Shaken & Stirred

Monday Hangovers

• I've added some little book recommendations over in the sidebar (thank you, Typepad support people) and will add a couple more as soon as they roll out the bug fix that was causing them not to show up (supposedly this week).
• Also, I'm almost caught up on just about everything. So, if I owe you something, you'll get it soon.
• New Scientist thinks these five movies get the science right (or, at least, rightish). (Via.)
• I'll be reading both of these: "Both Lerer and Marcus emphasize that these works -- from picture books marinated in biblical ethics to, yes, the Harry Potter novels -- were created by human beings with diverse and often contradictory motives. What a story these authors tell, of piratical moralists stealing each other's ethical axioms and presenting them as their own, of librarians shouting that Nancy Drew mysteries were bad for education and morality. Despite this cacophony, writers have managed to produce such cherished feats of imagination as Alice and Huckleberry Finn, Charlotte's Web and Little Women, a magical train station that rescues an orphaned boy and a secret garden in which a girl learns what it means to grow up. These new books remind us that children's literature, which at the moment is flourishing and hugely influential, grows from as rich and ancient a heritage as any strand of world culture."
• Colleen points out that horse racing isn't the only sport with animal casualties, taking a look at the current plight of sled dogs.
• Stephany Aulenback is not a baby eater: "Like a recovering addict, I recognize the beast within myself. Sometimes, though, I can get carried away with my adultetarian zeal. For instance, I have found that my personal ban on eating babies now seems to extend to miniature versions of foods, as well. Baby carrots and baby lettuce have recently joined baby potatoes on my list. Many otherwise innocuous h’ors d’oeuvres have also become off-limits – I can no longer eat mini-pizza, mini-quiches, or tiny pigs in blankets. I know intellectually that those tiny guinea hens are full-grown adults but when one is placed in front of me at a banquet my visceral reaction is a desperate attraction – my hands literally quiver over my fork and knife -- followed by intense revulsion. I usually have to excuse myself in order to go throw up in the ladies room." Read the whole thing.

Thursday Hangovers

• Interesting slideshow at Slate: "The mismatch of technology and picture books."
• This must be the week for ouchie reviews; Peter Bergen on Morgan Spurlock's new book/docu: "Spurlock's musings read like the interminable blog of a pampered college kid on an all-expenses-paid trip around the Middle East and South Asia. The documentary is even worse, as Spurlock is constantly on camera delivering the same platitudes, a supersized display of narcissism that makes Michael Moore's on-screen preenings look like those of a Trappist monk."
• Also, in the WaPo, this fascinating story on the National Security Archive: "Blanton loves government documents. It's an acquired taste that has also been acquired by his colleagues at the archive. Over the past 23 years, they have filed more than 35,000 FOIA requests and collected more than 5 million pages of government documents. Some of the documents are mind-numbingly boring, of course, but others are nothing short of astonishing..."
• 2007 Believer Book Award short list -- excellent to see Liz Hand's Generation Loss on there.
• Feeling very steampunk.
• The people are demanding bicycle novels. (Ahem.)
• Pretty pictures.

Tuesday Hangovers

• You would not believe the heartache involved in obtaining new patio furniture. Target: I hate you.
• Vote for Chris Barzak in the NewNextNow Awards!
• Controversial fiction (check out the comments). See also.
• Carrie Jones begins a discussion on dialogue and class.
• Two ladies crack me up. Someone get started on the Iron Man/Spiderman/Wonder Boys mash-up stat.
• China's Pop Fiction in the NYT. Between the lines, it sounds like YA's big there too.
• The Million Writers Awards notable stories list 2007.
• Beautiful original jewelry inspired by the stories in the Interfictions anthology is being auctioned off.
• Mr. McLaren on the wonders of the hobo.
• Alan Cheuse recommends Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia, Jeanette Winterson's Stone Gods, and Joyce Carol Oates Wild Nights! (which sounds like sooo much fun) -- I only wish Sarah Hall's The Carhullan Army/Daughters of the North would have worked its way in there somehow. Speaking of which, it's available in the U.S. now.
• For those times when only feeling ridiculous will do, the Nubrella.

Friday Hangovers

• I already love my Neo.
• Publishers Weekly hosts an interesting panel on what YA is. See also: Scalzi on the fact that YA (and I'd add middle grade to that) is where SF/F is really jumping. (And a reminder for the intrigued, that I recently made a bunch of recommendations over at Omnivoracious. And, yes, I'm very much looking forward to Little Brother and also pray for its wild success so no one will be afraid to touch the also-intensely-political book I'm presently finishing up.)
• Panda video!
• The one, the only Daniel Pinkwater is serializing his latest novel. Quoting his fabulous agent, Literaticat, who this link is via: "The Yggyssey is an epic tale of Hollywood hijinks, and the follow-up to 2007's Neddiad. The Yggyssey will not be available in stores until 2009, but thanks to the fine folks at Houghton Mifflin, the book will be released for free online, a chapter a week until the day of the official book release."
• Pinky posts bookish dog photos. This makes me insanely happy.
• Happy Derby, y'all.

