In Brief

Just real quickly (I have so much to say about the weekend in Ann Arbor): The book and writer's conference went amazing. We started off at a beautiful bed and breakfast, tucked in a location on campus we could scarcely believe, and everything got better from there. I got to re-acquaint myself with the campus, marvel over all the changes, eat all the foods I was looking forward to, participated and watched some great panels and speakers, and met a ton of really interesting people. I'll go into detail about it all when I get the chance but truly it was an inspiring weekend. Here's some quick moblog pictures from the weekend.

We moved along to New York right after Michigan and we're so busy exploring, meeting, and just having tons of fun that I haven't even touched a computer in days. Yeah, days. I might be in withdrawal, might.

One thing that Lilly noticed was weird on campus -- aside from it being semi-empty due to school being out of session -- was that everyone now has (white) earbuds attached to their heads. It's forces you to notice everyone walking around in their own little worlds. It's hard to explain how such a subtle thing makes the people/students on campus seem so distant from each other. Where's the community spirit?

Champions of the West

I'm going to Michigan next week (May 17 - 20) to participate in the Ann Arbor Book Festival.

I'll be sitting on one panel (as Lilly's sidekick) and moderating another. Should be fun. Visit the alma mater, eat some Pizza House, Rendezvous at the bar around two, go buy some Steve & Barry's to dust off that school spirit. Um, Go Blue?

Reading in Mixed Media - Saturday, May 19th
Moderator: Jonathan Yang, Rough Guide to Blogging
Matt Bell, writer/blogger
Doreen Lichtman, Survival From Malice
Claudia Mair Burney, Murder, Mayhem and a Fine Man
Meghan O'Rourke, www.salon.com, Slate.com

The world of writing and reading is changing quickly. Join this panel as they discuss how they have addressed this changing world as writers. From blogging, to making books or excerpts of books available online or as ebook downloads, this group is facing the challenges of a changing literary world head on.


The Writer-Agent Relationship - Friday, May 18th
Lilly Ghahremani, Full Circle Literary Agency with author Jon Yang, The Rough Guide to Blogging; Amy Williams, McCormick-Williams Literary Agency and Travis Holland, The Archivist's Story.

The author-agent relationship is crucial to publishing success. An agent will work for you in getting the best publication deal, and will support you through the publishing process. But how do you find the right agent? And how do you get that agent to notice your work in all the piles of manuscripts they receive each day?

Two pairs of authors and agents will discuss how they came to know each other, how they work together to be effective, and what expectations they should have of each other.

Come on out, Michigan is only a hop and a skip away!

In The Land of Women (2007)

Usually romantic comedy movies like this have the problem of the actors being way too old for their roles. Adam Brody has the opposite problem; he looks like he blends in with the high schoolers around him and it's tough to picture him as a 26-year old (even if he actually is).

The movie also compounds the problem by not giving us enough motivation behind anything Brody's character does. The movie has a few "nice/interesting/cute" moments but mainly, like the family of blondes across the street (who do admittedly carry the show), the film suffers from a lack of depth.
-Ripe Tomatoes-