Celebrities who've met ME! Author Geronimo Tagatac

Last summer, intent on wooing Ooligan Press into my orbit, I surfed into the library and put all of Ooligan's published works on hold. After waiting months, the library shot back an email alerting The Weight of the Sun stood ready.

From the first paragraph I was hooked. A year later I was haunted. The short stories of Geronimo Tagatac hid deep in the recesses of thoughts and whispered, ‘Embrace this language, touch these stories...’ When the apparitions appeared I would hunt online for Tagatac, and would come up empty handed.

Last week everything changed. I stumbled on a connection, secured an email and shot out a quick request. Crazy guy that he is, Tagatac agreed to a meeting. Coffee. Friday. 10 AM.

At first blush it might seem inevitable that Geronimo Tagatac would meet me. Sure, let’s run with that. He was born on the East Coast. I was born in the Wild West. He grew up in California. I did not. He wrote a book, I wrote a manuscript. He entertained as a folk singer, I as classical pianist. He did graduate work in Asia, undergraduate study for me in Europe. He taught in Hong Kong for a year. I spent one sleepless night under Hong Kong's heaven. He has one daughter (closing in here), I have one daughter! His daughter studies journalism. I work with journalists!

So much *cough* in common. Completely foreseeable our paths should cross.

He arrived late and appeared stressed he’d mixed up the meeting place, but relaxed into our conversation, opened up and shared a world that encompassed writing, travel, the Vietnam war, study of Asia, teaching, coaching body builders, folk music--an array of topics that left me spellbound.

As a dirt poor college student he hung out with others of the same ilk, as well as some dropouts, and they taught each other what they really loved: music. “We jammed together playing late into the night and lived for that. We played folk music in coffee houses for half the cover charge and all the coffee we could drink.” He worked the circuit with Peter Grant who later became a television studio musician and Jorma Kaukonen who formed San Francisco’s Jefferson Airplane. Tagatac grinned as he listed where he’d performed: Cotangent, Brass Knocker in Saratoga, The Shelter and The Offstage Theatre in Sante Fe, the Other Side in Fort Bragg, The Crows Toe in Washington D.C, stops in Myrtle Beach, Greensboro. Some of those gigs depended on hitchhiking and upon arrival supplied free drinks, and not always coffee.

The next delivery exacted a higher price. “Crazy. Got my draft notice and volunteered, otherwise they placed Filipinos as cooks, mess boys, or stewards.” He landed in special forces for the Navy.

I asked if he experienced prejudice. “I did,” he said. “When I was younger. People make assumptions based on your looks how well educated you are, how well off you are, what kind of a job you have. I found California was really, really diverse. I worked for Willie Brown, the first African-American Speaker [of the California Assembly], the second most powerful person in office. There you’re accustomed to people of color. When I first came to Oregon, I worked for an agency as a budget analyst for one budget session. People in those days, early 90's, weren't really used to seeing a person of color, in a professional setting.” Perhaps a polite way of saying the unspoken he noted, “Had some pretty funny incidents.”

Education wove itself through all seasons of Tagatac's life and propelled him to work towards a doctorate. “When I was in Vietnam, there was so much Chinese influence. I promised myself I would learn it more, and maybe even go and visit China. In those days it was a really revolutionary society.” He did visit and his study encompassed many Chinese themes, Chinese Communist revolution, Chinese foreign policy, Mandarin, he immersed himself in research and even taught in Taiwan.

I wondered what pushed him towards his writing career. “I didn’t really start writing until very late. It was always a direction. After the war, at Sante Fe State, I was a pretty restless guy, a ski bum, wrote letters to friends, descriptions of what was going on. I hitchhiked to Boulder, Colorado to climb and write to friends just anything that was on my mind.”

He married, lived in the Bay Area and in the late 1980’s started taking writing seriously. “I took classes in creative writing. Then in 1989, came to Salem and took classes at Chemeketa from Dwayne Atkinson and from Portland State University-Salem Extension studying with Martha Gies. Gies really got me serious about writing.”

