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The Ethical Author
One of the toughest challenges in my line of work is turning down projects. Mostly, I decline only the manuscripts I don't have time for or that don't pay well enough. But there have been several occasions when I've had to turn down a project because, quite frankly, I don't want any hand in birthing that particular book.
If that sounds judgemental to you, well, it is! I make no apology for being a woman of principle and exercising professional judgement when considering what projects to accept—after all, I'm a human being, not a robot! Don't misunderstand me, though. I'm all for freedom of speech and the author's right to write; all I am saying is, "Leave me out of it!" So, if a manuscript comes along that spreads nastiness in the world—such as racism, misogyny, gay hate, and religious intolerance—I simply tell the client, "I can't take the project because I would not bring the necessary objectivity to the editing task."
Given my personal opinions on ethical writing, I was therefore pleased to stumble upon the Ethical Author Campaign from UK-based ALLi (the Alliance of Independent Authors). It's a writers' code of conduct comprising a list of ethical practices united by one guiding principle: "When I market my books, I put my readers first." For this initiative, I applaud ALLi wholeheartedly because I have also written code of conduct to share with all my book coaching clients. Of course, they are not obliged to adopt the principles, but I feel it's my duty to at least give them the option of doing the honorable thing.
Lorna's Five Commandments of Nonfiction Writing
An important rule of writing is "Honor Thy Reader." If readers feel disrespected, at best they'll close your book; at worst, they'll trash both you and your book online.
During the outlining process, you should have identified your target reader, their fears/anxieties, and their hopes/desires. Always keep these target readers and their needs in mind when you are creating your content: those readers are the foundation of your book, and they are counting on you to give them the information they need. But other than placing your readers' needs at the heart of your book, how else can you honor them?
1. Thou shalt not patronize. Sometimes it can be hard to find the right way to communicate a complex idea clearly. However, be careful to avoid dumbing down your material to the point of condescension or coming off as superior.
2. Thou shalt not baffle. As experts in your field, be aware of the language you're using to communicate, especially jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms. If you cannot write without these terms, include a glossary in your book to ensure you're being understood. Also, try not to assume knowledge. Ask yourself before you begin writing what things your reader will already know and what they need to know, and write according to their level of knowledge (beginner, intermediate, or advanced).
3. Thou shalt not bore. You know readers are interested in your subject because they've picked up your book, but just because they're keen, don't treat them mean! Don't be long-winded, don't repeat yourself, don't go off on tangents, don't be too abstract, and don't use bland language.
4. Thou shalt not exclude. Beware of language bias (unconscious sexism, racism, etc.) and ensure your language is respectful and inclusive. If you are someone who prides yourself on being politically incorrect, so be it, but be prepared for a backlash from readers/reviewers. However, using strong language can be fine, if it's appropriate to the audience, but you should establish this use of vocabulary in your introduction so that there are no surprises if you drop the occasional "shit" … so to speak!
5. Thou shalt not deceive. This is not suggesting you would do this deliberately, but sometimes we can mislead without intending to. Your readers trust you, so make doubly sure that you never pass off someone else's ideas (or writing) as your own; never misrepresent the facts to illustrate a point; never overstate your skills, experience, or influence; never make a statement of fact without backing it up with evidence.
In our current social and political climate, in which civility and respect seem to have gone the way of the rotary telephone and the horse-drawn buggy, it's more important than ever to act with integrity. Therefore, I encourage any book-with-spine authors among you to adopt ALLi's advice, or mine, or devise your own code so that you can be open with your potential readers … and sleep well at night.
Most memoirs explore the impact of major life experiences on the author and his/her reaction to them. However, confessional memoir is a form of the genre in which authors admit to bringing about the events that have shaped, and perhaps even destroyed, their lives. Arguably, then, it is a literary form that takes a different level of courage to write.
Getting Off is a confessional memoir by Erica Garza about her 20-year journey through sex and porn addiction: how it began, how it worsened over time, and eventually how she found a way out. What makes this a great "book with spine" is that it tackles a taboo subject fearlessly and honestly, which will give other sufferers the confidence to speak more openly about and deal with their addiction.
Books with Spine: Why was it important to you to tell this very personal story? What were your aims?
Erica Garza: I've always turned to writing for comfort and clarity, so choosing to write on this topic was my way of trying to figure out how and why I'd gotten to this place in my life. Beyond that, I hoped this book might help others who were facing similar struggles. The first piece I ever wrote on this subject was an essay for Salon.com, and the response was overwhelming. So many people reached out to me (men and women, young and old) and they couldn't believe that someone else was articulating their own private struggle the way I had. They truly thought they were the only ones going through this. That's when I knew I had to keep writing. I had to speak up for those who were too ashamed to tell their own stories.
BwS: You're known as an essayist, so why choose to write a book?
EG: Memoir felt like the most straightforward approach to cover the whole story of my addiction from beginning to end. I really just put the story down the way I remembered it and the narrative arc came naturally.
BwS: What personal and/or creative difficulties did you encounter during the writing of the book?
EG: I had some trouble deciding how to end the book. I wrote it when I was still in the early stages of my recovery, and I wasn't sure if my story measured up to what I saw in other addiction memoirs; I didn't have a neat and tidy resolution at the end. My book ends with a threesome in Thailand, not "Then I went to a 12-step meeting or found God and lived happily ever after." But I wanted to be honest and to be honest is to be imperfect. I'm much happier living in the gray area anyway.
BwS: You have an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia. In what ways did that help (or hinder) the writing of the book?
EG: Getting an MFA from Columbia was expensive, and while there were many days before I got published that I resented having to pay my giant loan payments, I'm now grateful for my experience. The MFA program taught me how to trust my voice as a writer, how to be disciplined and devoted to my craft, how to be a better reader, and it showed me that it was possible to be published. When I was younger, I'd always wanted to be a writer, but it felt like some faraway dream or something that happened to other people, kind of like winning the lottery. If I was lucky it would happen. Columbia taught me that it wasn't about luck. It was about doing the work.
BwS: Were you apprehensive about the reaction to the book? How do you handle reviews and readers' feedback?
EG: At the beginning, I feared that people I knew would pity me or shame me, or that my parents would feel embarrassed. But the response has been mostly positive. I mean, I have no idea what anyone says behind my back, but they're certainly nice to my face! In any case, in the process I realized that nobody will ever be able to shame me the way I've shamed myself in my past. I've grown out of the exhausting charade of trying to be something I'm not. It's so much easier and enjoyable to just say, "This is who I am. Take it or leave it." Surprisingly, what I've found is that when I allow myself to be open and vulnerable, other people feel inspired to do the same. I love having that kind of raw, genuine connection with other people.
BwS: How did you find the publishing process? Was anything about it particularly surprising/frustrating/pleasing?
EG: I was fortunate to have a wonderful team of people at both ICM and Simon & Schuster helping to bring my book to life. The most frustrating aspect has been trying to continue promoting myself and the book after my publisher and agent have had to move to other clients and shift focus away from my book, which happened maybe three months post-publication. I didn't realize how much media attention I was getting from their hard work and how clueless I was about promotion until it was all up to me.
BwS: What advice do you have for people who want to write a revealing memoir?
EG: Try not to think about what other people will think while you're writing. It will only keep you from doing the work. I like what Joyce Maynard said: "Write as if you were an orphan."
BwS: Do you plan to write another book? If so, what can you tell us about it?
EG: I'm working on a collection of essays. I'm still writing about shame, but not so much in how it relates to my sexuality, but to my culture.
BwS: What is your favorite "book with spine"?
EG: No book means as much to me as Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I've read it many times and always with new eyes. That book made me want to be a writer. It taught me to pay attention to what people around me said and how they presented themselves, how a story can be found in the most ordinary places and conversations. It was the reason I made traveling such a priority in my twenties and early thirties, and most importantly, it taught me to pay attention to my desire, to let it guide me to a better understanding of myself.
Click here to buy Erica's book, Getting Off.
It's been a while since I last posted, and I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself. The reason for the radio silence was, of course, life. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that everyday stuff has an irritating habit of derailing our momentum and diverting us from our goals. But there's no point in kicking ourselves. The best thing we can do when we realize our mistake is to figure out how it happened so that we can avoid falling into the same trap next time.
So, I'm going to leap right in with the "secret" as promised in the title. The simple secret is ... IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. I had temporarily forgotten this, which is why there were no blog posts in June.
This blog is not about me, and any book that you write should not be about you: it's about your mission, remember? It's about the passion, message, and ideas you have to bring about meaningful change. But your mission is nothing without people who support it, and those people, of course, are your potential readers. So think of the reader, whoever he or she may be, as someone who is waiting for YOUR book (blog post or article), whether they know it or not. They need you to step up, and your mission needs them to read your work and take action.
Writing a mission-driven book inevitably involves self-sacrifice. It involves sitting down to write when you'd rather be binge-watching your favorite Netflix series; it might also mean not spending as much time with a loved one as you would like. But these sacrifices should be worth making for a few months if you believe enough in your mission. If you cannot motivate yourself to get it done, well, perhaps you don't care about your mission as much as you thought you did.
Time and tide wait for no man, so if you don't write that book now, will you miss the boat? This is another aspect to the secret: it's not about you; it's about timing. If your mission is a hot topic, you'll want to get your book out as soon as possible so that you can capitalize on the general public awareness and PR opportunities.
But even if your topic isn't especially zeitgeisty, the publishing industry is pumping out books at a rate of knots, meaning that another (more motivated) author may steal your thunder. By telling yourself that at any given moment there are at least 100 other people writing a book on your topic, you'll light a fire under yourself that will help you get your book done ASAP.
Wait ... what? Didn't I say it wasn't about you? Well, yes, but there is one important way that your book is all about you, and that's with regard to accountability. When you're struggling to meet your writing targets and there is nobody breathing down your neck, it's easy to put the book project aside and watch all seven seasons of Game of Thrones. You can find someone to fulfill that monitoring role (a colleague or spouse, perhaps), but ultimately, only YOU can get it done.
Hopefully, the tips above will motivate you to keep writing and hold yourself accountable ... they have certainly reminded me to keep blogging.
Tamim Ansary is the author of a novel, history books, a number of children's books, and two memoirs. Also, as an editor and teacher, Tamim dedicates much of his time to helping others tell their true-life stories. In this interview, Tamim shares his thoughts on the creative process of writing nonfiction (and fiction).
Find out more about his books at http://mirtamimansary.com/books/ and his writing workshops at https://memoirpool.com/workshops/
What is memoir to you? And how does writing fiction and nonfiction differ in your experience?
All writing, for me at least, is a struggle to transform the formless mush of the world into something clear and visible. Memoir is about mulching experience into meaning. History is about finding a shape in the tumult of public events. In my experience, no writing project goes through an orderly set of stages: it never begins with an intention to write X, and then to writing Chapter One, and then to Chapter Two, and then on and on to "The End." It's all chaos at first, but gradually some sort of order emerges, and if I'm lucky, what emerges is a book. Or an essay. Or maybe an email. Or at least a haiku.
