February 2011
38 posts
January 2011
55 posts
“Your greatest creation is your creative life. It’s all in your hands....”
– Sara Zarr Keynote - The Official SCBWI Conference Blog
A summary and some excerpts of Sara Zarr’s talk. Edited to add: A much more in-depth report here. Great stuff.
“The muralist introduced himself to me as “Psyckose,” as many...”
– Life Below The City Of Light: Paris Underground : NPR
From the Library: 100 Young Adult Books for the... →
I already tweeted this, but for good measure. Lots of great stuff included.
Edited to add: Except then they had to go and be terrible.
The Force Acting on the Displaced Body,... →
A podcast reading of one of my favorite @ChristopherRowe stories.
“Every time someone reads a book about a character who is different from them —...”
– Fabulous post by Malinda Lo: Don’t judge a book by its cover. Read the whole thing.
No, Seriously, I’m Not Fucking Around, You Really... →
This is pretty effing hilarious:
Snooki shouldn’t even be allowed outside and amongst the public without a handler. She’s like a shapeshifting gonorrhea monster. That girl has more brain in her hair than she does in her actual head. And yet I know talented writers who are struggling, but Snooki — some kind of orange monkey-goblin — gets paid enough money to buy a house full of solid gold...
“6. JOHN AZZARELLI, also known as “Johnny Cash”
– The 20 Best Nicknames in the Big Mafia Bust - New York News - Runnin’ Scared (via @martinimade)
“There are many painful, moving stories about female friendship out there—Amy...”
– Paris Review – My Rayannes, Emma Straub Lovely. I’d also add @marcydermansky’s Twins as a book that perfectly captures this feeling of obsession, although, of course, it involves sisters.
Time for Another Hawk Update « Library of Congress... →
As a secondary measure, they also pulled a mesh tightly across the opening to the dome (which they call the “lantern”) so that she cannot descend into the Main Reading Room, and this would also catch her in the event that she were to fall.
The team has also included members from the Washington Humane Society, and they are in agreement with the process and procedures being used for the...
The Art of Penguin Science Fiction →
Gorgeous assemblage of SF covers. (Via @magiciansbook.)
“While our intellect chases its bright and lofty visions, our most original,...”
– The Drawing Board (blog): Terri Windling: Dare to be Foolish
Great stuff from Terri—read the whole thing.
Unfurl the Canvas →
The first chapter of Christopher’s novel Sandstorm is up as a preview at Wizards of the Coast. If you read only one D&D novel this year, make it the one with awesome gladiators, warrior women, a city in the air, and—best of all—Nightfeather’s Circus of Wonders. I heart this book. (And not just because my sweetie wrote it.) Out March 1!
“Forced to write within a certain framework, the imagination is taxed to its...”
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This quote is attributed to T.S. Eliot in Robert McKee’s Story, Luke Sullivan’s Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, and on almost every freaking blog in existence, but as far as I can Google, it’s actually a paraphrase of Eliot from an interview with Joseph Heller in the Paris Review (he also mentions it...
“I think, on some level, when we marvel at how the world has become more...”
– Death In 19th Century America - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Personal - The Atlantic
“These are movies that work on a level beyond rationality, in the realm of...”
– Columns - Dancing in the Dark - Los Angeles magazine
Steve Erickson assesses Black Swan as a prime specimen of the “Cinema of Hysteria.”
“How do publishers survive if Barnes & Noble cuts half its stores, Borders...”
– Weightless Books: An e-Bookstore for Indie Presses
Yay, Small Beer!
“Saul Bellow described how acquaintances “draw off into coldness and enmity who’d...”
– The Deadliest Book Review - The Murder of David Graham Phillips - NYTimes.com
Great story.
So I Shot Him →
An unpublished Dashiell Hammett story will run in The Strand Magazine Feb. 28. (via Leila)
“H.G. Wells, at the start of the cycling craze, was quick to recognise the...”
– LRB · Iain Sinclair · The Raging Peloton
“Twenty years later, in the current frivolous Now, Wallace’s essay itself...”
– How novels came to terms with the internet | Books | The Guardian
A very interesting piece from Laura Miller; I’d add Karen Joy Fowler’s under-recognized Wit’s End to the list of novels that meet this challenge well.
“After months of investigating with the dogged tenacity of Ralph Henderson...”
– The Case of the First Mystery Novelist - NYTimes.com
Paul Collins is on the case.
Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a... →
The headline says it all.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so...”
– J.K. Rowling (via heartily)
Locus Online Reviews » Gwenda Bond’s Top Ten for... →
Best lists are strange and unwieldy beasts, especially for those of us with wide-ranging tastes and a healthy consumption rate for new books. And there’s something about the very concept of naming the “best” of the year that—like awards—brings out an instinctive need for fisticuffs and debate and “I can’t believe X didn’t make it.” Still, over the years I’ve found invaluable recommendations...
“Having made an off-hand comment yesterday about The Legend of Billie Jean as a...”
– Susan Marie Groppi — it’s really all about putter’s braids.
1) I heart Susan.
2) I was kind of moderately obsessed with this movie in high school, not least because it Was Always On.
“Mr. Landis — often under his own name, though more recently as Father Scott or...”
– Mark Landis, Prolific Art Forger - NYTimes.com
Absolutely fascinating.
“A laryngologist who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he...”
– Swallowed Objects That Went Straight Into History - NYTimes.com
“Also called “The Holy White Girl,” “The Pretty Girl,” or...”
– kris_reisz: CABINET OF CURIOSITIES | the santa muerte cult
Lisa Schroeder, Author: Why "oh well" should... →
Great advice.
Online Airfare Battle Heats Up as Carriers Remove... →
Handy ref.