Blue-Stockings

Decorating the apartment

2010-01-14T08:47:00.002-05:00

So I'm on a very crafty, creative kick lately. Not only have I been knitting up a storm (see my recent Ravelry projects here), but I purchased my first sewing machine and am scouting fabrics online. I have this dream of a crisp, ordered New England farm house filled with handmade shetland lace, classic quilts, and a warm breeze worth of Eastern flare through everything. We'll see how it works in the apartment's living room and then I'll scale it up in our house...when we buy one.

So as this is a craft post, I should mention my projects.

In progress:

Sam's Gift for our Jan Challenge on Fiber Pen Pals: about 65% done. Hoping to finish for a Saturday send-off. Love the pattern and yarn. She's lucky I'm not keeping it :)
Mike's Brioche Knit Hat: yeah not going so well. Acrylic yarn is so hard to handle when it gets tight. And DPN knitting is still getting the best of me.
Living Room Curtains: ordering swatches; waiting on machine to get into Saftler's.

In The Wings

1. & 2. Aunt Teri and Jen's presents
3. Secret project!!!
4. Dara's arm warmers
5. My shawl/scarf/cowl? I just have 350 yds of cashmere to use...

Nine '09 accomplishments; Ten '10 To-Dos

2010-01-13T10:24:00.000-05:00

Stuff I did in 2009:
1. Finished my thesis and got my M.A.
2. Started tweeting
3. Hiked the White Mountains
4. Landed a job as an acquisitions editor
5. Super-connected my life with a Blackberry and a netbook
6. Edited my first book (and got paid!)
7. Ghostwrote my first book (and got paid!)
8. Avoided the flu
9. Began training for dog agility with Pepper

Stuff I want to do in 2010 (stuff with *s has already started)
1. Clean the apartment once and for all
2. Hike the White Mountains for Charity again--and recruit people to join me!*
3. Get back into shape. All weight-loss goals aside, I want to be healthy.*
4. Knit knit knit because it's fun fun fun!*
5. Learn to sew*
6. Start blogging again*
7. Volunteer somewhere
8. Join a CSA
9. Take a vacation with Mike
10. WRITE. Even if I don't finish anything.

I'm proud

2008-11-05T00:01:00.004-05:00

I can hardly remember a time where the phrase "proud to be an American" wasn't commonplace. Since 2001, it has rung so loudly over the radio and in writing and in speeches that it started losing me. I don't know when I'd heard it too many times to feel the joy, to be moved to tear by the words. It left me even more hollow because I started searching for the meaning and couldn't remember why it once made me shiver with the truth.

But today I've been reminded why I love my country.

It's not that my party representative won. I was not an Obama supporter from the start, and I made it clear to the friends and acquaintances who asked. Don't get me wrong: I'm ecstatic that Obama won and am feeling a million different wonderful things at once while I listen to his acceptance speech.

The real joy I feel is from the knowledge that my peers did our generation justice today. My elders, too, made our forefathers proud. I have been sick and tired of years of political apathy and misery, and to know that my fellow countrymen exercised their right to choose our future gives me more hope in the future than any single candidate could. I am proud to know that I can hold my head high to say that I voted, and I am honored to stand with the others who made their choices at the polls. Whether or not our choices on those ballots were successful, we made a tangible difference by casting our votes. For the first time I feel like the American forefathers would be proud of us for honoring the blood shed to found our country, the tears cried while it grew, and the wonderful documents that guarantee us our freedoms. I am so proud to be American this morning, and I hope this feeling lasts for a long time.

Savvy Context: The Writing Process, Part 1

2008-10-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

The words “publishing” and “technology” are hot topics these days. The Google news search results wouldn’t surprise you: an obvious spike of news and blog articles popped up in August, almost doubling July’s figures. But while everyone’s debating which new e-book reader will become the market favorite and how publishers will survive the transition to the electronic book, I’m sitting back to consider the smaller, quieter effects of technology in the publishing world. Let the pundits and big voices handle the politics of the industry for a while: I want to get down to the basics, the parts of publishing technology you and I know best.

Want to read more? Check it out this post or the whole column on Fringe Blog!

Savvy Context: Technology for the Literate and Literary

2008-09-25T09:32:00.003-04:00

"I don't remember life before the PC.

There. I've said it. I hate revealing it for fear of losing credibility, but the truth is fairly simple: I'm a 22 year old blogger and have always had a computer. On the other hand, you are reading the blog of a forward-thinking online literary magazine; you, at least, might not immediately peg me as a Gen Y baby or a traitor to literature. Here, my childhood steeped in floppy disks might lend me some authority. After all, who better to investigate the role of technology in the world of letters than someone who neither remembers life without a computer nor deny her lifelong devotion to literature?"

Want to read more? Catch this post and future posts in my tech column "Savvy Context" on Fringe Blog!

Four Long Years

2008-08-01T10:38:00.001-04:00

As of today, I've been blogging for four years...

I've spent more time blogging than I spent
...in college (undergrad).
...as an only child.
...working full-time.
...writing my novel's first draft.
...realizing my novel's first draft was crap.
...rewriting my novel.
...dating any one guy.

Okay, so I don't blog regularly enough. I know. But all that other stuff--college, family, my boy, work, writing--is giving me more to write about. So I just need to buckle down and get it done. Let's see how this next year goes =)

In honor of the fourth year, here are some of my favorite posts:

2004-2005: A Year of Poetry, Prose, and College

"Tail-gate ponderings" - the poem that started so much in my life
"Gardens" - a great, longer poem in parts.
"Caffeinated Poetry" - Haha. Oh how I love reading this one aloud...
"Hard as Coal" - I still get chills when I read it
Natural Disaster, Unnatural Solution - creative non-non-fiction. In otherwords, it's fake journalism
"Monsters" - another poem that started something big. And the comments are still there!
Obituary - a sad, sad day, but a very funny obituary. Yes, it's possible.
"Chthonic" - I miss England
"Drowning Man" and "First Rain"- Gato's favorites, can't skip them!

2005-2006: Finding myself...for the 1000th time

"Meditation" - I still need to be here more...
The Alien and the Casey - funny short story
"Sense/Memory" - can you tell it was a mistake? ha...
A Definition - one of my fav OED entries
"No Good Deed" - Ha. Now you can really tell it was a mistake
New Day - not much of a poem, but it's a life landmark.
The Working Girl series - a good start that went nowhere, but I was in NYC and I had everything so wonderfully undercontrol!

2006-2007: Growing Up and Graduating

70 - growing pains of a collegiate
Review of The Fountain - I loved that movie...bad critics for shooting it down!
Desiree: The Evidence series - part of my thesis for undergrad. Fun to write, and a little meta-history for my novel
Part 1: Conversations - something I really really want to continue...Mike helped me start it. It's so close to being sizzlingly good!!!
The Epiphany - a happy moment blogged

2007 - 2008: Grad School, Publishing, and the Present

The Publishing World Series - 10 posts on current events in my biz. See them all 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
New, News, and Nonsense - yesterday's post, but it felt so good to write and I feel like it's very representative of where I am now

New, News, and Nonsense

2008-07-31T11:39:00.001-04:00

Ahh, how the months have flown. I won't bore you with personal updates, however.

