“Who’s on first?” “This is it.” “Uh, what?” An imagined conversation in line for the new Michael Jackson movie.

“Demand whether something even EXISTS anymore. This trick works equally well for concepts (i.e., patriotism) and objects (i.e., peanuts).” This and more tips from a schmoozer’s guide to literary gatherings.

OMGZ Twilight Barbie! Bella and Edward! As Barbies! Insert joke here about plastic genitalia/chastity/etc.

When novelists sober up.

I thought this article was about well-rounded heroines in fiction, as in a well-rounded personality. But, no, they’re talking about a well-rounded body. And they’re calling it “chunk lit.”

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If drinking is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Yet I do want to write. And I don’t want to end up like so many famous writers throughout history who drank…clutching to their vice like a crutch, bitter and depressed and disillusioned with the world, firmly believing that they needed that glass full of liquid beside them in order to access their talent.

But what if they did? What if alcohol and creativity were linked? O frabjous day! Philip Hunter gives me new hope in his recent Prospect Magazine article, “I drink, therefore I can.” Apparently the benevolent gods of modern science are entertaining the possibility that there is such a thing as a “creative cocktail gene”….a gene variant (known as the G-variant) found in approximately 15% of Caucasians. And if they’re right, I may have a brand new impetus to write. Read more »