Inside WSKG's Off the Page
Whenever anyone asks about an appearance on OFF THE PAGE one of my first questions is, “Do you [or the author you’re representing] have a phone number starting with 607?” I’m not necessarily looking for contact information at that point but it’s the quickest way to determine who is a “regional author”. WSKG Radio’s primary coverage area fairly duplicates the 607 area code, albeit with some spillover into 315, 845, 585 and – not limiting ourselves to New York State – Pennsylvania’s five-seventy.
Occasionally I’ll go beyond the Southern Tier and adjacent lands if a book or author is of special regional interest, but otherwise I’m simply looking for well-written fiction and non-fiction, poetry and history and anything else created by a writer from our region. Sometimes the most important activity going on in a community is happening in solitude and in one person’s mind. We’ve discovered an abundance of good writing here in these hills.
One question I regularly receive is, “Do you read the entire book for an OFF THE PAGE interview?” I certainly do, usually with a speedy re-read just before the broadcast. There are some people who think you can get the idea of both style and substance by reading only the first and last chapters, but that seems to me like simply eating the crackers without the cheese in the middle.
A book can be itself an object of beauty, but there’s an old saying about not judging a book by its cover and it is literally true. Some of the best books I’ve seen lately were cheaply printed and bound, perhaps by the author himself. That should not detract from interest in the writing within.
An increasing number of authors choose to self-publish, often because they simply don’t want to take the time to hassle with agents and publishers. Especially at the beginning of a writing career DIY publishing is a sure way to get into print. But it may be more difficult to get into the bookstores, or even on-line sellers, especially if someone has written an especially personal book or one that deals with their own community. That should make such a book all the more relevant to the WSKG audience, for it means that on OFF THE PAGE you’re regularly learning about a first edition right from the person who wrote it, and possibly published it.
These days even well-established publishing houses are turning to print-on-demand and the invention of the e-book has made it possible for anyone to get their words into distribution. OFF THE PAGE will continue to concentrate on the content and quality of books by authors in our part of the country, how their mind and spirit was conveyed to us, with less concern about the system that made it happen.
- Bill Jaker is the host of WSKG Public Radio's OFF THE PAGE.