I attended a Mediabistro.com's All-Media Party a few nights ago and had a smashing time. I'd almost forgotten how much I like to go out and meet people, and in an environment specifically created for networking within (literally) all media-related professions in Boston, I felt at home and comfortable in my own shoes.

The whole thing got me thinking about developing my professional contacts more and really using the resources I have. First of all, I'm on quite a few social networking sites, but I have very few professional contacts on them outside of my colleagues. I've been doing better on LinkedIn than anywhere else, but Facebook, del.icio.us, and even StumbleUpon are great ways to connect and share information. I leave MySpace out simply because I feel like its interface and its members are not focused on actual networking in a profesisonal sense, and from the reactions of friends and coworkers, other people feel the same way.

Another great resource I have is the city in which I work. No more am I professionally land-locked by the tourism-driven, materially-obsessed Floridian culture. I'm in the middle of a publishing center populated by highly educated, techonologically-forward professionals. Conferences come here, positions at companies are highly competitive, and there are networking events like the one I went to often enough that I'd have quite the social life if I went to all of them (compared to the social life I have now, at least). So I've started doing my homework and have started to gather a list of conferences and local networking events on del.icio.us and have posted a permanent widget on Blue-Stockings so you, too, can become a Bostonian social (networking) butterfly.

And finally, there is my phone. My beautiful, commuter-friendly Samsung i760. As an assistant, I'm not allowed to have company business cards. As an assistant, I'm not paid quite enough to spend tons of money (or time) making my own on sites like Zazzle or VistaPrint. But, an assistant or not, you can't network without some form of easily-to-distribute information about yourself. Enter smart phone (or iPhone or BlackBerry, if you prefer). If you want to be snazzy and tres-technical, you can sign up for a service like DropCard to send your info to your new contact. But with a smart phone/iPhone/BlackBerry, you can just shoot a quick e-mail in person. Either way, paper-free is a great way to go.

As for news, I feel I can't go without giving you a few tidbits of publishing to-do. First of all, the Huffington Post's Lissa Warren just wrote an interesting critique of book blogs and the future of the book review. In light of our previous conversation on the subject, I thought it would be an interesting addition. I have to agree that the format of the blog as-is is an insufficient forum for the high-quality reviews that we've come to love in print. The solution: good reviewers need to start using their clout and highly intelligent prose to win over the blog field so people like yours truly aren't filling the review world with "what their father and their girlfriend -- or their father's girlfriend -- thought of the book" and a "slew" of personal pronouns that Warren feels degrades the quality of the review itself. Newsweek recently posted an Anna Quindlen article questioning John McCain's ability to connect with a technologically advanced nation after he "described himself earlier this year as a computer illiterate who had never gone online." If the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960 were won with Kennedy's suave television presence, then can Obama trounce a luddite candidate using the web? One can only hope...

And finally, a bit of fun nonsense for you book lovers. I had no idea that Goodreads has a "First Reads" section where they list book giveaways. I think I've signed up for every single one (shameless, I know). So if I win any, you might find a few reviews posted on the blog. (Personal pronouns and my father's opinions will be avoided if at all possible, I promise!)

New Project: Internet Ready Fiction and BookWeb

2008-02-14T12:00:00.003-05:00

So just over a year ago this week I started a web site with Mike called Internet Ready Fiction, intending to do great things and make bold conquests with short fiction online. After a rocky start (proven by the Archives...), we're back in the game with new content and a great book group forming. We'll be posting our discussion about the literature we read on the blog. Wish us luck and never fear: Blue-Stockings will always be my baby!

The Publishing World Post # 10: "Drama, Drama, Drama."

2007-11-28T16:58:00.001-05:00

I’ll never again assume that the publishing industry can’t keep up with Hollywood’s sex, scandals, and gossip. If it working in the field wasn’t enough to convince me that no office will be free of its fair share of sordid tales, the Judith Regan scandal certainly is. The New York Observer published a large feature on Regan’s history—with News Corp, inside the publishing industry, and in life in general—and by doing so offered a better perspective on her decisions and the current lawsuit. Not that my opinion of her has changed for the better. The article unabashedly revealed more intimate details of her love affair with Bernard Kerik, implied a sexually-charged—love-hate-power triangle between Regan, Rupert Murcoch and Jane Friedman, and offered defenders and critics of both sides of the story. In the end, I still believe that this drama is not the possible “smoking gun” that the article briefly speculates on and is certainly “ther next sensational, headline-grabbing project.” Another one of my least favorite people, Ann Coulter, just succeeded in pulling her records from Palm Beach County’s information logs in order to keep her critics from stalking her. The New York Daily News appropriately put that clip in its Gossip column. For some reason, I feel compelled to feel no sympathy for a woman who “called 9/11 widows ‘witches.’” The saying, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen,” certainly applies. On a better note, professional reader and translator Esther Allen republished an article in the Guardian last week (it also recently appeared on American PEN’s Web site) about the powerful place of the reader’s report in publishing: “The lowly minion who authors it can do something no after-the-fact reviewer, however powerful and unkind, can accomplish: stop the book from being published in the first place.” Her experiences offer insight into a few of her decisions and their effects on specific books. The article, though not groundbreaking, is certainly a great resource for students of the trade who have not seen the same effects first hand. I very much enjoyed Allen’s personal account and her willingness to offer logic behind her decisions and her ability to pull back and admit that she could truly have been wrong. That admission is something all Americans—and maybe all people in general—seem to have a hard time doing, and from what I’ve heard about today’s fiction market, the blind curves in the road lead to trouble often enough that such honesty is a valuable key to staying afloat.

Happy Post #101!!!!

100th Post!!!!!

2007-11-28T15:00:00.000-05:00

Happy 100, everyone! Now I feel like an experienced blogger...as if 3 years behind me hadn't been enough...=D

The Publishing World Post #9: "The Good, The Bad, and the Poorly Chosen News"

