Marilyn Brant's Blog, page 31

Today I'm blogging about our visit to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts and the very cool "Printing Office" we stopped in during our day there. That post is up at Nobody Writes It Better, so please stop by!

Also, I just joined Goodreads last week and have been enjoying being part of that reading community. If you're not a member, check it out and see what you think. If you're a member already and want a new "friend," (raises hand) pick me (!!)...or just stop by to say hello :-).

Speaking of

Just a couple of quick notes to update everyone:

The coffee packets for the Starbucks VIA™ Ready Brew Taste Test were sent out this morning. Many, many thanks to all who joined in. I truly hope you'll have fun giving these a try!! Everyone participating should get their samples of the Colombia and the Italian Roast in the mail this week. (Please email me if you do NOT get them by Saturday.) From August 20th through 26th, I'll have a post up for all of the taste testers. There, thoughts and opinio

Okay. This was one of my stranger reading experiences.

Seth Grahame-Smith's additions to the classic Jane Austen text were, in a word, odd. There are many intellectual and thought-provoking responses to this book out there, ranging from an appreciation of the humorous absurdity of it to an outspoken disdain at the perceived defamation. My personal opinion, however, is far less marked by extremes than by the absence of them. I was kinda...bored.

I know, I know. How could this be true? I mean, ther

The Golden Heart and RITA Awards Ceremony may have marked the end of the 2009 RWA National Conference for most attendees (in the picture to the left, I'm with fellow Cherries/authors Corrina Lawson, Christine Merrill and Jill Purinton), but it was just the start of Part 2 in my July adventure.

My husband and son picked me up from the Marriott Wardman Park and promptly drove us to a somewhat different "park"--Nationals Park--baseball stadium for the Washington Nationals who, in an amazing stroke o

We've just returned from our whirlwind Northeastern U.S. trip (as of the wee hours this morning!), and I'm finally able to plunge back into the Blogosphere. I've missed being a regular poster, and I've missed my short but daily chats with many of you, either here or on your own blogs... I have much to catch up on, both online and off, but I promise to fill you all in on details later this week with headers such as: "D.C.--THE place to see the Cubs play the Nationals while simultaneously getting

So, I'm here in Washington D.C. at the Wardman Park for the big RWA National Conference and, since I have expanded my digital horizons enough to have finally bought a laptop with wireless, I felt it was high time I used my nifty new technology.

For those who have never attended one of these events, RWA Nationals is a writing conference involving some 2,000 publishing professionals--from authors to literary agents to editors to booksellers and librarians. It is a largely female gathering and, as s

I'm so excited about this event!

Those of you who know me already know I love coffee (especially with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and those little white-chocolate shavings, but I digress...), and I drink it on the go with alarming frequency. So, it was a thrilling moment when I discovered these new Starbucks VIA™ Ready Brew packets last month because they came in two flavors (the Colombia and the Italian Roast), were in very convenient little pouches, and all I had to do was open one, add

The Girlfriends Cyber Circuit is zipping through the Blogosphere with a new book tour, and I'm pleased to have fellow member Samantha Wilde visiting today to talk about her debut novel. Her book introduces a character named Joy McGuire, who has gone from being skinny and able to speak in complete sentences to someone who hasn't changed her sweatpants in weeks. But now with a new baby to care for, she feels like a woman on the brink and as she scrambles to recapture the person she used to be she

Although my AustenFest comes to a close tonight, Austenmania is never quite at an end...nor would I want it to be.

I was talking with a very personable bookseller a few weeks ago, and she told me the staff is thrilled with -- but rather surprised by -- the mushrooming popularity of Austen. She wondered if I could account for it in some way.

Truthfully, I could not. To my limited (and seriously prejudiced) perspective, it seems the world is finally catching on to the genius of Jane. I'm sure I was

Just jumping in very quickly to say that I completed my first "challenge" when I watched "Lost in Austen" on DVD in its entirety last week. And I laughed hysterically through it... Obviously, it's not entirely true to the characterizations (let alone the plot) that Austen created in Pride & Prejudice, but I appreciated the humor and the inventiveness of the concept. I was relieved when someone mentioned that the one missing scene (where the main character, Amanda Price, sings "Downtown" at Nethe