Sixth Chapter Posted

Restless City, the serial novel from CityLife Books and the Vegas Valley Book Festival, has reached the sixth chapter. Constance Ford  moves the story forward, while the final seventh chapter will be revealed by a reading from author Vu Tran at the festival.

With the final “reveal” on November 7th, the completed book will be available in print as a trade paper edition and an e-book edition.

For now, our friends who have been following along can catch chapter six hanging out with the dudes from CityLife at here. Enjoy!

Restless City: Second Chapter

The collaborative novel, now titled Restless City, has chapter two posted here. Written by UNLV professor John Irsfeld (Night Moves, Rats Alley), the story moves forward. A project of the Vegas Valley Book Festival and sponsored by CityLife, the entire book has seven sequential authors. The final chapter will be read at the festival in November. Enjoy and speculate what third author, Brian Rouff, will do next.

A glimpse of raw Vegas from a guy who drinks it in

From CityLife 07/09/09

By Andrew Kiraly

PHOTO BY BILL HUGHES P Moss in his office. Okay, it’s actually the Double Down bathroom.

Chances are you know P Moss as the affable, low-key owner of the Double Down Saloon, the sweatbox punk rock dive that sits west of the UNLV campus as it peters out into strip malls and convenience stores. Turns out you’ll soon get to know the goateed bar impresario as an author, too. His debut short story collection, Blue Vegas, will be published this fall by CityLife Books. (CityLife Books is an imprint of Stephens Press, a division of Stephens Media LLC.)

“It’s called Blue Vegas because the stories are sad, or built around sadness, some of which is unique to Las Vegas, some of which is universal,” says Moss.

Read entire article . . .

CityLife Books Signs First Author

P Moss, well-known Las Vegas cultural figure, pens dynamic short story collection.

CityLife Books, the new imprint of Stephens Press, has signed its first author, P Moss, a fiction writer and owner of the famous Double Down Saloon. His short story collection, Blue Vegas, will be released this fall.

“Blue Vegas is the perfect book to launch the CityLife Books imprint,” says Geoff Schumacher, editor of CityLife Books and publisher of the Las Vegas CityLife newspaper. “Moss has produced an incredible collection exploring the dark, human stories lurking in the shadows of the neon sheen of Las Vegas.”

The stories, Schumacher says, represent the work of a writer who knows Las Vegas and is a keen observer of its diverse population.

“Moss’ stories are a visceral exploration of the clash between old and new Las Vegas,” Schumacher says. “They shine a light on the hard luck and lingering anguish faced by Las Vegans who’ve been trampled by this single-minded city.”

After working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, Moss came to Las Vegas in 1992 and opened the Double Down Saloon on Paradise Road. Dubbed a “clubhouse
for the lunatic fringe,” the Double Down soon became internationally famous, drawing a lively mix of tourists and locals. A second Double Down opened in New York’s East Village in 2006, and Moss recently opened a new Las Vegas establishment, Frankie’s Tiki Room, on West Charleston Boulevard.

Despite his success in the bar business, Moss has always envisioned a second career as a writer. “No quality Las Vegas fiction has ever been written,” Moss says. “The soul of the city has never been captured on the printed page. This can be attributed in large part to the fact that writers try to sensationalize the obvious, rather than focusing on the raw human emotions unique to the people who live and work in this unique place. I believe I have done a good job of reversing this trend.”

CityLife Books plans to publish up to four titles per year in a trade paperback format. The books will be available directly to CityLife newspaper readers and at area bookstores and online retailers.

Stephens Press is a division of Stephens Media LLC, and a sister company to CityLife and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Established in 2003, the press publishes primarily regional nonfiction.

“The imprint provides a vehicle to publish quality Vegas-centric fiction with a unique CityLife vibe,” says Carolyn Hayes Uber, president of Stephens Press, “and we’re especially excited to have P Moss’ stories set a high bar for our fiction offerings.”

CityLife Books accepts nonfiction and fiction proposals and manuscripts that speak to regular readers of the alternative weekly newspaper. For submission guidelines and more information, check out the imprint’s website at www.lvcitylifebooks.com.

No Comments » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Blue Vegas, Carolyn Hayes Uber, CityLife Books, Double Down Saloon, Frankie’s Tiki Room, P Moss, Stephens Press | Permalink
Posted by carolynhayesuber

CityLife Books Imprint Launched

Exciting news! From the press release . . .

CityLife partners with

Stephens Press to publish books

Stephens Press, the book publishing division of Stephens Media, has launched a new imprint called CityLife Books.