Sunday Hangovers

• I'd read John Crowley's dream journal in a hot minute: "Northrop Frye says that one of the components of what he calls romance (along with dark journeys to underworlds, brothers and sisters parted in youth, and pirates, is talking animals, and intense human/animal relations.  Dreams are fiction, or the reverse, or both."
• We're in the market for a writing-and-nothing-else portable tippety-typer: Dana or Quickpad? (Or another option I don't know about?) We went with the Neo.
• In which Pinky represents the rise of the machines. I'm betting on her for the win.
• Japanese crepe paper fairy tales.
• Jeff's new design = excellent.
• Mr. McLaren on the unfair world of midlist authors taking on pseudonyms in order to keep publishing, and the difficulties of keeping track of who's writing as who: "However, when authors are forced by the midlist computer-ordering death spiral to take on a pseudonym to keep writing in their chosen genre, that annoys me. It annoys me because it shouldn’t happen, and the fact that it does is the publishing industry putting a patch on a serious problem."
• Men who explain things. In science fiction, we consider this a primary pick-up strategy. (Are you hitting on me or just sharing a factoid about aardvarks in space?)
• Maud has a nice assembly of writing quotes.
• Erin on marketing and fiction: "At any rate...whether you get a bigass check from a luxury car company or not, marketability is interesting to think about from a fiction perspective. Would this story go better with Buddig ham? IKEA furniture? Pabst Blue Ribbon? A Volkswagen? Depends undergarments?" Funny, but I don't remember anyone being upset when BMW financed those short films by major directors. I'm just surprised that Lexus thinks this will be an effective strategy.

Linkzilla

Back, busy, etc. A couple of links for now...

Roger Sutton is funny when he's cranky:

I just picked up Katherine Applegate's Beach Blondes: A Summer Novel (Simon Pulse) and boy are my arms tired. This sucker is 721 paperback pages long, and first in a series to boot. I'm guessing it's so fat for some strategic marketing reason, or perhaps I just haven't yet gotten to the chapter "This Is Summer Speaking," in which the heroine stops the motor of the world in order to expound for fifty-seven pages on the virtues of Vera Bradley bags.

Seriously, what is it with the Vera Bradley thing? I don't get it.

And Ben Rosenbaum* waxes smart on schedulizing:

One thing related to that: there are many sub-agencies in my consciousness. Some want to lie on the couch. Some want to write fiction for the fun of it, others in order to be praised. Some want to go hang out with friends. Others want to be left the fsck alone. My task, I have found, is not to impose the will of the more "good, productive, noble" ones on the slacker ones, but rather to broker a compromise so that they are not constantly sabotaging each other. I find this actually increases even traditionally-measured productivity. If I try to only ever write, I find myself cheating on writing time in order to read and play. If I make it my goal to have time to write, to read, and to play, the agencies tend to respect each other much more.

Well said.

*Whose forthcoming collection is hotly anticipated--is this the year of the awesome short story collection or what**?

**Plus, Maureen's awesome-tastic collection Mothers and Other Monsters is now available for download!

Monday Hangovers

• Annalee Newitz offers an insightful review of Karen Joy Fowler's Wit's End at io9: "Karen Joy Fowler's unsettling, wistful new novel Wit's End offers us a present-day world that is science fictional in the same way William Gibson's recent present-day novels are: Her characters' lives are so deeply bound up with technology that it's hard to tell where human connection ends and internet connectivity begins." See also: Reuters q&a.
• CSI as science fiction. (Via Jenny D.)
• An excellent review of Sarah Hall's The Carhullan Army/Daughters of the North. (Via Niall.)
• Fall in: The Fraenkel Gallery. (Via Sara Ryan.)
• Liz Hand on Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth in the WashPost.
• Midori has some good links about Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia.
• Travel books without the travel?
• Evil Monkey's Guide to Kosher Imaginary Animals.

Sunday Hangovers (Updated)

• Trashing teachers (and others) on MySpace.
• Time Out asks a bunch of publishing types about the industry, and how books get to readers--or not: "First of all, there are no prime movers in the publishing world, but rather a nexus of agents, editors and publicists who collaborate in the attempt to push a book toward the tipping point. Second, almost every person I spoke with—a mere sliver of a massive industry, I’ll admit—contradicted someone else. The interesting thing about this latter fact was that no one seemed wrong, exactly. Instead, the contradictions emphasized that while there are identifiable forces that might drive a book to success (most notably the twin peaks of an author’s talent and a publisher’s marketing skills), the industry remains a constantly shifting game of chance."
• The Great All Right/Alright Debate of 2008: Scalzi vs. Cheney. Updated: Escalation has occurred: Hamster vs. Cthulhu Dick Cheney Threatening a Hamster!
• A crown of sonnets written just for Poetry Friday (cheers!).
• Various SF discussions referenced at Niall's.
• Lee Siegel pity reaches critical mass.
• The 2008 Locus Poll closes on April 15th.
• Nicola on the mysteries--and sweat--of writing.
• "Gender Inequity in Whoville."
• The transformation of CBGB into a shop for expensive clothes.
• Ann Hornaday on the tenured professor in cinema: "It's a cinematic archetype as reliable as the fish out of water and the blonde in distress: the disheveled, misanthropic college professor, in the throes of writer's block (or some other form of publish-or-perish anxiety), living in book-lined solitude as a result of divorce, death or free-floating disgust with humanity."

Tuesday Hangovers

• As anyone who's read Brian Francis Slattery's Spaceman Blues knows, it's always a good thing when he writes about music.
• Three members of the King clan--Stephen, Tabitha, and Owen--do a talk about writing for D.C. area high schoolers at the Library of Congress and the Washington Post writes about the family's literary life. Some excellent little moments, like this one:
  

  There is a widespread notion that "if you sell a lot of books, you've got to be peddling crap," she adds, and the problem is, it's sometimes true. There are big-name authors who "can't write and they can't plot."

  "But we won't mention any names. Like James Patterson," Stephen says.