His first acceptance for publication came from Writers Forum a literary journal published out of Colorado. “After that I started getting more acceptances to different places, and I just kept writing stories and sending them out, writing, and writing. I applied for and got a fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts, received a fellowship at Fish Trap, and the next year got invited to back to Fish Trap to teach.”

His book lay on the table between us, my talisman for him to find me. I fingered the bright sun-kissed cover and asked how it came to be. “Luck.” I had him repeat that. “Luck. Someone from Confluence Press asked if I had a manuscript, he took it and wanted to publish it, but Confluence was tied to Idaho College, they had budget cuts and the contract was cancelled.”

The gentleman forwarded the manuscript to Dennis Stovall at Ooligan Press in Portland, Oregon and months later Tagatac received an email asking for permission to publish it. “Interesting way to go, never had an agent, never been able to find an agent,” Tagatac noted with a wry smile. Who does your marketing I mused. He confessed, “That’s the thing I’m really terrible at. I’ve done readings, but I don’t have a web-site. I’m so focused on the writing, I want to write and I know I should be doing this other stuff, and more than willing, but marketing is probably the thing I’m weakest at.”

His writing felt very personal to me and I inquired how much it reflected his life. “There is a piece of me in every story, probably in the first book a lot of me in the stories.” Some of his stories were assignments he gave himself, making a bland office cubicle interesting, or challenges with themes. “I’d never found a story that dealt with a body builder, and I’d always wanted a scene in the weight room that would work. I’d been weight training, running, was a personal coach and doing all this stuff. ‘Gosh you really know this world, know how body builders think, how they work out. There’s a story in there.’” There’s also a whole technical language that accompanies that world. “I had to make it authentic without drowning people with technicalities. I wound up being able to put a love story together, demonstrating class differences, racial differences, and just put them all into one, and it worked.”

Is there a book in the wings?

“I’m in the middle of a novel right now, and just completed another collection of seventeen short stories of people trying to live two lives at the same time.” He gave an overview. “Way of the Snake is about a man with a very bureaucratic job dreaming he’s a rattle snake. Then the two worlds collide. Streak is the story of a guy working as a hair dresser. He’s lived all over the world, can’t stay away from trouble. He comes to a very quiet job in Oregon to live a very ordinary life.” Little is ordinary in Tagatac’s fictional worlds, and the thump-thump of heartbeats echoed across the table when he spoke of Who’s Counting, the barista obsessed with the number of heart beats after his transplant. I want to read that, I asserted. Tagatac grinned, “As soon it’s published.”

I asked how his writing style had changed. “I don’t know that my style has changed that much, I learned about character and about point of view and tense. You have to be consistent, who’s point of view is it in, otherwise you come up with clinkers. Clinkers break the forward motion of your story and force your reader to go back to figure it out. It stops everything.”

So willing to meet, so willing to share, it was easy to sense the teacher in his spirit. I inquired what he liked about teaching. He thought about that for a moment, and answered, “Figuring out ways to get people’s interest in anything from history, politics or fiction writing. For writing: breaking creative writing down to its basics, how to work with those basics, how to work with settings, how you create a character, how you work with plot, where you use dialogue, when to use dialogue, when to use narrative, and how to turn the story. You’re just exposing people to those things,” he noted, and fumbled his hat. “I remember before I started writing it was a mystery, something other people did.”

My burning question came towards the end—where do the words come from? “I don’t know, I always felt that they were floating around. I was writing as though I were speaking, and they were just there, and it was a really great discovery.”

I began to shut the lap top off and ventured in the last subject: Vietnam. “When you’re 22-years-old it’s exciting to be sent overseas, but it’s only when you’re over there you realize you could get killed." He faced death twice, knew within ten minutes he would be dead, then the balance of life altered. “The hardest thing in the war: you can do everything right and still die. Survival becomes a matter of luck, doesn't have anything to do with how strong you are, or how brave.”

Two weeks before he was to return home he volunteered for a mission. I couldn’t imagine why. “I think survivors guilt,” he explained.