For me, fiction and nonfiction both start with a vague intuition of something that doesn't exist as words. Sometimes it's an image, sometimes more like the feeling one has waking up from a powerful dream one can't quite remember. The question always is how to bring this shy animal into the light where it can be seen. For me, the only way forward is to keep my attention fixed on the "something," and while I'm looking at it, generate a story without paying attention to the words—letting those stream out as they will. Afterwards, I can look at the words and begin to articulate the "something."
My novel, The Widow's Husband, began with a dreamlike image of a strange old man wandering over a hill to live on the slope above a small Afghan village a couple of hundred years ago. That's all I had at first. Who was this guy? What was going on down in the village? What did they think about this old man? What was happening in the larger world around the village? The image generated questions and the questions generated the novel.
My memoir, Road Trips, began with the intuition that "every journey is an odyssey." However, the book I'm working on now began with the phrase "ripple effect." I was reading certain books about world history, and I kept stumbling across interconnections among different cultures, and that phrase popped into my head. Five years later, I have 450 pages drafted, and I'm still unpacking the implications of that phrase: ripple effects.
What led you to writing your memoirs, West of Kabul, East of New York and Road Trips: Becoming an American in the Vapor Trail of the Sixties?
I was drawn to writing memoir about 25 years ago when I started working on a novel based on my experiences as a bicultural person. At some point, I realized that the stories I was telling were much more vivid and "story-like" when I cast aside the fictionalizing and just recounted what really happened. I think "story" is an essential current running through real life. Fiction moves us because it stirs feelings we've actually had. Great fiction distills themes out of experience, but memoir can do that too. It's all a matter of leaving out what's trivial and dialing up what's profound.
The two memoirs I wrote started out as one book. I was going to call it Road Trips. It started one night when I told a friend about a time I tried to drive across the continent with no money in my pocket and ran into a blizzard in Nebraska. I thought I was going to share an anecdote, but for some reason, I started the story much earlier, two years earlier, in fact. Apparently, something in me knew the story wasn't the blizzard per se, nor even the drive across the continent. The story included what led to taking that journey and what came of having taken it. It took me an hour to tell the tale, and I told it from start to finish in one sitting. I'd never done that before. My friend was kind enough to listen with interest and without interruption (except for an occasional, "Aha!" or "I see."). Once I was done, I saw that the story of my journey had a narrative arc to it. I hadn't realized it at the time, because you never see the story while it's happening, you're too busy dealing with the crocodiles of the present moment. It struck me that every journey to someplace far away and difficult to reach has the character of an odyssey if considered as a single whole, but it's only in retrospect that you can see the whole. So, I thought I could pick three journeys I've been on, three that felt important to me, and write each from start to finish in a single sitting, and that way, in just three nights of work, I'll have me a little book. As it turned out, writing is different from talking to a friend; I spent years on the project, but the original impulse continued to inform the work throughout.
As I was noodling away at the story of three iconic journeys, it struck me that all three of the journeys I had picked took place after I came to the United States. I had grown up in Afghanistan, I came to the United States when I was 16, and that was a pretty traumatic transition, and I wondered why I had not thought to include the journey from Afghanistan to America as one of my stories. But when I tried to write that one, I discovered that I had no specific memories of that actual journey: not the airport in Kabul, not my arrival in Chicago, not anything that happened during my first three or four months in America. How curious! It got me wondering what, if anything, I did remember about my 16 years in Afghanistan. At that point my writing project changed from recounting journeys to scuba diving for memories. Every day around 4 p.m., I'd sit down and type anything I could remember about Afghanistan, in no particular order. In that way I generated about a thousand pages—pages that no one had read, not even me, because one of my rules for myself was "Don't edit, just write" (I've found that the moment I start reading anything I've written I get drawn into editing). So, I wrote those thousand pages without reading a single one of them.
Then 9/11 happened. Suddenly Afghans and Americans were shouting at each other, and each side had no idea what the other was saying. I was sitting on the wall between them, able to see both sides, hear both languages. My agent urged me to write a nonfiction book about Afghanistan, and I saw her point. I looked through my thousand pages and found West of Kabul, East of New York in there. So the book I wrote at that point didn't turn out to be about journeys or odysseys. The social context dictated that it be about Before and After—about living a life with one foot in Afghanistan and one foot in America. Technically, it was a memoir, but it wasn't as much about me as it was about that fault-line in the world between East and West, as seen through bicultural eyes.
In West of Kabul, however, I included one of the three iconic journeys I was going to use in Road Trips: traveling across the Islamic world in 1980 and then coming home to marry my wife Debby. I still wanted to write Road Trips, but it felt like I had crippled the book by using up one of the journeys. Now I had only two iconic journeys to recount and for some unknown reason, the book wanted to be three journeys. I couldn't figure out what the third journey was, how the book would be one single whole, so I put it away for the time being. Years later, I realized what the third journey should be, and with that I saw what Road Trips was: a story set in the late sixties and early seventies when I lived in Portland, when the counterculture was my world, when Portland was the place I kept leaving and coming back to, a story that ended when I left Portland for good. When I came to Portland I was an Afghan kid, when I left Portland, I was an America fellow. Therefore, Road Trips was about turning into an American guy. But my personal transformation occurred against the backdrop of America going through an epic transformation of its own, from the radical sixties to the Reagan era. My story and the story of the culture were intertwined, and that's the story I ended up telling in Road Trips.
What led you into teaching memoir? And what are the joys of teaching memoir craft?
After twenty-two years running the San Francisco Writers Workshop, I wanted a deeper engagement with memoir, more continuity, more focus. So I started some small workshops that focus only on writing real-life stories. I limit each workshop to five members (plus me), and right now we meet six times over the course of twelve weeks. Each session is devoted to pretty intense discussion of each person's submission for that week, and over the course of time I have been able to play some part in the emergence of a number of whole books.
What's really stunning and great is the variety and intensity of human experience. It seems like everyone who comes to my workshops has an astounding tale to tell. Maybe there's some self-selection there; people who have taken it into their heads to write a memoir are more likely to have a dramatic story than the average person. With these workshops, there's no small-talk—the conversation immediately goes right to the stuff that matters.
On your website, you say to memoirists: "Your job is not to create the story but to discover it, because in nonfiction 'story' is not something you impose upon the facts; it's something you reveal through the facts." Can you explain this further?
I'm saying the story is already there, the way gold is already there in certain places although hard to see because it's mixed with sand and covered with dirt. If you set out to write a memoir, you're already claiming you have a story to tell, and you should have faith in that claim. Certain things happened and they felt like a story to you and there's a reason for that. The question is, why did they feel like a story? What makes those events a story? It's because they have resonance for some mysterious reason; they have meaning, they have impact. And if you clear away the dross of everyday life until you find that meaning and communicate that impact, and if you create something that another person can experience—feel what you felt, saw what you saw—you've done something pretty great. When events feel like a story, it's worth telling because there's no other story quite like it. If, as you're writing, you decide that you can improve your story by altering or adding to it, chances are you're bringing in elements from other stories you have heard or seen, and your story may end up more sensational but less moving.
As an editor of memoir, what are you looking for in the manuscript and how do you help the author raise the quality of their writing?
Editing begins with structure. You help the writer look at the whole draft and ask what the story is really about. Where does it start? Where does it get to? What's the turning point? Is there content missing? Where does it end? Most important of all—does something change, is something revealed? Is there content that maybe reads really well but doesn't contribute to the arc of the story and should therefore come out?
The second stage of editing is largely about details. Most drafts suffer from being too general, too expository. I try to push writers to remember what exactly happened in terms of physical and sensory details: sights, sounds, textures, tastes, odors, etc.
And the final stage is language, and what I largely do as an editor—of my own work and of other people's—is fix sentences. So much depends on the music of syntax. So much depends on using the exact word instead of the good-enough word.
What mistakes do you see most often in memoir manuscripts?
Writers know a lot about themselves, and they reflexively assume their readers know them and share their assumptions. They don't appreciate that, on page one, they are strangers to their readers; they are nobody. If I'm told my brother just broke his leg, I feel the ouch. If I'm told that someone broke his or her leg, somewhere in the world, theoretically I'm sorry to hear it, but I'm not really that sorry. Memoirists can't just tell their readers what happened, they have to let readers know who this is happening to, and that requires writers to see themselves as others might see them. Often that means they have to develop a sense of irony that permits them to realize they weren't always the good guys. And that can be uncomfortable, but rewarding, because that's the other challenge in writing a memory: everyone has an official story of themselves they're carrying around in their head. As a writer, you only start getting into the good stuff when you break through your own official narrative and start discovering the story-of-yourself you never knew.
What should someone do before they sit down to write the first draft of a memoir?
I don't think there is a before. Like Yoda, I say there is only "do." The first step is to sit down and start typing (or scribbling, for those few who still work with pen and paper). At first, you're not writing the memoir, you're writing about the memoir, you're telling a theoretical close friend (a.k.a. yourself) what you're going to say when you start writing your memoir, a theoretical friend who is endlessly interested and patient, so you can ramble at will and express yourself clumsily and beat around the bush as long as it takes to get to the point.
Are you planning to write another memoir? If so, what can you tell us about it?
I haven't given any thought to a new memoir project, because I'm neck-deep in writing a difficult book right now—I say "neck-deep" but that's on good days; on bad days, I feel like I'm in way in over my head. To the extent that I have any next project in view, it won't be a memoir, but it might be a nonfiction book about how to write a memoir, the working title of which will be: How to Write a Memoir—Or Anything, Really.
And finally, what is your favorite "book with spine"?
J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan comes to mind. It masquerades as a children's story but it's actually a profoundly unsettling rumination on time and loss and life and change and death. But somehow, right along with all that, it's also a biting satire of Victorian social roles and, by implication, social roles in Western civilization as a whole. Quite a lot for one slender book to accomplish!
Last year, I had the honor of copyediting and proofreading David's powerful memoir, and I eagerly await its imminent publication (Mascot Books). To whet your appetite, too, I asked David to share his experience of writing his book, and this post is the first of a two-parter. The second part will be published when the book is available.
About the Book
After hitting his head during a kung fu play-fight and suffering a grand mal seizure, David discovered he had an inoperable brain tumor and was told he had 5 to 7 years left to live. That was 9 years ago.
Having defied the survival odds, David has written a memoir, Thank You Kung Fu—an unwaveringly honest, moving, and oftentimes funny account of his search for the meaning of life and the answer to why he had cancer. This quest ended David's first marriage, but it also opened unexpected pathways that ultimately led to the discovery of inner peace and new purpose.
First, by way of an additional introduction, can you tell us your favorite "book with spine"?
The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. That might seem like a strange answer, but to me, he represents the creativity I see as such an important aspect of my life. If I were in a spot where I was not able to create, my body would start to immediately deteriorate. Just ask my wife!
