Since Montclair is the epicenter of the literary universe, and since the Montclair literati (aka MEWS, Montclair Editors and Writers) was holding its annual party on Saturday night at the Diva Lounge, close watchers of the publishing scene might not be surprised what local scribes were yapping about at the Diva this Saturday: Amazon’s abrupt decision Friday night to drop Macmillan titles from its website. Since Macmillan is the umbrella for such houses as Henry Holt, St. Martin’s and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, that’s a lot of books. And a lot of writers.

Many writers at the MEWS party learned of the publishing war that night. I was in fact excitedly greeted with the question, “Who’s your publisher?”, only to find out I was one of those banished from Amazon. Everybody turned to Montclair’s John Mutter (pictured with his wife Cynthia Clark), who as editor of Shelf Awareness, knew most about what was going on.

Read the rest on Baristanet.