• Jane Smiley stirs up some dust with her snobby review of Jennifer Weiner's latest. Frank Wilson at Books Inq says he wouldn't have editedpulled the review either; spirited discussion in the comments.
• Y tu, mattresses? Is everything we touch now polluted with vile substances? Don't answer.
• The fabulous Kevin Brockmeier will be the next guest editor for Best American Fantasy. (Congratulations, Matt!) Want a reminder what his taste is like? Some time ago, I posted the list of his 50 favorite books.
• See The Pixies documentary loudQUIETloud online free for a week.
• SAT = troubled test.
• Jessa Crispin on reader's block. I'm all about regressing to the Christopher Pike stage.
• Ypulse reminds me to read the Magic in the Mirrorstone anthology.
• Kelley Eskridge on story and mirror neurons.

Friday Hangovers

• Clearing out the bookmarks. Let's go.
• The peace symbol turns 50.
• Where is John Hughes?
• Libba Bray waxes funny on the movie biz and a possible adaptation of her Gemma Doyle trilogy.
• Liz Hand reviews Jeff Ford's The Shadow Year for F&SF: ""Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies," wrote the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay; "Nobody that matters, that is." Jeffrey Ford's beautiful new novel, The Shadow Year, is an account of childhood's kingdom under siege, a book so achingly lovely and, yes, profound, that one longs to call it a masterpiece. Only it seems a bit unfair to burden an author at mid-career with such a weight." (The other day Niall was asking somewhere in one of the reviewing conversations about who people's favorite critics are; Liz Hand is definitely one of mine.) See also: Midori Snyder on book the same: "... contains a number of my favorite literary themes: a child's perspective of the mysterious (and often ambiguous) world of adults; the intuitive fantasy world of children; and the echo of fairy tale rites-of-passage through dark and dangerous woods."
• Slap a pink cover on it, and it's chick lit? Not really.
• Eric Alterman on the "death and life of the American newspaper."
• Karen Joy Fowler's got a brand-new website, and she's currently on tour supporting Wit's End. Catch her if you can.
• The science behind some fairy tales.
• Markus Zusak interviewed in the Guardian:
  

  What advice would you give to new writers?
  Don't be afraid to fail. I fail every day. I failed thousands of times writing The Book Thief, and that book now means everything to me. Of course, I have many doubts and fears about that book, too, but some of what I feel are the best ideas in it came to me when I was working away for apparently no result. Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.

  Is there a secret to writing?
  The best ideas come to you when you're sitting down, working. That's when most of the breakthroughs occur - simply by doing the work. If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope.

• The next Shaun Tan book we have to look forward to is Tales from Outer Suburbia, due in October. (Via Jonathan Strahan.)
• Robots!
• Profit sharing instead of advances? Kassia has some thoughts.
• A buffalo mozzarella crisis? Now this is serious.
• The differences between comic books and picture books.
• Finally: Don't f with Maud. She can call you all sorts of things.

Monday Hangovers

• Operation Teen Book Drop is coming up on April 17. Get details on how to participate.
• Greg Frost and John Kessel are up to all sorts of audio shenanigans, apparently--for starters, check out Frost reading the inimitable JK's "Every Angel is Terrifying." If Kessel's new collection, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, isn't on your radar, where have you been? It's an April Booksense pick and everything.
• Michaelangelo = brainiac art. (Via the well-reviewed Jeff Ford. I'm finally reading The Shadow Year, which makes me very happy.)
• Margaret Atwood on Anne of Green Gables.
• Everybody's talking about reviewing again. Mostly? Yawn.
• Giving names to the Does of the world.
• Colleen Lindsay offers some rules of thumb on target word counts for various genres.
• And in news of the excellent variety, I've recently discovered that both Kelley Eskridge and Nicola Griffith now have blogs. RSSed.

Friday Hangovers

• Karen Joy Fowler's latest, Wit's End, gets some love from Faye Jones at the Nashville Scene: "Wit’s End may not have the built-in audience that The Jane Austen Book Club did, but it’s the kind of novel that Austen herself just might have enjoyed." I adored it too, and will be devoting a post to it here very soon. (I do have a mini-review over in the Read Read sidebar already though.)
• Quantum mechanics and Super Mario. (Apologies, but I can't remember where I first spotted this link.)
• John and Hank Green have created a new toy: Visit the Omnictionary to play.
• My old pal Michaelangelo Matos reviews Galaxie 500/Luna frontman Dean Wareham's new memoir, Black Postcards: A Rock and Roll Romance, for the Baltimore City Paper: "But Black Postcards is notably hard-nosed even for what is lately a crowded field, the '90s alt-rock musician memoir. With it, Wareham joins the ranks of Petal Pusher, by Laurie Lindeen of Minneapolis rockers Zuzu's Petals; Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be, by Boston singer/songwriter Jen Trynin; and Semisonic drummer Jacob Slichter's So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star. And just as Luna towered over the other authors' bands, Wareham's book is the best of this crop." Must get. Michaelangelo and I originally met and bonded over our shared Luna love. If he likes it, it's worth reading.
• Maud defends big ideas in fiction. I couldn't agree more. This is one of the reasons I love children's literature and YA (especially the SF).
• CAAF says it all about the welcome cancellation of The Return of Jezebel James. Miss Guided, still rocking. Last night, there was even a Breakfast Club homage.
• Finally: MAS is such an art star. Check out the digital version of her currently-showing, kick-ass, graduating exhibition. The Jersey Shore images will get obsessively stuck in your brain. Trust me. The landscapes are also completely awesome, and the sex offender compositions disturbing. I only wish you could all see them as MAS intended.