2007-11-14T16:28:00.000-05:00

The news I found this week seemed, more than ever, to resound with big names in the business. Last week, Ken Follett made headlines because his recently released World Wtihout End is on several best seller lists and because his upcoming trilogy The Century made was a hit in the rights market, including an American deal for $50 million. This week Oprah has immortalized Pillars of the Earth—one of my favorite books for a few reasons—and sealed his presence beyond the demand of mass market and pop fiction thrillers. I intend to supplement my Follet collection with not only the special edition of World, but a first edition of Pillars and the new Oprah book club paperback. Not that Follett needs the royalties. Doubleday signed Joe Torre for a co-authored book about his career (a memoir or an autobiography? Not much word yet) for an undisclosed amount of money. One can only assume that the “major acquisition” will be a profitable one. Following up with my article from last week, RDR Books offered to postpone publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon in light of the lawsuit brought by Rowling and Warner Bros. Since the preliminary injunction is set for Febuary 6^th, 2008, it’s likely that further stories won’t be released unless information about the evidence for or against Rowling’s case is leaked to the press. And seeing as though it’s JK Rowling we’re talking about, it’s highly likely that someone will sniff out a press-worthy rumor at the least. Also press worthy is a note that the hype about Harry Potter 8 is thus far disconnected from any official Rowling writing. If someone is writing James Pottera and the Hall of Elder’s Crossing, it’s not her. The speculation about Warner Bros’ involvement in the mysterious Australian Web site is still circulating in the broader web community. The New York Post ran a scandalous review of The Unsinkable Heather Mills that made enough waves to attract the notice of PW’s “Morning Report” yesterday. Apparently Post writer Cindy Adams found the biography’s manuscript amusing since she brushes over bits and pieces of Mills’s life with callus distain and brags about her personal involvement in publishing details about Mills’s and Paul McCartney’s 1999 wedding (The book does not tell how it was me, in a front-page N.Y. Post headline, who exclusively broke the news they were to be married in Ireland’s Castle Leslie—I even gave the menu and the setup—but I shall overlook that…”). I feel a bit sorry for Mills who seems to be the victim of her own interviews and self-assured vanity, but Adams’s article gave me a very bad taste in my mouth. I’ve heard of bad reviews, but this one barely bothers talking about the quality of the writing: she focuses on laying bare the sordid lows and materialistic highs of Mills’s life instead. Compared to the literary blog which some have said is merely inappropriate to carry the weight of the future of the book review, this article is proof that there are bigger forces to be dealt with. Newspapers—in print or online—shouldn’t be a venue for this kind of personal vendetta. And as for vendettas in the publishing world at large, none is more shocking than Judith Regan’s accusations against HarperCollins and News Corporation. Three major sources led me to the “facts” of Regan’s case: a PW article, a New York Times article, and a New-York-Times–published, 75-page .pdf file of Regan’s complaint. According to the PW article, the complaint “centers around Regan’s relationship with Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner and close confidant of Rudolph Giuliani, Republican candidate for president.” Intrigued—since I had missed this connection in previous coverage of the drama—I continued to the New York Times article that detailed a greater involvement in the smear campaign, including alleged participants like Publisher’s Weekly Editor in Chief Sara Nelson. The article essentially summarizes the official complaint as best as twelve paragraphs can manage, but the real winner is the .pdf, which lists the case’s background, Regan’s personal “climb” to “[building] a Publishing and Media Juggernaut” and 124 authors whom she has published. While the case seems to be well-made—from what I can see by glancing at the more interesting subheads through out the document—it’s certainly going to be a long haul. Her demands for “no less than $100 million” from HarperCollins and NewsCorp are certainly stiff, though between the two corporations, I’m sure someone will be able to handle the bills if she wins. And with the writers’ strike continuing, Borders installing TVs in their stores, and the National Book Awards being announced tonight, it certainly isn’t a quiet week in publishing.

The Publishing World Post #8: "Rights, Wrongs, and our E-Future"

2007-11-07T16:26:00.001-05:00

I began the week with an article that offered me a great deal of comfort. In the heat of the arguments against Google’s e-book program and in anxiety over my proclaimed attempt to tackle Digital Rights Management in my final essay, I’ve been drained of my fodder to stoke the fires of support for e-books; it’s hard to agree with Google’s attempts, and in the face of the great DRM megalith, my faith in the arguments for e-books faltered. The torch, however, was not dropped in this past month. Buried in the blog section of PW is David Rothman’s E-Book Report regularly addresses rather large issues in the e-book world (recently including “How to Read an E-book in a Bathtub,” “Locking up Dickens: DRM is a lit and biz toxin,” and “‘Novel’ e-book site to woo young laptop-toters—and grandmas too”). The article that most recently caught my eye is a reaction to an evaluation of e-libraries published in The New Yorker. Since the article claims that the magazine “is as wrong about e-libraries as Martin Luther apparently was about paper books,” Rothman mainly addresses the same closemindedness in his adversary’s article that I’d experienced recently. He rightly complains that Anthony Grafton “barely mentions the Internet Archive's Open Content Alliance and refers not once by name to Brewster Kahle, the brilliant MIT-educated founder of the archive who for years has been addressing the ‘Can we do it?’ details of a universal library” and in doing so “chooses to don blinders and downplay visions like Brewster's or mine [Rothman’s]--not fully attainable today but certainly worth striving toward.” The beauty of this blog is it’s rich content pointing to examples—good and bad—of the advances in/detractors of electronic media, including a link to books.google where an interested reader can peruse a copy of Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier by Robin P. Peek and Gregory B. Newby that includes a chapter by Rothman on his actual proposal for “A Virtual Central Database.” Also good fodder for a discussion of Digital Rights Management was a PW article about the Rowling/Warner Bros. lawsuit against the publisher RDR Books for their involvement in a web-print project that hinges on content that could be ruled Rowlings’ individual intellectual property (in which Warner Bros. has a large stake, of course). The information is already published online on the Harry Potter Lexicon (also the title of the intended book), but Rowling says that since her own Harry Potter encyclopedia will be definitive and will profit charity (at least in part), “I cannot, therefore, approve of ‘companion books’ or ‘encyclopedias’ that seek to preempt my definitive Potter reference book for their authors’ personal gain.” Would an addition of “Unofficial” or “Fan-Written” to the title allow RDR to publish the book fair and square? In other lawsuit news, the New York Times just released an article about authors suing their publisher for steeply discounting books sold to clubs and subsidiaries, thus cutting author royalties “a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme”—or at least, that’s the authors’ argument. One plaintiff is quoted with a touch of humor—an not entirely at Regenery’s expense: “it suddenly occurred to us [plaintiffs] that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance. Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?” The Times, being a publisher itself and having a deep connection to book publishers the world over, seems to side a bit more with Regenery’s lawyer who states “No publisher in America has a more acute marketing sense or successful track record at building promotional platforms for books than Regnery Publishing. These disgruntled authors object to marketing strategies used by all major book publishers that have proved successful time and again as witnessed by dozens of Regnery bestsellers.” After all, these writers were responsible for signing their contracts. I agree that the difference between $4.25 per book and $.10 per book is a huge and honestly ridiculous disparity between royalties, but I’m a full proponent of authors and publishers being equally responsible for what is included in a contract; both parties have a grace period in which to negotiate and clarify terms. If the terms in the contracts are actually misleading, I can see this case being much stronger. I still find it sad that our society is so litigious that even legal issues seem to begin and resolve thanks to the headstrong maxim “It’s better/easier/wiser to ask forgiveness than permission.”

The Publishing World Post #7: "....um??"

