New Blog is Activated

We have a new blog. Please come visit us there.

Changes to the Blog?

As I've reported here before, I made some key tactical errors when I set up this blog. Stupid me, I created an email address and password on the old Blogger for our entire blog group to use instead of just making everyone administrators. So I had the administrator account and an author account. I mainly used the author account, so somehow the administrator account was orphaned during a Google technical upgrade. In other words, this blog no longer has an administrator, and I can't get through to Google to get administrator privileges. Google makes it pretty much impossible to contact them directly and a post to their help forum hasn't received one iota of comment.

What does this mean, practically? It means that I can't add Nami Mun's new book, Miles from Nowhere, to the sidebar of this blog. And when Bridget's book comes out, same thing. Same for Marco's book. And Nick's and Jeremy's.

Therefore, my proposal is to create a new blog with a big posting on this site redirecting our readers over to the new blog. Obviously, we won't be using Blogger software for it! I know that a few people do link to us, but I hope that either those links will be updated or users coming to this site will see our new location.

And all contributors to this site will have administrator privileges! And I will learn how many i's and e's there are in the word privileges!

Comments on this plan? Let's just say this. Unless I hear major objections, I'm going forward with it in a few weeks. Hold your photos of Nami Mun's book tour until then.

Where are we?

Which makes me a hypocrite since I vanished for awhile. Regardless, if we don't have time to meet, I see no reason why we shouldn't start shit here.

Xmas party was fun.

What the hell is a figgy pudding?

Hope everyone else's xmas was more tolerable than my own.

I went out to dim sum.

Okay, I've said stuff.

Someone post something more interesting.

Edges of Bounty

Check out this new book by a friend of mine. Haven't read the whole thing yet, but it looks very good so far ...

"Edges of Bounty: Adventures in the Edible Valley" is a book of words and pictures published by Heyday Books available is stores now.

http://edgesofbounty.com/

Book Sale in Berkeley

If you happen to be in the Bay Area on Thursday, October 16, check out the Super Sidewalk Book Sale put on by University of California Press. Located on the sidewalk (ah, but you guessed that) at 2120 Berkeley Way (between Shattuck and Oxford), the sale offers BARGAINS GALORE on UC Press books! Most paperbacks are $5, most hardcovers are $10.

Smartest One in the Room

In addition to being a most prolific and skilled writers of novels, Jenn Rossmann has now turned out Introduction to Engineering Mechanics: A Continuum Approach. In addition to knowing the ins and outs of your average fluid, she also does ten million other things REALLY REALLY WELL. I mean, when she moved across the country, California lost some serious points in its average IQ. And the writing groop itself, well, she was keeping us above the median.

Post-MFA doldrums

Here's the most recent post from an interesting blog about the writing-life as a career. Called "The Three P's of Post-MFA '08," the blog chronicles the search for employment of three 'professional' wordsmiths ...

The "Link" Between Creativity and Mental Disorders

"Experts say mental illness does not necessarily cause creativity, nor does creativity necessarily contribute to mental illness, but a certain ruminating personality type may contribute to both mental health issues and art."

Wow. That is some groundbreaking science. It never would have occurred to me on my own. I'm glad we live in a world where there are scientists and experts to uncover these mysterious connections for us. I hope we're paying them enough to do this kind of intellectual heavy lifting: "If you think about stuff in your life and you start thinking about it again, and again, and again, and you kind of spiral away in this continuous rumination about what's happening to you and to the world -- people who do that are at risk for depression." (That's Paul Verhaeghen--psychologist, novelist and one hell of an articulate guy).

Now if they can only tell me what defect in my brain chemistry led to the decision to pursue poetry rather than, say, astrophysics or nursing or some other, more-conducive-to-cash-flow vocation, we'll be all set. If they can come up with a drug to combat the aforementioned defect, that's even better.