Browsing Tag

psa

Music

Hey Seattle locals, Folklife needs help!

Any of you who have followed me on a regular basis know that my household are longstanding fans of Folklife, the big four-day music festival that happens every year at the Seattle Center over Memorial Day weekend. This year’s is imminent, and as always, Dara, Paul, and I are looking forward to spending time there.

But I noted with dismay this morning that the Seattle Times has an article up saying that unless they get more donations at the gate this year, next year’s festival is in danger of being canceled. 🙁

According to that article, Folklife usually only gets donations from about 17 percent of attendees at the gate, and they take in around $190,000. They really need to bump that number up to $350,000 in order to afford next year.

So if you’re in the area, you love Folklife and what it brings to our local culture, and you’re planning to go this weekend, please please please donate anything you can spare at the gate. They need your help. Also, if you’re not going to be able to hit the festival but you still want to help out, you can donate to them directly on their website.

Please spread the word to other area locals! And if you’re going to be at the festival, hey, look for Dara and Paul and me, and say hi if you see us!

News

Heads up, fellow owners of i-Things: UPDATE YOUR DEVICES NOW

iOS 9.3.5 has just been released, and it’s a very important security update. Important enough that it made the news–because it’s fixing newly discovered security flaws that had the potential to give a remote attacker pretty much complete control of your phone. So jump on this ASAP and get your devices updated, mmkay?

The BBC has covered the story here:

Apple tackles iPhone one-tap spyware flaws

(If you own an older device that’s running an older version of iOS, better check and see if a similar update has been released for your version, too. If your device is capable of updating to iOS 9, you might want to put serious consideration into doing so. If it’s not capable of updating to iOS 9 and Apple hasn’t yet released a security patch to your version, go get on them about that.)

Rebels of Adalonia

Reminder: re: reading the Rebels of Adalonia books

I’m running an ad on Facebook right now pointing people at the Rebels of Adalonia books, and if you’ve come over from Facebook to check out that page and my site in general, hi!

For those who are new to my work as well as those who might just not have checked out the Rebels books yet, a general reminder: the Rebels books are not, repeat, NOT standalone novels.

Carina is best known for publishing romance, and I know a lot of Carina’s readers as well as romance readers in general are used to thinking of a trilogy as “three standalone novels that happen to have an interconnecting theme, like three sisters in a family, or three women all working in the same place, etc.”.

However, I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: the Rebels books are a fantasy trilogy. Thus, Valor, Vengeance, and Victory do all have their individual sub-arcs for their featured characters, yes–but in order to get the complete story, you do need to read all three books, and you need to read them in order (i.e., Valor of the Healer, then Vengeance of the Hunter. then Victory of the Hawk). If you try to read Victory of the Hawk or Vengeance of the Hunter without first reading Valor of the Healer, you will be confused!

Fortunately, each book is very conveniently priced at $2.99 wherever ebooks are sold–so you can read the entire trilogy for less than many mass market paperback releases these days, and certainly less than a trade paperback. And since the whole trilogy is indeed now released, you can plow through the entire story at whatever speed you like.

So if you choose to do so, thank you in advance, and I hope you enjoy the read!

News

PSA: Check your dehumidifiers, people

We have one at the Murkworks–or we did, because Paul just discovered this recall announcement talking about several different brands of dehumidifiers being recalled. DUE TO CAUSING FIRE DAMAGE.

Yeah, that’s just a LITTLE bit too much water removal there.

Couple other articles on the story:

In short, YIKES and check your dehumidifiers. ‘Cause I’m generally a pro-not-letting-our-houses-burn-down voter, people.

Other People's Books

Signal boosting: Call for submissions for Gay City anthology

Forwarding this on behalf of Eric Andrews-Katz, mentioned below. If you think this might be your cup of tea, follow the link he provides over to information about his anthology!

Howdy,

Please find below an Open Call for submission for both Writers and Artists/comics/photographers for the new anthology, Gay City. Vol. 4 – At Second Glance. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you might think is interested and if there are any community boards that it can be posted on, that would be very much appreciated. I’ve included an on-line link for your convenience.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Eric Andrews-Katz

On line link:
http://libraryofthelivingdead.lefora.com/2010/10/26/submission-call-gay-city-vol-4-at-second-glance/

At Second Glance

Open Call for Submissions: Gay City: Volume 4-At Second Glance ~Familiar stories from different views

Edited by: Eric Andrews-Katz & Vincent Kovar

Gay City’s Mission is to promote the health of gay/bisexual men and prevent HIV transmission by building community, fostering communication, and nurturing self-esteem. This year, our anthology series continues with volume 4: At Second Glance.

There are always at least two viewpoints of every story and yet, we usually only hear one side. In the tradition of WICKED, The Red Tent and The Mists of Avalon, a different perspective can provide an entirely different story than the commonly known tale; the other side of the looking glass, so to speak. You are encouraged to experiment with sexual and cultural norms, technology and historical events. Sensuality is fine, but please no erotica.

More at the link!

Other People's Books, Publishing

Dorchester continuing to implode

I suspect that many of you who’ll see this post are already following the fine ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books. But in case you aren’t, SB Sarah put up this post today with the last round of what’s been an ongoing saga of WTF from Dorchester, a romance publisher that’s been in severe financial straits.

Dorchester’s been handling this in very strange ways, and the latest round of it is quite alarming, especially if you happen to be an author: many Dorchester authors haven’t been paid royalties for their titles for years now, and others are beginning to report that despite the fact that rights for their works have reverted to them, Dorchester is continuing to digitally sell them as well as offer them for free as Kindle downloads.

This is unacceptable. So if you’re a romance reader, please be on the lookout for Dorchester titles, and avoid buying them if you can. (SB Sarah provides links off to other posts about the topic, and the affected authors she mentions are posting in the comments, asking readers to refrain from buying the freely offered books and instead sit tight until they can provide digital copies that they’re selling themselves.)

The Internet

PSA: About that I Write Like meme going around

Y’all might want to check here and here for what seems to be going on with that. This is what you get for when bored geeks are on the case.

(I myself have been told I’m reminiscent of Esther Friesner and Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters in some ways, which means quite a bit more to me than some random meme, so hey!

But what I’d really like is to be told ‘you write like somebody we’d like to publish, here, have a contract to get you into print!’)