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| Happy Birthday again! |
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| by Holger Reichard,
July 2008 |
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It's summer time. While it's raining in Germany California is afire and the web pages from and devoted to T.C. Boyle are both celebrating their birthdays. www.tcboyle.com almost hits puberty, while www.tcboyle.de reaches it's 5th anniversary in August 2008.
Do we have reason to throw a rousing party? Not really. Since we started www.tcboyle.de on the 1st august 2003 many goals we tried to archieve fell by the wayside and vanished forever into the webmasters desktop drawer.
Perhaps the German aphoristician Gerhard Uhlenbruck was right, when he said: »You need more than paper if you want to write. Above all you need a wastebasket.«
But we have no reason to hide our website in a wastebasket. Last April we had more than 41.240 visitors. The month before we set a new benchmark with 123.205 page views. Respectable numbers. First we thought search engines and spambots were to blame. They weren't. Countless mails and registrations for our monthly newsletter are proof of our growing popularity. We are more than happy to hear, that many people discover T.C. Boyle's work via www.tcboyle.de.
We certainly regret that we couldn't help to push the sales of the last short story collection Tooth and Claw. The German sales figures of this book were dissappointing compared to the success of Boyle's novels. The German critics welcomed Tooth and Claw with rave reviews - but to no avail. I for my part agree with them, but short stories seem to have no tradition in this country.
How can we change this?
A small step in the right direction is our 4th Being Boyle short story competition. Unfortunatly there was a lengthy delay, because we it took us some time to find potential sponsors for our Being Boyle Contest. If any of you want to join the fun: We are still searching. Because of this and other reasons the competition is postponed to 2009, but it will be worth the wait: The best entries will appear in a Being Boyle short story compilation published by Maro Verlag.
Meanwhile, our new project, the book blog, seems to run along smoothly. The Boylevard started in September 2007 and presents new reviews on a weekly schedule. After a three week summer break we will be back in the groove. The reason we can mantain this steady pace is the devotion of our busy writers - first and foremost Sabine, JohnDoe and Frank - who seem to spend most of their waking hours reading. In the next few weeks some new friends will be joining our enthusiastic team.
After five years of www.tcboyle.de there still lie interesting times ahead, as you can see. German Boyle-Aficionados should keep an eye on our website in September / October 2008. On the occasion of our fifth anniversary you can win copies of Zähne und Klauen (Hanser Verlag) and Windsbraut a limited collectors edition from the series Die tollen Hefte (published in September 2008 by Büchergilde Gutenberg).
We wish to thank the two publishers and especially editor Armin Abmeier for donating the books.
This anniversary celebration will be our official birthday party. Actually the day to break out the champagne is the 1st August 2008, but job and vacation preparations leave no time to party. I will nevertheless try to do at least something Boyle-related to get in the mood. Perhaps I will wear the Quetzalcoatl-Lite-T-Shirt we produced in honour of our first meeting with T.C. Boyle in the fall of 2003.
The design (see below) has been almost bleached out, Boyles autograph is unreadable now. The years and the washing machine have taken their toll. Oh well ... I will resist the temptation of saying something metaphoric now. That should be the privilege of T.C. Boyle, because that's what he does best. He will be 60 soon. Twelve times older than www.tcboyle.de! We looking forward to a rousing party. |
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| © 2008 www.tcboyle.de |
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