What would Hemingway do without a newspaper to work for?
1. In the midst of all that Story Siren plagiarism drama, this article on the impact of diminishing newspapers on writers over at The Millions is all the more timely. The proving grounds for writers are becoming fewer and fewer; we are becoming a nation of hobbyists who call ourselves writers.
2. Amanda Palmer took no prisoners on Kickstarter yesterday. (I happily supported this project to get a CD; love her music.) And don't forget Kate Milford's Kairos Mechanism novella, now 65% funded and still needing some backers. (I contributed to that one last week!)
3. Speaking of Kickstarter I might be putting together a project involving indy publishing, some great Alaska history lots of folks might not know about and, well, something that no one else is doing and a good friend and I think maybe we will. I'll keep you posted on how it develops.
4. I haven't mentioned it in a while but the Summer Blog Blast Tour will be happening in early June. More info to follow as we get closer but expect the usual suspects with a ton of interviews with many cool authors.
5. I am reading about ten books right now which is crazy, even for me. But the summer columns are eluding me and I've been picking things up and putting them down with ceaseless abandon. I think I'm going nonfiction for June - not a summer escapes column but more of a "get the heck outside" column. July will be adventurous reads and August....well August still eludes me. But I'm working on it.
6. I'm also outlining my next book and for those of you who were wondering it will be set in AK again, it will be nonfiction about flying again, and it will be quite different from MAP. The first fifty pages to my agent by early Sept and a ton of research to do this summer.
7. Also writing something totally different that is fiction and about missing family history and missing explorers and missing memoires and a wee bit girl detectivish. Nothing more on that as it is so different it would only startle everyone. Plus it's like a deer in the woods right now; I'm afraid if I talk about it much the story will disappear.
8. It won't be a teen book though.
9. AND MY OFFICE IS STILL A MESS. I'm so annoyed about this.
10. Three reviews going off to Booklist by the end of the week (New Orleans, dog behavior and philosophy), two reviews for future columns to write. This is manageable.
11. And finally, the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Ballou SR High School in Washington DC ends tonight, at midnight PST. All ordering info is here. Please join in and help us make a difference!
