Great Regulars: I listened as, one after the next,

novelists Colum McCann, Edwidge Danticat and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie took the stage to pay homage to [Chinua] Achebe. Toni Morrison read an essay about the author she'd written in the 1960s; Chris Abani--like Achebe, a Nigerian writer--spoke in Ibo before switching to what he called "the more primitive language" of English.

At the end of the evening, Achebe appeared onstage in his wheelchair, wearing a black beret. (He was partially paralyzed in a 1990 car accident.) He spoke slowly, noting his surprise that a tribute to a novel about Africa could fill a theater in New York.

from David L. Ulin: Los Angeles Times: Remembering Chinua Achebe, a writer who connected us to the world

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"By the time a self-published author has made a success of his or her book," [Laura] Miller observes, "all the hard stuff is done, not just writing the manuscript but editing and the all-important marketing. Instead of investing their money in unknown authors, then collaborating to make their books better and find them an audience, publishers can swoop in and pluck the juiciest fruits at the moment of maximum ripeness."

from David L. Ulin: Los Angeles Times: The paradox of self-publishing

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