Just…tiny books. They’re awesome. They’re like…Night Vale meets a dollhouse. Go see them here. The first pieces of ‘real’ art (the ones I remember) I did at age 5 were miniatures, and the concept has stayed with me through many different crafts (jewelry, alabaster sculpture, felt sculpture, weaving, painting, mosaic, etc). But the smallest book…
Read More Tiny books…or, experiments in home decor. For a decade or so, I’ve been seeing Chinese jade, agate, and tourmaline-beaded pillows on the import market. Some are panels of beads sewn onto a pillow-top. Others are elaborate hollow cage structures shaped to fit the head and neck, and supported by jade or wooden end-caps. Metaphysically-inclined folks will…
Read More Moss agate pillowFor anyone who has been in a cave for the last nine years, Etsy.com is a sales site meant to showcase original handmade objects. It is poised to offer a major IPO. It is also coming under increasing pressure by detractors who: 1) Claim Etsy is often a haven for cheaply-produced overseas goods marketed online…
Read More Is Etsy bad for honest artisans?It’s spring. Next weekend is the Tempe Festival of the Arts, where 40,000 people will somehow find places to park around the core of Tempe’s Mill Avenue Downtown district. Hundreds of artist booths will line Mill and its side streets. There will be decadent food and more decadent booze. Several million dollars will change hands,…
Read More More fiber art award ribbonsThe sun rises. The living move in the waking world. Sadness remains, as well as selfish fury at a universe that would take Terry Pratchett before he could give us another Tiffany Aching book…* Sigh. I’m short-tempered this week, partly because of that. I’ve put several people on ‘ignore’ in various social media forums, because…
Read More Anne R. Allen’s ‘How Not To Sell Books’(I keep coming back to this post and fiddling with it. A threnody-in-progress, as I consider what this man meant to me.) Well, we knew this day was coming, but we are no less sad. The world is without one of its finest satirists and humanists today, with the passing of British comic writer/fantasist Sir…
Read More In Memoriam: Sir Terry PratchettThroughout the month, the authors over at Marketing For Romance Writers (MFRW) will be having Tweet Days, blog hops, interviews, and contests showcasing some of the best romance writers around. I like this group because it connects commercial and self-publishers, writers across all subgenres of romance, and some amazing promotional opportunities. Today is one of the…
Read More our version of March MadnessA reluctant vampire hunter, stalking New York City as only a scorned bride can. From Bathory Gate Press principal Margo Bond Collins comes another fast-paced, grimly funny paranormal romance/mystery/horror/comedy. And this week only, it’s $.99! (Buy links after excerpt) _______________________________________________________ Elle Dupree has her life all figured out: first a wedding, then her Ph.D., then…
Read More Margo Bond Collins, Legally UndeadDear Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee, I love you to bits. I’ve had several pieces entered in your Bead Dreams competition over the years. I adore seeing the amazing ‘statement’ pieces that your other entrants show off every year. I get so much inspiration from you. I’ve never been able to attend; my days…
Read More rich people’s hobbies…then revels condescendingly at her own faceplant, and then manages to sell a smug little literary essay about it while touting her ‘purer’ work. To round out the trifecta of writing-related articles this week, here is the National Post’s unintentionally funny ‘confession of a failed romance writer’. Jowita Bydlowska’s essay touches on every single stereotype…
Read More Yet another literary writer epicfails at genre…Another article of note, this time a Guernica Magazine interview of superstar agent Chris Parris-Lamb. He’s mostly into literary fiction, not genre, but he has some very interesting and incendiary things to say about writing, publishing, Amazon, big books, and big advances. Selected quotes: On Amazon’s huge efforts to police its relatively tiny returns from publishing:…
Read More An agent talks about publishingParaphrased quote from the following essay: ‘One problem with treating (post teen) students as children, is that they become more childlike.’ http://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-Strikes/190351/ This essay may enrage some people, and be used by others as an excuse for terrible behavior. I take it as another data point, on a cultural metamorphosis I’ve been watching unfold for…
Read More Vulnerability and victimhood