Responding to many requests for Dead Author T-shirts, prompted by my
remarks that authors cannot make a living from rock concerts and T-shirts, I
have now supplied the T-shirts, in four motifs: Dead Author, Dead Moose, The
Joy of Accounting, and Would Modernists Blog? Not to mention the tote bags,
the water bottles, the bumper stickers, the mugs, and the wall clocks! They
are at: http://www.cafepress.com/DeadAuthorTshirtsandOtherStuff
Have fun!
Margaret Atwood: Year of the Flood 
Pingback: Dead Author T-shirts (via Margaret Atwood: Year of the Flood) « Write Your Own Story
I used to wonder why you didn’t get very many comments on your blog. I thought it was because you were old or unpopular. Now I know the real story. It’s because you’re a bitch. I’m sorry I wasted my time and money on a dozen of your books. Most of them were boring anyway. Never again. Kelley Armstrong and Nino Ricci are better writers than you.
That is the rudest, most absurd thing to say to a woman of such status. I’m appalled to have to read this on Ms. Atwood’s blog. Go away if you are too small minded to understand her brilliance.
If the confidence that Atwood has exuded throughout her brilliant poetry and prose is any indication of who she is, I’m pretty positive she laughed at that comment. Some people are pathetic, and William is just another example of an angsty and unaccomplished wannabe. Ignore him, it’s obvious the rest of the world has.
Well, @William, there is no accounting for taste.
Only a sexist would call a woman a bitch. Im glad you won’t be reading anymore of Ms Atwood’s books. She is not writing them for you, but for those of us who know the importance and brilliance of her work. Go read Danielle Steele.
@William “It’s because you’re a bitch.”
Of course she is, William. And hot, too.
I just did this on impulse. My mail has nothing to do with any other post, let alone the ignorant twit who compared your work with Kelley Armstrong and Nino Ricci – who are they? They sound like bad handbag designers.
I have derived a great deal of pleasure from your poetry and prose over the years and so I am sending a poem I think you might like in return. It’s translated (by me) from Estonian and is by Betty Alver (1906-89), who was banned from publishing for 20 years in Soviet Estonia. Not that it stopped her writing until the time came when she was able to be heard …
Best wishes, Hilary, Tartu, Estonia
Captain Oleander (1932/1988)
North of Hull and under Tierra del Fuego
there is no bold fat man
no such scoundrel,
no other
who drinks
so wildly ashore and aboard
shouting
ordering
than Captain Oleander.
everywhere a perfect stranger
everywhere notorious –
Captain Oleander
carried blubber from Norway
travelled in freight ships
around Chinese waters,
tramped in Honolulu
knocked all around the world,
up to Calcutta
in the oil company ship
haggling the price
of a soul
At sea, sea rights
at sea , sea law .
Without a homeland
captain Oleander
legs for cables
in a British scow
wrists of iron
In Java
burning hair
in Jamaica
the right eye got a pop
it was not the only thing that happened
in Okinawa.
With no history
captain Oleander.
in his mouth hundreds of languages
blackamoor tongues
everywhere a stranger
everywhere notorious –
nowhere permanent
Captain Oleander
His companion
the hurricane roar of Cape Horn
home
in every hillbilly-cavern
in every point of the compass
in every continent,
island.
Without a home
captain Oleander
sometimes in a drowsy-dream
would sail as if the bay
were a children’s picture book:
the ancient town and harbour
the ancient citadel and gloomy
grey stone walls
the high stone towers
behind the old moat
in the yard the low lying house,
in the house the kitchen and chamber –
in the room his small boy,
the apple of his eye,
straining,
leaning from his lap
towards his mother
babbling and singing
children’s thoughts,
crowing words,
first words
in the mother tongue—
————
Without history
captain Oleander
as if celebrating a wake:
pours whiskey down his throat
until the drowsy-dream
covers the far town
the glittering mother tongue
entombed in
the sough of the sea.