I actually met Pressfield for breakfast one morning and was enamored with every move he made (such as ordering his meal with no salt, then burying his meal with salt when it arrived). He is an enigma with in-depth knowledge of writing on serious and lengthy topics like the history of war tactics, murder mysteries, or inspiring creativity while not giving a shit about what people think. He has become an authority (not an expert—a distinction I talk about in my own book) on sharing inspiring stories with anyone who chooses to read any of his work. And because of who he is, what he represents, and how much he has affected me, I gladly picked up our breakfast tab.
Many of the stories you tell in Thank You Kung Fu are harrowing to read, and they must have been harrowing to write. How did you deal with reopening old wounds? Do you have any advice for others who want to write about difficult life experiences?
It took me quite a while to trust that the only thing that moves any audience is vulnerability. I know I have written things in this book that will mocked by counselors, doctors, pastors, naturopaths, family members, and so on … and it was really hard to type out those stories. You can ask my wife (my second wife, who'll you'll meet if you read the book) about the times I would come home covered in tears over what I remembered or recorded that day. Telling your story is tough, but honestly, it's worth it.
For future writers, I would say to begin with writing EVERYTHING. Your shaky tears and your shocking fears will blow you away, but THOSE writings are the true source of great stories. And when you come back to it a day or two later, your gut will tell you which parts are and aren't needed. I imagine you will also have stories you don't want to tell (I had many). But because of the power of expressing vulnerability, you have to tell them.
The feeling of releasing those stories to the public is scary as shit. In fact, it actually helped me that I have cancer and thinking, These words might be some of the last words I write, so I made sure they were accurate and true.
One of the biggest challenges for any storyteller is not what story to tell but how to tell it. How did the structure of your story come about? Were there some episodes in your experience you decided to omit, and why?
To my benefit, the structure of my story was pretty simple because I had three massive events happen in a row: cancer, divorce, and random pregnancy. And three's a solid number, so I figured I should get this book printed before the fourth event shows up (actually it's already happening with my new nonprofit for encouraging cancer survivors through my new nonprofit, Bent Not Broken: bentnotbroken.org).
I had multiple issues with length. Originally, my book was more than 125,000 words long, and I loved every single one of those words, so it was extremely difficult to cut them out of the manuscript. So, yeah, there were stories I hated to leave out. I left out the crazy moments from shooting the movie Election [in which David had a speaking role], like when I took Reese Witherspoon on a "date" and we slow danced at a bar after filming was done. And I skipped the story about attending a random concert in a janky restaurant with one of my favorite musicians of all time, Alfie Jurvanen (of Bahamas). At that time he had recently won the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy Award, and his agent suggested playing a show on his way back to Canada. Considering it was a late booking with zero promotion, nobody was at the show. I asked him out for a drink and, strangely enough, he was the first person I explained my divorce situation to in the back of a gritty bar.
There was another life-changing moment I had to omit, which was when I shared a dinner with my film team in Uganda. We met up with another organization who had just come across a scared young boy who had to piggy-back his dead younger brother across the extremely dangerous Congolese border. After dinner, when everyone was leaving, I called out his name and ran towards him. I couldn't help but squeeze him so tight in the middle of a busy road. When I was packing up my things to go home, I couldn't stand the fact that I had all of these "expensive and fancy" clothes, so I put them all in a big plastic bag and dropped them off where he was staying. I traveled home with an empty bag but with a heart full of love for him. So many of these unpublished stories have so much heartache, pain, fear, and love. But they also have too many words, so I had to leave them out.
Why did you want to write a book to convey your life story, rather than, say, a documentary film?
Interesting question. To be honest, a documentary seemed somewhat lifeless when telling my extremely emotional story. Ideally, I wanted people to be able to "press pause" with the book and think about these moments or concepts for themselves. I needed (for myself!) to provide intense explanations for the things I was feeling and felt I couldn't do that through a film. By writing this book head on, I felt I could challenge and face those fears that have pursued me. Essentially, I wanted (as horrible as it sounds) to relive those years and work my way through the pain it brought, so that's why I felt a memoir would work better for me. Also, I have been approached by numerous people who say they want to direct the movie for this book, and I am positive they are much better at doing that than I am.
What do you hope the book will achieve for you and do for the reader?
As far as what the book will achieve for me, and I hate to say this, but I have no hopes. I placed my best efforts into writing this book and I am now placing it in God's hands. I'll let him figure out what He wants to do with it; whether that leaves me with a New York Times Bestseller or a book that nine people read.
I see this strange balance similar to what I wrote in chapter three of the book, "Fuck Experts," where I first learned the differences between experts and authorities. Experts want to attract everyone to their schtick, to their "bestseller," and make as much money as possible. But an authority's true motives are to complete projects for themselves and whoever else is interested. And history continues to show that by creating with true intent to reveal the honest truth, as authorities do, people are naturally drawn towards the work that is being done. For example, which interaction would you prefer? A person who signs your copy of his best selling book regarding global poverty? Or sitting down and sipping tea with Mother Teresa while listening to her personal stories?
I don't want to be a best seller; I just want to share my story with you.
Part two of this interview will focus on the challenges of publishing a book with spine. In the meantime, find out more about David, his book, and his life's work at:
I owe my interest in mission-driven literature to the fact that I spent the first 15 years of my career working for nonprofit organizations in the UK and the US. At 35, I took a career break to return to my first love—literature—and write a novel, but when I had finished it and decided to launch my own writing and editing business, my first thought was, How can I use my skills to help nonprofits? Old habits die hard, for sure. This led to my creating the Embark Editorial Agency, which for two years (until major life stuff took over) helped new copyeditors build their professional experience by doing pro-bono work for nonprofits.
My enduring affinity with the nonprofit sector is why this post is a tip of the hat to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's current chief operating officer (although, in light of the recent Cambridge Analytica revelations, perhaps not for much longer ... ) and author of not one but TWO books that spawned nonprofit organizations that further her books' respective missions.
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will To Lead
Lean In is essentially the story of how Sandberg came to understand workplace gender politics. It is less of a memoir, more of a treatise, and her central thesis is this: The world would be better with more women in power. But women can only attain this power by first changing their attitudes towards themselves. She states: "We move closer to the larger goal of true equality with each woman who leans in."
This message alone and the justification for it that Sandberg provides would have been sufficient to admit Lean In to the canon of books with spine. But what makes the book even more exceptional is the author's commitment to her mission post publication.
While many authors might write their book and move on to the next one, Sandberg set up a 501c(3), www.leanin.org, to support a global movement helping women achieve their ambitions. One of the main activities of the nonprofit is to support the 35,000 so-called Lean In Circles that have sprouted up worldwide. These are actual meetings of women, not online communities (ironic for the COO of the biggest social networking site on the planet). Many circles now exist within male-dominated corporations with the aim of enabling more women to be heard and move up the hierarchy. The nonprofit also engages in further research to discover the barriers for women and ways of overcoming them.
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy
Published in 2017, this second book is not about business. Sandberg was compelled to write Option B when her husband died suddenly and she had to deal with her loss while also helping her children through theirs. Sandberg offers her personal insights, while her cowriter on this project, Adam Grant, provides the research about resilience that makes this book more than a memoir of grief.
The success of the Lean In movement has clearly inspired Sandberg to go further. Her second book, Option B, adopts the same nonprofit strategy as the first (www.optionb.org) that offers readers three ways to take what they learned in the book and get involved:
1. Share their story of resilience with others
2. Connect with people who understand
3. Learn how to build resilience
What Now?
If a reader has been affected by a book, they may wonder what to do next. Obviously, not every author will have Sandberg's considerable resources and influence to be able to set up a global nonprofit to further the mission of their books and donate all the sales revenue to the mission. Nevertheless, authors of books with spine could—and arguably should—consider how they can enable readers to take meaningful action if they have been inspired or moved by what they've read. This can be something simple, such as directing readers to a donation page of a relevant established charity, or creating a social media space where readers can form a community around the issue and develop ways of addressing it in their local area.
I admire Sandberg for the commitment to her missions. She did not treat either book as the ultimate expression of her dedication to the causes she cares about: they were launchpads.
So, if you're considering writing a mission-driven book, ask yourself whether the book is an end in itself or the means to an end. Does the power of your book lie solely within its pages? Or might there be a way its power can ripple outwards into the real world to create meaningful and lasting change?
Whenever a nonfiction manuscript arrives in my inbox for editing, I usually can't wait to dive in: I'm excited not only to iron out any kinks in the prose but also to learn something. Recently, I've gained insights into living with dementia, alcoholism, and terminal cancer (and I should add that none of these books were miserable—they were all incredibly inspirational!). From a less emotional standpoint, I have learned about the craziness of being an HR specialist, the exploits of a nineteenth century American rogue, and working in the music industry.
But there is one kind of book I find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for: books about "financial freedom." There a LOT of books on that subject around, it seems. It's not the subject, per se (who doesn't dream of financial freedom?); it's the fact that the books I come across are all predictably similar. They all talk about setting goals, shifting one's mind, and investing in real estate. It was interesting the first couple of times, but now it's so rote that it's deathly tedious.
To add some excitement to the process, I've begun to place little bets with myself as to what page range I might find the first reference to Tony Robbins or Robert Kyosaki. There are few others, too, but those dudes are the two most oft repeated names. A passing reference is irritating enough, but I am willing to let it slide. It's a different matter, however, when I see whole passages given over to regurgitating the teachings of these "masters," and I become incredibly hot under the collar.
So angry, Lorna! Chill, sister. Why do you care?
I guess this aggravates me for two reasons.
1. It shows a lack of original thought on the behalf of the writer. No "book with spine" relies too heavily on the wisdom and experience of other authors; it has its own contribution to make to the world. I don't know much about Kyosaki, but after watching a documentary about Robbins, I know he has a uniquely powerful voice (in a literal sense, too; it's as if he's just finished smoking a 4-foot cigar), and any mention of him in your book will just make you sound like a follower, not a leader, and undermine your authority about your subject. After all, who was it said, "It is not the acolyte who sets the world alight"? Me. I said that. I just made it up as I typed. See? It's easy to be original (if not especially profound...).
2. The likes of Robbins and Kyosaki DO NOT NEED HELP. They are more than capable of making their own book sales without free promotional support from unknown authors. According to Worth magazine's 2016 "The Power 100," Robbins is already worth $500 million and his many businesses generate $6 billion annual revenue. So, no, please don't help him out. I think it's safe to assume he wouldn't do the same for you. I'm even annoyed I'm giving these guys some free publicity here! But I'm doing it to make a point, so I guess it's okay.
I'm not saying it is wrong to be inspired by people, and, let's face it, a completely original thought is a mythical creature that lives with the unicorns, but it is still possible to be endlessly original in the way you express those thoughts. So, put your own special spin on everything, and rid your writing of cliché and the likes of Tony Robbins forever! And if you get it right, you'll be the one other authors can't resist quoting … and then you know your message has set the world alight.
Lorna Partington Walsh, Wordsmith
October 2020


