From the Publishers Lunch Weekly deal report list:
I know Doselle and Elizabeth will be interested in this one too.
My new favorite thing ever–or at least of today–via Sarah Cross: Frazetta-style* '80s cartoon art.
You'll understand if I tell you that my friends and I STILL listened to the ultimately trippy Strawberry Shortcake Exercise and Fun Album in high school (it ended brilliantly with a track called "The Bottom of the Sea"). But, seriously, I learned to DIVE because of Strawberry Shortcake–and then my brother blew her up. I couldn't love this piece more.
*Or possibly some other style that Jeremy references in the comments and which, I've no doubt, will inspire hearty debate on a topic of which I know zippo. I just heart killer Strawberry Shortcake. I fully support the analysis of her genius.
Strawberry Death Match! Read More »
Sorry I forgot to post the Dollhouse thread. The level of busy for the past week has topped historical levels, but I finally got a chance to watch the ep last night. Now that's more like it. Spoilers in comments. Some regular posting to resume this week.
Reading Paul Tremblay's The Little Sleep and finding it a pleasing cocktail reminiscent of Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn and Jen Banbury's Like a Hole in the Head, with a hint of Bukowski bitters.
Tardy Dollhouse Discuss. & Misc. Read More »
The results of the 2008 Tiptree Award are out. Another big representation for YA this year, including one of the co-winners. Big round of applause for the hard-working jurors, and I'll stash the full press release behind the cut. And the winners are:
The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness, Walker (UK) 2008 and Candlewick Press (US) 2008. This book has also won the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize (U.K.), which celebrates contemporary fiction for teenagers, and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.
Filter House, by Nisi Shawl, Aqueduct Press, 2008, also chosen as one of Publishers Weekly’s best books of 2008.
…
Winners of the Nebulas and the Andre Norton Award gacked from Locus:
For all us poor stiffs not having fun at NESCBWI or the Nebs this weekend:
Haunted. Echo is programmed with the memories of a dead woman in the hopes that she can help solve the woman's murder. Topher secretly prepares Sierra for an engagement, and Ballard looks into Mellie's past.
I'm a little worried since the standalones are my least favorites so far, but the show has been on a roll lately and perhaps this'll be the first truly good one.
Dollhouse Discussion Read More »
No Dollhouse Discussion because no new Dollhouse, and sorry my presence has been so spotty here this week. It's spring, and I'm completely absorbed by a new project that I didn't expect to catch fire quite so quickly. Scary, very scary, but fun, too. We'll see.
C and I took in the Excavating Egypt exhibit tonight, where I stared at a statue of Anubis until I got chills. One of the little corners of the exhibit, tucked away opposite the elevators of an upstairs hallway where most people probably miss it, featured an oversized picture of Amelia Edwards and an absolutely gorgeous display of her books about Egypt.*
Edwards is a fascinating character–a close friend of Charles Dickens, a suffragette, and, of course, a prominent Egyptologist. Her writings about her travels in Egypt reflected a prescient fear for the destruction of its archeological treasures, one she acted on by encouraging more measured exploration. Here's an excerpt from the excellent biographical note at the University of Pennsylvania's celebration of women writers:
Anyone who has lost themselves in one of Elizabeth Peters' "Amelia Peabody" mysteries, daydreaming of high adventure amid the pyramids of Egypt, will be intrigued by the writings of her real-life contemporary Amelia Edwards. Edwards enjoyed three separate careers: as an journalist, a novelist, and an egyptologist. She was also an active supporter of the suffrage movement, serving at one time as Vice-President of the Society for Promoting Women's Suffrage. Unlike the fictional Amelia Peabody, Amelia Edwards never married, but lived and travelled for much of her life with a female companion.
When she died at the age of 61, she left her collection of Egyptian artifacts to and endowed a chairship at University College, London, because it was the "only university in Britain offering degrees for women at that time." William Matthew Flinders Petrie–who according to the exhibit sometimes performed his archeology in underwear to discourage tourists–was the first holder of the chair and, obviously, who the Petrie Museum is named after.
The Penn site has the full text of A Thousand Miles up the Nile, as do several other sites, including Google Books. Or, like I plan to, you can check out some of her ghost and supernatural-themed stories here, including those published in Dickens' magazines.
*Stopped here to howl because Emma heard a doorbell on television and started barking. We do not have a doorbell, but someone in Emma's past did.