Hangovers

• "'Vampire' Unearthed from Venice Plague Grave" (happy Friday the 13th!). Also, ancient Roman joke book.
• This blog posts a story about how a book got its title each day. (Via Maud.)
• Sara Zarr on the insanity of photo retouching, and being okay with looking like yourself in your publicity photos. Right. On.
• Andrew Auseon's new, exquisitely titled Jo-Jo and the Fiendish Lot is on the streets, and there's this neato accompanying site too. 
• "The Kindle Revolution."
• Colleen tells a ghost story. We should have a designated ghost story day in the 'sphere–next Friday the 13th, perhaps?
• What's up with Drac's neckwear in the 1931 movie version?

• Did I vanish there? Why, yes, I'm very mysterious that way. My goal for the afternoon is to catch up on e-mail. & huge amount of links to kick out.
• Some RaceFail links (all accessible to people out of the loop, too): Susan Groppi with "Things we say and don't say" and "Frames of Reference"; Naomi Novik with "what ought to go without saying but doesn't"; Niall Harrison with "Reasons to Care about RaceFail"; Colleen Mondor with "Are you reading this wrong?"; and Chris Barzak with "On failing to keep up with RaceFail." There are soooo many more.
• This has been a pet issue of mine for years. Why have science books for kids traditionally been so dry and boring? (Via Cyn.) I'm still angry that all the personalities are removed from the stories of invention and advance, but this post gives me some hope that things have improved a bit Since My Day.
• Rachel Aaron on writing the right book (and, really, if you're not reading The Magic District yet, it's full of good posts).
• Linda Sue Park is going to join the ranks of writers for the 39 Clues series.
• Jeff Ford on his instructor John Gardner's go-to craft book, An American Rhetoric, by W.W. Watt.
• The Second Pass, a new lit site updated with new content daily. Pretty. And Maud will be contributing.
• Like I really believe the kids aren't still reading the beats. Yeah, right. And Charlie Finlay puts it best: "Like Sylvia Plath wouldn't be reading Stephanie Meyer if she was a college freshman today."
• The New York Times gets added to the list of publications full of accolades for Jed Berry's The Manual of Detection, as does Strange Horizons (nicely said, Ms. Meisner!).
• F&SF has posted all its Nebula-nominated stories online.
• Karen Healey is watching Heroes, and cracking me up with commentary on Mohinder's "science."
• An excellent profile of Lynda Barry.
• The Guardian writes up queryfail.
• Good on Jay Asher and his book's slow-building success.
• Small Beer HQ is planning (get it? get it?) for their first foray into desk calendars, with A Working Writer's Daily Planner 2010: Your Year in Writing. Sign me up. Also, please to include the dates (if available) for some of the bigger conference events — BEA, AWP, ALA, and such, perhaps?
• Carolyn, at Paper Cuts and away from it, has personality to spare. SRSLY.
• Finally, Glen Hirshberg is blogging again, yay, and has just finished a book that sounds both ambitious and wonderful, called The Book of Bunk. I can't wait.

