In San Francisco this weekend? Looking for a little excitement? After all, you can only ride the cable cars so often. The San Francisco Area Romance Writers of America (yes, it really is the mouthful it seems) are hosting A Morning With Susan Grimshaw. The behind-the-scenes-with-a-bookseller event is sure to shed light on all sort of interesting topics, including the ever-elusive “what’s selling now” discussion. Saturday, May 8, 2004. See website for details. San Francisco Area Romance Writers of America

We’ve never made a secret of the fact that we were born to be kept. Or rich, we’re not picky. Life didn’t work out that way, of course, and then we went and chose a career (or rather it chose us) that, on some level, involves suffering and such for our art. In the distant past, that murky time we skim over in our history books, artists were patronized. That whole Sistine Chapel thing? Subsidized. British author Carole Matthews is, we believe, akin to a modern day Michelangelo. Except she probably doesn’t lie on her back while working. We can’t

MediaBistro continues to offer interesting events (check out the website after following the link below — we like the insurance events. Actually, we just like cocktail parties.). For a chance to stand behind a microphone, knees knocking and voice shaking while pitching your brilliant idea to an agent, check out the event below. May 19, 2004, 7 p.m., New York, details on the site. mediabistro.com’s How to Get a Literary Agent + Pitch Slam

As it turns out, writers are not the most fun people in the world to live with. Something about selfish, distracted, prone to forget to take out the trash…but we’ll stop now as we’re hitting a little too close to home. The Guardian discusses Judy Carver’s upcoming Living With A Writer. If any of the revelations found in the article surprise you, you are clearly not doing your job right (or you have a talent for self-deception we find quite enviable). Vain, self-pitying, arrogant: now the truth about writers

We recall how easy it is to get into Canada, and how nice it was once we were safely across the border. And we regret that circumstances prevent us from attenting BookExpo Canada. As it turns out, we have other plans for the June 11 – 14, 2004 timeframe. For those who can make the trip to Toronto, registration is now open. Dig out your credit card and visit the BookExpo Canada website. BookExpo Canada

For the record, we have chosen not to follow the travails of Bill Clinton as he races to meet his deadline. There are plenty of gossip columns out there with the time and energy to do this story justice. We would, however, like to reassure all authors out there that the former President of the United States handles deadline pressure in the same way many of us do. He procrastinates by calling friends and complaining about his looming deadline. We would like to say we envy his editor the long, late hours which will be necessary to get this apparently

As we once explained to our much younger sister, we love lists, we love countdowns, we love things in orderly order. This somewhat explains our fascination with weekly bestseller lists — despite the fact we rarely have a moment to read anything more arduous than the pictures in the magazines piled around us. But we have high hopes and carefully memorize chart positions like they were our horoscope. We once again turn to the Powell’s list because, quite frankly, it has our new favorite title Eats, Shoots and Leaves in the top five (it’s number one, but we wanted you

First, let us say that some people are so sensitive. Second, let us say that poor behavior fascinates us — we were raised to be polite in public. However, taking author Christopher Byron’s behavior (storming out right before an interview is always classy) as the publicity stunt he clearly desired, we’ll go ahead and give him a little mention here, even if we don’t think it shows him in the best light. Or perhaps it’s that he identifies too closely with his subject matter? We can’t say for sure. “CEOs Gone Wild” writer ups & goes (Lloyd Grove, second item)