In reading about an author losing his work when his laptop is stolen, we are naturally inclined to lecture long and loud on the importance of backups. But close study of the story also leads us to reflect upon the dangers of leaving your computer in the garden shed. Offering two pieces of advice will surely lead to confusion, but we can’t choose one over the other. Thus we’re stuck with strongly (forcefully, violently, passionately) suggesting that failure to backup work should be punishable by public ridicule (you must accept that computer failures do not limit themselves to the other

We can’t recall when our love affair with Jane Austen novels began — though we promise it was long before Colin Firth became the face of Mr. Darcy in our imagination (not that we would ever complain). It pleases us beyond belief that Austen is finally being taken seriously as an author. Austen both redefined and refined women’s fiction. The books she was raised on, by Ann Radcliffe or Maria Edgeworth, are now defined as subversive literature. They both told interesting stories while communicating information to the readers; Austen took this dual purpose in a new direction when she turned

If an alien were to explore our bookshelves in an attempt to understand something about us, the likely conclusion would be multiple personality disorder. We admittedly read romance. We read science fiction. We read mystery and crime fiction. We read fantasy. We read literary fiction. We read classics. We read non-fiction. We read periodicals. We read cereal boxes. We read. Constantly. It’s probably a side effect of having a librarian for a mother, but our literary prejudices are minimal. Mostly we hate celebrity autobiographies, but that’s because we don’t get a good sense of honesty from them. When we judge

We’ve been fairly vocal in our opposition to legislation extending copyright — after all, copyright protection was established as a sort of quid pro quo. The government would protect an artist’s creation; in return, the artist would give back to society, in the form of works moving into the public domain after a certain period of time. Thus the financial/creative needs of the artist were nicely balanced with society’s investment in art. This method worked for a long time, and the arrangement was satisfactory for both parties. Then came Mickey Mouse (we still cannot type that word without doing a

We’re in a bit of a “let my information go free” mood this morning. It sure beats our “we hate mornings and everything they represent” mood. But, yes, it means we end up drinking far too much coffee and ranting a bit more than normal. But since interesting publishing news (and by interesting, we don’t mean financial stuff) is a bit slow, we must keep ourself entertained. We believe there will be dramatic shifts in academic publishing happening sooner rather than the preferred (from a publisher’s perspective) later. There is just enough buzz to support our contention (the article below

Once upon a time, we had a job. We rose every morning, drove long distances, and sat in our office, staring at the Matisse print on the wall opposite us. Yes, we were searching for the meaning of life. No, we never figured it out. In between deep thoughts, we performed our duties — those duties make us particularly qualified to comment on the “they’re missing the real story” aspect of this story. We realize this has nothing to do with writing, per se. But it does. It speaks to our frequently repeated (ad inifinitum comes to mind) mantra about