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Tricycle Theatre in UK Jewish Film Festival U-turn
- Published
A theatre that refused to host the UK Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF) due to it being part-funded by the Israeli Embassy has now said it is prepared to stage the event in future years.
The Tricycle Theatre in north London was due to screen films in November but pulled out amid the conflict in Gaza.
Although this year's festival will be hosted elsewhere, the theatre has withdrawn its objections.
It said it had invited back the UKJFF "with no restrictions on funding".
'Same terms'
In a joint statement, the Kilburn-based theatre and the UKJFF said: "Some weeks ago the UKJFF fell out, very publicly, with the Tricycle over a condition imposed by the Tricycle regarding funding.
"This provoked considerable public upset. Both organisations have come together to end that.
"Following lengthy discussions between the Tricycle and UKJFF, the Tricycle has now withdrawn its objection and invited back the UK Jewish Film Festival on the same terms as in previous years, with no restrictions on funding from the Embassy of Israel in London.
"The UKJFF and the Tricycle have agreed to work together to rebuild their relationship and, although the festival is not able to return in 2014, we hope to begin the process of rebuilding trust and confidence with a view to holding events in the future."
At the time of the theatre's decision to pull out of screening films for the festival, on 5 August, chairman of the UKJFF Stephen Margolis said the situation was "extremely saddening" and the theatre was looking to politicise the festival.
The 2014 festival is being held at other venues, in London, Nottingham and Manchester.

