Friday, March 31, 2006

Shorts and bunnies

Two things really.

The first, is a short story available at Amazon by my new best friend, Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Lauren has so far published three books, which are all fun and witty and arch and available: The Thin Pink Line, Crossing the Line, and A Little Change of Face. She also has an essay included in the Smart Pop (an apt series title) collection Flirting with Pride and Prejudice : Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit .


This Amazon Shorts idea is brilliant. It's the best thing they've added to the site in ten years. For $0.49 you can have a quickie with a writer you like between books, or you can try out someone new. When even a mass market paperback costs $7.00, and magazines rarely run short fiction anymore (even Reader's Digest has dropped fiction! It's a sign of the end times), the chance for a little taste of something for less than a can of soda delights me no end. They have an amazing quantity of short works, covering the same broad territory as their books.

While I was linking, I happened to notice one that surprised me. Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish, did a reading at the library several years ago now. He read from something he was working on, sort of a graphic novel, but I guess more a picture book for adults. Anyway, talking afterwards, he described the crazy publishing history of the book. He'd sold it to an Italian publisher, but his American publisher didn't want it. There it is. Available in two parts at Amazon. So, while you're looking, be sure to look at O Great Rosenfeld! : In Which Our Esteemed Leader, Rosenfeld, and His Tribe of 33 and 1/2 Followers Find Themselves Trapped Between a Bunch of Very Dangerous ... After Sally, the Most Beautiful Woman . That's part one.

Looking through that list is dangerous. I've already seen about a dozen I want: James Morrow, Audrey Niffenegger, someone called Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy, M. J. Rose, Gregory Benford and Michael Rose, Gardner Dozois, Gayle Brandeis, Peter S. Beagle. I could spend all day in a frenzy of linking and buying and reading.

Okay, the other lighthearted thing: My soon-to-be-seven-year-old daughter was talking about Easter yesterday, making plans. She's very big on planning and making lists. She told me that the Easter bunny had left her a note, informing her that this year there would be three Easter baskets: one each for she and her sister, and one for me. I kind of mildly said something about "are you sure the Easter bunny said he was bringing me a basket?"

She was sure, but she had lost the note.

Shortly after we got home, said daughter brought me a piece of paper torn out of a small spiral-bound notebook, such as the one she has to write herself notes. It said:

Dear V--,

there will b 3 bastets. 1 for mama, 1 for you, 1 for sis.

[signed]
ester bunny


The sis in question, who is four, about lost her tiny mind with excitement. The Easter Bunny had stopped by and left a note!

2 comments:

Lauren Baratz-Logsted said...

You *are* my new best friend!

Kaethe said...

Thank you for not making a liar out of me in the first comment I have received.