Award-winning author
Unusual times, remarkable places

The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

29 April 2008

Miscellanea


My Mitzvah Madness: Pay It Forward contest ends soon. You have until midnight, PST, on 30 April to enter. Four lucky people will win free books. Click rules to find out how to take part.

Winners will be drawn and their names posted on Thursday, 1 May.

✥✥✥✥✥✥

Farrah Rochon, independently of the Mitzvah Madness contest, has posted ten things she will do to help the environment. Check out her Earth Day post to get more ideas of good deeds you can do.

✥✥✥✥✥✥

Christine Eldin will be holding contests on her blog, ABenchPress, as part of her Author’s Week, which will run 3–9 May. Several authors will make appearances during the week. Sounds like fun.

If you mention her Author’s Week on your blog and let her know that you did so, you’ll be entered in a contest to win a gift from Dubai.

Find out more at http://abenchpress.blogspot.com/search?q=author%27s+week+may+3....

✥✥✥✥✥✥

Those of you who do not belong to the Romance Writers of America may be unfamiliar with Brenda Novak’s yearly online auction to benefit diabetes research. Last year, she raised more than $140,000 and has set her goal even higher this year.

Her 2008 auction runs from 1 to 31 May. Hundreds of people have donated prizes for people to bid on. Of most interest to readers of this blog are evaluations and critiques by authors, agents, and editors. But even if you already have an agent and an editor, you may wish to check out the other items, either for yourself or for gifts: jewelry, autographed books and memorabilia, gift baskets, trips, antiques, a Kindle, and much else.

Learn more at http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/.

✥✥✥✥✥✥

At right is what I look like Simpsonized. You too can waste valuable writing time Simpsonizing yourself. Visit http://simpsonizeme.com/.

✥✥✥✥✥✥

I posted recently about a talk by Joyce Carol Oates on 8 February on the depressing and lonely life of a writer. I learned this week that her husband of forty-five years, Raymond J. Smith, died ten days later of complications of pneumonia. Perhaps his illness explains the sadness of her talk.

✥✥✥✥✥✥

Coming soon to For Love of Words:
  • an interview with mystery writer June Shaw
  • a discussion of my favorite punctuation mark, the semicolon, and how it can be used outside smileys

8 comments:

Chris Eldin said...

Thanks for your email, and for the shout-out on your blog!!!

I am going to try to resist simpsonizing. I know if I click there, I won't be out for hours!
:-)

And I checked your website quickly--you play the harp!?? I've never met anyone who plays the harp. That's pretty cool.

And I also love folk music.

See you around!!!
:-)

Charles Gramlich said...

I wouldn't mind winning a Kindle actually. I'm sorry to hear about Oates's husband. That might well have had something to do with her mood.

Shauna Roberts said...

Thanks, CHRIS, for coming by and checking out my blog. My harps haven't gotten played much since I moved; it's been on my do-list to at least tune them, buut haven't even gotten that done. :-(

CHARLES, I felt I should have been gentler on her talk after finding out her husband had not been well when she gave it. At that moment, she probably truly believed the life of the writer was gloomy and isolated.

Rae Ann Parker said...

I look forward to the interview with June and the punctuation discussion. I guess I don't have a favorite punctuation mark. ;)

Shauna Roberts said...

RAE ANN, I'm shocked!

Lisa said...

Lots of big happenings around the blogosphere!

And -- I am looking forward to reading your praises of the much-maligned semi-colon. There are many who have actually tried to banish the semi-colon; not me, of course ;)

I can only hope you will forgive me that terrible sentence!

Michele said...

a discussion of my favorite punctuation mark, the semicolon, and how it can be used outside smileys

Wait. Other uses outside smileys? Surely, you jest. ;)

Michele said...

P.S. I'm constantly second guessing my use of the semicolon, so I'm truly looking forward to this discussion. :-)