days, curled up on the couch on rainy afternoons, and under the covers at night.

Our neighborhood friends looked at us with contempt (an excellent reason to search for science-fiction pen pals who might live halfway across the continent – or maybe half a dozen blocks away), our parents fretted that we read too much and played too little, and our teachers were indignant that we were obviously addicted to that “trash” when we should be reading the classics.

We loved science fiction, and we wanted other people to love it as much as we did. We were dazzled by the wild ideas and the lurid artwork, we thought it was great literature (in some instances we were right), and we proselytized for it shamelessly. Almost all of us published amateur magazines – “fanzines” – devoted to it, some of us grew up to write our own science-fiction stories and others became editors or publishers of it.

We went to conventions and watched them grow from a few hundred participants to the thousands, from a single convention during a year to an average of one per week.

When actor William Shatner – the beloved “Captain Kirk” of the original “Star Trek” series – stared into the camera on Saturday Night Live and told us to “get a life”, we had to smile even in the face of betrayal. We already had a life.

And to a large extent, it was one to which Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker, the Grey Lensman, Michael Valentine Smit, and John Carter of Mars – all heroes of the science-fiction universe – had contributed an enormous amount.

* This has been an excerpt from Frank M. Robinson’s collector’s coffee table book:  Science Fiction of the 20th Century : An Illustrated History. Pick up your copy on Amazon today!

RIP Reading Rainbow

By Jenni Hammitt on

“Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high” ok now many of know those words. We grew up hearing them everyday after Sesame Street and Mister Rogers, it is the opening words to Reading Rainbow’s theme song. That song has now been silenced. The last episode of the show aired August 28, 2009. After 26 years, a great show that has helped children learn to enjoy and in some cases inspire them to read has been taken away.

Part of my outrage stems from that feeling that part of my childhood is now dead. I was 4 when the show started airing in 1983. I was too young to remember LeVar Burton from Roots  and he hadn’t started his tenure as Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation  (and honestly I was little confused at 7 years old to why the “Reading Rainbow guy was on some show basically wearing a chrome banana clip over his eyes once I actually watched TNG it made more sense).

To me, he was like a friend that took us (my brother and I) on a new adventure each day. He made reading fun, and that was a huge influence in my life. I looked forward to each new story, and actually had hopes of maybe being one of the kid reviewers one day (you know the ones at the end of the show “but you don’t have to take my word for it.”)

I’m not saying it is the reason I learned to read. My parents are big readers. As a result they read to me frequently, and I caught on quickly. However, the show did inspire me to be an avid reader and to use my imagination to bring books to life. It also started my interest in being a writer. I wanted to write the books that people read. I wanted to create characters that could be brought to life. Twenty-six years later I still have that goal.

The other part of my outrage come from what this says about our culture. We can come up with money to keep shows that we basically lose brain cells watching, but no one will fund a show that has been a positive influence on children for a little less than three decades.

I get that educational programming has its issues. Trust me, I blame Sesame Street as much as I blame MTV and Nintendo for my short attention span. I agree that the television shouldn’t be the only teaching tool. There are some things parents need to be doing on their own.

However, this was a wonderful show that nurtured love for reading, and many people my age as well as children that came after us reaped the positive benefits.

On August 28, 2009 my Twitter stream and Facebook page were both full of angry and sad people saying good bye to our old friend. It may not have been a part of our lives any more, but it is a strong part of our past and we cannot believe it will not be there for more children in the future.

New Internet Talk Show Launches for Indie Authors

By Bobby Ozuna on

Earlier this year, Ozuna Publications, in conjunction with Artist First Radio Network, launched an Internet talk show designed specifically for the independently published author, also known as self-published authors.

If you take into account the vast array of new publishing houses and books released each year, it is no wonder why so many are swarming to get in line for a full feature interview on a program that in less than six months, has made headway and is impacting and representing the world of indie publishing on a grand scale.

What started as a means to promote my own work has taken on a life of its own. After my humble beginnings in book promotion here with the CultureFeast family and my work to help others via my blog, Drawing Stories…With Words , I received a blessed opportunity to begin sharing some insight via Artist First Radio Network.

Having no real radio background but many vast years of experience talking out of line, I managed to conjure the attention of some 3,200 listeners on my very first show. In the early stages the show was called, The Soul of Humanity and it was originally designed to feature indie artists–musicians and authors alike–and has since featured some literary experts.

As I have labored to build a brand for my name and establish true identity and credibility with the literary world, I have since changed the name of the program to: The Bobby Ozuna Show .

Every week we feature a new indie artist or field expert. The shows stream live for one full hour, commercial free, and during that time we discuss various aspects of the person behind the art. The Bobby Ozuna Show streams LIVE every Wednesday night at 7PM CST via Artist First Radio Network and is staking its claim with the online listening community, collecting an average listening audience of 10,000+ listeners per show.

Every show is archived for later listening, which offers both the guests and the sponsors to have their shows and ads run continuously as each guest can post links back to the archived recording.

Get Exposure through Advertising

The Bobby Ozuna Show offers help to those not ready for the full-feature interview. “The Author Book Plug” feature is a low-cost marketing alternative available to anyone wishing to promote their work online.

Everyone who signs up for this feature gets their book’s Amazon widget featured on Bobby’s blog: “Drawing Stories…With Words ” and during the live broadcast they get their name, book’s title and a brief 2-sentence description read during the opening monologue session of the show. In one month’s time an author can get air exposure for their book to some 40,000+ LIVE listeners.

Because the demand for exposure and guest appearances is growing, Ozuna Publications will launch a second show, a spinoff dedicated entirely to independent publishing: The Independent Author . This show will stream via the Blog Talk Radio Network and will feature articles written exclusively by indie authors, about indie publishing, marketing and book promotion.

We will discuss the aspects of the article with each week’s guest, offering them an archived recording to help build their credibility as they work to create success with their careers.

This week Bobby Ozuna will feature marketing guru and literary expert,  John Kremer, author of “1001 Ways to Market Your Books.”For information or to book your author interview, have your book plugged LIVE on the air or gather details about corporate sponsorship, you can query Bobby Ozuna here.

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