Square Pegs

We do so love writing contests — they provide opportunity for complete strangers to question our obvious brilliance (we also had some head scratchers over punctuation, but that’s another issue). Naturally, when we encounter a new contest for the first time, we scour the rules for obvious tricks. With one notable exception, our chances in the new Man Booker International Prize (brought to you, obviously, by the same Man Booker folk responsible for that other award) seem excellent. We are, after all, living (and presume we will be so when the award is awarded). Our English, though questionable, remains our […]

We get the concept of science fiction romance. We understand speculative fiction. We think raising awareness is a neat idea. We even followed along as the rules were outlined (hey, there’s a new contest for authors of short speculative romances, deadline 8/31/2004, see website for details). What we don’t get is the rather confusing use of the Internet as evidenced on the contest page. Something about a press release and going live when a newsletter is released. All very confusing to us. The Zircon Awards

Weren’t we taught that one is the lonliest number (oh grand, now we’re stuck with the song in our head)? Yet it’s two that makes us want to throw ourselves off a cliff. Okay, not really — we don’t believe pain is ever an answer, no matter what the question. There are all sort of reasons why your second novel hurts so much (including the very helpful notion that every novel after the first is your second novel…gee, that makes us want to write!), but the bottom line is, hmmm, there is no bottom line. However, we wouldn’t be us

Lookee here — another article on the sad financial plight of the lowly author. Actually, it’s a pretty even-handed article, if you don’t mind serving a little depression with your muse. We believe education is key in this business. We also wish it wouldn’t fog up our rose-tinted glasses. For love, if not money

Like most of our kind, we love words. We especially love “just right” words — especially when they pop into our heads when needed, not three or four days later. It’s easy enough to guess what usually happens. We also love Scrabble — the thrill of forcing those little letters into a word is exquisite. Of course, the last time we played, our mother and sister got a bit huffy…something about our lack of competitive spirit. What about the part where our contributions to the game were a perfectly formed haiku? Doesn’t that count for something? This week, the Guardian

True story: our accountant told our husband that our writing would make him rich. So he supported our decision to quit our despised day job. We reasoned time would be better spent in creative pursuit — and he agreed (we love our accountant for his unexpected support). All we have to say now is: Sucker! Not that we don’t work hard. It’s more that our genius has gone largely unrecognized. That’s fine — we’re shy. All of this is a roundabout way of suggesting each of you read this article. Because we sincerely hope you become as rich as your

We’re not much for the author as celebrity concept. Mostly because most authors we know are not well suited to public life. Our instinctive wariness of Bergdorf Blondes doesn’t come from the words on the page as much as the hoopla surrounding the author. She hasn’t done much to change our impression that the writing is shallow. We have nothing against shallow — we are more opposed to very large advances to celebrity authors — was there anything about this book that justified that much money (we posted last week on the likelihood of a certain range of advances not

This week, the Guardian lets Robert McCrumb revisit twenty-five years of his life. McCrumb passes through the library shelves of his mind about his authors and the state of the industry. Literary fashion comes and goes, but books will never change. The best book club

Oh heck, for just about everybody. Just a little something for the long weekend — we are saddened by the genesis of this story, but cannot help (we are, after all, writers) dwelling on the irony and mystery. It seems the world’s foremost Sherlock Holmes scholar (we’ll let the concept pass without comment), Richard Lancelyn Green, died under unusual circumstances, and his death remains unsolved (except the part where he is, unfortunately, dead). Return of the curse of Conan Doyle?

As noted, Southern California has abandoned both Winter and Spring in favor of a more easily managed (and pronounced) Awards Season. We suspect Fall may soon fold into this single season — and we worry that Summer may not be far behind. After all, we’re edging toward Memorial Day, and awards are still being announced. This week, the Bellweather Prize for Fiction was awarded to Marjorie Kowalski Cole for her novel Correcting the Landscape. We like the sound of this award, by the way — Bellweather is in support of social change (we’re thinking we need more of that), so