2007-10-31T16:29:00.000-04:00

While other weeks’ publishing news has stirred me into introspection or analysis of some important element of publishing or another, this week I’ve seen three articles in Publisher’s Weekly that made my jaw drop (for one reason or another). First, they ran an article (sort though it was) about possible plagiarism in two cookbooks for children. The brief article shows the similarities and differences between a few of the recipes. I wonder though how many cookbooks build, play or blatantly use time-old tricks that could be considered “plagiarizing” if not noted correctly or if printed under conditions that implied that the recipes were new or innovative. Since both books focus on healthy, tasty, and traditional food for kids (grilled cheese, pancakes, macaroni and cheese), I can imagine that the article is right in saying that there can only be so many ways “to inject a dose of healthiness into mac and cheese.” I will love to see how much of a stink this ends up making in the industry. Plagiarism is terrible and newsworthy, but when two cookbooks recommend adding carrot puree to a muffin to make it healthier, I am just that much more inclined to actually try it. Moving from the small and odd to a nationwide scandal, comic book retailer Gordon Lee is finally going to trial for “two counts of distributing material depicting nudity or sexual conduct and five misdemeanor charges of distributing obscene material to a minor.” I found reference to this newsworthy topic in both the New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly—though the Times’ article was from May of this year. The actual distribution happened two years ago today at Halloween party in Georgia: Lee gave a minor a free copy of the graphic novel The Salon which depicts Picasso in the buff. From the way both articles read, the novel is less “obscene” than the graphic (metaphorically and literally) version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and quite possibly more tasteful than Playboy. It brings up the age old argument about the fine line between artistic sexual content and pornography. The ridiculous part—to me—is that the case has dragged on this long with such fervor from both sides. Hasn’t someone determined whether this novel is actually NC-17? Should I assume that the tone of both articles is turned toward the defense of poor Mr. Lee when the courts truly have a good case on their hands? I believe strongly that nudity and sexual content are much less damaging to a child’s mind than the violence aired on the nightly news and Saturday morning cartoons; but then, who am I to go against the whole FCC? Yet another article that inspired incredulity on my part will probably thrill many Bostonians and members of the Red Sox Nation world wide. An instant book is being printed about the Red Sox’s 2007 Championship series and according to Triumph Books of Chicago, 110,000 will have hit shelves by today. Now, I love the Sox and was one of the million people on the streets yesterday watching the Rolling Rally, but turnaround that short on a book that is that specific makes my head spin. The book is a text-and-photograph trade book, not a mass market paperback; how exactly did they manage to get it together so quickly? According to the article, another text-only book was “originally scheduled for spring 2008, [but] because of the Red Sox win Triumph will ship [it] within a week.” That’s a six-month shorter production time, and they’ve already decided to run 300,000 copies for the all-text hardcover. Triumph is also printing a book for Rockies fans, despite the painful series sweep. The market is certainly there, and I understand the desire to print quickly to catch the largest possible amount of interest, but I can’t imagine the amount of time and money spent in the last few days to finish these projects. Maybe these articles caught my eye because I’m not used to seeing the gory details of the publishing world—the fast (production), the furious (lawsuits), and the plagiarized. All three articles bring up very serious issues in valid contexts (though the cookbook plagiarism is debatable with out more facts to argue with), but for some reason, the details just keep me from really getting my head around them.

Or maybe I'm just tired...

The Publishing World Post #6: "Home, Sweet Home"

2007-10-24T17:30:00.000-04:00

I feel like the publishing world has gotten a lot homier lately. Or maybe it’s just the news. Back in August, Publisher’s Weekly ran an article assuring its readers that “all [Twin Cities publishing] personnel [were] safe following [the] rush-hour collapse of a major bridge connecting downtown Minneapolis with St. Paul.” At the time, I was quite impressed that someone on the PW staff had actually taken the time to check in with all of the houses there. Many people wouldn’t expect that the cities host a respectable percentage of the nation’s publishers, nor that Minneapolis—or “The Little Apple”, as I learned from a Minnesota Daily article—“has a thriving music, arts and theater scene” and a “strong presence of a literary community.” The PW staff seemed to know otherwise, and the August 2, 2007 issue of PW Daily posted the reassuring article as their first story. Today, the first article in the PW Daily delivered similar good news regarding the safety of booksellers and publishers in Southern California: Harcourt’s offices are open (though sparsely populated), B&N closed a few stores out of safety concerns, and the indie bookstores seem to be out of the path if imminent danger. In fact, no one seemed concerned about much besides loss of profit, a blessing compared to the irreparable damage that occurs when books and fire try to make friends. But in all serious, it’s refreshing to see that the publishing industry (or at least one of the publications that seems to be an industry standard) cares about more than profits and sales and deals. The people who insure that profits, sales, and deals are made matter enough that their safety is the cause for a news article. On the other coast and the other side of the spectrum, a truly family affair made headlines in today’s Times. John Podhoretz is taking over as editor of Commentary Magazine, moving into a role that his father held until retirement in 1995. His father didn’t give him the job, but on the other hand, the Times reports that “there was no search process” for other applicants; the now former editor, Neal Kozodoy, called Podhoretz the Younger, offered the job, sealed the deal, and left office traditions like interview and applications alone. Podhoretz is a good candidate, but there must have been other candidates he could have competed with. If the publishing world is anything like my job, most publishers like to promote from within when possible, keeping inside knowledge inside the company and giving credit to those who have been most successful and motivated in their previous positions. It sounds very fluffy on paper, but it’s a practical system. Podhoretz might have been close to the job when his father was editor, but he moved on to many different places before making his way back to Commentary. I’m willing to bet that someone in the company was fully prepared to fill the role. If not, someone must have been prepared enough to put up a good fight in an interview. In the end, fingers can point all they want, but Podhoretz is now editor and will probably do a spectacular job, especially when he can go to his father for words of wisdom and accountability in regards to the magazine’s goals and vision. The publishing industry certainly is a close-knit place. Publishers like to work with established authors whom they know well. Publishers like to promote people already imbedded in the system—if not specifically their system. And at the end of the day a lot of industry contacts are strong enough to necessitate periodicals making big news of colleagues’ safety and well-being. So what if a (now middle-aged) boy gets his dad’s job? When going to work offers even a few comforts of home, it’s a rather nice place to be.

The Publishing World Post #5: "The Book Fair"

