Author name: Booksquare

Spending a week surrounded by women tends to make our inner feminist a bit more sensitive (just as we are reclaiming the synopsis from its “dreaded” appellation, we are reclaiming the word feminist from its militant connotation). We are in a hotel filled by women who are pursuing dreams and goals — and achieving success on many levels (not just writers, as we note below). Yet for every doctor, lawyer, astrophysicist, MFA, educated, professional…okay, we’ll stop now…woman we see in the elevator, we also see a world that hasn’t grown up as we’d dreamed. The reason the Romance Writers of […]

As it turns out, the most wired hotel in Dallas isn’t quite…wired the way we hoped. We have spent the week fighting our Internet connection, and, sadly, losing. If we were the type to have technological hubris, it would be decimated by now. Things appear to be working at the moment, and we’re racing through various items to post something before all hope is once again lost. The good news is that spam is impervious to tricky connections. It may be the cockroach of the Internet. Can’t get a message from the husband, but we can still acquire all forms

Another post from Maud Newton triggered a memory for us. Back when we were young and innocent and temping, we ended up working for a Big Name Hollywood Producer. In addition to such chores as cutting up radishes to float in a bowl of ice water should he get hungry (we believe he was supposed to be eating healthy or something — he never touched the radishes we carefully cut each morning) and carrying the shoes fresh off his feet out to the shoeshine dude, we were also supposed to all manner of administrative tasks. We were not good at

We are posting at an unnatural hour of the morning (yes, any hour prior to sunrise is unnatural…any hour before noon is greeted with skepticism) because we’re leaving for Oklahoma City, where we will be fêted at a placed called Chuck E. Cheese. Then we’re off to Dallas for a conference. If all goes according to plan (i.e., the hotel’s boast that they’re the “most wired” hotel in Dallas isn’t a fantasy and all systems are go), we’ll be posting regular thoughts on our experience (which probably means we’ll have to attend workshops rather than just hang out in the

Author Andrea Siegel (Like The Red Panda) has posted a helpful FAQ to save time for everyone who contacts. The FAQ addresses getting an agent, and, if she’s telling you something you don’t already know (except the name of her agent), please, you need to gets yourself educated. Quickly. In our (never humble) opinion, she will be following this posting up with FAQ 2 (where everyone asks her about her writing process — there is in inevitable pattern to these things). FAQ You (we suspect she’s wanted to use this title for a long time) Cup of Chicha (our source)

We pop into the Cupcake Series infrequently and think that’s a bad idea. Regular visits would mean we wouldn’t find lovely rants like this by accident. And with good reason — we remind you of one of the more inane (oh heck, flat out dumb) comments we’ve ever encountered: [Charles] McGrath replied that he would welcome suggestions, but “our standards are so high that a great many writers—even published writers—don’t meet them.” As for the attention to male authors, he explained, “more books are written by men than by women.” Men write more books than women? [Paula] Caplan and her