James Frey | James Frey

Dec.20.2012 how a sin of omission... became a sin of commission... Back in 2009, I had just begun researching the life of Irna Phillps, soap opera's single mother, when I came across an article about her in the now-defunct publication, The Common Review, titled "Imperial Soap Opera," by Chicago writer, Les White. Six paragraphs into...	Jan.14.2011 How to Become a Millionaire You know how to become a millionaire? You start with a million bucks. You know how you get a book published? You start with a published book. And not just any book, but one that's sold a million copies, was on the NY Best Seller's List or had a major scandal surrounding it and then...
Nov.19.2010 Assembly Line Novels With MFA Students As The Fodder A Fray Over Frey’s Play to Prey on M.F.A.’s "We are currently accepting manuscripts for review." By Elise Blackwell The Internet is popping with outrage over James Frey’s new publishing entity Full Fathom Five, a stable of writers assembled to produce mostly young-adult novels...	May.13.2009 Oprah's Surprising Apology to Author The most unexpected mea culpa in the world has just been made public. Oprah Winfrey has apologised to James Frey for the torture-rack treatment she gave him on her show. Frey is the author whos book, A Million Little Pieces, described his descent into a drug- and violence-fueled hell of his own...
Nov.17.2008 Memoir Writing: Telling Your Truth I've always wanted to write a memoir. One agent even recommended that I write one of my prescriptive nonfiction books as a memoir. I never did. I saw her a few months ago. It had been about two years since she wrote that response to my book proposal. She told me now she would probably advise me to...	Nov.15.2008 Memoirs under Fire The dialogue over memoir continues. In an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Trouble with Memoirs,” (11/1/08), Nicholas Dawidoff declares memoir, “A pack of lies set down by a desperate humdrum character trying to cash in on the craze for misery.” Dawidoff, I should point out, is a...
Jun.07.2008 Literary Hoaxes and Memoirs--Please Weigh In I am a marketer by training and profession (there, I admitted it! and, yes, I've read most of your blogs about book marketing, but haven't contributed because I usually market bank products or technology and, thus, know too little about book marketing to be useful). There are some writing genes...	May.18.2008 The critic (tries to) become the writer A year or so ago I lamented the abuse of James Frey over the fact-faults of his memoir A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. (and now I know why we need tags, which I was lazy about in the early days--can't find the post) Oprah excoriated this recovering addict on her program, in an interview too painful to...
May.13.2008 Go Ask Beatrice A Million Little Things Good old James Frey is back in the news. Apparently, he’s written a novel and he’s once again sorry for lying about his faux memoir A Million Little Pieces. I still have on my DVR when Oprah raked him over the coals for lying, then she got mad at Nan Talese his editor who was defending him while he...