2007-10-17T17:29:00.000-04:00

As tempting as I found the blog review of Jeff Gomez’s Print is Dead, I’ve decided to neglect electronic publishing this week and focus on a much more accepted facet of the world of words: the book fair. With last week’s class on rights and all the buzz flying around the net about deals and discoveries, I decided to look into current fairs held across the country. My experiences with the Miami Book Fair had nothing to do with rights purchases; if I went to Frankfurt, however, it seems highly unlikely that I’d mingle elbow-to-elbow with bargain hunters in front of tents filled with books or stand in single-file lines waiting for Madeline Albright, Dave Barry, Ken Burns, or Scott Turrow to sign a first edition I’d picked up after a lecture. Both have their important roles in the publishing process, but with only two examples didn’t paint a clear picture of book fairs’ influence. With the help of the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book I was able to get a better picture of American fairs like the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, BookExpo America , the Patchwork Tales Storytelling Festival, the Sarasota Reading Festival, the Arizona Book Festival, and the Printers Row Book Fair, all of which have different purposes and methods of drawing its audience. The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is most like the Miami Book Fair: publishers sell to the public, authors talk to the public, the community gathers together for a massive cultural event, and big names dazzle the crowd. BookExpo, on the other hand, is all about the business, publisher to publisher. As a professional gathering, the BEA is much more like Frankfurt, focusing on rights, the culture of the market (not cultural events), and the future of the trade. The Patchwork Tales Storytelling Festival, held annually in Rock Hill, South Carolina, eschews all commercialism and focuses solely on words. For a few days, words and oral traditions are revitalized. Where does publishing come in? Not really anywhere. By including it—and a large helping of other word-related, but not book-specific events—the Library of Congress adds an air of credibility to an essential part of the culture and use of language, albeit it is not one found at Frankfurt or the BEA. The Sarasota Reading Festival likely draws a larger crowd than Patchwork Tales, but throws all of its events into a solid day of literacy. Like other audience-oriented book events, this small fair attracts the residents of Hillsborough County, Florida with big names like Lou Dobbs, Barbara Taylor Bradford, and Gene Wilder. Attending the Sarasota Reading Festival might be less daunting than weaving through California crowds or spending a week navigating South Florida traffic. The Arizona Book Fair was the same way for years—a small, but respectable fair—but it attracted even smaller authors and smaller audiences. After ten years in the Carnegie Center (a historic and recently renovated landmark in Phoenix owned by the Arizona Public Library), the Arizona Book Fair is in desperate need of a new venue and faces a long, indefinite hiatus if one isn’t located. Money must have played an issue in the decision, though corporate sponsors like Target and Borders look like promising signs. The final fair I surveyed—the Printers Row Book Fair—has much different history. Established twenty-two years ago by the Near South Planning Board in Chicago, this fair was not initially meant to host rights deals or multi-cultural talks or the biggest bestsellers. Printers Row was “once the city’s bookmaking hub” (and well-named at that), so the neighborhood decided to attract business using its historic market. Within seven years, the one block fair had grown almost ten times its size and was actually purchased by the Chicago Tribune. Now, it’s not just a fair with a tie to the city’s history, but an important player in its neighborhood’s future and a fair as commercially successful as its Californian and Floridian competitors. Other fairs are very specific about audience, focusing on collectible books or children’s literature or a single author’s work or a theme or a setting, and fairs of all types range from bustling to intimate to unknown. But each has a purpose. When the Miami Book Fair hosts its events at the Miami-Dade Community College Campus, volunteers from the inner-city college witness the meetings of minds that they may not have imagined possible; its multi-cultural and poly-lingual focus engages the diverse community of South Florida, linguistic scholars, and publishers from around the world. School children are offered the gift of stories despite their reading levels at fairs like Patchwork Tales, and traditions like Southern “lies” are kept alive and well, even as the electronic age speeds ahead. Neighborhoods like Printers Row are remembered for their historic importance. Deals are made, royalties are boosted, elbows are rubbed, and for brief moments in every month of the year, communities across the United States are dragged away from their televisions and video games and into a literate, educated, and exciting world that I find simply intoxicating. I don’t know how many books are sold at any given fair, or how much a random publishing company could expect to gain or lose as an exhibitor, but when the Library of Congress can list one hundred and ninety fairs, most of which are in the US and held annually, it’s obvious that the tradition is not going anywhere soon.

The Publishing World Post #4: "Killing Voices--Literally"

2007-10-10T17:28:00.000-04:00

I was at a loss as to what to investigate this month until my little brother called me to celebrate his latest college freshman triumph: news editor of the WPI student paper. We chatted briefly, but what struck him as the greatest detail of the situation was not that he was given such a great responsibility as an underclassman in his first semester, but that he would not have the restrictions on published material that were quite heavily placed on our high school newspaper. Since last week was the ALA’s Banned Books Week, I thought censorship a fitting subject, as well as one coming closer and closer to home. The ALA’s web site offers the fairly standard fare of “banned lists”—including the most challenged books of the 21^st century to the top ten from last year, with explanations like “homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group” (Richardson and Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three) and “sexual content and offensive language” (Naylor’s Alice). The Modesto Bee printed an opinion article entitled “Somebody would prefer that you didn’t read this” on October 2^nd, and in true small paper fashion, the letter backed the banned books, downed censorship, and made all the arguments any forward-thinking American would: that our First Amendment rights should be exercised for our own benefit and that banning books is just plain dumb. The article did, however, mention a few international episodes that remind readers that just because the US calls itself “censorship-free” doesn’t mean that our electronic presence on the global web isn’t threatened by forces outside the Constitution’s control. In light of recent events in Myanmar, censorship through brute force seems to be a burgeoning trend. Stateside news reporters had to keep their sources secret for fear of inadvertently alerting the Junta’s henchmen to protesters’ identities and ensuring their torture. According reporter Eric Silver, “The only manager of Gaza’s only Christian bookshop, who was abducted on Saturday by suspected Muslim extremists, was found dead yesterday” and “40 video cassette shops and internet cafes, identified with Western values, have been bombed [in Gaza] in the past year” (qtd in Seattle Pi). Wanting to hear that universal freedom of speech was on the rise, not the fall, I kept surfing till I happened upon the International Cities of Refuge Network, an affiliate of the global literacy and culture group International PEN. ICORN calls itself “an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to the value of Freedom of Expression.” Their main purpose: aiding writers who “targets of politically motivated threats and persecution.” As of ICORN’s foundation in 2005, more than 1,000 writers were identified as in need of protection or asylum. Their seventy-three page long Case List is a terrifying read, especially when the last page lists the forty-four writers killed in 2005 and 2006, the 284 imprisoned writers, 30 disappearances, and dizzying statistics for harassment, abuse, detention, and persecution. If I lived in any of the countries listed as danger zones for independent thinkers, would I, too, be on this list? Would I be eligible for help if I were just a publisher? Writers aren’t the only persecuted bearers of the written word. The bookseller in Gaza was victim to the same horrors that authors the world over have been subjected to; publishers can’t be immune to the politics of the month, day or hour just because they didn’t write the material. Knowing that there are people in the world who put themselves on the line to make literature of all backgrounds and intents and philosophies available to the people at large makes me think hard about the work that I will one day endorse as an editor. Just because my name isn’t on the cover doesn’t mean it’s not mine, doesn’t mean that I’m not responsible for the contents, effects, and insinuations of every serif of every printed letter. With this in mind, “Howl’s” survival of the censorship bans fifty years ago this week means a lot, but the fact that WBAI didn’t read it on the airwaves for fear of an FCC fine means even more. This cannot be a safe direction for the nation that claims to be a bastion of freedom. The New York Times hit it on the nose when quoting Ginsberg: “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” While I began this week snidely remembering student-written articles that had to focus on high school curriculum and couldn’t insult the janitorial staff, I’m now worried about the future of my work as a publisher, my passion as a writer, and my soul as a reader. Where to from here?

The Publishing World Post #3: "Readers, Where Art Thou?"

