Square Pegs

David Thayer over at Collected Miscellany leads into a post about reviewing with a statement that made us laugh (in a yeah-we’re-looking-into-a-mirror sort of way): People like me are intensely interested in every hiccup and crosswind the publishing world produces. We read everything. He then (and, Gena, you might want to read his entire post twice) explains that a review is an opinion. Are you okay? Put your head between your knees. Deep, slow breaths. Take your time, we can wait. It’s not like we have a meeting tomorrow or anything. Oh right, we do. When one upsets the meeting […]

It is with great sadness that we report that author Cheryl Anne Porter passed away today, after battling cancer. We want to express our sorrow to her family while remembering that her legacy will live on thanks to the many lives she touched.

The husband convinced his high school English teacher to let him read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for credit. Yes, the rest of the class was trying to comprehend King Lear; the husband was learning the terrors inherent in casino carpets. We believe this is where he developed his journalistic skills. Or maybe his distrust of authority — it’s never been clear. Thus we feel we can speak for the husband when we say that mixing journalism and ouzo is a bad idea. Once you are no longer objective (read: you’ve become the story), you must stop and admit

To understand Hollywood, you must spend some time here. Not on the Walk of Fame, but in the offices of the motion picture studios. You can try the record industry, sure, but the perks are better in the movies. Pay is better, too. Hollywood is the epitome of two-faced society. You’ll never know how your best friend really feels about you, which is fine because you’ll never be honest with your therapist. Spies, you know. By the way, we’re not talking about the talent — we’re talking studio executives. There is something terrifying about watching a man graduate from poorly

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