CityLife Books will publish up to four titles per year in a trade paperback format. The books will be available directly to CityLife newspaper readers and at area bookstores and online retailers.

CityLife Publisher Geoff Schumacher, the imprint’s editor, said he is looking for nonfiction and fiction proposals and manuscripts that speak to regular readers of the alternative weekly newspaper. “This imprint aims to create a new outlet for local writers who have something provocative or important to say about Southern Nevada,” Schumacher says. “We want to publish books that question the conventional wisdom and offer new ways of looking at this region and its people. Great writing will be paramount.”

Schumacher, who has written two books published by Stephens Press and edited several others, says he expects to receive a great many manuscripts. “I will look at them all, but of course we can publish only a tiny fraction of what we receive,” he says. “Quality comes first, but we also will focus on books that we believe a large number of readers will want to buy.”

Stephens Press President Carolyn Hayes Uber says she is excited to help talented writers share their voice and vision. “CityLife readers are outspoken and passionate about popular culture, politics and causes,” Uber says. “CityLife Books, whether fiction or nonfiction, will reflect and embrace this perspective the newspaper has fostered.”

Submissions to CityLife Books should follow the guidelines set forth on the Stephens Press website (www.stephenspress.com).

About Writing

My colleague Geoff Schumacher recently presented a workshop on journalism for the Las Vegas Writers Conference. Included in his handouts was this essay about writing. I thought it deserved to be shared with other writers and lovers of writing, so I sought his permission to post it here.

“I write because I can’t do normal work like other people.”

Orhan Pamuk, winner of 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature

“Words on a page give the world coherence.”

Alberto Manguel, Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World

Photo courtesy Scriatic (CC)

Writers write. If you’re a writer, you can’t help yourself. Putting words on paper, or onto a computer screen, is part of who you are. Writing helps us understand and give order to our chaotic lives and to a turbulent world.

Most writers want others to read their work. We want attention, validation, reassurance, fame. We want to be praised, questioned, challenged. We can’t help but write, but we like it better when our words are disseminated widely.

Despite our economic troubles, there never has been a better time to be a writer, because there never have been so many avenues to publication. Consider: You can set up a Facebook or Twitter page in about two minutes and start publishing your words to your friends and colleagues. Or you can set up a blog in about five minutes and start publishing for all the world to see.

These may seem like mundane forms of publishing, but I disagree. I have 255 friends on Facebook. If I write an essay and post it on my Facebook page, it is immediately available for perusal by 255 people who, because they know me, are likely to take a look at it. How would you have accomplished such an endeavor 30 years ago? If you wrote an essay and wanted to share it with your friends and colleagues, you would have had to make photocopies and either hand them out or put them in the mail to reach those 255 people. That’s a lot of copies, a lot of envelopes, a lot of addresses to track down and a lot of stamps. This process also would take a lot more time – days, maybe weeks.

Of course, we also would like to be compensated for our writing. We want our writing to be a money-making venture, not just an obsession or hobby. This complicates matters, but it’s not an unreasonable request. In order to be paid for writing, though, we must write something that a publication is willing to buy. This often means writing that is substantially different in style and substance from what we might post on Facebook or in a personal blog.

More often than not, what we’re talking about is journalism: facts, figures, interviews, research. We must be thorough, accurate. We must explore multiple perspectives. We must delve into subjects we might not otherwise care about. And then, once we’ve gathered the materials we need, we must organize all those facts, figures, quotes and multiple perspectives into a coherent and entertaining piece of writing.

It looks easy. It’s not.

But it’s also not brain surgery. Journalism is a craft that requires a set of skills that can be developed by most people who know how to read and to write a clear sentence.

The most important trait of a good journalist is curiosity. Successful journalists are innately curious about how things work. They follow a road to see where it leads. They ask lots of questions and genuinely want to know the answers. They aren’t afraid of talking to strangers. They aren’t satisfied with the conventional wisdom.

Successful journalists also are persistent. When they ask questions, they expect answers. They aren’t deterred by roadblocks. They know there is more than one way to get the information they seek.

Sometimes, journalism isn’t such a serious business. But writing a restaurant review or reporting on a ball game still demands the same skills needed to uncover the Watergate scandal.

4-27-09

Geoff Schumacher, a veteran journalist, is the director of community publications for Stephens Media. He is also the publisher of CityLife and Big Island Weekly. He has written two books, Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas and Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue (Stephens Press) and is working on two more. Schumacher was recently named editor of CityLife Books, a Stephens Press imprint. He writes a weekly column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For more information, see www.geoffschumacher.com.