• Rules for Writing Neo-Victorian Novels.
• Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog
• Golden Rule Jones, who is, as we established not so long ago is not a Peter Cetera fan, has finally weaned himself off Blogspot and grabbed himself a bona-fide domain. Do check it out.
• John Barlow is now blogging, and he’s tired of the Jonathan Ames testicle contretemps.
• Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sienna Miller. No, it’s not another piece of Ron Howard treacle, but the lineup for Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.
• The Vancouver Sun and the Contra Costa Times report yesterday’s news today! Graphic novels are a literary phenomenon! It’s the evolution of a literary genre! Who knew?
• Carl Shuker has won the New Zealand Prize in Modern Letters. That’s $65,000. But it remains to be seen whether Shuker will collect his award in cash or in Buzz Bars. He looks like an intense fellow. My vote is on the Buzz Bars.
• In Japan, twelve writers will be profiled in a liquor warehouse. The program is carefully calculated to get literary enthusiasts inebriated with free drinks, have them sign a contract when not of sound mind, and to put them to work bottling bottles of schnapps in sweltering conditions as indentured servants. Some businesses are calling this new and innovative form of labor an “export reading zone.”
• I’m shocked that I’m quicker to the draw than my colleague down south, but John Banville will be headlining at the Between the Lines Festival.
• Alice Greenway is a literary bomb ready to explode. Other Orange Prize longlisters, concerned with Greenway’s eleventh-hour transformation into a piece of artillery, are turning themselves into B-52 bombers, Panzer tanks, and, in Zadie Smith’s case, a neutron bomb, in an effort to draw more attention to their work.
• Another interview with Alan Moore.
• Who knew that romance novels are apparently only for dumb women? Thank you, Judith McNaught, for “never underestimat[ing] women’s intelligence” and for likewise assuming that any woman who doesn’t read your books, looking for some innocuous escapism, is apparently the XX chromosome’s answer to Forrest Gump.
• This isn’t a good sign for Sci Fiction’s future. Scifi.com is to be restructured on podcasts, with video being played a prominent role.
• iPorn! Inevitable. (via Reverse Cowgirl)
• Fascinating article on how cheap consumer goods have affected UK culture. Cory Doctorow has more.
• The future of conversation. (via Book Ninja)

© 2006, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.