• Scientific American piece on albinism.
• The latest Mind Meld asks a bunch of writers about their literary influences in the ongoing conversation of SF.
• "Why can't a woman write the great American novel?" at Salon. (Via Medialoper.)
• It's not every day a fashion piece references Gaddis — but, then, it is by Cintra Wilson.
• Ilona Andrews has been continuing to pick apart paragraphs. They're like fascinating little autopsies, where at the end the paragraph gets entirely reanimated.
• Eliza Dushku interview in USA Today. Mom was a women's studies prof. Hmmm…
• Kate Messner on virtual author visits, with some must-read analysis about what worked and what didn't at her school's first one. These will only get more popular, and that's a fabulous thing.
• Another thoughtful piece about the "death of independent bookstores." See also the death of the novel and the death of blogging, etc. Updated: Meghan with a great rant on how the indie bookstore business model is not inferior.
• Nathan Bransford offers some thoughts on sympathetic vs. unsympathetic characters. Also, see: Holly's crazy writing theory that the truly forbidden is characters going gross. (John Green, you need to write the lovable nosepicker, just to be the exception that proves the rule.)
• Slate on the Kindle and why it may be bad for publishing. (Perhaps, though, playing devil's advocate, it will force a more sensible and speedy progression for e-books. I just hope it doesn't seal the deal as the only game in e-book town.) And Gavin has the news on Amazon backing down on the text-to-speech feature, making it title-by-title.
• Do belt-tightening times make us better artists?
• Psychedelic fish.
• The Boston Globe takes a look at a number of Mormons writing YA, including two excellent writers I was lucky enough to have in my workshops at Vermont College — Carol Lynch Williams and Julie Berry. (And, bonus, brilliant genius Martine Leavitt — my last semester advisor, and also a graduate of the program — is interviewed as well.) I find the article's implication that YA is a virginal playground odd, especially considering what happens in the last Twilight book. (Isn't straight-up romance the only genre that actually requires sex? And there's probably some occasional wiggle room there.) But I do agree with Martine that story is paramount in YA and children's literature, and it's nice to see such a generally thoughtful article about a less-well-known trend in the field.
• AND, relatedly, Julie's first novel The Amaranth Enchantment is out this week. After spending the weekend with it, I can assure you it'll hit the spot if you're in the mood for a traditional, smart, light-hearted fantasy with charming thieves and diabolical plotters and mistaken identities and witches who carry their souls around with them (sort of). It's a frothy romp with a goat named Dog. And it was selected for the IndieBound spring kids list. Take note of Julie's name, because you'll be hearing way more from her. Trust me.
• Joy Williams reviews the new Flannery O'Connor biography by Brad Gooch, which I just started reading the other night.
• Stephany needs a baby name! Stop her before she goes with Angina.
• Philip Pullman's speech to the Modern Liberty Convention.
• Happy pre-birthday to Mr. McLaren, winner of most of the stuff from the Shirley Jackson auction. Maybe the year treat you well.

• I would type up all the info about Small Beer offering their backlist on Scribd (which I'm just investigating), but Charlie Finlay has all the relevant dish so I'll be lazy and link to him instead. (Also, The Patriot Witch sounds awesome, and you can get a preview of that at Scribd too.)
• Over at NPR, Joss Whedon talks about Dollhouse and several women writers discuss the first couple of eps.
• Richard Florida on how the crash of 2008 and America's future.
• Cyn interviews editor and writer Stacy Whitman.
• I twittered-but-forgot-to-post-here a link to Laurel Snyder's excellent article, "Where the Wild Things Aren't," on the need to de-lame-ify much of Jewish children's lit.
• Lots of chatter here and yon about Susan Orlean using Google Docs to write her new book. I love Google Docs, although I rarely use it for fiction writing–Scrivener suits that purpose much better. But I love it to keep notes about various things and to access files so I don't have to open the Evil Evil Microsoft Word, which always makes my computer creeeeep along.
• What Laini said, and congratulations on hitting the big 5-0-0th post. I appear to be on 1555 here. Yowza.
• Okay, back to the Scrivener mines.