2007-10-03T17:26:00.000-04:00

In August, the Boston Globe published “Poll: 1 in 4 adults read no books last year; biggest readers were women, older people,” and once the article had circulated through Bedford/St. Martin's for the better part of a morning, it started a flurry of e-mails around the office. At first, we all just grumbled to ourselves about the true state of the Union, but after discovering that the poll only consisted of 1,003 adults who had answered questions in telephone interviews, I was inspired to prod the conversation beyond criticizing the three of four adults we didn’t identify with. After all, how likely are avid readers to actually participate in telephone surveys? Obviously, our many speculations didn’t add up to much since we didn’t have facts about the psychology of telemarketing, but since then, I’ve been meaning to research the issue of American literacy and tendency to read more thoroughly. When I started reading Greco’s facts about publishing profits and industry trends, it got me thinking again. Smaller reading audiences seem like they’d be cutting larger “in-roads” into publishing profits than electronic publishing. A New York Times article summarizing local National Endowment of the Arts’s Big Read programs put me in the mood for addressing it this week. Knowing that the NEA is taking such a huge step towards promoting literacy—not just American literature, but now global/multinational literature as well—I had more proof that reading is declining in the U.S. The National Institute for Literacy has a long list of Reading Facts that discuss both literacy in American children, adolescents, and adults, but the likelihood of today’s younger generations becoming readers in adulthood. Some facts were very disheartening: for example, “only about 1 in 17 seventeen year olds can read and gain information from specialized text, for example the science section in the local news paper,” and evidence of stagnation since 1980 of long-term reading assessment scores in students across three age groups (9, 13, and 17). American students are only performing marginally well when compared to other nations, sometimes outpacing a category or two, sometimes falling well below expectations in others. And the effects of reading for fun, variety of reading material, and family interaction on reading levels were staggering: “Students who read for fun every day scored the highest,” “Students who had 4 types of reading material at home performed the highest,” and “Students who discussed their studies at home, however frequently, had higher average reading scores than students who reported never discussing their studies at home.” Reading proficiency was also connected positively to parents’ level of education. So if 29% of adults are struggling with reading or cannot read at all, then their children are much more likely to struggle. And if children are struggling with reading, they won’t purchase books for fun. Nor are they likely to invest in higher education which is most often reading intensive. Nor will they purchase technical books to improve their jobs and life. When they have children, this cycle will be perpetuated. On the other hand, there still is an established readership in the US. There are still a majority of people who are literate, who purchase books, who read for fun, who pass these traits to their children. Could the advent of the blog be threatening book readership and periodical sales? I don’t believe it has quite yet. And industry statistics provided by the Association of American Publishers for 2005 and 2006 maintain that the book industry is still hovering around $25 billion (down this in 2006, but it was up in 2005). In both years, Higher Educations sales grew, as did adult and juvenile trade book sales. E-book sales were up a full 24.1% in 2006, too. So someone is buying books: books for college, to read for fun, to read on the go, to read because they’re interested in a reasonably priced easy to move with set of physical or electronic pages or in bettering their lives somehow. And though the Boston Globe article claimed that religious books and romances were in the top runners for their polled readers, both sales of both religious and mass-market books (as a whole) were down in 2006. So where does that leave my search? Not very far from where I started. I’m not so worried about the state of American readership, and a $1 billion dollar loss in the industry isn’t too bad when there are 24.1 more to support it, but I can’t help being relieved at the NEA’s efforts to continue bolstering what we all know is an American trend not to read. It does not yet seem to be epidemic, but then again, I’m sure the plague didn’t for a few months either…

3 years...WHAT?!??

2007-09-28T12:06:00.001-04:00

What do you mean I've had this blog for three years? I feel old now.

As of Aug. 1st, this blog was a full three years old. Meaning that it's been three full years since I went to college, two full years since I've had mono (the first time, anyway), and a year since my senior seminar.

...woah...

The Publishing World Post #2: "The Fall"

2007-09-27T10:47:00.000-04:00

As a student who failed to read newspapers throughout college and a writer who blatantly avoided book reviews for fear of their impact on my own writing far-off in the still non-existent future, I have a lot of catching up to do. I’d missed the demise of the book review—though I’d earnestly saved quite a few old sections of the Miami Herald to read “when I had time” back in high school—and now I’m intrigued enough by the Columbia Journalism Review’s conference in New York and in-class references to the San Francisco Chronicle’s recent article on reviewing that I’ve decided to investigate. A post from Critical Mass: the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors helped set the stage: “Over the past few months, the erosion of space for book reviews directed at general readers has reached critical proportions. The tipping point was the departure of Teresa Weaver as book review editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, not to be replaced,” wrote guest blogger Morris Dickstein. The Associated Press followed, closing it’s book review desk, then the Raleigh News-Observer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times all fell prey to cutbacks to or complete obliteration of independent book reviewing and review sections. His quote from Adam Shatz, literary editor at The Nation, helped me put the issue into further perspective: I might not have been a life-long reader of reviews, but it does reveal that “‘the pleasure [of reading] is had at the expense of analysis and criticism, as if the latter somehow robbed us of the fun instead of adding to it’” (qtd. in Dickstein). Dickstein’s belief that “the Internet is seen as the enemy of literature” made me cringe, though. I found that I agreed more with the stance that Adam Kirsch took in his New York Sun article “The Scorn of the Literary Blog.” He argues that “bloggers…tend to consider themselves disenfranchised” and thus tend to leap wildly at established authors, publishers, and literary journalists, making their reviews a risky choice for the future of criticism. Even if the minority of truly literary blogs were given an open field with no illogical, passionate competitors as distracters, “the blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature” (Kirsch). Most importantly, Kirsch argues that “literary criticism is only worth having if it at least strives to be literary in its own right, with a scope, complexity and authority that no blogger I know even wants to achieve.” He’s right, too. Truly lofty, scholarly blogs get small readership in most cases, unless they are tied to a larger, reputable news service. At that point, the “blogs” become a cross between the traditional print opinion column and the emergency-valve of Blogger: the writing is scholarly and regular, the references are linked in, and comments can be made. Even while this hope is nigh, literary scholarship is threatened by the likes of Pierre Bayard, author of How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read, a book reviewed in July by the Times Literary Supplement in London. Even the literary journalism community thinks one of the most prolific reviewers, James Wood, may be detrimental thanks to his possible misunderstanding of American culture (a theory Wood strongly debates), according to an article from the Boston Globe. The best source, however, was from the Columbia Journalism Review itself—an article I happened upon last, of course. In “Goodbye to All That,” Steve Wasserman confronts the demons of his experience as the literary editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review from 1996-2005—what he calls “a front-row seat at the increasingly congested intersection of culture and commerce.” From everything I can gather, the book review—along with the codex—cannot wait for the gravitational pull of technology to wrestle it into submission; without a driving force behind the change, technology’s centrifugal forces might not leave scholarship recognizably intact. Dare we be the dinosaurs who refused to evolve and the few ancient alligators among us the last, deadly reminder of a bygone age? Or will we stop despairing about change and progress and get on with preserving what we love?

The Publishing World Post #1: "Looking Ahead"

2007-09-19T14:46:00.000-04:00

This is the first post of a weekly series devoted to investigating current events in the publishing world. I tend to look at most issues from a writer's perspective because I am a writer; now I'm trying to look at the world from the eyes of a publisher interested in the future of the business because I am a publisher interested in the future of the business.