Friday Hangovers

• This snippet of (typically excellent critic) Ron Charles' review of Tony Earley's The Blue Star, a follow-up to Jim the Boy, triggered my spit-take reflex: At the time, I remember consulting with several reviewers around the country about how to categorize Jim the Boy. The problem concerned us because we cared so much. Was it a YA book? The juvenile jacket cover -- retained, unfortunately, for this sequel -- seemed aimed at middle-schoolers, but we worried about scaring off adult readers with that label, and we suspected it was too slow for teens anyhow (no rape, school shooting or bone cancer -- the unholy trinity of YA lit). Wow, what an outdated view of realistic YA based seemingly on the idea of the "problem novel." Hey, reviewers, why not just review the book at hand instead of offering aside commentary on a genre you aren't overly familiar with? And if you do offer up said views, why not couch them in less condescending terms? Just a thought.
• Lois Lowry rocks.
• The Millions has the relevant links involving the most controversial round of this year's Tourney of Books so far. Whether you consider the booth commentary on Mark's decision appropriate or inappropriate, it's tough to deny that it provides enough fodder for several interesting discussions.
• Weep not for the LBC. (It's been gone for a few months now, and no one even really noticed. A worthy effort dead of several causes, mostly lack of participation. The next generation efforts are where it's at now.)

Thursday Hangovers

• Colleen Lindsay on this week's YA query cliches: "Vampire spelled Vampyre, Wompyre, Vompyre, or any other way." Hee. (See also, unrelated, her remembrance of Sir Arthur Clarke, R.I.P. Matt Cheney has a good post too.)
• Jeff Ford compiles a soundtrack for The Shadow Year over at largehearted boy. (Via Jeff.)
• Kassia plugs books I love on the radio. Yay! And she also has a typically great, thoughtful post about how teenagers interact with the Web and how publishers are sucking at using new media.
• Justine had a great post about the writing biz and luck the other day, which reminded me of a great old Wordplay column by Frank Darabont where he talks about making your own luck. The Happiness Project has a timely post on the very same subject.
• Colleen has a nice post following on Barack Obama's AMAZING speech about race.
• An interview with Adam Rex, of the fabulous, Cybils-winning The True Meaning of Smekday.
• Austin Kleon went to a q and a session with David Simon and did a great write-up. But this resulting cartoon is why Austin's a mad genius:

  

Tuesday Hangovers

• Erik Sofge questions the moral universe at the heart of Dungeons and Dragons. I can't speak to his main point, but I will say that the whole Focus on Killing Stuff thing is a big part of why I find so many video games disappointing.
• Perhaps less controversially, Charlie Stross roles up D&D characters for the presidential contenders.
• Pub owner bans "Danny Boy" for the month. Good move!
• An interesting take on the literary fraud phenomenon. And Liz B has one too, coining the apt term "Mary Sue Memoirs."
• Justine Musk has a good post on some reasons why Hollywood produces so much retread crap.
• The Clarke Award shortlist is announced; dead excited to see The Carhullan Army get some love and a YA novel included. Love Sarah Hall's reaction in the Guardian. Also, that the Guardian has reactions!
• Evil Monkey's Beginner Writing Tips.

Saturday Snowstorm Hangovers

• Yep, it's spring in Kentucky. We're having a snowstorm, freakishly, and then I'm sure it'll be in the 50s and sunny forever, starting in the middle of next week. We did our spring cleaning yesterday in preparation (stacks of books shelved or cast aside for donation!), so the house is sparkly nice for my weekend of hibernation and thesising.
• Speaking of which, as soon as it stops snowing I need to get to a bookstore, because reading this New Yorker piece about Gossip Girl what do I discover? There's an omniscient narrator. Now, it's probably arguable how realistic these books actually are, but there's no magic to speak of and they're by an American* and so for my purposes? Genius.
• Jeff Ford's The Shadow Year, which I can't wait to read, is apparently already in stores. It's also an April Booksense pick. Yay!
• The fabulous Cassandra Clare gets interviewed by Cynthia Leitich Smith.
• Libba Bray is smart on fanfic.
• Why teen girls love vampires. I'll admit it--I was a vampire fiction whore when I was a teen. Those were my (un)guilty pleasure books, so I'm not at all surprised by this "trend."
• Hot Slayer on Slayer action.
• Jeff VanderMeer interviews Toby Barlow in free verse. I've got to get my hands on a copy of Sharp Teeth.

*Yep, I realize there's a string of ghostwriters. I only need concern myself with the first one and the convention observed throughout, since this is intended to bolster a side point.

Wednesday Hangovers

• The fabulous Cynthia Leitich Smith interviews my favorite scholar, Leonard S. Marcus, who has turned out a host of amazing books about the history and art of children's literature, including Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (he has a great compilation of commentary about her in the current Horn Book issue, btw), The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy, and Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon, to name a tiny sampling of my favorites (read: the ones I've read so far).
• When the news stings, Matt Ruff suggests tiny piggies!
• The Stranger has a former bookseller's thoughts on book thievery, and books most frequently stolen. (Via Scott Edelman.)
• Kids and lying.
• Carrie Jones takes her recent discussion of writing characters with disabilities to the Fangs, Fur & Fey community on LJ; see also a follow-up post on writing mental illness.
• Jules on David Almond's My Dad's a Birdman, which is on my ever-growing stack.
• io9 has a good, trivia-filled tribute post on Gary Gygax, the Dungeons and Dragons creator who passed on this week. I am utterly charmed by all the personal stories everywhere about how D&D changed people's lives; keep it up.
• Ghostbusters! (Via Jenny D.) Also known as the movie most quoted in my daily life.
• Michael Chabon has a fun essay in the New Yorker about the clothe de superhero.
• NPR on Harriet the Spy. (Via Stephany Aulenback.)