The images he shared appeared with such clarity I could touch the broken pieces, see the man who returned self-contained, one who chose writing to survive, saved fragments of paper and then when he moved on threw them all away, time and time again, discarding the baggage of recovery. I glanced at his book, knowing I would ask him to autograph it, but unwilling to have something ordinary from this extraordinary man. I wanted to know which was his favorite story.

“My favorite story…whew…” He blew air out of his cheeks, “Hm…I’d have to say, it’s The Orchard, a coming of age story, and it’s really a story based on my relationship with my father. It’s about the kid who has always hated having to work in the field and suddenly realizes that this one last autumn in the orchard is the last time he’s really going to be part of the father. The story doesn’t really romanticize the father much; he’s a man with a sharp temper, but their lives are about to diverge and it only comes to the son at the very end of the story where we see him wearing the clothes that he bought from his earnings. He understands he’s never going to have the same relationship with his father that he did.”

Tagatac and I were at the end of our hour and I wondered if our paths would cross again, or if with a simple hand shake everything concluded. As I gathered up my things and stuffed away, I asked if he would consider an invitation to one of my local book store haunts for an author event. “Absolutely. I’ve gone all over the place, love going to different places. With small presses you really have to do a lot of the work yourself. You have to sell your book.”

On the way home, I reached into the back of the car, grabbed the book out of my bag, and read what he wrote. A simple extraordinary wish.

Thank you, Mr. Tagatac, for sharing your journey. I’m so glad you became part of mine.

Additional information: The Asian Reporter, V16, #22 (May 30, 2006), page 13.

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And the winner of the Ooligan book is...

Thank you Dale Chumbley, Melanie, helen and Anita for your comments on the Ooligan three-part series regarding the state of the publishing industry. For the three of you who requested, you were entered in the drawing for the mini-book, RETHINKING PAPER & INK, The Sustainable Publishing Revolution, published by Ooligan Press, Portland State University.

Due to the high credibility of this blog and desire to sustain that enviable status, the drawing was held at a neutral place (my place of employment), in a neutral spot (the lunchroom), was conducted by a neutral party (credit assistant), was witnessed by people who didn't care, and has been authenticated as COMPLETELY LEGIT. Signed affadavits will be provided upon request.

Cue drum roll:

Thank you, Barbara, for drawing the winners and stopping to get that perfect manicure just in time for the picture shoot.


Congratulations:

DALE CHUMBLEY

MELANIE

HELEN

YOU WON.

(enthusiastic applause!!!)

Why three? I know, confusing when I only promised two. Well, I prefer everyone to win, and while I only announced two books, I had one in my back pocket (literally, they're small). It is my pleasure to award all three volumes, as I have enjoyed each of your blogs, and bounded estactic through the room at each of your comments. Furthermore, I am looking forward to sharing more of your wit, thoughtful commentary, and any blather you'd like to post. You may consider your book in every way a bribe. Oh, and its way okay to invite your friends on over to the Pearl of Carol.

To receive your copy, please email me: pearlofcarol (at) gmail (dot) com, and since you are all within a tank of gas, I'd be happy to deliver in person and buy you a cup of coffee. I'll also talk your head off as you sip politely and glance furtively at your watch wondering, how long can this woman talk? To be honest, as long as the audience's patience endures.

In conclusion, I'll let Dennis Stovall have the last word and respond to Helen's curiosity about where the name Ooligan originated:

"The name Ooligan is adopted from a Native American word for a smelt otherwise known as the candlefish. The ooligan was an abundant natural resource in Pacific Northwest rivers. It may well be the word from which the name Oregon was derived. During the trade of the valuable fish oil to tribes east of the Rockies, the L in Ooligan was replaced with an R, giving us the sound Ooregon. Gradually, this usage became the name of a place and assumed its current spelling of Oregon in the course of history. The anthropology on this was in the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly in 2001. ds"

Thanks for participating!

(You didn't really think I'd let someone else really have the last word, did you?)

