writer and teacher
On my Firefox weather extension, today’s icon is something I haven’t seen since watching the national news broadcasts when I was living in Ireland — a sun half-covered with clouds and rain. I’m willing to bet that the Austin variation of “sunny, with rain” will differ from the Irish one, though. Fewer mists here, more…
The practice reading was marvelous fun, even though we had no functioning lights for the outdoor stage and everybody after the first reader ended up reading by penlight. We had a good audience — maybe thirty, forty people, mostly friends and other writing students (who are also friends). I read “Daphne,” and it was easy…
More clarification about how book packaging works in the world of teen fiction, by the Harvard Independent here and Lizzie Skurnick here. In other news, I have a reading to prepare for — the graduating students in my writing program are doing a practice reading tomorrow night (at Club DeVille on Red River, 7:30 p.m.,…
Kaavya Viswanathan’s book is being withdrawn. I wonder what her first attempt at a novel was like — the Lovely Bones-style manuscript that was judged too dark to be saleable. I keep thinking about that, especially as I read about Alloy Entertainment and the process of “packaging” that Opal Mehta went through. Now Viswanathan’s been…
Yesterday I attended an interdisciplinary symposium on the topic of “animal humanities.” A friend helped to organize the symposium, and had invited me to the lunch with the presenters and other graduate students. There had been some difficulty organizing a vegetarian lunch, apparently; the catering services in the student union building tend more toward barbecue.…