Square Pegs

There is a rumor that Las Vegas doesn’t want the Romance Writers of America annual conference because women don’t drink enough. Right, as if imbibing alcohol isn’t a time-honored writer’s tradition. While Jonathon Ames doesn’t discuss RWA’s particular situation, he does reveal a few things about the subject of drinking in an interview with Maud Newton. He also discusses Raymond Chandler (we would like to mention that Los Angeles gets a bad rap here — it’s still a pretty great city, and we can eat outdoors all year long!). Interview with Jonathan Ames

We covered the, um, poorly advised writing advice of Todd Pierce. John Scalzi, likely a fairer minded soul than us, actually contacted Mr. Pierce. And received a response. At least the whole issue is somewhat clearer, though we suspect people only hear the first thing. Bottom line: don’t lie in your queries. You’ll get caught. Thank you. Todd Pierce Responds

We’ve written about how authors are using the Internet to change how they work. It was only a matter of time before the online community reintroduced an ancient concept. Robert McCrumb of the Guardian discusses innovation in literature (the last frontier!) and dates what we consider a modern phenomenon back to Homer. The author, not the Simpson. In the second article, Kate Mosse shows us how this interactive thing is done with her novel-in-progress. Interactive writing? Don’t sneer. It goes back to Homer Labyrinth

Fiction snatched Barbara Trapido from the jaws of academia. It can do the same for you. Start now and you too can erase words like “thesis” from your vocabulary forever. Just remember those voices in your head are your friends (unless you’re truly insane, in which case we recommend proper help). The awkward squad: The characters in Barbara Trapido’s first novel refused to let her finish her PhD thesis

We admit it, we’re a little obsessed (in a healthy way) with Marian Keyes. Perhaps it’s the characters, perhaps it’s the stories, but mostly likely it’s the fact that we laugh out loud even on our third or fourth reading of her books. We did, however, promise ourselves we wouldn’t post links to every single interview the poor woman has given over the past month or so. But how could we resist sharing the Guardian’s headline with the world? What made Marian

Or maybe just guy weekend. We’re not sure. Lad Lit is dead, though Beatrice.com questions whether two books constitute a trend. Gay romance is the new frontier. And, supporting our own reporting (those piles of male reading material remain in place), we learn that men do read. Not about relationships and sex (well, a little about sex, though we suspect they prefer pictures), but about money and wealth and cutthroat stuff. Kind of like pirate stories set in corporate America. Forget yesterday’s hot author, Ben Mezrich, author of Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided

Here’s the thing about the writing process: while everyone has their own special way of doing it, in the end, it gets down to writing. Putting words together in some sort of order, punctuation optional. Yet we are continually fascinated by the process. It is inevitable that an author’s reading will somehow morph into questions about “how do you do it?” Thus, we read with great interest Maud Newton’s interview with Salr Abdoh, author of The Poet’s Game. Turn out he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like us. Apparently this interview is the first in

Please don’t get us wrong — we’re not married to the truth (which is why we exist in what is lovingly — or not — called “our fantasy world”). What we understand, of course, is you’re not supposed to lie when you might get caught. Or something like that. Which is why we were amused by the coverage of one misguided soul’s advice on writing cover letters (if we were to write such an article, we’d probably cover the dull “don’t forget a SASE” part; oh, we found someone who’s already done the work for us. See the final link.).

We know there are far too many awards out there. Where we live, what used to be known as Winter and Spring now go by the name “Awards Season” (where we live, there isn’t much in the way of weather, so we didn’t really need the other two seasons). So we shouldn’t be surprised to learn there’s something called the Libetarian Freedom Society and that they have awards. A few familiar names pop up on the list (this shouldn’t surprise us, either). Winners will be announced at the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, September 2 -6, 2004. Prometheus