Posts made in August, 2009

First, a little background. The state of Pennsylvania is presently in a budget stalemate. There are a number of issues, but one is library funding. No matter what, it looks like Pennsylvania’s libraries are going to lose money, but on the one hand the cut is 14 percent and the other hand the cut is a devastating 50 percent. In response to this dire forecast the Philadelphia Free Public Library has floated a “doomsday scenario” in which they would close all of their branches. You can read a more detailed story on the stalemate and and the Philly shutdown here. I need to preface my remarks with the fact that I am a HUGE library supporter. I have worked in libraries. I volunteer at a library. In my day job I work with libraries. I am a regular...

I was never completely satisfied with the old look of this site, and wanted something a little less clunky. Since this site is created using WordPress themes, I didn’t think it would be too hard to simply change the theme to something more to my liking. There are two problems with this. The first is that I am picky. The second is that changing a theme and tweaking it is never that simple for non-coders like myself. Well, many hours after this “quick” project began, I have something that I am happy with. Other than a massive headache, I escaped relatively unscathed. For amateurs looking for a theme that can be customized with relatively little pain, may I recommend the Aeros theme. The theme is set up in such a way that backgrounds can be changed....

One thing I love about books is all the different places I get to experience and visit all from the safety of my living room couch. This week I’ve gone to some pretty cool places. Sara Varon’s lovely little graphic novel Robot Dreams took me to a world where a lonely dog can make his own best friend from robot kit. This is a wonderful and touching story about friendship with a bittersweet ending. The pirates, cyborgs and time travel mentioned in the title of this post are all featured in The Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker, the final book in her Company Saga. I’ve followed the saga from the beginning, and have put off reading the final book for awhile because I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I was glad to see all my old friends for a...

Chances are, you haven’t heard of Rebecca Woodhead . . . yet. I began following her blog about the ups and downs of being an unpublished writer. Then I began following her Twitter updates, as she decided to compete in the Miss Twitter competition. Now, I am following her latest blog the Word Nerd Army and waiting for one of her unpublished books to finally make it into print. Something tells me, I won’t have to wait too long. You can read part of Rebecca’s story here. While there’s nothing wrong with the traditional path to publication, writers should keep in mind there’s more than one way to get your name out there and find a happy home for your  work. If nothing else, Rebecca’s story is a great argument for the importance of...

For some there are two types of writing. There is the sort of writing that constitutes the creation of actual literature, the writing of novels, short stories, plays, poetry, perhaps even newspaper articles and depending on how broad one wants to go, blog posts, twitter updates, and there’s this other sort of “writing” a dark, soulless thing known as screenwriting, which lacks all literary merit and is the sign of a seriously depraved individual. OK, perhaps I exaggerate, but there is a pretty dark view of Hollywood writing held by many who revere the more traditional forms of writing in general. How appropriate then that the most recent screenwriting book I read is The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood: the Screenwriter as God by Joe Eszterhas,...