I have a small confession: when I opened The Evolution of the Book, I did not expect to find myself entertained and impressed. Kilgour’s decision to include highly specific information about each book form—from Cicero’s letter to Atticus to 19^th commentary on printing presses to the exact means by which Xeroxes work—kept me from feeling like I was in the middle of a dry history book. His inclusion of facts from every discipline—medicine, science, anthropology, technology—surprised me greatly. Most impressive, however, was his treatment of the electronic book as the “sixth punctuation.” Kilgour remained optimistic about the effects of developing technology, mainly because he seems to focus on the history of the book as a whole as a progression; he sees no reason why another development wouldn’t continue carrying the industry forward. Albert Greco's The Book Publishing Industry, on the other hand, always refers to electronic publishing in the most negative sense possible, blaming it for “cutting inroads” into publishers profits and ignoring that publishers have been utilizing those very technologies to supplement and develop those profits as they can. Even an article from the New York Times--“Are Books Passé?”--made waves supporting the rise of the e-book reader, two of which will be debuting this fall. I can’t imagine holding back progress just because the book in codex form is a security blanket to readers across the globe. I, too, love a good book. I feel like a signed first-edition is utterly precious and absolutely delicious to read, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t read in any other format and enjoy the same words. The same sorts of arguments must have been present leading up to the five previous “punctuations” in the life of the book (Mark Twain’s exasperation with the typewriter come to mind). I’d prefer to be ahead of the game than behind it; better to be the first artist on CD than the last artist on the 8-Track.

The Death of an Idol

2007-09-07T12:12:00.000-04:00

It's funny how bad news travels sometimes. I never expected to see an obituary in Publisher's Weekly's Daily Newsletter, and if you'd asked me who a PW Daily obituary would be about, I'd never have guessed the beloved Madeline L'Engle.

I was very young--probably too young--when A Wrinkle in Time first showed up on my bookshelf. It took me years to pick it up, but when I did...I don't think any amount of cliches will fill that blank, truthfully. I felt the same way some people have felt about Ender's Game, Pride and Prejudice, The Lord of the Rings and/or The Hobbit, and countless other great works: it changed me. Not just my life. Me. I may have dreamed of Tesseracts and mitocondritis and seraphim and mediums (admittedly, I remember searching my mind for the right definition when the medium was introduced, and not finding it in "stuff you make art with" and "a size," I decided that it would be better to read on than waste time with a dictionary); I may have imagined myself as Meg a thousand more times than I actually remember. But what really matters, all these years afterwards, is that it was the first book I remember with great passion still burning from the first time I picked it up.

I remember the feel of the storm in the book, the intensity of Meg's leadership and maternal instinct and love for Calvin, the joy of new creatures and success, and the worry about an darkness spreading through the universe. I vowed that I would be one of the journeyers who set out to save existence. And I had that book in my hand when I realized that I, too, wanted to write. And not write just anything, either. I craved more fantasy of my own making. And of L'Engle's as well. So I finished the Time Quintet and picked up the books she wrote about Victoria Austin (whose nickname I disliked, but who I adored, none the less). Through her work, I realized the possibilities of writing interconnected series, of searching for deep and timeless meaning in life and using it to inspire youth...youth like me.

A Wrinkle in Time had done for me what The Hobbit had done for my mom and her generation of YA readers. And it earned some of the highest honors in the history of adolescent literature. I even used it as a source in my honors thesis. To have met her, to have been honored with the chance to tell her that yet one more child's direction in life was given momentum and motivation through her work would have been an opportunity of a lifetime...

I am blessed to have people in my life who knew her work well enough to give it to me. One day, I'll give it to my sister, my children, my nieces and nephews, anyone impressionable child I can find. =)

At eighty-nine years old, she'd lived a very long and (from what I can gather) fulfilling life. I hope she knew the effect her work had on the world, on the genre of literature she chose to write. If she did, maybe she found comfort in the knowledge that her books outlast the days she saw in person.

...But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.-- Sonnet 18, W. Shakespeare

New Name, New Dog, New Blog

2007-09-02T14:17:00.000-04:00

I'm finally tossing the pseudonym in favor of my actual nickname. Yes world, I've finally identified myself!

Oh, and I have a puppy named pepper. You can see her photo/video blog at dog.blue-stockings.com.

The Epiphany

2007-07-01T15:54:00.000-04:00

It took me almost a month to realize that I'd actually enjoy listening to the political news here in Massachusetts.

I grew up in Florida and my first presidential election was an embarrassment to my ideals. I first voted for John Kerry in 2004 and watched with horror as the votes were counted. My mother is a Northerner by birth, Southerner by fate and raised me in the Democratic ways, despite my Republican father's disapproval. The conservative climate of Florida and eventually the country depressed me thoroughly, and in 2004, I wound up being one of those people who felt like my vote didn't count much at all. So I avoided expressing my political opinion in college (I went to a conservative school and barely survived) and left Florida in a hurry after graduation.

About a month after I'd moved to Massachusetts, I accidentally turned on the news to see happy faces of people across Massachusetts after the failure of the referendum to put a gay marriage ban on the next ballot . People everywhere were ecstatic; I was thrilled. Then one woman got on TV and actually THANKED the politicians who made it happen. She expressed her pride to be a voting citizen; she applauded those who stood up for the issues that they supported on their roads into office; and she commended those who took a stand on something they did not personally condone in order to better serve their constituents and their country.

I was shocked. I'd never heard someone actually express such adoration for politicians. I'd never actually heard the phrase "Proud to be an American" used outside of the context of international politics and war. And for once, I WAS proud of my citizenship. I saw and appreciated how "the system" works. I, too, am proud of those involved in that successful movement. I'm proud of the people who work every day for the issues that I find important, that I care about, that will affect me and my family for generations.

I hope that I can continue enjoying my citizenship, my right to vote, and the progress of my state and national government. I plan on becoming as active as possible in the next election--primaries included--and hope that I will never again feel like my work, my voice, and my vote don't really count.

Part 1: Conversations

2007-05-22T18:38:00.000-04:00

Part 1: Conversations

Scene 1: By Land

"Walk with me..."

She closed her eyes and exhaled heavily, as if something would get easier when she did. It didn't, but she stood up anyway. "Okay."

He gave her a reassuring look.

"Amy, you'll do fine. You have been training for this for a long time. This is your big break. This is your chance to shine. Don't let nerves blow it for you."

"I won't, Charlie; I'll shake it off. How much time do I have?" she asked as she pinned up a loose strand of dark hair back away from her face.

"You only have five minutes. You better get ready. Those NASA guys hate to wait," Charlie says with a smile.

She smiled back and moved to leave the room with her old friend. They'd been in this together since the beginning. It was only right that she would spend the last five minutes before the case walking the halls of the Senate building with Charlie instead of alone in a stall of the women's bathroom.

"Well I won't walk in a second early. They might think they control the universe, but I intend to prove otherwise. Do you know who's presiding over this circus act?"

"Senator Petsick."

"Damn."