subset: commoncrawl


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List Price: 7.95*
* Individual store prices may vary.
Other Editions of This Title:
Paperback (1/6/2020)
You see him at the liquor store. You see him at the bus stop, trying to look at you without being seen. Who is he? He is a person. In this debut novel, a person walks around Chicago contemplating the possibility of starving to death on purpose. He has sex with his neighbor. He goes out to look for a job but just buys little plastic dogs from homeless people instead. Who is the person? The person is you. The person is me. The person is sitting in his room shooting an empty pellet gun at his face, feeling the slow exhaustion of a Co2 cartridge. The person sits in a bathtub reading his roommate's yearbook. He wants to create a contract mandating worldwide friendship. Person invents new and splendid ways of not getting along. You will read this book and remember why you mainly read books that have sex in them. You will become . . . a person.
Eraserhead Press, 9781936383184, 90pp.
Publication Date: October 7, 2010
Not Currently Available for Direct Purchase


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A pervasive enemy
This July- September issue of IJME deals with the unglamorous theme of corruption in healthcare and medicine. 'Unglamorous' because it is stale and sordid and, most Indians feel, impossible to root out. Yet this enemy cannot be evaded, since it is a major factor in matters of life and death. Our authors present a holistic analysis of the beast; of its presence in the West through the instance of the dubious activities of pharmaceutical and device manufacturing companies; and, in this part of the world, of the decay in a venerable Indian institution. And since the beast may very well make its home in ourselves, the final paper deals with personal efforts to combat it. We owe sincere thanks to Subrata Chattopadhyay, the moving spirit behind this theme-based segment.
The issue offers a lot more, with editorials on the link between the deaths (euphemistically called 'serious adverse events') of infants and the pentavalent vaccine; and the ethics of 'standard care', which is no care, for participants in cervical cancer trials. Original articles deal with the functioning of IECs, the awareness of medical ethics among medical students, and the all important national immunisation policy. A respected scholar shares her memories of Dr Edmund Pellegrino, who dedicated his 90-plus years to bioethics. Two commentators discuss the need to balance justice for participants in clinical trials with the urgent need for adequately-tested life saving drugs. A group of enthusiasts share their experiences of teaching medical humanities using the Theatre of the Oppressed. All this, plus our regular reports, book and film reviews, and news round-up in the field.
Cover credit: Cover image "Fertilisation" by kind courtesy of the artist Dr Husain Akhter


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Residency activity is vital to the artistic life and mission of the PRISM Quartet. It enables PRISM to reach significantly broader and more diverse audiences, and contributes to the public's understanding and appreciation of new saxophone music.
The PRISM Quartet offers a comprehensive array of residency services, with the goal of enriching the cultural landscape and providing a resource to student/emerging artists in host communities. Services include master classes; chamber music coaching; composer forums/reading sessions; lecture demonstrations; school concerts; learning labs; composition classes for children; outreach concerts at community centers for seniors and the disabled; as well as business of music seminars. PRISM also offers a comprehensive Composition Residency Program for the benefit of conservatories and university music departments. Services may range from a single event in conjunction with a formal performance, to a week of extensive residency programming, to a season-long engagement. Services are tailored to the needs and resources of the community and presenting institution.
PRISM has maintained its own residency programs in Philadelphia and New York City since 1994 with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the William Penn Foundation, The Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Selmer Company, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, NYSCA, and Chamber Music America. PRISM has also presented residency services at notable institutions nationwide, including the Curtis Institute of Music; the Eastman School of Music; the Oberlin Conservatory; Purdue University; the Universities ofMissouri-Kansas City, Vermont, Illinois, Michigan, and Southern California; the Interlochen Arts Academy; Ithaca College; Brigham Young University; Georgia Southern University; North Carolina School of the Arts; and Arizona State University. PRISM has also conducted long-term residencies with the acclaimed Visiting Artists Series in Davenport, Iowa; the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association in Southbend, Indiana; and the Walden School for Young Composers in Dublin, New Hampshire.


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You saw his photo on the front page. You wonder about the funky master of disaster, Rufus?
He's mysterious. He's cool. This brotha offers the band morale-boosting, spiritually uplifting guidance to keep us in the pocket.
Rufus don't need no drugs to keep things groovin'; he's like the Chuck Norris of funk. In fact...
Rufus' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
Rufus counted to infinity - twice.
Rufus does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Rufus goes killing.
If you can see Rufus, he can see you. If you can't see Rufus you may be only seconds away from death.
Rufus sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Rufus roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Rufus.
Rufus built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Rufus met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
Rufus has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life there.
A blind man once stepped on Rufus' shoe. Rufus replied, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Rufus!" The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Rufus.
So, now you know a few golden nuggets of funk about Rufus. And Rufus is glad to share the wealth, so come and hang with his crew, Shades of Soul.
I am Rufus, and I approve this message.


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Glenglassaugh Octaves Classic Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml)
In stock
Volume: 700ml ABV: 44% Age: No Age Statement Country: Scotland
Master Distiller, Billy Walker, has carefully selected a number of casks to be bottled as the Glenglassaugh Octaves Classic. The whisky has been matured in octave casks, made from staves of a used cask that are approximately 1/8th the size of a butt. A smaller casks allows for more interaction between the wood and the spirit, giving the whisky a great depth of flavour in a short period of time. Bottled at 44%, non chill filtered and natural colour.
Official Tasting Notes
Nose: An abundance of sweet shop characteristics. Sherbet and candy apples with a gentle warmth of white pepper and cinnamon.
Taste: A vibrant green apple skin note balances with stewed yellow plums and hints of black vanilla pod. Clean, freshly sawn oak softens to crisp, sweet barley in the long finish.
Finish: A delicious combination of citrus and sweet notes complement the unique oak characteristics from the octave cask maturation.
Additional information
|1.7 kg
|40 × 12 × 12 cm
|Flavour Profile
Bourbon Cask
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Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.
Shipping / Delivery
We offer FREE postage on all orders shipped within Australia when you spend over $200.
Shipping Times
Typical Australia Post Parcel Post delivery times are as follows
Melbourne 1 to 2 working days
Sydney 1 to 2 working days
Adelaide 2 to 3 working days
Brisbane 3 to 4 working days
Darwin 4 to 5 working days
Perth 4 to 5 working days
Typical Australia Post Express Post delivery times are as follows
Melbourne next day delivery
Sydney next day delivery
Adelaide next day delivery
Brisbane next day delivery
Darwin next day delivery
Perth times next day delivery
Should the order be urgent please call 0434 499 838 or 0434 438 617 to discuss other options.
Items requiring 'gift wrapping' will be dispatched with a delay time of 24 hours to allow for wrapping and preparation. Items requiring 'engraving' will be dispatched with a delay time of 48-60 hours to allow for the external engraving service to be completed. Please see our Engraving and Gift Wrapping Page for more details https://www.thewhiskycompany.com.au/engraving-gift-wrapping/
Your order is unable to be left unattended by Australian law.
Please contact firstname.lastname@example.com should you require our international delivery service. We will quote you on this service and invoice you directly.
Find out more about shipping here.


