On March 2, Blue Ear Books welcomed a handful of its own in a Zoom event that was equal parts reunion and reckoning. The reunion included friends and authors both old and new, spanning fields as diverse as business, global economics, veterans’ experience, labor rights, food, music, and politics.
Ethan Casey welcomed the group and, as is typical of a homecoming, there was talk about old projects, families, friends in common, and how BEB had evolved from an idea while Ethan was working in Southeast Asia to a flourishing if still-humble reality. With several dozen books already published and plenty more in the pipeline, the conversation was no longer about “what-ifs” but now firmly rooted in best practice.
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The reckoning is the present moment, when we find ourselves living and working in a political environment that long ago left the realm of That could never happen and is now mired in What will we wake up to next? It would be an excess of privilege to suggest it’s a “great time to be a writer.” The old British adage, with untraceable but suggested Chinese origin, “May you live in interesting times,” functions mostly as a curse, wherever its roots.
However, there is validity in the idea that Ethan and a handful of friends were on target in suggesting, close to two decades ago, that there was a method to what the big presses were not printing, as well as which stories they decided were worth telling. What seemed like fantasy or science fiction in 2000 seems no longer fantastic nor fiction.
Among those joining Ethan on March 2 was Jonathan Garfunkel, who has been working with BEB on two books about the Japanese-American farmers of Bainbridge Island, Washington. Garfunkel’s story is standard pre-genocide fare, which I don’t say mockingly. More like a shot across the bow.
Garfunkel, calling upon research, experience, and being local to the geography where the story took place, has written gently - and not without a tremor of warning - about what happened there in 1942 and its relevance today. In “Never again is now: When remembering becomes a political act,” published a long year ago on this Substack, Garfunkel walks us through the agricultural roots of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese farmers, their successes, and their ultimate externally imposed collapse. He relates that experience to two local and recent events in Seattle, one an individually-motivated defacing of a memorial, the other an act of cowardice by public leadership.
I’ll stop short here, except to note that Jonathan has introduced me to a new term, “anticipatory obedience,” which describes how folks kneel before authoritarianism. Besides his examples, you’ll recall how universities (including my former institution) have happily canceled their DE&I programs and how influencers happily began to parrot (sometimes for pay) approved authoritarian messaging.
Blue Ear Books remains proud of its independent space related to political messaging. That being said, anything that is bad for a free press (or free speech for that matter) is, de facto, on the wrong side of both BEB and history in general. Garfunkel’s essay is a great example of what we hope becomes a centerpiece of Blue Ear Books: honest, transparent stories from our community of authors.
One doesn’t have to be a sociologist or an expert on marketing/demographics to see how hard it would be to publish these very human stories with one of the big book publishers. Taking advantage of the Blue Ear Books niche, we’re eager and happy to share local stories of hope and empathy, highlighting those not willing to practice anticipatory obedience.
More than that, Blue Ear Books is happy to tell authentic stories in any vein; it need not be political or controversial. One method of building the Blue Ear Books brand is for our authors to share short works, maybe pieces of a bigger abstract or story, or maybe just a stand-alone piece. These pieces function as a sort of intellectual muscle memory, hopefully helping you build your craft and definitely helping Blue Ear Books get its messaging out to would-be authors and readers. Jon’s piece is a good example of style, content, and length.
Please reach out to me if you have a piece, or an idea for one, and we’ll be happy to provide feedback. In the meantime, please put Monday, April 27 at 7:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time/4:00 pm U.S. Pacific Time on your calendar for our next Zoom conversation. (Reminder: You may log in simply by going to www.blueearbooks.com, clicking on “Contact us,” and connecting to the Zoom link down the page. Or use this direct link.) We’ll catch up, share a bit more about the writers’ retreat cabin in Colorado, and welcome a yet-to-be-named author to discuss taking the first step in writing a book.
John Singleton is consulting editor at Blue Ear Books. He can be reached at js@blueearbooks.com.
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