"I know. But at least he's a horny old b—Joe! How're you?"

She dropped her voice to a low whisper as they started passing people in the hallway. "Stop acting so happy; it makes me look nervous."

"Does my smile give it away?" He was beaming hard enough to give her a mild headache.

"That and the fact that I'm trying to burn holes in your head without looking at you."

"Nah. That just makes it look like you've got a thing for me."

She elbowed him sharply in the ribs. He laughed and winced. She couldn't help but crack a smile.

"That's a little better." He thought to squeeze her hand, but decided against it.

They'd arrived at the massive oak-paneled doors. She touched the dark grain, and her smile went weak.

"Don't, Amy. Don't unless you're going to use it to get to them. And it's a long shot, but…I think you can really kill them good."

She pushed her thumb against the identification panel, her features resetting into the metallic angles of a driven woman. People called it her mask. He knew so much better.

"Trust me," she said with a hint of fire in her whisper.

The door clicked open, and the sound of chairs turning to face the new arrivals leaked out. She looked at him one last time.

"I plan on it."

Scene 2: By Sea

Jason had the unfortunate tendency to be a narrator of his own life. Luckily, he usually knew when talking to himself out loud would be inappropriate, and kept his inner monologue to himself.

“He rounded the corner slowly, even for a man underwater. His cheap and slightly worn airsuit would hold out another half an hour before it started to decay without a jolt of electricity from a hub. The dark ocean was strangely still at this depth, and he felt like his heartbeat would stir the plants. It was as if even the currents had migrated to avoid the storm. If he'd timed it right, he'd be to shore at least fifteen minutes—”at least fifteen, right? Yes. Thank God. “—before the waves got too bad to ride in and barely twenty minutes before the monster of a hurricane really arrived. Without timing, it would all crumble. Or, at least, he wouldn't survive to see the plan through.”

He kept his back against the research center’s metallic hub, knocking snails and barnacles off as he moved. He’d double weighted his ankles and arms before leaving the airlock so he could walk or crawl through the grass if needed.

“Jason started to do the timing calculations over in his head—” Eight… three… eleven… and four is fifteen…”—because now would be the perfect time to have made a simple addition error.” Fifteen minutes less than an hour is forty five minutes, “—give or take a few waves, keystroke errors, and marine life.”

“For the moment he needed to worry about getting caught outside after curfew. Jason's team had started months behind schedule just because their petition to actually leave the research station on a daily basis was considered dangerous to the health and security of everyone in UHA. He argued adamantly that it couldn't be a truly functional underwater habitat without allowing someone to enter and exit daily, no matter the project. They'd finally ceded, probably because they'd tired of the protests outside the Senate buildings every morning for eight long weeks. Now he was taking advantage of that permission blatantly, hoping to God that he'd survive to see the last of the damned UHA and its bureaucrats.”

By the time he’d finished his narration, Jason was inspired again and on the edge of the continental shelf. From here he’d fire up the handheld propeller and make a break for the rift below.

“A quick glance behind his shoulder confirmed that no one was following him. The mini TORPEDO MLXI, purchased on the black market for a mere $600, roared to life with a rush of bubbles and pulled him quickly down the rift into darkness.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Jason was terrified. Two minutes too early or late and he’d be dead or worse. He’d been down the side of the cliff enough to know when to steer the torpedo straight downward even in complete darkness. The bubbles all rose violently against his mask and floated up towards safer ground. Jason sensed the cavern entrance approaching and took a deep breath instinctively.

“He always hated this part—the moment when the chill of rock started seeping into him. He knew it was all the same temperature, especially at night, but his nerves told him otherwise. He reached slowed the TORPEDO to a halt, and grabbed onto the man-placed handholds to draw himself down and into the cavern. Three handholds and he’d clear the vertical passage then seven handholds into the cavern.” One, two, three…one, two three fourfivesix—

Jason stopped narrating, stopped counting, and pulled himself along the last few feet as quickly as possible. He paused at the tenth handhold, removed the weights, and rested them on the rock beneath him. Another breath of tension held him in the darkness. It could all fail him miserably. It could fail the world.

“I can’t take that chance,” he said aloud. His voice was dull against the edges of the airsuit and sounded stuffy when it reached back to his ears. He’d barely spoken with the cavern lit up brilliantly. A strong current shot towards him, launched away from the tunnel towards the air pocket not six feet above his head. He broke through the white surf and shouted.

“Hey! Stop it! It’s me, damn you!”

The waves stopped immediately and the light softened to a soft green glow. For a minute, all Jason heard was the tenor of water dripping off the cavern walls back into the pool below and the rasp of his breathing inside the airsuit as he treaded water.

“I told you I’d make it. I’ve done that much. Are you ready to finish this?” For a moment, Jason worried that he’d narrated the words instead of speaking them. But Argo would only reply on his own terms.

“Of course.”

Early-Morning-Rip-Your-Heart-Out

2007-05-09T06:59:00.000-04:00

"Internet video shows 17-year-old Iraqi Kurd Dua Khalil Aswad being stoned by a group of men until she dies, all because she fell in love with a boy of a different religion

Baghdad, May 4: A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.

As a horrifying video of the stoning went out on the Internet, the British arm of Amnesty International condemned the death of Dua Khalil Aswad as an abhorrent murder and demanded that her killers be brought to justice.

Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.

Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an honour killing by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.

They said she had shamed herself and her family when she failed to return home one night. Some reports suggested she had converted to Islam to be closer to her boyfriend.

Aswad had taken shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika, a predominantly Kurdish town near the northern capital, Mosul.

A large crowd watched as eight or nine men stormed the house and dragged Aswad into the street. There they hurled stones at her for half an hour until she was dead. The stoning happened last month, but only came to light on Wednesday with the release of the Internet video. It is feared her death has triggered a retaliatory attack. Last week 23 Yezidi workmen were forced off a bus travelling from Mosulto Bashika by a group of Sunni gunmen and summarily shot dead.

An Amnesty International spokesman in London said they receive frequent reports of honour crimes from Iraq. Most victims are women and girls who are considered by male relatives to have shamed their families by immoral behaviour.

Daily Mail (see link above for website)"

This is the sort of story makes me wonder where the boundaries of ethical relativism should fall. I don't think that we should force these people to accept democracy because their culture is different, but I ardently feel that these honor crimes should be abolished. Is that the same sort of Western hypocrisy that our society cannot shake? Or do my feelings and my logic combine to acknowledge a deeper human code? Whether or not my feelings are academically justifiable, however, means little to the victim and her family. If I were her mother, there would be no amount of reason that could justify her death.

The honor crime system of "justice" reminds me of the duels that Western culture once put so much stock in. We've grown past that stage, though, by first outlawing duels, then enforcing the laws, then speaking out against them, and finally letting them slip into the past as a glorified memory of what they were. This social maturation seems to be a standard process, but as humans we consistently fail. In some cases--like this one--the consequences of those failures to progress into a "modern world" are deadly. Is there a way to become globally enlightened? Can we ever find enough commonality between cultures that we can hope for such an ideal?

I always seem to have more questions than answers.