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This item is not available for purchase online. Please call 314-781-7600 to order.
The Datavideo MCU-100S is a handheld camera controller that allows you to control up to 4 Sony video cameras from up to 3280 ft using the included AD-1 adapters. The interface between the controller and AD-1 adapters is a RS-422 differential line and you can also use CAT5e/6 cables for the same distance.
This controller lets you adjust your cameras all by yourself without having to leave your multi-view monitor. It also allows you to store and recall memory settings within 3 memory banks.
The iris knob on this controller is not a position knob but instead a rotary knob that increases or decreases the current setting. So you can have camera 1 selected, which is at iris position 1, then switch to camera 2. Camera 2 will be at whatever setting it is at currently, and the knob will be used to increase or decrease the setting. Then, you can switch to the next camera and do the same. In this way, you can tune each camera to have its own individual iris settings.
|Maximum Distance
|3280 ft (1000 m)
|CAM/BS (from Panasonic Camera to AD-1 Adapter)
RJ-45 (from AD-1 Adapter to MCU-100S)
CVBS (from AD-1 Adapter to Preview Screen)
Although the MCU-100 uses an RJ-45 connector, it uses the RS-422 protocol to control the camera. Therefore, wired or wireless Ethernet cannot be used on the MCU-100.
|3.8 x 8.2 x 2.1" (9.7 x 20.8 x 5.3 cm)
|0.6 lb (272 g)
|Package Weight
|3 lb
|Box Dimensions (LxWxH)
|11.5 x 10 x 4.2"


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About the seller
My name is Clare and I'm a jewellery designer/maker living in Somerset. All of my jewellery is handmade by me in my little studio in Frome and I make a range of colourful, collectible and contemporary jewellery using sterling silver, polymer and resin clay. I keep the settings and designs of each piece simple to allow the hand mixed colours to become the focal point and I aim to make a range of minimalist jewellery that is a joy to wear.
Connect with seller


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Hoàng Xuân Vinh
Born in 1974 in Sơn Tây, Hà Nội.
Joined Việt Nam's national shooting team in 2000.
2016: Competing in Rio Olympics in the 10m air pistol event. Won two bronzes in the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Bangkok and Munich.
2015: Two golds in 10m air pistol (team) and 50m pistol (individual). Silver in 50m free pistol at the 28th SEA Games in Singapore. Two bronzes in 50m pistol ISSF World Cup in Changwon, South Korea, and Fort Benning, United States.
2014: Bronze in 50m pistol (team) at the Asian Games.
2013: Gold in 10m air pistol in the ISSF World Cup in Changwon. Three golds in 10m air pistol (team and individual) and 50m free pistol (team) at the 27th SEA Games in Myanmar.
2012: Gold in 10m air pistol, silver in 25m centre fire pistol (team), bronze in 25m centre fire pistol (individual), and two bronzes in 10m air pistol (team and individual) at Asian Championships events in Doha, Qatar, and Nanchang, China.
2011: Gold in 10m air pistol, gold in 25m centre fire pistol, and silver in 50m free pistol (team) at the 26th SEA Games in Indonesia.
2007: Bronze in 10m standard pistol at the 24th SEA Games in Thailand.


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Sales Letter Video Production- What Is Sales Letter?
Sales Letter Video Production is a fine art which requires years and years of work to to be its picasso. Sales letter is also known as info movie since it doesn't involve camera footage. It means an informative video. Just as the term infographics refers to the visual presentation of data, info movie refers to the audiovisual representation of data and information. Sales letter video style is that video presentation style that has voiceover. The voice over that defines the product concept through a compelling story.
Who Use Video Sales Letter
Those product/services that need urgent sales use Video Sales Letter. The product story is presented in a way that convinces customers to make purchases instantly.
Sales Letter Video Production Leading Towards Quick Sales
It is lengthy as compared to the other video styles. It defines the product/service concept in detail. It clearly explains the entire process in the video. It gives the product/service message by a complete scenario that facilitates the understanding of the viewers. The product concept is defined in detail so that it can contribute in quick sales of the product/concept.
Where You Are Wrong?
The reason that your sales letter are not converting into sales is that you are unable to grab viewer attention at the start of the video. Our Video Production Company solves the problem that occurs in the first few moments that are very crucial where viewers or your prospective clients will decide if the video is worth spending their time on or not. We have the expertise in how to start your sales letter video production which includes the basic understanding of who you are marketing it to, and empathizes yourself into your clients condition by giving proper consideration that what are his/her problems.
Creative Sales Letter Video Production
Offer them something innovative which will attract them and break their routine pattern. There are numerous Sales Letter Video to watch on the web so you need to become very creative in order to capture the attention of your audience. We will offer you something that has never been seen or heard before. Our Sales letter video style addresses and solves your problems in a unique way with creativeness. We notify your customers what are the advantages and benefits you will be gaining if you purchase a product or service. Feel free to contact us now to have your own Sales Letter Video.


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GCh. Ch. Runrig Off Road Experience (Scout) shown going WD, and BOW
while Runrig Road To Riches (Tory) takes WB at Devon's Dog Show during Montgomery County weekend
Scout makes Champion number three with Tory his litter sister. Ch. Runrig Road to Riches, and half-sister, Ch. Runrig Hotter N Hades for his dam, Ch. Marquees Green With Envy.
Photos by Scott Cromwell
|Ch. Runrig Off Road Experience, M, Red Brindle, 2/11/07
AM FIN DK CH Zalazar On The Road, Red Brindle, 9/11/04
|GB CH FINCH S CH Birselaw Billy Fury, Red Brindle, 12/8/01
|GB CH Birselaw Buddy Holly, Wheaten, 11/19/97
|GB CH Penticharm Dusky Pricess At Birselaw, 12/7/94
|DK CH Zalazar Voodoo Magic, 6/1/00
|DK CH, KLB CH,INTN CH EST CH,, PLCH,KBHV99,EUV00 Zalazar Jackpot, Red, 12/4/93
|Hage Clemme, 12/16/94
AM CH Marquees Green With Envy, 11/12/00
|AM CH Robinson Crusoe Quite Macho, Red, 10/28/98
|NORD CH Tribuns Yellow Sovereign, 10/24/96
|DK CH FIN CH Robinson Crusoe Jennifer, 8/27/95
|AM CH Copperglen Walk Of Fame, 10/22/96
|AM CH Whetstone Reeses' Pieces, Red, 10/25/94
|Copperglen Ruffled Feathers, Brindle, 7/10/93


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Manchester, UK -- (ReleaseWire) -- 03/19/2014 --In response to the exodus of internet users on the likes of Facebook and other social media sites, and in recognition that everyone is online in some way or another, Release News has armed up their website to offer better distribution for its press releases. Their upgrade, which includes faster online distribution, is every client's gain. It has become essential that news travel quickly through the pipeline, and the upgraded features at http://www.release-news.com/ enable press releases to speed through to search engines, Google News, social media platforms, news feeds, news websites, content-sharing websites and news/radio/television websites.
They ensure that all press releases are submitted to major search engines, such as Bing, AOL, Dogpile, Alexa, WebCrawler, Infotiger and many others that are used by high profile, well-established PR distributors.
Packages includes free submission and the flat-rate Gold and Silver packages. Paid services bring maximum online exposure.
The Silver Package comes with social media buttons, a homepage, slideshow features, the website embedded into the release, a live Google News release, one picture and three links.
The Gold Package includes all of the perks of the Silver Package, plus PR syndication to more than 150 sites, PR editing tips and support, SEO enhancements, a video embed, full submission status and virus marketing report emails.
Release News works in conjunction with AJB Web Promotion to offer a fully researched written press release news story for $99. The service includes the Gold Package distribution.
Using the online press release website http://www.release-news.com is simple, affordable and sensible.


