Blog Entries - June 2007

My biggest grammatical pet peeve

stevenl

A note on my biggest grammatical pet-peeve:

When you're talking about the 1990s, or the 1830s, or the 1250s, you're not talking about something that belongs to the year 1990, or 1830, or 1250. So unless your sentence reads, "Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby One More Time' was 1250's #1 single," don't add an apostrophe between "0" and "s." It isn't required at all!

I know a better way to teach kids grammar: teach them [...]

The endless debate: Adobe vs Quark!

anthrasula

Beginning in the late 1980's (and early 1990's), QuarkXpress and Adobe have tussled to see who would reign supreme and become the top choice in desktop publishing. In the 1980's Aldus Inc. had a desktop publishing program called PageMaker.

Aftewards, QuarkXpress Inc. released QuarkXPress, which become Aldus's main competition. Throughout this ongoing saga, QuarkXpress became victorious in the 1990's when PageMaker could not keep up with the competition.

In 19 [...]

This weblog is rated G

scififan

Haha... Just found this neat little thing while travelling the inter-web...

Click here to find out what your blog is rated. I am like that Disney channel. Maybe I should write some tougher posts.

Contest success

scififan

Just found out I won a short story contest today — in a local journal. There were 132 entries.

*DRUMROLL*

I placed first! I am so totally pumped. I got high marks from the judges and lots of helpful comments to polish the story up. So I'm going to do just that and send it in for the Writer's Digest Short Short Story contest. I've thought about it several times, just haven't actually worked up the nerve to do it. But now I think I can.

So now I'm pus [...]

Stopping in to say hello!

scififan

I've pretty much not had internet access the last couple of weeks. Obviously I haven't posted much, though there seems to be interesting things happening.

I am still here though, and following goings-on as best I can. In some ways I'm really enjoying being unplugged for a couple of weeks.

I'm taking a little vacation right now, in the last six months, I've started a job, resigned, been unemployed, started another job, moved into a new apartment an [...]

Funny company photo

stevenl

This just cracked me up. Apparently the company photo didn't turn out exactly as planned!

I'm still luaging haha...

Publishing for Small Press Runs

rkelly

I received this via email from Gary Michael Smith and thought that people on the site migh enjoy it. I would like to introduce a book that may be a useful resource to would-be authors on this blog.

Publishing for Small Press Runs is a pioneering book promoting quick and affordable short press run book publication using the latest digital technology for producing covers and text. This 372-page guide currently is being used as the course text for a class at the University of New Orleans. [...]

Press Release: Festival Calendar!!

Scream15

Scream 15 Unveils Festival Calendar

The Unlikely Alchemy of Poetry and Science

July 3 to 9, 2007
Tuesday July 3rd

Phosphorescence! The Launch of Scream 15

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

1214 Queen Street West

8 pm

PWYC, $7 suggested

It's no [...]

My Writing Group

scififan

On Monday night, I went to a book launch. One of the members of my group, published her second book of short stories. Short fiction is a tough market to get into because it's so small.

There's something satisfying about seeing a project go from conception to published book, to hear the drafts, and to make suggestions, however small, along the way. That's one thing I like about creative writing groups-hearing someone suggest something and seeing the possibilities. I also lik [...]

Thinks to think about before going PODDING

rkelly

Often print-on-demand (POD) looks great. You can publish one book at a time when it's ordered.

But, think again. After many years of writers coming to me saying they did not make the return on their investment going with a POD, and my research noticing the poor returns from POD, I say consider all the options.

Some Things to consider before you go with POD

Take notice how many other writers and books are listed on the POD webpage. Like a store, your audien [...]

Going To Press This Week: Lou Rowan�s Experimental Fiction and Kikuko Otake�s Story of Survival

ahadadabooks

Sweet Potatoes an amazing collection of fiction praised by the likes of Harry Matthews and David Antin, and Kikuko Otake's Masako's Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima are now on the way to press.

It's been a hectic couple of weeks as Mr. Lou Rowan will soon be coming to Japan to read from his new book at the Four Stories Series in Osaka, and Otake, a survivor of the atomic tragedy at Hiroshima, will be reading from her book at peace rallies and other venues in [...]

A quick review of Why Do Men Have Have Nipples

scififan

Mark Leyner is one of my favourite authors, but I've never read anyting non-fictional from him. Until now that is. A friend lent me Why Do Men Have Nipples?

Here's Vintage's (the publisher) description:

Compiled by Billy Goldberg, an emergency medicine physician, and Mark Leyner, bestselling author and well-known satirist, Why Do Men Have Nipple [...]

Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award

DougHolder

The Ibbotson Street Press Poetry Award is presented at the annual Somerville News Writers Festival held every year at the Jimmy Tingle Off-Broadway Theatre in Davis Square. The festival will be held November 11th this year. In past years poets and writers such as Pulitzer Prize winner Franz Wright, Robert Olen Butler, Oscar-nominated novelist Tom Perotta, Iowa Writer's Workshop head Lan Samantha Chang, Sue Miller ( author of "The Good Mother") , Steve Almond, Boston Glob [...]

Make your ideas count!

ebookguru

Imagine if you could develop a product that could be sold worldwide, cost almost nothing to create and could be shipped to your customers instantly. Don't think this is possible?

Let me introduce you to this "ideal product", also known as an ebook. Short for electronic book, ebooks took the internet by storm forming a new generati [...]