February 2012
20 posts
bennettmadison:
The Magnetic Fields - You Love...
“6. Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself. David P. Abbott was...”
– Teller Reveals His Secrets | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine / I heart Teller.
“Big-t Truths cannot: they are what they are, and they remain the same from Homer...”
– how to find the Big Meaning of your novel ( blog) that will make your readers fall wildly in love with you | Justine Musk / I needed the reminder that focusing on the front story is the important part, just tonight.
“Romance novels are feminist documents. They’re written almost exclusively...”
– Romance Novels, The Last Great Bastion Of Underground Writing | The Awl / This is a fantastic piece.
“To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see...”
– Twelve Things You Were Not Taught In School About Creative Thinking (Psychology Today, via YA Highway)
“I tell them, “I write this shit for you!” But a lot of writers won’t admit to...”
– Sherman Alexie in conversation with Neko Case
January 2012
20 posts
I am just leaving this over here →
Because I get this one day of oversharing, right? (Also, both these characters are total nerds, in different ways, because this is really a #nerdromancethriller.)
“It would be like ‘The Road,’ ” one publishing executive in New York said,...”
– Barnes & Noble, Taking On Amazon in the Fight of Its Life - NYTimes.com / Hysterically hysterical = always a good sign for an industry. (Except…there will still be ladies, at least, right? So not quite as grim as The Road.)
Gender bias at NPR — and what it reveals about the... →
The truth is that major publishers put out more books written by men than women. Print publications write more about books written by men. NPR discusses more books written by men. Unsurprisingly, the best seller list is dominated by books written by men: men outnumbered women 25 to 11 on last year’s number-one-best-seller fiction charts. And to be honest, I’m not innocent of this either —...
“It’s amazing I’ve lived this long without destroying a person.”
– Maurice Sendak to Stephen Colbert
“Teenagers are not some alien population,” she said. “When we see new...”
– Danah Boyd - Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes - NYTimes.com
“I have a small collection of Angela material. As well as the newspaper cuttings,...”
– Angela Carter: a portrait in postcards | Books | The Observer / I want this book.
“In 1989, Harlequin came up with a marketing scheme to capitalize on an...”
– Penny Jordan, author of 200 romance novels, dies at 65 - The Washington Post / Fascinating obit, including this strange detail at the end.
Frederica Sagor Maas, Scriptwriter From the Silent... →
15 things learned from watching all the movies on... →
Good stuff. Sayeth austinkleon:
For the past 5 or 6 years, my friend James Flynn has been making his way through the movies on the WGA’s 101 greatest screenplays list and blogging about them. Here’s a list of 15 things he’s learned.
“Gazzaniga suspects that narrative coherence helps us to navigate the world – to...”
– Your Storytelling Brain | Think Tank | Big Think / Innnteresting.
“Krissie: Though it takes her a while to let him drink her blood. But then,...”
– Jennifer Crusie’s Blog: Argh Ink | The Three-Goddesses Chat: Heroines / Lovelove this conversation about romance heroines.
“P.S.—That engine! While we’ve got it, and the dynamo, and the...”
– The Cruise of the Snark: Chapter 1 — Foreword / I think this weird nonfiction book is my favorite Jack London.
Novelist Darin Strauss's Advice on Starting in the... →
Some good stuff here.
Cybils: The 2011 Cybils Finalists →
Great lists all round — so many of my own favorites on here. Yay! Every year I marvel at what an organized, professional, fabulous job the Cybils admins and jurors do. It’s truly amazing this is all a volunteer effort and it’s undeniably better run than many professional awards. We are lucky to have them.
December 2011
20 posts
One of Those Obligatory Lists
In terms of reading, this was a fantastic year — as you’ll see, my effort to winnow to a Top 10 resulted in a Top 17, that could just as easily have been a Top 20 or more. But I forced myself to stop. In reverse alphabetical order by author, some books I suggest you take care not to miss.
Some Top Reads of 2011
How to Save a Life
by Sara Zarr
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus...
“Haque offers three pieces of advice to help visionaries and leaders lead more...”
– The Art of Living Meaningfully and Well | IdeaFeed | Big Think / I like this (and I’m not even a visionary or a leader, so I’m thinking it’s just good advice).
“Miss Nevada has been abducted by aliens on numerous occasions. The stage...”
– From “Shoe and Marriage” by Kelly Link (from her first collection, Stranger Things Happen) / Have gotten to reread this collex this week and had almost forgotten just how much I love it. This story is one of my favorites.
“In 1963, a sixteen-year-old San Diego high school student named Bruce McAllister...”
– Paris Review – Document: The Symbolism Survey / This is fabulous.
#Topper Party - Shaken & Stirred →
Time: 8:30PM US EST
Date: Tuesday Dec 27
(Sydney Time: 12:30PM Wed Dec 28)
Hashtag: #Topper
A Fine Bromance (with hobbits) →
cassandraclare:
Well, okay then! I decided to do my top five because of time contraints, but it was fun regardless! I’m sure I’ll be leaving some out — Kirk and Spock are a legendary bromance, but due to not ever having seen more than one episode of Star Trek, I don’t think I could do them much justice. Sam…
Ah, bromances for the ages.