Pelican Press alumnus launches new online Sarasota news outlet

It’s rare to report about a new publication opening up shop, but I’m happy to pass along the news: Former Pelican Press Editor Rachel Brown Hackney has launched a new electronic publication dedicated to all things local. The name? The Sarasota News Leader.

Right now, it looks like your typical blog, but the long-term goal of the outlet is to become an electronic weekly, similar in flavor to the Pelican, but delivered via electronic tablets like iPads and Kindles. The staff will be covering city and county government, the school board and community news, and publishing investigative pieces to boot.

The site dubs itself “the progressive voice of SW Florida,” a voice those involved feel isn’t represented in local media, with the Observer Group’s cuts at the Pelican and the Herald-Tribune‘s buyout of Creative Loafing.

Hackney, who spent years at the Pelican, isn’t alone in her endeavor. Longtime Pelican reporter and former Patch contributor Stan Zimmerman is breaking news regularly at City Hall; his latest scoop is the news that some city officials are not currently bonded, a violation of our charter. The publication’s editorial board called the revelation “yet another scandal” rocking City Hall and “erod[ing] the confidence of citizens.”

The site also features county reporting from former Creative Loafing and Florida Independent Editor Cooper Levey-Baker. He broke the news about potential Department of Justice intervention in Kathy Dent’s plan to consolidate voting precincts around the county. Others contributing to the publication include Staff Writer Robert Ross, Contributing Photographer Norman Schimmel, Contributing Writers David Staats and Fran Palmeri, A&E Writer Elinor Rogosin and General Manager Robert S. Hackney, Rachel’s husband.

The plan for now is for the staff to keep blogging to build credibility and buzz, and then launch the full-fledged e-weekly come August. Can a new publication make a dent in the Observer– and Herald-Tribune-dominated local media universe? I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Cancer on the Brain … Baseball, Business and Beating the Odds

I’m really excited to announce the release of a new memoir by Jay Lefevers, an Arizona businessman who battled and beat a brain tumor and cancer.

Appropriately titled Cancer on the Brain, Lefevers’ book is an inspiring record of surviving multiple brain surgeries and fighting cancer, while also running a real estate business, being a husband and father, and coaching a winning Little League team.

I worked with the author on some of the editing for the book and have previously blogged about a film he was involved in backing — Another Happy Day.

For me, Cancer on the Brain is a fascinating memoir about remaining focused on living life — even when facing possible death — and how and why we all need to be our own best healthcare advocates. If we don’t watch out for ourselves and our loved ones, and aggressively advocate for our health and the kind of care we receive, we run the risk of being subject to distracted doctors with jam-packed patient waiting rooms and well-meaning but over-burdened medical professionals.

Lefevers has a unique tone — he’s tough on himself and he’s tough on the world around him in some ways — but that’s what I enjoyed most about his book: his unflinching honesty about himself, his experiences and how he interpreted his circumstances and how he chose to meet the challenges of multiple brain surgeries but then after surviving all that, having to face cancer (lymphoma) and enduring the ensuing chemotherapy.

I sometimes bitch about my life and this thing or that thing not going my way … I moan and groan about not having enough time to do some of the things I want to do or spend time with the people I say matter to me … and then I read a book like this. About a guy with a business employing 15 people, a wife, three kids about to go to college, a couple of cats and a whole team of Little League players — all looking to him in one way or another to keep their lives and interests on track — and he still manages to find time to ride a roller-coaster (despite metal stitches in his head) and walk the Freedom Trail in Boston (despite the fact that he essentially had to relearn how to walk after the brain tumor had numbed out his nerves and left him unable to feel his foot).

I found it inspiring to read about the way Lefevers stayed fully engaged with his life — even when faced with the possibility of losing that life. I need to take a lesson or two from this book.

You can snag a copy of Cancer on the Brain at all your usual online book-buying haunts — at Barnes & Noble stores across the country, and, if you happen to live in the Phoenix area, Lefevers will be giving a talk in July at Scottsdale Barnes & Noble.

