What Day Is It Anyway? Hangovers

Not that I’m really taking in any of the information I look at online, but the colors are pretty and the scrolling comforts me — and I have a sore throat now (!) and an hour-long break before tonight’s faculty reading by Sharon Darrow, Margaret Bechard, Kathi Appelt and Jane Kurtz, which should be a lot of fun. Then, I plan to go into a coma until at least 10 a.m. tomorrow, when my sore throat is miraculously gone. Yesterday, I went to a great lecture by poet Julie Larios on critical reading for writers, and today an excellent one by Uma Krishnaswami on dialogue and another by a graduating student on the shapeshifter in fiction. I can’t believe it’s only Thursday. Everyone here is so smart.

But, anyway, here’s a few linkies in the meanwhile:

• Skip Moles’s younger brother Dave kicks off a discussion on characterization with some assertions. Make sure to check out the comments; I like Maureen McHugh’s: "All people might be interesting (although I have met some who hid it really really well) but there are no people in books.  There are only words.  Characters in a story aren’t people.  C’est nest pas un pipe.  So I still think there’s an obligation there…"
• Bookburger has a fabulous interview with the divine Miss Cecil Castellucci (whose new book is going to knock all your socks right off), in which she plugs Walter Tevis (and James Tiptree, Jr.!), something that always makes me happy.
• Billy Sothern remembers Helen Hill in the NYT. Have you sent your fax yet? It’s not too late. (Via Jenny D.)
• Eos is looking for twenty early readers to check out Vicki Pettersson’s debut novel The Scent of Shadows; go here for the details on how to volunteer.
• Frank O’Hara rejects Harold Ross’s rejection, January 1939. This sentence cracks me up: "As a matter of fact when a writer writes in spurts, as I do, there is just as good a chance that everything he produces in a spurt will be good." (Via Maud.)
• John Crowley has posted the drool-worthy nonfiction book list on strange and unusual humans, and that sort of thing.
• Strange Horizons has a podcast and Susan has the goods on how to subscribe.

Did I mention I have a sore throat and am exhausted? Bye now.