Julie Barrett's Blog

(Warning: Rambling, ranty post ahead.)

All this brouhaha over the Harlequin Horizons venture got me to thinking about how writers and other creatives are treated in this world. The tipping point for this rant was from Harlequin's own statement today (reprinted at Agent Kristen's blog). Here's the line that got me:

It is disappointing that the RWA has not recognized that publishing models have and will continue to change.

Publishing models will continue to change, but Yog's Law doesn't.

Writers a...

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A while back I blogged about the options the school district was considering for realigning schools. I expressed concerns about students in this neighborhood who didn't have transportation to a more distant high school. The district offers bus service, but if a student wants to participate in extracurricular activities or some tutoring plans, their family is responsible for transportation. People like me were told to suck it up. We'd have two great schools on the east side under the "balanced...

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Yesterday Harlequin unveiled a new self-publishing venture called Harlequin Horizons. This is a partnership with Author Solutions, parent of AuthorHouse, Xlibris, iUniverse, and other ventures. The press release announcing the new venture is here.

This announcement has generated a lot of discussion, some of which I'll round up at the end of the post. One of he most interesting is over at Dear Author, where Harlequin's Malle Vallik answers some questions about the venture.

Quoting from the...

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Where did the warm weather go? Our first major cold front of the year hit yesterday. Woah!

Paul is on a plane as I type, heading to LA for the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference. I'm watching some of the tweets, and they'd be easy to follow if the spammers would just get off the #pdc hashtag.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue started another run today on Radio 4. Much rejoicing.

We watched the first episode of the remake of "The Prisoner" last night. I wanted so much to like it. I tried to li...

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Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving ahead, and Christmas advertising has begun. So how about it? When do the holidays begin for you? Do you avoid thinking about Christmas and Hanukkah until after Thanksgiving, or is any time after Halloween okay? Is it time for Christmas lights in your neighborhood, and do the neighbors agree with you? How about Christmas music? When does that become okay, if ever?

It's hard to avoid thinking about the December shopping season, as much as I try. Of course, th...

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Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving ahead, and Christmas advertising has begun. So how about it? When do the holidays begin for you? Do you avoid thinking about Christmas and Hanukkah until after Thanksgiving, or is any time after Halloween okay? Is it time for Christmas lights in your neighborhood, and do the neighbors agree with you? How about Christmas music? When does that become okay, if ever?

It's hard to avoid thinking about the December shopping season, as much as I try. Of course, th...

View full post on Julie Barrett's website »

Have a pair of cats:



Caption this one.

Tags: Pictures Cats

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I hereby declare today Support Your Local Cheesemaker Day.

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One of the stops on this afternoon's round o' errands was the Post Office to mail some books. I'd placed the books in a sturdy tote bag, intending to transfer them to a flat rate Priority Mail box for shipping. I found a parking space next to an SUV. Two adorable dachshunds were in the back seat and I said something to the lady in the passenger seat about how they were lovely dogs and all that as I grabbed my bag and waltzed inside.

As I placed the bag on the counter to transfer the books to t...

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Yes, I've made more changes to the layout here. Most of them are subtle things involving link colors and some positioning, but there are a couple of new features you may want to play with.

First, the Technorati tags will be going away - sort of. They just won't be visible in the entry any longer. I've become less enchanted with the service over the past year. Along with that, it seemed like a good idea to expand the local tag search. The tag search on the main page remains. But now the new tag...

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