What do you get when you cross Harvard with Hollywood?Harvardwood! It's a unique organization of more than 2,500 Harvard alumni, students, faculty and staff in the arts, media and entertainment worlds. Unlimited Publishing LLC is proud to collaborate with Harvardwood on an exciting new series of books that will debut here over the next year. The "Harvardwood Books" series will showcase the work of Harvard-connected writers in a variety of genres.
In today's world, a growing number of writers are using new technologies like "Print on Demand" to publish their own books, rather than fight an uphill battle getting published by traditional book publishing houses. However, authors who self-publish are often charged substantial fees by service providers, or spend many hours juggling complex computer operations to prepare books for publication on their own.
The new series from Harvardwood and UP combines the best of both worlds, allowing writers to get published without paying fees of any kind, while avoiding daunting technical hassles frequently faced by self-publishing authors who undertake the "Do It Yourself" approach to book publishing. At the same time, their books are released with the backing of a prestigious umbrella group and an established trade publisher.
Each new book starts in limited advance release, as a paperback available to order exclusively from the Web sites of UP and its printer(s), Harvardwood and the author. Those that demonstrate real public demand become eligible for broader distribution through additional printers and wholesalers that supply mainstream booksellers. The most popular can even become eligible for in-store stocking by bookstores, foreign translations, book clubs, etc.
This innovative approach gives new books and their authors a fair chance to prove their public appeal in real life, without falling prey to vanity presses... or needing a degree in computer science! Realistic and market-driven, it gives authors the dignity of getting their books in print with a "real" book publisher, and rewards those who most actively promote and market their books.
This exciting new program is available exclusively to full members of Harvardwood. Harvardwood is actively seeking new members - especially Harvard-connected people in the fields of broadcast and print journalism, print and electronic publishing, fine arts and performing arts.
A few early examples appear below, displayed alphabetically by author. Future releases will be featured at the Harvardwood.org Web site as they become publicly available.
Please visit Harvardwood for more information:
UNBECOMING JANE by Steve Bachmann '73, HLS '76
ABOUT THE BOOK: There is a "becoming" Jane Austen who delights Victorians, spinsters, and weenies — and who disgusted Mark Twain. There also exists a nastier Jane Austen who challenges traditional notions of fitness and propriety. Much of this Jane vanished when her sister Cassandra burned many of her letters. However, a caustic Jane Austen remains to be appreciated in her novels, juvenilia, and surviving correspondence. With a variety of insights afforded by psychoanalysis, Regency history, and evolutionary theory, (as well as Proust and Casanova and Stendhal), the author recovers a Jane Austen who is unbecoming, adult, entertaining—and truly classic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Steve Bachmann is the co-founder of The New Orleans Art Review and four books of art and literary criticism.
ROUGH MAGICKE by John Wm. Houghton '75
ABOUT THE BOOK: Rough Magicke is a remarkable witch’s brew of supernatural, Christian, classical and scientific arcana, served up at an all-too-real Midwestern military school.
"An occult thriller, scary, learned, and charitable in the true tradition of Charles Williams and his fellow Inklings," wrote T.A. Shippey, editor of The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories..
"Intellectual and literary, Rough Magicke juxtaposes the arcane and the sacred while providing a glimpse of the divine. It’s Dead Poets Society with a dash of Harry Potter and The Name of the Rose." adds Mike Brotherton, author of Star Dragon (Tor Books, 2003) and Spider Star (2006).
"Rough Magicke is Goodbye, Mr. Chips meets The Father Brown Mysteries, with the welcome
and in fact sorely needed addition of witchcraft, telepathy, quicksand and magic rings," raves Mark O'Donnell '76
of Broadway's HAIRSPRAY fame and author of Getting Over Homer from Knopf.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John William Houghton grew up in Culver, Indiana (a town his family founded in 1844), and was graduated from Culver Military Academy in 1971. A prize-winning historian with degrees from Harvard, Yale, Indiana and Notre Dame universities, he has taught English and Religious Studies, served as a school chaplain, and contributed to both Tolkien the Medievalist and The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. Dr. Houghton is also the author of Falconry and other poems, published by Unlimited Publishing LLC in 2003. Houghton’s verse has been described as "a seamless modernization of Robert Frost." The characters of these poems show us glimpses of a spiritual world hidden, not in the forest paths and stone fences of New England, but in the equally rugged landscape of human relationships. The metrical discipline hidden within the seemingly natural speech of Houghton's characters reflects contemporary sensibilities in a transparent mirror of classical forms and structures. While a few of the poems have appeared previously in such publications as The Living Church and The Classical Outlook, this is Houghton's first book-length collection of poetry -- a remarkable work of literature for the sophisticated reader of verse.
SUMMER LOVE by G. Wayne Miller '76
ABOUT THE STORY: Ben Houghton is in his late 30s, married and living an artist's life made possible, in part, by his wealthy father. He spends summers at the family estate on Block Island, a place that holds many memories for him. The best is the one great love of his life: Serena Fisher, a beautiful young woman he met the after graduating college. Serena is back. A story of passion and obsession.
ABOUT THE WRITER: G. Wayne Miller is an author, journalist and filmmaker. His seven books include TOY WARS: The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies that Make Them and KING OF HEARTS, which is in Hollywood development. Miller is the producer and writer of ON THE LAKE: Life and Love in a Distant Place, a documentary about the tuberculosis epidemic that will be broadcast on PBS in 2009.
