Chad Taylor

OK: Officially sad, now

You know it's going to happen but it still hurts.
Skye Ferrante has spent six years at the Writers Room in Greenwich Village, blissfully banging away on his grandmother's 1929 Royal typewriter. The 37-year-old writer represented a bygone era, the last typewriter-user in a special room devoted to typists.

"In the event that there are no desks available, laptop users must make room for typists," read a sign posted in the "Typing Room" for years.

When Ferrante returned to the Writers Room in April after an eight-month break, the sign was gone and his noisy typewriter was no longer welcome.

"I was told I was the unintended beneficiary of a policy to placate the elderly members who have all since died off," said Ferrante, a Manhattan native who's writing children's books. "They offered me a choice to switch to a laptop or refund my money, which to me is no choice at all."

Ferrante was peeved, but not completely surprised. A growing number of scowls had replaced the smiles that once greeted the arrival of his black, glass-key typewriter.

"The minute the sign came down, I realized there was antagonism from some of the new members," he said. "They gave me an attitude when they saw me setting up the typewriter."
Pour yourself a drink before you read the rest at The New York Daily News.

And if that hasn't laid you low enough, this from the Wall Street Journal:
It has always been tough for literary fiction writers to get their work published by the top publishing houses. But the digital revolution that is disrupting the economic model of the book industry is having an outsize impact on the careers of literary writers...

Much as cheap digital-music downloads have meant that fewer bands can earn a living from record-company deals, fewer literary authors will be able to support themselves as e-books win acceptance, publishers and agents say. "In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income," says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and John Pipkin.
The article puts the blame on ebooks. Really? Really? Calling bullshit on it. (a) I don't think Nan will be moonlighting on her job anytime soon. (b) The music analogy is faulted. Bands famously never really "made a living" from record company deals: at the best they received huge advances, with all the career complications that involved. (c) And does anyone get into writing literature for the money? Oh, wait...
On the basis of a 4-page proposal, Alfred Knopf's Sonny Mehta has paid $2.5 million for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, the new novel by Kiran Desai. She's the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss.
So that's alright, then. Back to bed, you kids. Mum and Dad were just talking in loud voices, that's all.

(Patricia Highsmith photo from Corbis Images.)