A Million Monday Hangovers

• Spring is here! Yay!
• Blake Nelson interviews Gus Van Sant about Paranoid Park. (Hat tip to Micol.)
• Molly Gloss's amazing The Hearts of Horses gets some much-deserved love from NPR. I loved this book so much. (Thanks to Gavin.)
• Marina Warner on Beckett and foreign languages. (Via Jenny D.)
• ee cummings on Krazy Kat at Austin's.
• Jeff VanderMeer interviews Kage Baker at Clarkesworld.
• i09 asks what people look for in science fiction via poll; none of the answers were mine (er, something awesome), but interesting anyway.
• "The King of Sentences," Jonathan Lethem.
• Liz Hand looks--as we all should--to T.H. White's The Once and Future King for wisdom on getting through winter. This must be why I've been craving nothing but documentaries and science/history/random podcasts lately. Finally, our weather has broken, at least for the moment.
• "Rebecca Drysdale is a Time Traveling Lesbian." (Via Tacithydra.)
• Everyone should have real art: a profile of Jen Bekman in the NYT. (Via the one and most fabulous Lauren.)
• Go see Cecil host The Lit Thing Wednesday evening in the city of angels.
• The lovely and talented and wonderful Carolyn Kellogg aka Pinky is now also blogging for Jacket Copy, the LA Times book blog. Check it out.
• Know thy planets: My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.
• Samantha Hunt writes napkin fiction.
• Wiscon! It'll be here before you know it. I've expressed interest in a scary number of panels and decided not to do a reading this year. See you there?
• See Oscar-winning animated shorts. (Via Karen.)
• Pretty pittures. Me want to go on safari. This will have to do for now.
• Sara Ryan recommends Veda Hille's new album "This Riot Life."
• If you missed it, the YA Agony Awards stuff is terribly amusing.
• Starship Sofa is one of the podcasts I've been checking out; you might like it too.
• Seriously tardy link: Ethan Clark, author of Leaning With Intent to Fall, a book on bike punk culture, guest blogged on Powell's. His posts are worth going back to.
• Gavin rediscovers Iron Maiden. Ah, simpler times.
• I'm really loving the blog Living Small (about just what it sounds like and which fills me with admiration and not guilt).
• See also: the tiny Spite House.
• Titlepage.tv debuts today; I'm curious to see what it's all about. It's supposed to be "a new kind of interview show," hosted by Daniel Menaker.
• There are more links, but I will stop now.

Wednesday Hangovers

• Me have teeny cold developing.
• The Taos Toolbox is a two-week master class writer's workshop in lovely New Mexico, being held June 8-21; the instructors are Walter Jon Williams and Kelly Link, with special lecturer Stephen Donaldson. Check it out if you're so inclined.
• Note to self: Purchase Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume.
• Chance on the Norton Award jury additions. Nice to see Smekday getting some more love.
• A post including some good stuff from Karen Joy Fowler on books at the NBCC blog. Wit's End is SOOOO good. More on that once I've finished it. (Via Gavin.)
• The WashPost visits this year's toy expo.
• Brand placement in books; I'm happy to see Cathy's Book and the sequel losing that jive.
• Niall on Alice in Sunderland.
• An excellent post about Lewis Hyde on fair use and copyright issues.
• Brian Evenson has written an Aliens novel. (Via Jeff.)
• Dave Elzey on why the shuffle mode on your iPod is dadaist.
• F&SF has a blog.
• Over at the Vermont College alum blog, current student Andy Sherrod is very smart about boys and reading. He did his critical thesis on the topic and knows it inside and out.
• CAAF visits the Biltmore library, and is somewhat frustrated by the lack of access to, y'know, the books.

Saturday Hangovers

• The Guardian on women writing fantasy. (Why are there never articles like this in U.S. literary coverage?)
• Frozen Niagara Falls.
• Zombie poems is everywhere. Some faves: Libba Bray's, Holly Black's (Spiderwick was great, btw!), Justine Larbalestier's, Cassie Clare's, and Cecil Castellucci's. Brought to you by the brain of Maureen Johnson (which I'm sure would be very tasty).
• Mekons video!
• Musical dinosaurs, white stags, and time machines, oh my. (Via Dave.)
• Lizzie Skurnick tells The Atlantic to Knock It Off.
• 10 superpowers available now (via somebody!).
• SF Signal asks opinions on why short fiction matters from some of SFF's most prominent editors.
• Alison Morris on sales reps.
• And now back to the critical thesis...

Friday Hangovers

• All happy things.
• Ben is funny.
• The lovely story behind Delia Sherman's short story "Gift From a Spring," in the new issue of Realms of Fantasy.
• In the old days, even short story writing was lucrative enough to merit gimcrackery classified ads.
• Iain Banks on writing, which he finds easy. I'm going to eat his brain.
• Paul Witcover highly recommends J.M. McDermott's Last Dragon, adding to the buzz for the new Wizards of the Coast Discoveries series.
• Jeff VanderMeer has some kid feedback on How to Raise and Keep a Dragon by Joe Nigg. Soooo good. A sample: I am five years old. I want a Standard Western Dragon. I also want the Mushussu Dragon. I want the Piasa Dragon and the Dragon of India. Where can I get them? Can I have a dragon? That is it.
• Micol gets interviewed.
• Pinky has a favorite in the Amazon breakthrough novel contest. Ballot stuffing encouraged.
• Angela Carter swanned over in the L.A. Times.

