The Critical I: Six Questions for Philadelphia Inquirer Book Editor Frank Wilson

AS PART of an ongoing series, the NBCC will be talking to book editors and critics around the country. We recently caught up with member Frank Wilson, book editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Q: Seamus Heaney famously resolved to dig with his pen. I understand you actually do a fair bit of digging with a trowel. Do you ever think your reviews out in the garden?

A: I think about my reviews whatever I'm doing. In fact, I find that the worst place to think about them is at the keyboard. I write down what I've been thinking at the keyboard and then when I run out of anything to say, I get up and do something else. I'm working on a review now and was having some trouble with the lead. So I went down and cooked myself a late breakfast (eggs and wild boar sausage, by the way). Now things are a little clearer in the old noggin.

Q: How does this differ -- if at all -- with your experience of writing poetry?

A: The reviews are constructed. The poems grow. The germ of an idea forms and one ponders it over time and it develops, often slowly. The idea for the villanelle of mine that appeared in the most recent issue of Boulevard came to me in early December and I finished it the following spring, revisiting it on a fairly regular basis as I walked to and from work. Often, I live with the poems for quite some time. (Though sometimes one just pops up - and I have written a few to order.) The reviews have to meet a deadline. What they have in common with the poems comes of the space restrictions writing for a newspaper now entails: You have think more formally than used to be the case, I think.

Q: In addition to editing the book page, you run a blog. You have also run reviews by bloggers on your pages. What do you think print reviewers could learn from the blog world and vice versa?

A: The bloggers I have had review for me have the same qualities I look for in any reviewer - knowledge and passion. So I don't think of them as being in a separate camp as it were. What I think is important about blogging is the synergy it brings to the field - any field. Print reviews, as you know, do not really affect a book's sales very much. Oh sure, there are those people - poor dears - who feel obliged to read a book because the New York Times gave it rave, but for the most part people read books because they've heard from other people that the book is worth reading. Blogs mimic - perhaps even duplicate - this word-of-mouth process, and so are likely in the long run to have a notable effect on sales. I also think blogging is a good way for reviewers to get themselves known. If you're blogging, and people see your blog, they figure out pretty quickly if you're worth reading.

Q: How has your blog been treated at the paper? And has it had a noticeable effect on the section's viability? Do you have any plans to add new kinds of content -- podcasts, interviews -- to it?

A: Well, the paper set the blog up for me and I've got plenty of support for it. I also think the paper's book coverage has become better known because of the blog. I see the blogging as a necessary part of being a review editor these days. It's extremely helpful - indispensible, actually -when it comes to covering the beat, since I get so many tips from sharp-eyed observers like Maxine Clarke in England and Dave Lull in Superior, WI and Vikram Johri in Delhi and Rus Bowden in Lowell, MA. As for expanding it, we have done some podcasts already, and I hope this fall to start doing them on a more regular basis. They would be attached to the online book page and linked to at the blog. My principal problem in that regard is that it's a one-man band and there's only so much of me to go around. Thanks to Knight Ridder, of unhappy memory, a lot of my time - maybe a third or more - is taken up with clerical duties. My wish list as book review editor? A larger budget, more space - and a full-time assistant.

Q: So you have to open all those jiffy paks yourself?

A: Well, a young man named Kevin McManmon is doing yeoman's service for me today, but I'll probably have to come in Saturday to finally catch up after being on vacation for two weeks. I don't mind the work - I started out as a clerk - but it would be nice to be able to concentrate on some other things, especially at my advanced age.

Q: Advanced age my arse. What are you reading right now?

A: I'm just finishing what seems to be a nice little crime novel called Carte Blanche by Carlo Lucarelli. It's another of those splendid Europa Editions
(God bless Kent Carroll!) Then I'm going to have several days of pure pleasure revisiting The Three Musketeers in the new Richard Pevear translation. I'm planning on doing a big piece about G.K. Chesterton soon (why has no one ever made a film out of The Man Who Was Thursday?). And the book I'm reviewing today is Grumpy Old Bookman, a selection of posts from Michael Allen's blog. God, is it funny.

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