Let us begin with the idea that for a woman to write novels at the dawn of the format’s history, it required an act of bravery. Storytelling has been a human tradition for, oh, a long time, but the novel, such as it is, is a relatively new concept. For our purposes, let’s use Don Quixote as our starting point (1605 or thereabouts, what with leap years and calendar reform and all), though many pin the birth of the novel to the 18th century. But we like the idea of tilting at windmills, and, what the heck, it’s our rant.

It is beyond our ken at this point: why would you want to take a tour of sites mentioned in a book without having read the book in question? Other than, we suppose, the fact that sites mentioned are generally the types of places tourists would frequent anyway. It is hard for us to imagine getting worked up about something you have absolutely no context for. Yet the proprietors of the, uh, Angels and Demons tour remind you that reading the book isn’t necessary. Something tells us this is a boon of sorts. What amazes us even more is that

Frankly, we hoped The Da Vinci Code would fade quietly into the twilight on the basis of the really bad writing. Perhaps Dan Brown didn’t put the sum total of his talent into the work, we can’t say, but we do know bad when we read it (and we’ll suggest that sometimes bad can be good, but this isn’t one of those times). It never occurred to us that people would believe the so-called history underpinning the story and turn the whole enterprise into a cottage industry. As Laura Miller says: The answer is that what readers love about the

Looking for a reason to hit Seattle in mid-June (like, oh, the 9th through the 12th, 2005)? How about a writing conference? Yes, we know, we just give and give, and this is only the latest example. Besides, unless you have one of those really understanding families, there’s nothing more reassuring than spending time with People Like You. You know, the ones who hear voices in their heads…and think it’s perfectly normal. The conference is geared toward genre fiction authors, particularly women’s fiction and sci-fi/fantasy. Attendance is limited and opportunities abound. You’ll be having drinks with agents, editors, and other

Would we like to get a novel in email installments? Hard to say, but we’re still working our way through early December mail, and it’s not looking so good for January. Also, we have an annoying habit of reading email backward. That’s not to say we wouldn’t try to make it work, it’s just that we haven’t gotten into the habit. Yet. Email novels or excerpts or whatnot are not particularly innovative. They’re basically a twist on what Dickens, et al were doing back in the olden days. What would be novel is inventing a helpful technology that allows the

What is your first memory of a library? We honestly cannot say for sure, except that our home was somewhat of a library from the start, what with the mother’s inability to get rid of a book (the great Ray Bradbury incident being an exception). We suppose we first stepped foot into an actual library approximately in the first grade. By the second grade, we were regular as the sun*. To this day, our idea of a good time involves books**. Despite this, we’ve never been particularly precious about the book in its bound paper format. Maybe because we read

Doesn’t the phrase just roll off your brain? Don’t you want to be a part of it? Oh, quite possibly, in this post-holiday season, you already were. But never mind, let’s have our fun anyway. First, we want to say that the Australian literary world seems like, well, Australia. The Wild West of reading. If it’s going to happen in the world of books, chances are Australia is already doing it or has done it better in the past. This is the land of the literary hoax, after all. And now we have judges storming out just as they’re supposed