Ryan Field's Blog, page 421

Bill Cosby On the "N" Word; Reader Question; Cost to Self-Publish Chase of a Dream

This past weekend Bill Cosby spoke to graduates at Paul Quinn college, and among other things he mentioned the "N" word.

Cosby spent most of his time making people laugh, but he also imparted a serious message about culture and raising children, advising graduates never to use the “N” word.

“Because it’s not entertainment,” he said sternly.

Cosby said that the civil rights movement is ongoing and that Saturday’s graduates and Paul Quinn faculty are helping to bring about change.

“The faculty con...

Full Frontal Nudity Harry Hamlin

I've posted about full frontal nudity so many times this past year I decided to read a book titled Full Frontal Nudity by Harry Hamlin. It's memoir. It was pubbed a few years ago. Here's the book description from Amazon:

IN 2008, as he attempted to enter Canada to film a television series, Harry Hamlin—the former star of L.A. Law and once People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive—was detained at the border for unresolved narcotics convictions. And so begins Full Frontal Nudity, a laugh-out-loud-funn...

NY Mayor Bloomberg Refused Extra Pizza; Cherry Soda Cowboy Rant

Evidently, someone has a sense of humor, or they really didn't want New York Mayor Bloomberg to have an extra slice of pizza. Maybe it's a combination of both. He went into a pizza eatery recently in Brooklyn called Collegno's Pizzeria and the owners flatly refused to serve him more than one slice of pizza.

According to this article, the owners did this in protest to Bloomberg's proposed ban on soda where he wants to limit the portion size of how much soda we as free Americans can c...

Harper Lee Sues Literary Agent Samuel Pinkus

Harper Lee, author of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, filed suit against literary agent, Samuel Pinkus. The novel is over fifty years old, and the story gets a little complicated.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan seeks unspecified damages from the son-in-law of Lee's former literary agent and companies he allegedly created.
The lawsuit alleges the son-in-law, Samuel Pinkus, failed to properly protect the copyright of the book after his father-in-law, Eugene Winick — who...

Mariela Castro Gay Activist Visits Liberty Bell

When Mariela Castro, daughter of Raul Castro, gay activist, and sexologist, visited the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia it garnered quite a bit of local attention. She came to Philadelphia as a guest of the Equality Forum, which held its annual conference here.

Ms. Castro, 50, has emerged as an international leader in the field of gay and transgender rights. As the director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education , she is believed to have influenced the government’s decision to pay for reassi...

Win a Phone Call with Anne Rice

When I saw this contest on facebook earlier today, I couldn't resist clicking the link to win a phone call with Anne Rice, going against my instincts of never clicking on any ads on facebook. And with all the talk about Anne Rice going around the Interwebs this past week, and how fandom often reacts to negative book reviews of favorite authors like Anne Rice, I figured I would post this because it is unrelated to any of those issues and it shows Rice in a different way. The Internet can...

Jackie Collins on Self-Publishing; Google Glass Tech; Frank Bruni on Jason Collins Coming Out

I'm not sure of the date when this was posted, but author Jackie Collins discusses self-publishing openly on her blog and gives a few basic, valid reasons on why she decided to do this. Many of which are the same reasons smaller authors like me decided to self-publish as well.

There's a new term going around in publishing about authors who both self-publish and get published with publishing companies...Hybrid Author. Frankly, I'm relieved to see this because one of my biggest worries whe...

Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2013

I wanted to devote this post to the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2013, an event which seems to be growing each year. It's an important event for anyone who is LGBT or knows anyone LGBT because there's still homophobia and transphobia happening all the time all over the world. Sometimes it comes in aggressive forms, sometimes it's subtle. But when you get down to the bottom line it's equally harmful and events like this that call attention to it make people aware it's happening.

I al...

Zuckerberg: We Like Facebook Ads; Hachette Works With Libraries; Hop Against Homophobia 2013

Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that facebook users respond positively to ads on facebook. He even went so far as to say Facebook wants to do more with advertising and "ramp that up." Of course that makes sense, because Facebook survives on advertising.

Zuckerberg previously stressed the better-than-anticipated reaction to Facebook ads in the company's January earnings call . Improvements made to the algorithms Facebook uses to surface relevant content in the News Feed had increased peopl...

Update: The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance Anthology

Back in January when I first made the announcement about the upcoming anthology I'm planning to release this summer titled, The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance, I set up a digital file and I've been receiving stories from some excellent authors ever since.

The deadline for this was set as May 1, 2013. And I couldn't be more thrilled about the unbelievable responses I've had.

I just wanted to update right now with a quick post to mention two things. One, if you have submitted...