Tamora Pierce's Blog, page 17

I just discovered something really interesting

It's called mansplainin, and I found it on a January post on a blog called "Thus Spake Zuska." Apparently she got all kinds of feedback from the original post, pro and con, including remarks from a bunch of men who had to splain how wrong she and her "that's right!" commenters were, and how mansplainin is not a sexist thing.

Have any of you encountered this one? I automatically recoil when a man says to me things that begin with "You see, Tammy--" (it's that inclusion of my name, that robo...

Normally I think Roger Ebert is a carping old fart

but oh, glory, did he take Glen Beck to school since Beck went and warned Americans that if their church leaders--pastors, rabbis, imams, mullahs, reverends, clerks, bishops--talk about social justice, they are bad church/synagogue/mosque/temple leaders and those are bad churches. Even members of Beck's own Mormon Church are outraged: while the Salt Lake City paper the Deseret News was decidedly noncommittal and published only the stands of two other Christian leaders, the readers themselves...

Welp, it's ourn

Me'n Paw done bought the house today. Sat down with lawyer folk and done signed a whole mess of papers with numbers and shit. Now we've got a pitcher of the layout and the edges of the yard and the g'rage and everything.

Yee-Haw!

Pore ol' Paw's kinda knockt back a tetch, with his eyes buggin out and all. A house takes more cleanin than a trailer, even a double-wide. We'll work it out. We've on'y been livin here three-and-a-half years already.

I told him, alright, we'll own a house, but I'm ...

Jim Hines's novel survey

cross-posted to my fan lj

Fantasy writer Jim Hines is doing a professional writers' survey (the link to the survey and information about it are on Jim's lj, linked here), the purpose of which is to learn about the experience of writers getting their first professional contract.

It doesn't matter whether you've just gotten your first publisher contract or your fiftieth; it also doesn't matter whether you write science fiction, fantasy, or contemporary--Jim's hoping you'll post in order to shar...

Earthquake in Chile

cross-posted from my fan journal

I haven't posted this before, though I should have. Another country is reeling under solid punches from the earth. The first was an 8.8 on Saturday, followed by a 6.2 the same day, and shovels full of 5.1 - 5.3 aftershocks (these numbers being their magnitude on the Richter scale). Put it this way: 3+, you might not notice the shake at all. 4+, shelves fall, windows break. 5+, you'll notice. 6+, you'll be climbing under a table or running outside, because...

Yo! Teenage writers!

It's less than two weeks to submit your story to the Alpha Teen Writers Workshop.

Here's what they have to say:
The ALPHA SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers (ages 14-19) will be held at the University of Pittsburgh's Greensburg Campus from July 14-23 in conjunction with the Confluence convention, July 23-25. This year's guest writers are Tamora Pierce, Holly Black, Timothy Zahn, and Mike Arnzen. Writers aged 14 to 19 are encouraged to apply, and the deadline is March 1.

2010 will be Alpha's nint...

Not very visible lately

and I do apologize. I had a bone spur removed from my right shoulder two weeks ago, which really isn't so big of a deal, except that it's my writing shoulder, and it's all wintery and gray and blah, and surgery always makes you feel tired for a month or so. Then poor Tim did something to his back or his knee (his GP says sciatica, his physical therapist says herniated disk, I say get a new GP because she's not that great, but he says he will and then doesn't). So he's been gimping about an...

Amazon's mad and I'm glad `cause Macmillan knows how to tease `em

I don't know if anyone here has been following the latest publishing hoo-raw, but here it is: Amazon, dealers in the mighty Kindle (which makes you re-buy books you already bought if your Kindle dies and you buy another Kindle), wants to set the e-book price for the publishing industry. Macmillan Publishers disagreed, so what does Amazon do? This.

Yep. Because they're mad at Macmillan's deal-makers, they pulled not only Macmillan's electronic books off Amazon, but the paper ones, too! This...

Spartanburg, SC

For those of you who may have been thinking of meeting me in Spartanburg tomorrow, the event has been canceled due to nasty winter weather forecast for their entire weekend. Sorry, folks! We all mean to re-schedule, and Tim will put that up on the website as soon as we have a date!

Sexual harassment and rape in the military

It was only today that I read this May article from NPR/the Nation, stating that among other inequalities for women in the military, in a 2003 survey, 30 percent of women in the military were found to have been raped, while a 2004 study claimed 71 percent of women veterans seeking help had been sexually assaulted or raped. I was horrified. I also didn't want to pitch a fit over one article, so I went digging.

Here is The Army Times report last year of the rise in sexual assaults in 2008. ...