In the sea secret boulders
in the sea secret rocks
the heart of man
at sea
denies secret wounds.
———————–
In the autumn night
sombre waves
howl like wolves,
the murderous sky threads itself into
black storm wheels,
the ship gets a leak
at Näckmansgrund,
defies it’s mortal wound.
sweeps on like a beast
runs finally to the shore
and must stay there
in dock —–
———————
The ancient town and harbour,
the ancient citadel and gloomy
grey stone walls,
the high stone towers
behind the old moat
in the yard the low house,
in the house the kitchen and chamber,
in the chamber…
Damn! … Damn town,
damn country and house
a damn soul
doesn’t need this
either in life
or at the hour of death
not even in a dream!
Without a home
without history
a vagrant sea tramp
in captain circles
talks many languages,
with the sailors
raises Cain,
yells,
snorts,
dances till midnight
drops somewhere in the inn corner
snoring
among the trash.
Suddenly
someone
grabs his purse –
the startled captain
magician-malefactor
Seizes
hair
“I’ll spit in your father’s face,
he should have
strangled your dog’s neck !”
roars he like a sea storm
world vagabond
but the thieving boy
only smiles back:
“Then spit in your own face
captain Oleander”
The captain grows pale.
His fist drops
his eye
for a long while
cuts through the boy
like a knife
At last the wild sea wolf
legs going weak
staggering-wobbling
collapsing stooping,
looks closer …and closer … and closer …
then asks
“Tell me son, what have got in your pocket?”
“A little thieves lamp and some
men’s iron trinkets”
“Where, hooligan, is your nest?”
“In the snowdrift”
“How much life have you taken?”
The robber boy doesn’t answer
keeps a mocking gaze
Sits at the table
Takes a glass
wets his whistle
“For me regret is just repulsive rubbish –
captain, take me with you!
Don’t spurn a bold cabin boy!
Only valour seizing-stealing,
You know it yourself —-
nothing else
Is worth a penny!”
The captain thinks for several days.
The captain knows life.
But when he leaves the bay –
the audacious cabin boy is on deck already
folding up
the ships cable.
___________
At sea the sea torments
at sea the sea is troubling
On the long sea way
the brave sailors
have no time for
the soft stories of spare time.
In their demanding work
rope and tin speak
better
and more quickly …
A month goes by
and then another.
a third goes by
a forth
From day to day
a more leaden load
the cabin boy
has on his back
From day to day
it becomes harder
to ignore an empty belly
with the tack the mice have
nibbled.
From day to day
life is fading
under oppression
and monotony
Day after day …
The Captain and the Irish boatswain
Slam down cards:
“Beat that, Redbeard,
beat my ace of trumps!”
But what clamour is on the deck?
The boatswain, pale,
turns to the cabin
“Mutiny, Captain!” !’
The captain,
allies behind
in a flash is on the deck.
A whining bullet grazes his chest,
Another – the peak of his cap.
Vain hope!
Already over yonder
the mutineers are surrendering –
the mutiny
has failed!
The captain strikes like lightening,
the echo comes back:
“Rogues!
Dogs!
Traitors!
Who started this?”
An old story, a familiar story
Always repeating
An agile finger
points at once
to the face of Oleander´s young look-alike,
And a hundred eyes
shoot him
a look.
In this dog´s life
everything must be paid now
with a high
price
or paid
later
in a jail.
At sea , sea law
At sea, sea justice.
Soon at the rope’s end rotates
gently in the south wind
the lissom
boys body
An old story.
The others
are not put in chains.
Yet.
A familiar story.
Tons of cargo
must get to
harbour.
An old story, a familiar story,
The captain motions with his hand
“OK Irishman,
it’s your turn
to deal the cards”
As if the very sea,
the harsh sea stone,
asks nothing of
that wild seafarer
Only the eye on the compass and clock,
travelling on the old wreck,
on the big ship-coffin
with cargo
wherever
no native land
no history
captain oleander
Margaret Atwood and Rosalind Porter discuss Danny Bloom’s HUNCH
(MARGARET NOTES: We didn’t really. Danny made this up.)
