Fresh Loaf

Thanks to the Decatur Book Festival and Dragon*Con, writers will be descending upon Atlanta like a horde of Visigoths this Labody Day Weekend. In advance of two of my favorite local events, in the Arts section this week, the story “Books vs. Blogs” explores the virtues and pitfalls of author’s blogs. Since so many writers have blogs, the story focused on a few noteworthy examples, including science fiction author John Scalzi and his popular, 10 year-old old blog  Whatever (anthologized in the upcoming volume Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded); horror novelist Cherie Priest and her Livejournal blog; and cartoonist Rich Tommaso’s Seattle Sketchbook.

Since there are soooo many author’s blogs out there, I won’t claim to offer a complete list of blogging guests of the Decatur Book Festival, let alone Dragon*Con, but here’s a few interesting ones. If you have suggestions of the “How dare you not include this one!” variety, please offer them in the comments field. (No, really.)

Kristen Chase: Motherhood Uncensored

Mir Kamin: Woulda Coulda Shoulda

The Place Where Jack Pendarvis has a “Blog” (featuring “McNeil’s Gold Medal International Emergency Exit Theatre”)

(more…)

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Well, we’ve heard from you loud and clear, and we here at CL would like to make one humble suggestion to our blossoming literary scene: Get help.

Seriously, y’all are messed up. That’s as simple as we can put it, judging from the entries to our seventh annual Fiction Contest — the (extended) deadline of which passed on Wednesday. The theme is “scratch,” and let’s just say the entrants took the notion and ran with it in every manner possible. There’s the scratching of the itch (with images too vivid to recount here), Old Scratch (a particular favorite), scratching on the eight ball in pool, scratch as in money. Now, I didn’t read all of them — thank you, thank you, thank you, CL staff — but I don’t recall it being used in the racetrack vernacular (as in scratching, or removing, a horse from a race), although I’m sure every other angle was covered. And this stuff was so gothic, so dark, so supernatural, so … icky … we just wonder if we’ve opened some wounds with this one.

Best of all, from rudimentary research, we’ve learned our submission total of 240 is an all-time best. And our apologies for any confusion caused by the extended deadline, which resulted in a FLOOD of extra entries. Now comes the judging phase; and as we mentioned in a previous PopSmart post, we’ve got an impressive lineup: Fiona Zedde, Joshilyn Jackson and David Fulmer.

Now, onto the next phase: the party! We’re scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 10, at Eyedrum. We’re working furiously to set up the appropriate musical and other ambient moods, and of course there will be refreshments aplenty. Mark it on your calendar; it’ll be the first cool literary event of the new year, so don’t scratch it off your list …

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