Michael Pollan- A Call to Knives

In Michael Pollan's compelling argument for why cooking is an important component of our humanity, he compares the process of cooking to that of telling a story.

"Food shows are the campfires in the deep cable forest, drawing us like hungry wanderers to their flames."

"Every dish contains not just culinary ingredients but also the ingredients of narrative: a beginning, a middle and an end." 

Contest News

Anybody wanna win stuff? Cool stuff. Autographed copies of books stuff. Check out this contest on the awesome website of the awesome YA author Barry Lyga.

Ding Dong

As someone who has spent most of my days with a red pen in hand, this version of Sarah Palin's resignation speech made my day. Not that her resignation speech wouldn't have made my day any which way, but ya know...

Post Racial Myth

While we are on the subject of the post-racial myth, check this out:

http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/07/this-week-in-publisher-gossip.html

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/23/aint-that-a-shame/

Thank you to Ghenet at All About Them Words for bringing this to my attention.

Can you hear me sighing?

Please read this

Or this

Or this one

Or this

Or if you prefer satire, read this.

I love Obama.

Nancy Drew

This lovely article in the NY Times about the impact of the Nancy Drew books actually brought a tear to my eye. I loved the Nancy Drew Files as a kid and read them as fast as I could get my hands on them. I loved her tenacity and perhaps, unknowingly, looked to her as a role model of strength, independence, and analytical thinking. I'm pleased to read any article that honors the affect of children's literature, but especially when the books referred to happen to be some of my personal favorites. 

Cue the Violins

Wow. 

Keep on soldiering through... sounds like a tough life you got there Robin Finn.

I'm Baaaack!

And ready to write again.

Here are some inspiring words from Barack Obama via the New York Times. His consistent eloquence reminds me that language matters:

But Obama's own history lent a poignant tone to the family's pilgrimage to Cape Coast Castle– where many Africans began a journey to slavery. His speech there crystallized the tangled sentiments and complicated history:

"As Americans, and as African-Americans, obviously there's a special sense that on the one hand this place was a place of profound sadness; on the other hand, it is here where the journey of much of the African-American experience began. And symbolically, to be able to come back with my family, with Michelle and our children, and see the portal through which the diaspora began, but also to be able to come back here in celebration with the people of Ghana of the extraordinary progress that we've made because of the courage of so many, black and white, to abolish slavery and ultimately win civil rights for all people, I think is a source of hope. It reminds us that as bad as history can be, it's also possible to overcome."