America’s Next Top Author (and other fantasy programs for book lovers) (via Here’s To Us)

Think about it: in the realm of American TV, we have reality contest shows for just about everything, whether it's cooking, modeling, singing, or navigating ridiculous obstacle courses and falling into giant tubs of mud and/or shaving cream. And that's not even mentioning the realm of non-competive reality programming à la the Kardashians. Here's my question–why don't [...]

It’s 2011 Already, Come On!: Where’s My Ray Gun? (via Micro-Writing)

This is a funny poem. Especially if you like sci-fi. H.G. Wells foresaw the bomb. Never prouder was a mom. Sci-fi gets it so rarely right, says I, sans boots that take to flight. Year 2001 saw no HAL, just Tamagotchis to be your pal. Yes, computers at chess could win, but they couldn't kill [...]

Arts and crafts in Mozambique (via Notes from Africa)

Incredible artwork. This post is part of the Mozambique 2011 series. The previous post in this series is Daily life in Mozambique – hardship and happiness. As I mentioned in my previous post in this series, the local Mozambicans are artistically talented people. Their art takes many forms including wood carvings, pottery, paintings, locally made [...]

English: Loving the Frankenstein Language (via Stupid Ugly Foreigner)

I’ve never really thought about or appreciated the language I was born with. In high school and university, I had a lot of boring, pretentious conversations about different languages, and English was usually filed pretty low in the rankings. French and Spanish were romantic, Indian languages earthy and exotic; Japanes … Read More via Stupid [...]

Ten Commandments of Book Sales… (via Herding Cats in Hammond River)

Having just returned from two large spring book sales, I feel compelled to provide this handy guide to behaviour at such events: 1. Thou shalt arrive early.  Due to a stop at the Dairy Queen in Sussex for supper, we were half an hour late late getting to the University Women's Book Fair in Moncton [...]