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We're e-commerce strategy specialists who design, build, monitor and maintain Magento e-commerce websites and digital marketing tools. Our aim is to work with people for life, which is why we form retained partnerships and behave more like business partners than suppliers.
Tom&Co has been lucky enough to work with some leading online challenger brands, as well as well-known high street retailers.
We always like to give everything a crack but we certainly have some areas where we like to think we excel.
We build all of our websites on the most popular e-commerce platform in the world, Magento.
We use machine learning algorithms to merchandise your website, so you don't have to...
We know building best in class websites is still not enough... so we'll help you find customers too.
We prefer to act like partners rather than suppliers, that's why we have retained partnerships with our clients.
Put simply, Magento is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms and powers a third of commerce businesses online.
It's been designed from the ground up to be flexible and extendible which means it's a good fit for all e-commerce websites and it is arguably the best choice for businesses with an annual online turnover ranging from £1m to £100m.
We at Tom&Co have more than 8 years of experience building high traffic Magento eCommerce websites and we have over the years developed an extensive knowledge of Magento which allows us to use its full potential. We have been able to overcome some of the Magento limitations (such as less than ideal speed performance) by developing our own framework within Magento which delivers superior performance especially when it comes to website speed — which has a direct correlation with improved conversion rates.
We always make sure that we use solutions which are the best suited for our customers and keep in touch with the technological advances. As a forward thinking agency we understand that Magento 2 will be the eCommerce standard for the next several years and therefore our websites are launching on Magento 2 and taking advantage of the improved functionality, reliability and performance.
We're a young, dynamic, creative agency with plenty of grey hair and digital experience. Our team is made up of talented people who enjoy the world of e-commerce, and all things digital. Our founder, Tom McCaul, was head of web at Big Fish, a leading London brand, design and marketing consultancy before starting the agency and has decades of e-commerce experience under his belt.
If you are looking for a job, why not take a look at our jobs page.
59 Lafone street,
London, SE1 2LX
Call us on
0207 351 3521
Or, you can email us
using the form below
If you'd like to talk with us about building you a Magento ecommerce website, why not send us a quick note below.


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The RCJ has a story this morning about SB65 which seeks to add individuals that knowingly infect someone with the HIV virus through sexual contact to the sex offender registry. Besides my wondering how many people a bill like this would actually cover in South Dakota in regards to our legislators spending time debating such a bill, I just know that it could ultimately open up a much bigger can of worms.
The act of intentionally infecting someone with HIV has already been addressed in the penal code with SDCL 22-18-31 which makes the act a felony to which a very quick and unscientific search resulted in me finding only one person actually being charged under the law in the several years it has been in effect. While charging and prosecuting offenders is very necessary and placing them on the registry is in no way a bad thing, the side effects of this proposed bill can be seen by just browsing through the comments of the RCJ story. It shows just how ignorant and intolerant some in our rural state still are in regards to HIV/AIDS. One in particular that identified themselves as "Hermosa Resident".
" All HIV+ people should have to register not just the crimminal ones! "
And after taking a beating about that comment the same individual followed up with
" I'm not suggesting that we say HIV+ people have to be listed as a sex offender I'm suggesting that all HIV+ people register. We have a right to know if our neighbor has HIV! "
It still amazes me that in the almost 30 years we have been living with the HIV/AIDS epidemic that we haven't progressed very far from Ronald Reagan's indifference based largely on his discriminatory beliefs towards gays and his pandering to the religious right and Jerry Falwell (AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals"). Considering the outright ignorance, stupidity, and hatred that still exists today, can Hermosa Resident's call for HIV/AIDS infectee registration be too far away? What other deadly illness can be thought of where the people that contract the disease are often hated more than the disease itself?


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Peña Boulevard is the main route from Denver to Denver International Airport (DEN). The freeway is a city-maintained highway, not part of the Interstate or Colorado State Highway System. It begins at Interstate 70 and leads northeast to the airport, intersecting E-470 just before its terminus at the DEN passenger terminal.
The 11-mile freeway is named for the mayor who presided over the authorization to construct the facility, Federico Peña. Peña later went on to be a Secretary of Transportation for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
|Peña Boulevard north
|A wye interchange provides high speed access from I-70 east to Pena Boulevard north 10 miles to Denver International Airport (DEN). Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Pena Boulevard northbound overtakes Airport Boulevard north from 40th Avenue. A diamond interchange follows with Green Valley Ranch Road (former 48th Avenue). Photo taken 09/04/04. Second photo taken 08/11/16.
|Green Valley Ranch Boulevard travels west toward the Parkfield and Montbello neighborhoods and east to the sprawling Green Valley Ranch community. Photo taken 09/04/04. Second photo taken 08/11/16.
|After the Green Valley Ranch Boulevard off-ramp is the next in the series of signs counting down the mileage to the Denver International Airport (DEN) passenger terminal. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Pena Boulevard shifts slightly to the east to meet 56th Avenue in three quarters of a mile. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|56th Avenue runs west along the north side of the Parkfield and Montbello communities to industrial ares of Stapleton in Denver. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|East from the diamond interchange with Pena Boulevard, 56th Avenue continues to Green Valley Ranch and other development to the E-470 tollway. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Pena Boulevard crosses First Creek north of 56th Avenue. The DEN passenger terminal lies seven miles ahead. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Tower Road parallels Pena Boulevard north from Green Valley Ranch to cross paths with the freeway at its eastern turn away from Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|One half mile out from the three quarter diamond interchange with Tower Road. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Northbound at the off-ramp for Tower Road on Pena Boulevard. A cluster of hotels lines Tower Road just to the south while off site parking facilities for the airport and a landfill are to the north. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Peña Boulevard east
|An auxiliary lane opens from Tower Road east to the collector distributor roadway (Exit 6) for the E-470 tollway. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|E-470 is part of the Denver beltway system, which consists of C-470 between Golden and I-25 at Lone Tree, E-470 north from Lone Tree to Thornton, and Northwest Parkway from I-25 west to near U.S. 36 at Broomfield. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|All signs for E-470 (Exits 6A/B) were replaced by 2016 to use Clearview font. Exit 6A leads motorists south to Interstate 70 through east Aurora. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Exit 6B loops onto E-470 north to Commerce City, Brighton and Broomfield. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Pena Boulevard transitions into Denver International Airport (DEN) just east of E-470. 75th Avenue separates from the freeway to form a south side frontage road to Gun Club Road, Jackson Gap Road and an array of car rental facilities. Photo taken 09/04/04.
|Peña Boulevard west
|Leaving Denver International Airport (DEN), Pena Boulevard quickly enters a cloverleaf interchange (Exits 6B/A) with the E-470 toll road.
This series of signs was changed out by 2007. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Exit 6B departs Pena Boulevard west below the RTD A-Line flyover. E-470 connects the airport with I-76 east to Sterling and Fort Morgan, U.S. 85 north to Brighton, and I-25 north to Fort Collins. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|E-470 was built in stages through the 1990s and early 2000s to provide traffic relief for I-25 through Denver. The toll road was also the catalyst for rampant suburban expansion of the Denver metropolitan area to the east. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|This former overhead advised motorists to remain along Pena Boulevard west for a toll free route to Interstate 70 in Denver. I-70 in turn provides the connection to Downtown Denver as well as the Denver Technology Center (DTC) via Interstate 225. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Ramps with E-470 interact with the westbound mainline of Pena Boulevard, unlike in the eastbound direction which utilizes a c/d roadway. E-470 south ventures south 7.5 miles to Interstate 70 in east Aurora. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Tower Road crosses paths with Pena Boulevard a half mile west of E-470 at Exit 5. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Planned as a full diamond interchange, the ramp from Tower Road to Pena Boulevard west was never built. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Tower Road extends north to Commerce City. Tower Road south serves lodging and other businesses catering to airport patrons as it parallels Pena Boulevard to Green Valley Ranch. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Peña Boulevard south
|Pena Boulevard curves due south to run just east of Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. The freeway ends in six miles at Interstate 70, just east of I-225. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Downtown Denver is a 15-mile drive via Pena Boulevard west to I-70 west and I-25 south. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|56th Avenue crosses paths with Pena Boulevard next in one mile. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|56th Avenue runs east to the Green Valley Ranch development and E-470 and west between Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR and the Parkfield and Montbello communities. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Green Valley Ranch Boulevard (old 48th Avenue) parallels 56th Avenue 0.75 miles to the south, connecting the aforementioned communities. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Entering the diamond interchange with 56th Avenue on Pena Boulevard westbound. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Exits for Green Valley Ranch Boulevard and 40th Avenue depart over the course of one mile before Pena Boulevard turns and merges with Interstate 70 west. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|The diamond interchange with Green Valley Ranch Boulevard serves Parkfield to the west and the heart of the Green Valley Ranch development to the east. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Continuing south, Pena Boulevard west meets 40th Avenue and Airport Boulevard south in a half mile. 40th Avenue serves an array of hotels and apartments to the west and distribution and warehouse facilities to the east. Photo taken 08/25/04.
|Pena Boulevard leads directly to Interstate 70 west, while drivers headed to I-70 east must use Airport Boulevard to make the connection. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Airport Boulevard branches south from Pena Boulevard to the city of Aurora in Adams County. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|The final stretch of Pena Boulevard winds west one mile from 40th Avenue to Interstate 70 westbound. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Traffic from Pena Boulevard joins Interstate 70 westbound just ahead of the semi-directional T interchange (Exit 282) with Interstate 225 south. I-225 is a belt route south through Aurora to Interstate 25 and U.S. 87 at the Denver Technology Center (DTC). Photo taken 08/11/16.
|A collector distributor roadway separates from I-70 just west of Pena Boulevard for both I-225 south and Peoria Street. Peoria Street is an arterial that leads north into Montbello (Denver) and south into the city of Aurora near the Fitzsimons Campus (former U.S. Army Garrison). Photo taken 08/11/16.
|The right lane of Pena Boulevard defaults onto the c/d roadway for Interstate 225 south in one half mile. I-225 provides the most direct route to the southern part of the metropolitan area, Castle Rock and Colorado Springs. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Pena Boulevard ends within the diamond interchange (Exit 283) connecting I-70 with Chambers Road. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Interstate 70 stays north of Downtown Denver through Globeville, then travels west toward Wheat Ridge, Arvada and Golden before ascending the Rocky Mountains. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Peña Boulevard scenes
|Small guide signs direct motorists on Green Valley Ranch Boulevard to the respective on-ramps for Pena Boulevard. Photo taken 08/11/16.
|Pena Boulevard doubles as a commuter route to Interstate 70 west from the Green Valley Ranch community. Photo taken 08/11/16.
Photo Credits:
08/25/04, 09/04/04, 08/11/16 by AARoads
Page Updated 04-20-2017.