If you’d like to help spread the word about Cancer on the Brain, just visit the book’s Facebook page by clicking here and “liking” it!

No Impact Man makes a big impact (on me)

I’m full of all kinds of movie recommendations this month! The trailer above is for the documentary No Impact Man, which tracks one family’s quest to reduce its waste to zero over the course of a year. The man who hatched the scheme, Colin Beavan, stops using electricity, watching TV and using gas-powered transportation — dragging his initially skeptical family through the process as well.

No, I’m not planning on following in Beaven’s footsteps, but the film offers a ton of practical ideas for how to live a more sustainable life, and I encourage you to check it out. It’s available on DVD now (and there’s also a related book).

Extra special bonus flick pick: Another Happy Day

That right there is a (very) foul-mouthed glimpse at the film Another Happy Day, unveiled at Sundance last year and now available on DVD.

The movie tells the story of a twice-married mother of four traveling to her parents’ estate for the wedding of her oldest son. The cast is dynamite: Ellen Barkin (Sea of Love, This Boy’s Life, Ocean’s Thirteen), Kate Bosworth, Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream), Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) and Demi Moore. And so’s the pedigree of first-time director Sam Levinson, the son of Barry Levinson, who has helmed major Hollywood hits like Rain Man and Good Morning, Vietnam.

The movie is a tense, sharp-tongued family drama dripping with black comedy, and I’m not surprised the move won a Best Screenwriting award at Sundance 2011. The dialogue is just that provocative and cutting.

I month ago, I filled you in on my top Sarasota Film Festival picks, and even though Another Happy Day didn’t come anywhere near our local fest, I’m happily adding it to the heap of festival-style films I’m recommending this year. Well worth a rent.

Sense and the City: Shakespeare’s words to live by

It’s tax season, but rather than turn to a CPA for advice on how to file, I’m reading Shakespeare. Check out my newest Sense and the City column to find out why.

Here’s a preview:

William Shakespeare was born — and died – in the month of April. Even if you’ve never read one of his plays or sonnets, I’m sure you know his words. “Every dog will have its day,” “star-crossed lovers,” “dead as a doornail,” “bated breath.” Even, “Knock, knock! Who’s there?” — just a small few of the many Shakespearean phrases that are part of everyday English language.

Wit and drama aside, Shakespeare’s plays are above all else immutable lessons in living with integrity, a quality which seems as on its way to obsolescence as the American penny — something we fish out of the bottom of our pockets only after we’ve hit rock bottom.

After all, these days, if you’re caught doing something wrong or saying something egregious, you simply show up looking contrite on Good Morning, America or make a tearful confession to People magazine, and voilà, your integrity — or at least your viability in the marketplace of public opinion — is restored.

In a world that increasingly thinks that doing the right thing is simply doing the wrong thing and not getting caught, what relevance can Shakespeare have?

Read the rest over at the Ticket website.

Sense and the City: Picking the winners at this year’s Sarasota Film Festival

My column in this week’s Ticket is all about settling into the dark of the movie theater and enjoying some high-quality flicks, just in time for this year’s Sarasota Film Festival. Here’s a taste:

My brain is a sieve when it comes to remembering people’s names, the ticker symbol for my miniscule retirement investment and what I had for dinner last night, but just say the words, “Leave the gun; take the cannoli,” “I’ll have what she’s having,” “Do I laugh now, or wait till it gets funny?” or “Yippee-ki-yay [INSERT WORD THAT’S UNPRINTABLE IN A FAMILY NEWSPAPER]” and I can tell you the film title and character speaking without even scratching my head.

I live for those rare moments when the person I’m talking to nods, gives me a knowing smile, and says simply, “De Niro in ‘Casino’ ” after I toss the line “And the eye in the sky is watching us all,” into a conversation about Google or Facebook.

In other words, I’m a cinephile — a nut for movies and films (and yes, there is a difference). So of course, I love the fact that my hometown has its very own film festival, with its ever-growing film industry bona fides. Though I generally eschew the glitz, red carpets, celebrity appearances and pricy parties — give me a ticket, a dark theater and a film that makes me laugh, cry, cringe, grab hold of the person sitting next to me, feel like falling in love or think about changing my life — and I’m golden.

