Proof that I don't write exclusively good reviews

How can you ruin a book about big nasty angels? Ask Lavie Tidhar.

I also had about three paragraphs about how you should watch out for small presses that offer no advance and have no marketing plan in place, especially ones that have been publishing books for years. The editor asked me to kill that part because he knows the man that runs Pendragon Press and says that he's a serious artist and all that. Also he told me that I didn't understand British small presses because none of them paid advances or had decent marketing plans. Apparently being a small press published writer in Britain is to be a member of a very peculiar institution.

And he also told me that Lavie Tidhar won many awards. How? Why? Who gives these things out? Maybe he took the really bad writing advice of that MFA graduate in Florida who urged writers to make up fake awards to impress publishers on their cover letters.

Interesting - I should read more by this David Axe guy

Saw this one in The Village Voice Web site - posted another article about Kurdish women on pro_war_liberal. Note, anyone familiar with Kurdish politics shouldn't be surprised by the whole statehood issue that they've been pushing forever, but this is an interesting analysis of where we stand now. (or a year ago when it was written)

Kurdistan Rising
For the pesh in northern Iraq, it's the birth of a nation—and they don't mean Iraq
by David Axe
April 11th, 2005 5:12 PM

SULAYMANIYAH, IRAQ—K.G. was just a kid when Saddam Hussein's army swept into his village near this city in northern Iraq.
It was spring 1991. Hussein's defeat in Kuwait at the hands of the American-led coalition had inspired both Shiites in southern Iraq and Kurds in the north to revolt.

The result of the Kurdish revolt is still in question in 2005, as Kurdish ambitions play out on the stage of Iraq's nascent democratic government. Kurds account for only 15 percent of Iraq's 25 million people. But with an estimated 75 to 85 percent of eligible Kurds voting on January 30, the Kurdish alliance led by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) chief Jalal Talabani won 75 of the new national assembly's 275 seats. In recent weeks, Talabani has forged a coalition with the majority Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. As part of the deal, Talabani will serve as the new government's first president.
( Read more... )