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Feigned public execution for Christian
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A long descent. Endless falling. These are the signal images in Western Deep and Caribs' Leap, two films by Steve McQueen being screened in the Lumiere on St Martin's Lane, an abandoned, subterranean 1960s cinema near Trafalgar Square. Until the early 1990s the flagship arthouse movie theatre in the West End, the Lumiere is now just a void under a swanky new Ian Schrager hotel.
The cinema has always been Freud's as much as Plato's cave, a place of projections, lost things, shadows; the cave is in our heads as much as we are in the dark, transfixed by stories and a flickering lamp. It is the soul's bunker. The Lumiere auditorium is a buried amphitheatre, stripped back to raw concrete and crumbling cement, an empty arc of stepped ramp under a busted ceiling. This cinema is, in itself, already a powerful image. That McQueen's two works here are themselves concerned with underworlds - the past and its persistence on the island of Grenada, and a journey two miles down into the deepest goldmine in the world, in South Africa - make this a perfect, eerie setting.
A big wall has been erected in the middle of the auditorium, both as screen and division. There's another screen behind us, where the projection room should be. On the hour, and on these two screens, Caribs' Leap is shown. On the smaller screen at the rear of the cinema day breaks in lemon light; dogs and goats roam the beach. The Caribbean's towering clouds move in from the east and a boat rows across the screen. Guys hang around the dock, a man launches coconut-shell boats in a backwater, sailing nowhere. The slow day goes by, a day of small waves slopping on the sand, everyday human activity. Towards the end of the film we visit a funeral parlour, the slowest place of all, and see the well-dressed dead in their shiny, lacquered coffins. The living come and go. And what we take for dusk is indistinguishable from dawn.
You can wander in and out of this work, get caught up in the drifting day, and barely notice, until you look, that the blank sky on the second, larger, screen is constantly changing. The faint clouds are a reflection on barely moving shallow water, and every so often a man falls through this reflected sky, but never lands. An Icarus pinwheeling through the emptiness, further, fainter, nearer. He looks for a moment like a frigate bird in flight, and then reminds me, perhaps inappropriately, of those awful images of office workers launching themselves into the downtown sky from the burning towers.
Maybe this isn't so incongruous an echo. Suddenly I recall that one of the boats drawn up on the sand is named Taliban - or was it Caliban? Either way, more stories pour in, more inflections. Caribs' Leap is a film of collapsed time, of Grenada today and the memory of the mass suicide of the native Caribs, who in 1651 preferred to jump from the cliffs at a place now called Caribs' Leap, rather than submit to the French, who bought the island for a pittance then drove the natives from their land.
Caribs' Leap is a difficult work, perhaps not least because it draws so heavily on a history that is not necessarily apparent to the viewer. Its presence is insidious. McQueen's family is from the island, and he decided to make the film after visiting the island for his grandmother's funeral. Reworked since it was first shown earlier this year at Documenta, the German art festival in Kassel (both films were co-commissioned by the festival and by Artangel in London), Caribs' Leap is still for me the less substantial work here, though with it McQueen has attempted his most elegiac, subtle and perhaps most personal work to date.
On the half-hour, the doors are closed, and you move to the lower part of the auditorium where, suddenly, the cinema goes black. Total night. A terrible industrial clanking and rumbling. The walls and floor shake. We are descending. The Lumiere's original screen is not so much blank, as recording lightless nothingness in the cage which takes the miners - and us - to the bottom of the shaft. There are occasional dim flashes - jerky red light illuminates part of a face, a hard-hat, the crisscross shutters of the cage.
Where, in Kassel, McQueen's work was shown in well-constructed but temporary viewing spaces, here we're already underground, already buried. Then a hissing of hydraulics, a further fall, silence. When I first experienced Western Deep ("saw" would be too limited a word) I almost expected that the film to consist only of this frightening descent, and that the terminus of the lift would also mark the end of the film.
McQueen's earlier film work has often used the techniques of structuralist film-making, in which the mechanics and optics of shooting and projection of film not only provide the means by which film is made, but also, in part, its subject. McQueen's interest in the fundamentals of the act of filming has always included its staging, a preoccupation with how and where his films are shown and with the place of the audience, psychologically as much as physically.
This is where film as art, and Western Deep, get really interesting. Instead of "taking you out of yourself" his films remind you of your own presence, in a particular space, engaging with the particularities of what is happening in the here and now of the cinematic experience. This, for McQueen, is film's space, a place as much as it is a projected narrative. The periods of silence, the intermittent light, the camera burrowing into near-dark and illuminating glimpses of things that are very close, seen only partially, is itself close to what the workers in this mine experience every minute of every shift.
Western Deep, like so many of McQueen's previous works, is concerned with the surfaces and textures and weight of things, not just what light and shadow reveal, but what light and shadow are in film, and what mysterious things happen when that light fails, or what happens when film - in this case hand-held Super 8 - tries to record what is at the limit of its physical, photochemical capacity to record.
This is but one strand of Western Deep. We do not see much of miners toiling with drills. We see a canal of black water, oily violet reflections, a patch of broken rock which, like the smudge on the wall of Leonardo's studio, tricks us into inventing images out of nothing. What I see in the rock is a distant landscape, a place outside, space and light
But what we see most is the daily life of the black miners; exhausted in their underground restroom, miners sitting in line and having their temperatures taken, the thermometer going from mouth to mouth after a casual antiseptic dip in a grubby enamel cup, and miners doing supervised, regimented exercises to the escalating rhythm of an insistent buzzer, red lights pulsing on and off.
This is extraordinary, almost inexplicable footage. Some of the workers flail about, barely able to stand, let alone step up and step down, one foot after the other, on the rows of low metal benches.
This life, the film implicitly tells us, isn't just harsh, it is hell from beginning to end. What does working under two miles of rock do to the body, to the spirit? The goldmine is still owned and operated, according to the exhibition guide, by the company that ran it during apartheid, and nothing much here has changed. A few yards under the London streets, you feel the world's compression, your own arrested fall.
· Caribs' Leap/Western Deep is at the Lumiere, St Martin's Lane, London WC2, until November 10. Details: 020-7713 1402 and at www.artangel.org.uk.