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Ooligan: a small press perspective of publishing

The Pearl of Carol blog is giving away two copies of a mini-book, RETHINKING PAPER & INK regarding sustainability in publishing to celebrate the recent Write to Publish Conference sponsored by Ooligan Press. Mention ‘enter to win’ in your comments to participate. Drawing to be held at end of month.

Part One: The evolving marketplace of publishing, industry's move from credit for unsold books to cash refunds, emerging print-on-demand options, the increase in the number of self-published books.

Part Two: Authors abandoned from the big houses use their savvy to generate the small press movement, wholesalers and distributors keep small press—literary non-fiction on the shelves, the influence of the mega-booksellers and Amazon.

Part Three: this is the final installment of the three part series.

How do new authors break in?

Besides inspired writing, what do new authors need to break into publishing? “Five years ago I would have said you need $200,000 and eat very little for the first five years to afford the cost of returns, in fact, keep your day job,” recommended Dennis Stovall, professor of English and Coordinator of Publishing Curriculum at Portland State University. Stovall opened the recent Write to Publish Conference with a talk on the state of the publishing industry. Today he adds, “Create a kind of word of mouth, viral marketing that reaches more people than traditional media or book store browsing.” Many are finding Facebook fans, swooping in for Twitter followers, and connecting with LinkedIN to begin their outreach to a potential fan base. [The First Carol on Twitter].

Despite these social media opportunities, bookstores remain the best distribution outlet. Established authors dominate the chains, and it’s hard to find anyone willing to open small shops unless they are far away from the mega-sellers. Add to that the current lag in the economy which has roughed up the remaining marketplace as sellers jostle for share, and you have all bad news. Right? Not necessarily. “Eating each other up leaves opportunity,” comments Stovall, and opportunity, he suggests, may lie in places other than paper and ink. “Forty percent of every print run goes into recycle—that’s the average. That doesn’t happen with digital books.”

Watch what happens when bookstores order books they can’t sell:




Sales and reading

Dennis Stovall challenged assumptions we’ve been making over the last twenty about reading. “The National Endowment of the Arts did two major surveys concluding reading is at risk. You read that and you became demoralized. It appeared all we were reading were cookbooks and weight loss books. It’s been nothing like that.” he said, and stressed the studies ignored a critical aspect of reading, namely all the new ways the new generation is reading, and it’s not always the traditional canon of literature. “I have particular interest in what constitutes writing as art and writing as commerce. It’s shifting so fast. I see it in the papers that I grade, an enormous shift. You don’t go back you only go forward.” But go forward into what? “Where does the potential lie?” Stovall asked, then answered, “We don’t KNOW what is going to happen next. It (publishing) can be invented again now, not only in this country but world-wide. It is being reinvented and reinvented quickly.

“Non-fiction continues to sell better than anything else. The average life of a book sells 5,000 copies, non-fiction 7,500, poetry under a 1,000. Performance poetry, revival of an oral tradition is finding its way into print,” Stovall noted. “Something very few of us thought we’d see happen. Now that audience becomes potentially much larger than it ever was before.” To grow any audience it must be nurtured.

Opportunities to develop audience abound for those willing to speak and to teach with the realization they do not generate enormous sales, but rather incremental gains in audience. “Lose the gleam in your eye that says, ‘I’m going to sell a million books.’ The realistic view is that if you pursue correctly you may not be able to make a great living, but you may be able to develop a body of work that won’t go out of print in a digital world."

Stovall weighed in on the industry’s struggle with the pricing structure. “How do we price in this new model?” he asked. The marketplace is still deciding how much it will pay for a digital book.” Other sources indicate readers believe there is great savings when a book does not consume paper and ink, and they want that savings passed along not pocketed. But pricing the POD less than a printed book may not be the answer.

Small presses are discovering they are not making money on actual sales, but the associated ads on the web-site or on the events that come later. Again, speaking to your audience whether online or in-person is growing in significance while publishing encompasses smaller and smaller venues. “The short form is rising in popularity. Micro presses are doing short work and really short work. The best selling book in Japan was written on the I-phone for the I-phone.”