Read the rest — including the films I’m most pumped about — over at the Ticket website.

Sign up for Boot Camp today!

No, I’m not forcing you to join the military. I’m merely recommending that you sign up to attend the Women’s Resource Center’s Boot Camp for Women Entrepreneurs.

I’ve had an entrepreneurial outlook most of my life — even when I was working for other people. So, I’m completely bummed to miss this fabulous event, which is being offered this Sat., April 14. Even if you work for someone else, the entrepreneurial attitude — thinking/acting/working as an employer instead of an employee — is what sets you apart and paves the way for growth in the company. It’s short money — just $25 to hear from expert entrepreneurs in an all-day seminar.

Click here for more details and to register online.

Sam Harris on the ‘death knell for traditional publishing’

Over on his blog, Sam Harris — a thinker whose work touches on the messy intersection of science, religion and global conflict — offers interesting some provocative analysis on “The Future of the Book.” Harris draws on his own experiences as a book author, a blogger and a user of social media to examine how free online publishing has altered readers’ expectations of how much they should pay for the written word.

The piece — first published last September — is worth reading in full, but here’s a taste:

I am currently writing a traditional, printed book for my mainstream publisher, the Free Press. At the other extreme, I do a lot of writing for free, almost entirely on my blog. In between working for free and working for my publisher, I’ve begun to experiment with self publishing short ebooks. Last week, I published LYING, my first installment in this genre. The results have been simultaneously thrilling and depressing.

…

The essay appears to have had its desired effect on many readers. But others were not satisfied. Some did not understand the format—a very short book that can be read in 40 minutes—and expected to get a much longer book for $1.99. Many wondered why it is available only as an ebook. Some fans of ebooks were powerfully aggrieved to find it available only on the Kindle platform—they own Nooks, or detest Amazon for one reason or another. However, the fact is that Amazon made it extraordinarily easy for me to do this; the Kindle Single is the perfect format for so short a book; and Kindle content can be read on every computer and almost any handheld device. I decided that it was not worth my time or other people’s money to publish LYING elsewhere, or as a physical book.

On the surface, the launch of LYING has been a great success. It reached the #1 spot for Kindle Singles immediately and #9 for all Kindle content. It is amazing to finish writing, hit “upload,” and watch one’s work soar and settle, however briefly, above the vampire novels and diet books.

I would be lying, however, if I said that I wasn’t stung by some of the early criticism. Some readers felt that a 9000-word essay was not worth $1.99, especially when they can read my 5000-word blog posts for free. It is true that I put a lot of work into many of my blog posts, but LYING took considerably longer to write than any of them. It is a deceptively simple book—and I made it simple for a reason. Some of my readers seem not to have appreciated this and prefer to follow me into my usual thickets of argument and detail. That’s fine. But it is, nevertheless, painful to lose a competition with oneself, especially over a difference of $1.99.

One thing is certain: writers and public intellectuals must find a way to get paid for what they do—and the opportunities to do this are changing quickly. My current solution is to write longer books for a traditional press and publish short ebooks myself on Amazon. If anyone has any better ideas, please publish them somewhere—perhaps on a blog—and then send me a link. And I hope you get paid.

Satisfy your jazz jones in Sarasota

“Jazz gets under your skin like a sultry and slightly mysterious woman – improvising, free-form, leaving you never knowing what to expect next.” Read the rest of this week’s Sense and the City column … about all that jazz! Click here to read the online version.

Would you rather go naked? Does anyone love a bare-faced woman?

Somewhere along the line, women bought into the idea hook, line and sinker that to be “professional,” “sexy,” and most of all “acceptable” — we had to put paint all over our faces. Not all women feel this way, of course, but with billions upon billions of dollars spent annually on makeup in the U.S. alone — it’s a fair bet a lot of them do. Read today’s Sense and the City column on the conundrum of the made and unmade face!