Tuesday Hangovers

• It's shaping up to be a busy week and there's the dreaded critical thesis and the novel revision and etc. going on too. So, yeah, still behind on email. All you in voting states, get out the vote.
• Claire Light is hosting the Carl Brandon Society's new recommended reading list of speculative fiction by black authors, in honor of Black History Month.
• Jeff VanderMeer talks to Greg Frost about Shadowbridge (including some reaction to the recent John Clute review).
• Go wish the InKY Reading Series a happy fourth birthday on Friday night; Frank X Walker, Janna McMahan, and Emily Bonden will read, with music provided by Joe Manning.
• The latest issue of Lone Star Stories is live, featuring new fiction by Ekaterina Sedia and Tim Pratt and poetry by Liz Hand.
• Leila Roy loves Vermont College-alum Liz Gallagher's debut, The Opposite of Invisible. It's sitting very near the top of my stack of Books to Read as Soon as the CT Draft is Done (right beneath Wit's End and The Shadow Year and a whole bunch of Tiptree stuff).
• Austin illustrates Lewis Hyde's The Gift.
• Updated: Dana's inspirational voting message. More, please.

Sunday Hangovers

• Beverly Cleary at 91.
• And another great: Judy Blume at the Telegraph. (Check out the photo; she is the Tina Turner of YA.)
• Forgotten novelist Theodora Keogh. (Via Maud.)
• A piece on cinematographer (and Ingmar Bergman collaborator) Gunnar Fischer.
• Why books take so long to come out.
• Charles Simic gets the Solomon treatment; baiting him on the burglary at Robert Frost's house: Yes, the kids are accused of burning his furniture for heat and leaving puddles of vomit on the living-room floor. Do you see that as any kind of symbol of where American culture is now? No. In Frost’s day, too, awful things went on in the countryside. There were nasty things happening in remote villages. There’s that poem where there is the skeleton of the ex-lover of the mistress of the house in the attic.

Friday Hangovers

• Settling in for a weekend of critical thesis work, reading, and scribbling, with a possible break in there to go see a movie or something fun. Also, you know you're a stinky grown-up when your to-do list includes "drop off vacuum cleaner at the repair guy's." It is gray and windy outside today in a very satisfyingly winter way.
• 1940s circus photos. (Via Dave. I needed that; thanks.) And, by the by, if you ever get a chance to poke around in the library at Circus World in Baraboo, Wisconsin, do it. They've got some amazing original circus photos there.
• The Brown Bookshelf is kicking off its Twenty-Eight Days Later celebration of children's literature during Black History Month with Christopher Paul Curtis.
• Tacithydra has an important question about pronunciation.
• Carolyn See seems to really like Meg Rosoff's What I Was, but isn't the review oddly full of summary?
• Hannah really liked R.A. Nelson's Breathe My Name.
• Tamora Pierce's recommended reference books for slang.
• Steve Martin in Smithsonian mag.
• In case you ever wanted to become insane: this revision technique seems like it would help. Wowza.
• Carolyn is reporting live from AWP.
• Tempest Bradford interviews Justine Larbalestier (ahem) and Ekaterina Sedia.
• J.L. Bell: Why Western High Art Disdains Speech Balloons.
• I believe 2008 may now be the official year of Nicola Tesla. Prepare for his return.
• And a silly quiz behind the cut:

Sunday Hangovers

• James Woods on character. (Via Jenny.)
• And another from the tireless Jenny, 10 famous writers talk about their trunk novels.
• Ed Park on Terry Pratchett.
• When the cinetrix tells me to watch something on youtube, I do it.
• Jonathan Strahan announces an open reading period for Eclipse Two, running through February. Writers, start your stories.
• Craig Gidney reviews The Shadow Speaker, saying it's a kind of African The Golden Compass. Sold.
• The Anonymous war on Scientology. Fascinating, this one.
• Which book? The interesting thing about this site is that I've never heard of anything it spits out, but they all sound fabulous. (Via Laurie Halse Anderson.)
• Alan DeNiro reviews The New Space Opera anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan: "After all of this disappointment and cast-off deflation, the exceptions in this book are so, well, exceptional that it makes the entire book worth reading—if for nothing else than to map out how the tired and unambitious stories put the gems in high relief, like settings in a crown."

Thursday Hangovers

• From the New Weird to the Next Weird at the Guardian: If the New Weird writers represent a turning point it is because they are the first generation of writers to grow up completely immersed in the culture of sci-fi. For such writers the language of speculative fiction is the first and preferred means of expression, because it is the only way to describe a real world permeated on every level with unreality, fantasy and fiction. Whatever the Next Weird may bring, it seems certain that the real experimental energy of literature will remain in genre fiction.
• The Forgotten Edition of the Golden Fuse Awards (see esp. the prophecies section), and speaking of Fuse, Betsy also has a fabulous guest post from someone who played Scrabble against John Hodgman and John Oliver (for charity--826NYC) and survived (actually, won!).
• Buster Keaton in The Hayseed. (Via.)
• Simmone Howell advocates for the John Waters approach to saving reading: "If you go home with someone and they don't have any books don't f**k them."
• Feeling charitable? Laini Taylor has a great suggestion on where you can help save some dogs.
• Julie Holderman and Tamora Pierce are launching an effort to organize a convention especially for YA SFF. You can volunteer to help out in the comments.
• How to clean like a maid. (For those of us who, sadly, don't have one.)
• The Guardian on the ever-expanding world of girls in comics (both as writer/illustrators and characters). Who knew that Smurfette was finally getting a posse? (Via Cecil, who gets some love.)
• Winter advice from northern climes.
• "Why Sci-Fi is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing" at Wired. (Via the new Clarion blog.)
• James Hynes on Lewis Hyde's The Gift, which every writer, artist, and possibly human being really should read. (Via Erin.)
• Wunderkammen vs. Cabinets of Curiosity at Cabinet of Wonders.

