Posted in writing, tagged cool stuff on 24 April 2008 | No Comments »
Kim’s done a complete overhaul of her website. Surf on over and look around. She’s put up a biography (with pics), and all kinds of juicy tidbits about her various books, including Ruby’s Imagine, which is coming out in a few months. She’s also got some big name writers (like Alice Hoffman and Jane Yolen) [...]
Posted in stuff, tagged cool stuff, quotidian on 14 April 2008 | No Comments »
I’ve got a bunch of science fiction digest magazines I don’t want anymore. They have been in boxes for seven years and I have not once felt the urge to open any of those boxes, which reminds me of that rule for getting rid of stuff: If you haven’t used something in two years, you [...]
Posted in books, tagged books, cool stuff on 10 March 2008 | 3 Comments »
I was a library nut when I was a kid. I’d go at least once a week, sometimes more, and check out the maximum number of books they allowed. (I’m still the same way, but that’s a story for another post.) I thought there was nothing better in the world than the public library. I [...]
Posted in list, tagged cool stuff on 5 March 2008 | 3 Comments »
Driving north on the I-5 yesterday, we passed a truck hauling a boat. The boat’s name, displayed prominently on the stern, was Current Toy, which is a marvelous name for a boat. Seeing it made me think about names in general. I’m one of those guys who has trouble with names. People I’ve seen in [...]
Posted in animals, tagged cool stuff on 2 March 2008 | 2 Comments »
Though I like observing and looking for birds, I don’t have an extensive life list, and I haven’t even written mine down as serious bird watchers do. My all time favorite bird to watch is the sanderling, a shore bird often seen in flocks on the Oregon coast and other beaches. Sanderlings move rapidly along [...]
Posted in writing, tagged cool stuff, the writing life on 22 February 2008 | 4 Comments »
If you haven’t seen “Shelf Life” by Adrian Tomine, the hilarious cover of the current New Yorker, it’s worth seeking out. There’s a teeny tiny version of it on this page and a bigger version on the artist’s website here (currently the 4th box in the top row). It depicts the book publishing process in [...]
Posted in contest, tagged cool stuff, give away, shameless self promotion on 14 February 2008 | 8 Comments »
This article by Douglas Goetsch in The American Scholar from last year is a marvelous piece about a group of high school kids who learned how to write poetry then set up a stand where they wrote poems on demand and on the spot for anyone who asked. It’s about the most inspiring thing I’ve [...]
Posted in web sites, tagged cool stuff on 30 January 2008 | No Comments »
When I was very young I thought the phone company could tell when you had too much going on in your house to answer the phone. That’s when they sent a busy signal to whoever was trying to call you. I also believed that clouds came from the smokestacks at the smelter near the Northern [...]
Posted in writing, tagged borges, cool stuff on 28 January 2008 | 2 Comments »
When he was a teenager Borges used to write stories and poems, print them up as chapbooks, then take them around his town and slip them into the pockets of coats he found hanging on coat racks at restaurants, barber shops, stores, and other establishments. I have always found this image of the young Borges [...]
