"Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference."
-- Nolan Bushnell
Are women writers underrepresented in our literary landscape? Elaine Showalter, Princeton University Professor Emerita and author of A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Knopf) certainly thinks so. On a recent On Public Radio International broadcast, Showalter explained her thoughts:
From Newsweek: The Very Hungry Caterpillar turns 40 this year, and Eric Carle’s now-classic picture book has sold 29 million copies. Newsweek spoke to its creator about the caterpillar’s metamorphosis.
Letter to My Daughter
by Maya Angelou
From the mellifluous voice of a venerable American icon comes her first original collection of writing to be published in ten years, anecdotal vignettes drawn from a compelling life and written in Angelou's erudite prose. Beginning with her childhood, Angelou acknowledges her own inauguration into daughterhood in "Philanthropy," recalling the first time her mother called her "my daughter." Angelou becomes a mother herself at an early age, after a meaningless first sexual experience: "Nine months later I had a beautiful baby boy. The birth of my son caused me to develop enough courage to invent my life." Fearlessly sharing amusing, if somewhat embarrassing, moments in "Senegal," the mature Angelou is cosmopolitan but still capable of making a mistake: invited to a dinner party while visiting the African nation, Angelou becomes irritated that none of the guests will step on a lovely carpet laid out in the center of the room, so she takes it upon herself to cross the carpet, only to discover the carpet is a table cloth that had been laid out in honor of her visit. The wisdom in this slight volume feels light and familiar, but it's also earnest and offered with warmth.
"Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are."
-- Julia Cameron
From Comedy Central: Author Neil Gaiman visited The Colbert Report this past Monday, and talked about his Newbery Medal win for The Graveyard Book. Much like Sherman Alexie’s appearance on the show last October, Gaiman gave as good as he got during the interview with host Stephen Colbert. Watch the clip here.
What Size Pictures Should I Use?
Those of us who include a lot of pictures in slide shows (hopefully everyone in the near future) need to think about the resolution of those pictures. Resolution, in a digital image context, is basically synonymous with quality. The higher your picture’s resolution, the higher its quality—in other words, the better it will look when printed or displayed. A high-resolution picture looks crisp and clear. A very low-resolution picture might look fuzzy or blurred. ... more
[Via Publisher's Weekly]
Twenty years ago this month, Boston pediatricians Barry Zuckerman and Robert Needlman started handing out books at well-baby checkups. Since then Reach Out and Read, the nonprofit organization they founded to provide books for at-risk children between the ages of six months and five years, has given away more than 20 million books as part of its Rx for reading readiness. Working with publishing partners ranging from Scholastic to NBN to Charlesbridge, the Boston-based nonprofit has found a cost-effective solution to getting books into the hands of children at or near the poverty line —only $8 per child per year. Here, Dr. Sean Palfrey shares a book with a young patient at Boston Medical Center.