Mass vs. made-to-order printing

The print-on-demand machine looks like a large refrigerator, punch up the book you want, put in your credit card, and in 3-5 minutes you can hold a printed book completely bound with cover in your hands. It’s the ATM of books, making them more accessible, reviving books that are abandoned, no longer in print, or only available on library shelves. It can instantly put books where you want them when you want them, for example, an Espresso Book Machine at the trail head of a National Park spewing books on flora and fauna. You’re not likely to reach for that book anywhere else, but in that moment it has great value.

What are the advantages of breaking in with print on demand - one book at a time publishing? Digital short run printing is accomplished with liquid toners rather than powder and is rather economically produced. “We are a capitalist society, as the costs come down with new technology we’ll have a slightly more economic entry point.”

Currently, mass printing costs $1.50 per volume versus approximately $3 for print on demand. On the other hand, with POD you don’t have a distributor and a book store taking 10% and 40% along the way and the process produces little to no waste. “This gives you a more realistic view of what is actually selling, and offers what the small bookstores used to produce in our neighborhoods, a sense of community,” said Stovall, and he noted big players are entering the field. “Managing the digital process is being picked up by Amazon. They print, take their cut and send you your money. There’s no cost to store month to month.”

The Espresso Book Machine’s $100,000 price tag limits its mainstream access, but it is making inroads. Pocket Books who mass markets Paperbooks, is now promoting the Espresso Book Machine (EBM). Lightning Source Inc., an Ingram Content company announced EBM as a distribution channel to all publishers that work with the company. Stovall sees tremendous democracy in these actions, but admits machine owners still dictate content. “You’re going to see mix and match opportunities, enormous opportunities for both writers and publishers, but the problem for writers is they have taken the notion of self-publishing too far.”


Authors can’t do it all

All aspects of publishing cannot be tackled by a writer. “Editing it yourself is a mistake.” If you’re not a book designer you can’t know what others have studied earnestly to comprehend—visuals that sell. “Less than stellar projects do not create audiences, they get ignored, are not cataloged and are not bought,” Stovall said. In reality almost nothing is ready to go to press at the beginning. Writers need to remember their book is not done simply because they’ve completed their massive draft. “But books are being produced that have not been vetted in any way, and yet the more demanding the marketplace, the more it requires professionals.”

A manuscript is done when it’s received collaboration and received critical insight on whether the story is well told or not. Stovall presented publishers as the ideal filter. “Publishers always had a role of impresarios. We add value to what the author does by editing, packaging and still have that role, but if there are 560,000 books coming through the system, we need to mediate them so readers understand what ones have been well-developed. We don’t need to print all those books some are ephemeral,” but he quickly adds, “Better to have all of that and find among it the real gems.”

Literary Agencies along with publishers are another necessary mediator, “But if there is push for profit agencies may be driven out. We’ll see agents with a shifted role,” Stovall predicted, then lamented the lack of agent input, “Lulu has published the largest pool of bad poetry in the world.” He also noted a common query: grandparents with stories they told their kids. “Mushy stuff we should have kept to ourselves.”

Over and over again publishers read queries not appropriate to the press. “The onus is on the author to pay attention to what the press publishes and create a strong proposal.” Stovall advised. “Even a rough cut gem will get a serious reading, but direct yourself to the right publisher.”

To locate the correct publishing partner you need to first define your audience. Stovall offered several suggestions including, “Locate a magazine you know is read by the same people who would be interested in your book, and ask the magazine for their media kit, or look for their media kit online. It tells you the demographic of their audience and you now have the audience for your book.” He further added, “Go to Powell’s, imagine what shelf your book might be on, look at the shelf and check out the publishers.” A little research on those publishers can confirm whether they should be targeted. “Bet on that as an author and then you’ll get a hearing,” Stovall promised.

His final admonition critical to success. “When asked who would read your book, the worst thing you can say, ‘Anyone who likes a good read.’ You have to know who would read your book. You HAVE to know.”

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