Airport Hangovers

• Turns out I lied, I'm in an airport with wireless (but no bar!) waiting (hopefully!) for a flight that will leave on time-ish. So, I'm going to close some tabs, sadly not remembering where I first spotted these links.
• Roger Sutton concurs with with A.O. Scott that the gatekeepers should not try to keep kids within their "developmental comfort zone" -- interesting suggestion in the post's comments that movies become dated no matter what, so slang away.
• Phone people vs. ePeople, or The Story of My Life as a Not-Phone Person.
• Prompted by one of the residency discussions, I revisited Terri Windling's excellent essay "Transformations,"  and you'd probably enjoy it too.
• The Library Arcade features some pretty cool games developed at Carnegie Mellon.
• Girls create more content online.
• Colbert vs. David Levy on robot love.
• Jenny Davidson has had a whole string of great posts this week.
• Logo! Pogo!
• Schwartz is fancy: Check out his US and UK book covers and selling points.

Sunday Hangovers

• This semester I'll be one of just two lucky students working with the fabulous Leda Schubert (the NYT agrees). Here's an interview by Kim Winters with Leda at The Edge of the Forest from awhile back; I keep trying to pick a little part to quote here, but the whole thing is so thoroughly Leda and thoroughly charming that I'm unable to choose. Suffice to say, I'm very excited about the work of the next sixth months.
• Susan Beth Pfeffer has been composing a series of fascinating posts spitballing ideas for her possible next book -- it's such an honest look at how writers make decisions and how pliable everything is at such an early stage.
• John Crowley follows up on the happiness/sadness in writing question with some thoughts on books that make you happy.
• The art of Harry Grant Dart -- incredible airships.
• Speaking of artists, Ellen Datlow recommends a couple that remind her of Francis Bacon. (A comparison that always gets my attention.)
• Michael Chabon joins SFWA and all I can think is: Why? Also: Please god, don't let him go on the private forums at the wrong time.
• Morgellons disease: Is it real?
• Edgar award noms.
• These photos are very, very cool.
• An addition to the books I can't wait for this year list -- Cecil's Janes in Love. What a purty cover.
• Should a homophobe like Orson Scott Card have gotten the Margaret Edwards Award?
• Literary pigs.

Thursday Hangovers

• Gavin has the goods on lots of exciting interpretations of Kelly's "The Girl Detective," both visual and auditory.
• Chris McLaren arrives in Melbourne, Australia, and wacky hijincks ensue. I'm thinking this is one of those things that makes a better anecdote than experience.
• The fabulous Kate Angelella just pointed me to The Pierces' 13 Tales of Love and Revenge. I like it.
• John Crowley asks which is easier to write, sadness or joy.
• PW's Rose Fox on negative reviews.
• Clara Bow film and documentary on YouTube (with bonus Louise Brooks -- who my Mac is named after).
• Ysabeau on the art of Walton Ford.
• Jeff VanderMeer tells you how to write a novel in two months.
• I am very excited about Hudson (aka Maureen's impending new dog), so post all you like about him, Maureen.
• And now a class meeting... and later a new advisor.

Wednesday Hangovers

• An attempt to define science fiction by "new guard" writers at SF Signal. What Dave says. (So far, anyway.)
• This Strange Horizons review makes The Red Men by Matthew de Abaitua sound worth adding to the neverending list. (Tangentially speaking, since SH also just did their Year in Review: Spook Country by William Gibson -- so much buzz when it came out, but I saw it on practically nobody's best of the year list...)
• Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly, and Emma Bull are doing something really, really smart cool. Seriously, seriously interesting.
• Sara Ryan points to an excellent-sounding podcast featuring The Wire's Wendell Pierce and Andre Royo. (I am trying to be strong and not resubscribe to HBO.)
• Colleen sticks up for fictional cheerleaders.
• Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford offers some query cliches. Hee.
• Stephany Aulenback on Where the Wild Things Are and the upcoming Dave Eggers/Spike Jonze movie adapation. Could be fabulous.

Tuesday Hangovers

• Someday there will be content besides links in this space, but not today.
• Stewart and Colbert return to the airwaves*: reviews are mixed.
• SF thrives on cronyism?** . . . just like the rest of publishing and every other field of business. (Via io9.)
• Maud (and Lizzie) got to attend the premiere of The Wire's last season. Now that's an event worth being a little green about.
• Carolyn raises some excellent questions about that weird New Yorker piece on Raymond Carver last month.
• Maureen Johnson interviews Libba Bray about The Sweet Far Thing and the result is charming and hilarious.
• On the latest EW back page column, Mark Harris talks about the stale retreads that make up the vast majority of TV and film science fiction offerings (perhaps in this case, more deserving of the term "sci-fi"). He ultimately concludes that people not so nostalgic for the genre should be creating this stuff, but it seems to me the problem is more that broadcast SF often panders to the lowest common denominator, embracing the most simplistic of influences and ignoring richer history that could better inform it--even to react against that history--to great detriment. It often feels like the people making it don't really like science fiction at all. But, yeah, I mostly agree that nostalgia bunnies should take a powder for a bit and see if that gets us some better movies/shows.
• Dave Elzey has a great post on boy logic and reading and the Koran.
• Tattooed piggies! (Via someone but I can't remember who; sorry!) (Also, no way am I getting tattooed at Wiscon, Doselle. No. Freaking. Way.)
• Liz Hand brings the Buster Keaton. Guaranteed to improve your day.
• Open thread for Tiptree recs at Livejournal. Help us!

*And edrants becomes Filthy Habits: a welcome return to the tubewaves(?).
**I know the link says nepotism, but surely everyone in SF isn't related.