• Workworkwork proceeds apace. Clearing out some tabs.
• IndieBound has individual pages for books now, yay, and their affiliate program is supereasy to manage to boot. Check it out. 
• And how better to experience the wonders of IndieBound than to buy Jedediah Berry's* debut novel, The Manual of Detection, nownownow from a local book shop and read it as fast as you can? There is no better way. It's an IndieNext pick for March. It's a beautiful object. You want to possess it. You're getting very sleepy. I think I'd better read it again this week, so I can finally do a proper post. See also: Holly's endorsement or enter your mystery-in-need-of-solving to win.
• Nice piece in the NYT about Raleigh outsider artist Renaldo Kuhler and his imaginary Rocaterrania. A documentary film about the artist premieres this week in San Jose. Noted for the add-to-queue file.
• RIP The Middleman, though the show creator says over at the Middle Blog that he prefers to think of it as "hibernating in a high tech vat."  Oh, how the sensible, non-angry commentary reminds me of same tune after the Freaks and Geeks cancellation. How about they just keep letting you put weird awesome television on FOREVER instead of pretending one season is enough? I know the sentiments are right and necessary for, y'know, having a career, but ::shakes fist:: At any rate, the finale comic book sounds excellent.
• Downturn good news for board games? Board games are good news anytime! (A post on the new edition of Clue coming soon, by the by. WTF?!)
• Alan Gratz lives the Project Runway dream!
• More to come, but Cynthia Leitich Smith's Eternal = MAJOR WOW. You need to read this one. Nownownow. Like I said, more to come.

*Someone got a pretty site redesign! I dream of the day I graduate from template-world. It won't be anytime soon, I'm afraid.

• Cooper the Cat's eye view of Seattle. (Via Kelley.)
• A couple of things caught my attention at PW recently: a column on tricking adults into reading YA and a short interview with Jo Graham (whose Black Ships I adored and whose Hand of Isis just got a starred review and is sitting near the top of my TBR pile).
• Jeff Ford recommends Jed Berry's The Manual of Detection, my favorite book of the year so far. You want this one. Trust me. And it officially releases Feb. 19.
• Meghan offers an early recommendation for Holly and Cecil's Geektastic anthology, which is one of the most fabulous anthology concepts ever and sounds like it has the execution to match.
• New Dave Schwartz novella, "Escape to Bird Island," over at The King's English.
• Bibliophile Stalker has an interview with Ben Parzybok of Couch fame (yet another book I need to read, stat).
• Some vigorous debate about ass-kicking female characters–pro, con, etc.
• Cybils winners have been announced.
• Colleen on covers and the logic therein–I actually love the Paper Towns dual covers, but I can see where they might not necessarily appeal to guys.

• I've just attempted a Great Inbox Catch-Up, so if you sent me an e-mail and haven't gotten a response, then re-send. I vow to keep up on a weekly basis (mostly) from this point forward.
• Betsy gives some love to Kekla Magoon's The Rock and the River, which I've heard nothing but good things about.
• So Lance Armstrong won't have the most stringent drug testing protocols ever. Not sure what this means.
• A new fantasy-focused news and reviews and other stuff site, The Torch, has launched. Author Brent Hartinger is writing a great deal of the content so far. 
• The Interfictions 2 line-up is amazing, and what a good idea to have additional stories in an online annex. Can't wait.
• TV Show Music catalogues the tunes on various shows. No more fruitless rewinding to try and hear lyrics and then googling for half an hour. Yay.
• The Shirley Jackson Awards are holding a lottery to raise funds. At Readoncon, I saw one of the rocks given to nominees, which, in my humble opinion, is the coolest thing ever.
• An excellent interview with Lew Shiner about Black & White and various other topics. A snippet: "I've always felt that any individual book of mine is going to have more in common with my other books than with other books in the same "genre." I think the emphasis on genre comes more from publishers than readers. The readers I talk to just want to read a good book (whatever that means). It's the big conglomerate publishers who want to turn books into predictable commodities so they can sell the largest number of units each of the smallest number of titles. That doesn't serve writers or readers, it just serves the publishers — and them only in the short term."
• Jincy Willett has launched an online workshop. 
• Paul Di Filippo writes about several new anthologies and the state of short fiction over at the B&N Review.
• New fantasy group blog starting up, The Magic District, and the members include Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout, so I'll be reading it. (Greg has the best novel title ever — Norse Code. I have title envy.)
• Also, note that the link to Greg's book is to IndieBound. I'm hoping to switch all my links over to Indiebound. (Except the ones in the sidebars, which self-generate to Amazon through Typepad's system. But I hold out hope that there will one day be code that enables me to do that too.)

