Tampa Book Buzz

back on monday

I’m spending the weekend at the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image, watching as many movies as humanly possible. Back on Monday.

tampa bay association of black journalists hosting panel discussion on multimedia reporting on march 8

Received via Facebook:

The Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists is presenting its second annual session focused on multimedia reporting on March 8, featuring members who have done extensive work translating their newspaper or TV work into online platforms.

As we all work to try and understand these new media platforms, sometimes the most fun comes from getting together and swapping ideas on what it all means. And fellow bloggers, feel free to post this on your blog somewheres…

The Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists’ website is www.tbabj.com. Please remember, however, that you’re welcome even if you’re not a journalist. Or from the Tampa Bay area. Or black.

Hope to see you there.

(cross-posted at www.sticksoffire.com and www.tampafilmfan.com)

be back soon

Light posting over the next few days, as I won’t be home much. (Regular readers know that this is not unusual around here; sadly, the unusual part is that I’m giving advance notice before disappearing for a few days.)

I’ll be watching movies, making painfully awkward attempts at small talk, gushing over filmmakers and watching more movies at the Gasparilla Film Festival.

reading, interrupted

Yowsa, what a week. What a month. What a year. What a life! Sorry to fall off the face of the earth yet again.

If my life were a novel, it would be:

2 parts Judy Blume
2 parts Helen Fielding
1 part Jen Lancaster
1 part David Sedaris
1 part Katherine Ann Porter
mixed with Danielle Steel
dashes of Ian McEwan, Stephen King and Nicholas Sparks

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

a glitch by any other name…

…is still annoying.

Damn computers and the glitches that go with them. After weeks of fighting over coding issues and database tables and other exciting things, my blog and I have declared a truce. The coding war is over. Regular posting will resume shortly.

…hello 2008

It’s the fifth day of 2008 and I’ve already broken several of my new year’s resolutions. How about you?

Most of my resolutions can be summarized in one word: MORE.

I want to read more books, attend more local book/author events, meet more people. Get better at small talk for when I meet those people. Be healthier, happier, richer, nicer. Write more often. Be a better writer, better friend, better person. Laugh more, play more, enjoy life more, get out of the house more. Read more books — have I mentioned that one yet? It’s pretty high on the list.

THANK YOU all for being bored/crazy/interested enough to visit this blog. I appreciate all your email: the updates (whether your own event or something you saw in the paper and wanted to make sure I knew about), the questions (it’s a terrific ego boost that anyone wants my opinion), the invitations (wish I could say yes to them all), the jokes, the constructive criticism, the corrections, the holiday/birthday/get-well wishes, the suggestions and everything else.

I even appreciate the crazy person who posted an illegible rant — calling me a bitch, no less — on one of my social networking homepages. A lot of my blogger and online writer friends get hate mail, death threats, insulting/crazy emails, stalkers, marriage proposals, etc. (And book deals, speaking invitations, media attention…) I’m not eager to attract any crazies, but I’m relieved to finally have my first online insult out of the way. Hopefully my blogger badge will arrive in the mail soon.

Here’s to a happy, book-filled 2008 for us all!

happy holidays

Was kidnapped by Santa and am being forced to work in elves’ workshop. Cobbling shoes is hard work. Constant supply of cookies and milk help somewhat.

Hope to escape soon.

is thanksgiving over already? yawn…

We’ve all heard and read the stories about people getting sleepy after eating turkey. It seems that merely buying a turkey puts one to sleep as well. Either that or someone slipped something in my tea, ‘cos I’ve slept about fourteen hours a day since Tuesday. I’d be asleep right now if it wasn’t for pesky things like work, bills, laundry and email.

Friends and family were ignored, calls and emails went unreturned, deadlines were missed, pies from scratch became frozen pies from the grocery stores, and so on. I managed to read one book (Darkness Falls – liked it a lot — review pending) and watched the Law and Order marathon on TV.

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving too.

happy thanksgiving

I’m taking a few days off to grocery shop, eat, read, visit family, plan/cook my Thanksgiving meal, eat, read, hang out with friends and eat.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

See you next week.

no wonder kate’s blog gets more traffic than mine

How to drive traffic to this blog…mmm, let’s think for a moment….

Provide celebrity author gossip and insider news…nope, that would require knowing celebrity authors and paying sources for info and probably not living in Tampa (no offense to local celebrity authors intended).

Use all the marketing ideas rolling around in my brain to form an actual, official marketing plan and then implement said marketing plan? Ugh, too much work, too much time.

Hmmm…posting sexy photos of scantily-clad women should draw traffic…but I once chastised a fellow blogger for doing that exact same thing…plus I don’t have any photos like that of myself…not to mention that I wouldn’t post them even if I had some…what to do, what to do…

Eureka!! My friend Kate — activist, wild woman, writer and former Tampa blogger who is currently causing trouble and raising consciousness in Colorado — rebutted a blog commenter’s accusation of pudginess by posting this photo of herself on her blog yesterday. You go, girl!

Enjoy! And check back often. You never know when the local book news and other assorted ramblings here will be interrupted by a post like this. Really, it’s in your best interest to read this blog every day. Would I lie to you?