Saturday Hangovers

• The Guardian ran a contest for kids to create their own creatures and Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi  judged; the gallery is amazing.
• Secrets of upcoming Battlestar Gallactica season revealed by EW photo? I hope the secret is that it's better than last season.
• The Machine Animals of Nantes. (Via Maureen.)
• Susan Beth Pfeffer wants your ghost stories and offers one of her own in exchange.

Friday Hangovers

• A new issue of Chizine is live.
• Dave Schwartz on the error of breaking up (and erasing) the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.
• Why, yes, spybots are cool.
• Mr. McLaren has the skinny on works new to the public domain this year.
• Maureen McHugh meditates on her own "contract rooted in capitalist obsessions with property," aka marriage. (Anniversary congratulations!)
• Oh, and by the by, when you're reading Justine's latest writing posts, don't forget to check her out on Scrivener. This is the best post I've seen thus far on its virtues. Love, love, love the Scriv.
• Meghan has posted some cute pictures of New Year's, including doggy dog ones (I really love this one of Emma).
• Science books to look for in 2008. (Via Jenny.)

Wednesday Hangovers

• Justine kicks off the new year with a thoroughly great post on rewriting. I love revision because the blind panic I feel most days while writing a first draft--is this even a book? is this the worst book ever? is this really the best I can do? is it possible I have no idea what happens next?--only rarely kicks in during it. (Although, yes, sometimes despair does show up.)
• The Cybils finalists are out. The SFF shortlists (one YA, one for middle grade and younger readers) look excellent, and I'm very excited to start reading my way through them and deliberating with the rest of the category's jury.
• A new Jeff Ford novel, The Shadow Year, comes out in March. YAY!
• Chance discusses the book in question in this story, Marvelous Effect, which sounds, um, not so marvelicious.
• While we were traveling, I totally missed all the great posts related to how the writers in John Klima's Logorrhea anthology chose their words.
• Philip Pullman in the Guardian on a topic near and dear: narrative voice.
• Chris McLaren has a whole bunch of good links about all sorts of stuff, including new tattoo ink, electromagnetic sense perception, disappearing doorknobs, and Joss Whedon.

Tiny Friday Hangovers

• Scott and Justine are the "it" kids of YA, which is news to nobody. Also, Justine looks great in that hat.
• Hello Kitty for men. (Via.)
• Meghan McCarron's favorite songs o' the year.
• J.L. Bell on the similarities between Castle Waiting and the Oz books.

Thursday Hangovers

• Colleen has the lovely recommended reading lists of: Kelley Eskridge and Nicola Griffith.
• Paul Collins has some beautiful silly book covers.
• I have a soft spot for the duct tape bandit.
• The popularity of becoming a pet trainer.
• Buzzwords of 2007.
• Pam McNew's excellent list of SFF short story recommendations for 2007.
• It's never too late to give Christopher a birthday cycling gift certificate! Were one so inclined...

Wednesday Hangovers

• Libraries paying hardball with overdue fines (at ours, it's a dime a day and you can't check out anything else if you hit $5 without paying it off).
• The NYT also has a very interesting piece on a growing controversy in anthropological circles over the uber-popular work of Jared Diamond: But the anthropologists had a point. As Einstein put it, explanations should be as simple as possible — but no simpler. Is it realistic to hope, as Dr. Diamond did at the end of “Guns, Germs and Steel,” that “historical studies of human societies can be pursued as scientifically as studies of dinosaurs”?
• Eric Ripert helps a housewife throw a dinner party.
• Freemasons: Can't believe people think they're weird.
• The fabulous Literaticat dishes out her picks for best YA of the year.
• Greg Frost offers some insight on a way to break through the "dark night of despair" phase of novel writing.
• Terri Windling on wild children, aka feral tykes.
• Maureen on cooking roast potatoes with duck fat, as yummy as her food writing always is.
• Some alums and current students in the MFA program I'm in have started a new craft-oriented group blog called Through the Tollbooth. I'm sure it will be full of immensely good stuff.
• And, in a time-saving experiment, here's my current shared items on Google Reader:

Update: And the experiment is a failure, cause the links update automatically when you share new stuff. Now if they figure out how to keep permalinks to what was in your shared items at the particular time of posting, we'd be in business.

Friday Hangovers

• Max's Year in Reading series has been outstanding on the whole, but I am absolutely delighted by today's installment: Freddy Krueger.
• J.L. Bell has begun a series of thoughtful posts in reaction to the New Yorker's "Twilight of the Books" article. So far, there are two: "Next Slide Please" and "Twilight of the Bard?"
• Erin's Year of Links.
• Covetable wallpaper.
• The pleasures of fantasy languages. I wish my mind worked that way.
• Laini Taylor on The Golden Compass movie vs. book and her disappointment with the adaptation (which is worth reading regardless of your feelings for her typically fabulous write porn commentary). I must confess--and I realize this completely jettisons my credibility on a number of levels--that I hadn't read the Pullman trilogy and waited to do so until after seeing the movie on purpose. Not having read the book(s), the movie worked pretty well for me--and, yes, I immediately read it. And loved it.* (Now I'm reading The Subtle Knife. And Peter Cameron's excellent Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You.) Anyway, the thing I think is made so clear in contrasting the film and the book with each other is the difference between novel logic and movie logic. Movie logic is never going to truly work for a story as complex as The Golden Compass, because that's not its nature. So, they have to simplify things--little things, big things, almost EVERYTHING--and there's a lot that's lost with a story like this, in that simplification. But GREAT eye candy and I enjoyed the hell out of it while watching (and wasn't confused by it at all). I want an armored bear!