• Dept. of Not Again: HarperCollins lay-offs happening today. Updated: More info on the bad news.
• Check out Forgotten Books, which connects users to either the full text online and/or sources to buy really old, really cool books. (Via Jeff Ford.)
• Fabulous writer and fabulous illustrator and fabulous person Gene Brenek interviewed over at Cyn's place. Gene did all those excellent logos for various places/things in the Tantalize/Eternal universe. And he's one of my fellow Revisionistas.
• At the Daily Beast, Maud recommends that before Kate Christensen's latest novel, Trouble, comes out in June, you check out her backlist. See also: Maud's excellent piece about her father in Granta.
• Laurel Snyder has written the introduction for a new edition of E. Nesbit's Five Children and It, clearly excellent news. Can't wait to read her forthcoming novel, Any Which Wall. 
• Why do I never buy the specimen collection of Alfred Russel Wallace by accident?
• Going back to the old school New Mutants. Interesting. (Via Dave.)
• Lisa Madigan imagines a visit to the writer's workstation by Tim Gunn. God, I love this.
• An in-depth post on the concept of high concept.

• No time for anything but hangovers this week. No time to do much of anything. WHIIIINE.
• The last Balanchine ballerina retires.
• An interesting SLJ piece making the rounds about the kind of censorship that doesn't make headlines, but is far more pervasive.
• I miss Sara Nelson already, and I hope she does end up hanging around the book biz.
• I need to read more Elizabeth Wein, as these books sound fabulous. And, apparently, some of them are being reissued and need title assistance. Help out.
• A video that I haven't had time to watch yet making the rounds all over so it must be good — Book By Book: The Making of a Monkey Man.
• John Green on quantifying reader appeal. See also: Karen Healey expressing delight while reading Let It Snow.
• Maureen on healthier ways of eating, and the karma of vegetables.
• Ellen Kushner has the deets on efforts to save Realms of Fantasy.
• Perhaps the book with the best title of the year is The Forest of Hands and Teeth (and it's about zombies!), and it just garnered a starred review from PW. I absolutely cannot wait to read this book.
• Cynthia Leitich Smith is the mistress of cool and apparently of excellent book trailers too. The Eternal trailer is shiny, oh so shiny.
• This is a new way to dump your online weirdo stalker.
• The KidLitosphere has a spiffy new coordinated home page. Makes sense and it's pretty. How can you beat that?

• Sara Zarr has a smart post about self doubt and writing over at the Teen Fiction Cafe.
• Why haven't I read Everything Beautiful yet? I loved Simmone Howell's first book.
• Chris uncovers a zombie problem in Austin. 
• I'm developing a yen to see the Inkheart movie. I'm afraid today it's C's choice though, and we're off to watch the lycans rise later.
• If only all resumes were 140 characters long. I kind of love reading these, despite the sadness of such talented people being out of work. I hope they all find jobs soon.
• Uncovering Book World's troubled past; this isn't the first time the standalone section's been axed.
• Over at the LA Times, Gavin reviews — and recommends highly — Alison Goodman's Eon: Dragoneye Reborn, a book that's been on my TBR stack for ages now. Sounds like a Tiptree contender to me.
• Justine collects some writers' views on pacing, including some of my most favorite favorites (like the woefully under-celebrated Ursula Dubosarsky) and recent Printz winner Melina Marchetta. 
• A discussion of the economic theories at work in Charles Stross books.
• SF Signal's Mind Meld asks various writers about the best advice they ever got.
• A sum up and some commentary about the controversy over the casting in Avatar: The Last Airbender, including comments from Gene Luen Yang.
• Welcome news: Slate actually encouraging long-range journalistic pieces with sabbaticals.
• Katha Pollitt writes in The Nation about how we can do a better job of promoting books and reading. (Thanks to Leda, for the pointer.)
• There goes Leila, cracking me up again. This time it's with an in-depth blog report of her attempt to read Flowers in the Attic.