Rosalind Porter: Do you feel that what you do as a novelist is
devalued by the medium of electronic text? That something of your
craft might be lost without the experience of reading it on a pristine
page?
Margaret Atwood: Well, we don’t know that yet because we don’t know
whether the reading experience from a neurological point of view is
different for people who read only in e-form,
DANNY SEZ: although I hear from Danny Bloom in Taiwan that current MRI and PET SCAN studies are showing that paper reading is vastly superior to screen-reading. In
terms of brain chemistry. In terms of info processing, info retention
and analysis, not to mention critical thinking about what you’ve just
read. Yes. Danny is on to something here. He told me Anne Mangen is
his teacher here. (Margaret notes: you can find something about this here:
http://www.uis.no/news/article29782-50.html)
And yes, there is the thrill of looking at a pristine paper page, but
only because we’re used to it. The question is, will the thrill be the
same as opening the cover of a pristine ebook that you’ve never seen
before? I think the operative word is ‘pristine’ rather than ‘page’,
and I would think that the ability to follow – to translate text
(which is what reading is), to translate the black marks, mainly
print, into words – is going to be much the same, whether you’re
reading it from the piece of paper, from a scroll, or from an ebook.
I LOVE the idea of owning a dead author t-shirt!!!
Hi. Sorry to be such a naughty boy, but at 62 — [1949-2032] — i know a thing or two about how to get through to people and so i had to do this unethical gurerilla theater make up story in order to just get the IDEA out there. But yes, Danny made those bits up out of whole cloth, and he apologizes for being a bit on the eccentric side, but he meant well and he means well. Thing is, what eggsactly are the neurological diffs between reading on screens, Marvin Mimsky at MIT, the AI guy, calls it “screen-reading”, he tells me, and reading on paper? I am not talking about the smell of paper and silly things like that, or even distractions online, i am talking about, from the depth of my very deep brain, which is often wrong, about how the human brains reads after taking info in via the EYE, and if the light reflecting on paper thing is superior in terms of lighting up diff parts of the brain vs reading pixels off a screen? I might be wrong on this, and in fact, I want to be wrong. I have no dog in the this fight. BUT, my sources in PHD land tell me i am on to something and to never give up until I find out right or wrong. Anne Mangen in Norway is my mentor here. Margaret, I just wanted you to know. But yes, i made that stuff up and i do apollogize on that. My bad. But i think you understand my M.O., i just HAd to get through to you and I did. Thanks for not deleting me entirely. I admit i made it up. But can we try to find out if maybe the MRI and PET scan tests will tell us something important? Of course, the tech train has already left the station, as Gary Small at UCLA said, so even if i am right, so what? The tech industry is not going to recall iPads and Kindles….. so enjoy while you can. Thanks for listening to this cranky outsider in taiwan cave who is no Luddite but a computerless lad at the end of his life with a few qusetions left before he finally conks out.
Danny, you are 62 and think you are at the end of your life? Unless you are ill, you have lots of time left! I am old enough to have been your Camp Counsellor.
Thanks for your posts — my brother is a neurophysiologist and we are all interested in Brains and how they work. Yes, the Squid book is fascinating. Me, I’m multidextrous — I handwrite, keyboard, read onscreen, read on paper, write on anything — but I am the Transitional Generation, perhaps, and my neural pathways are already set. The effect on YOUNG brains of all this is what folks should be concerned about. Plus Nature Deficit Disorder.
Margaret, I also made this up, but read it in that light. — Danny
It’s not sci-fi, it’s sci envisioning. WHAT IF i am right? then what? oi.
Top people in the field have read it already and cautioned me to be very clear that this is a made up story, fiction, but they said it is useful, too. Patricia Cohen at the New York Times is looking into all this for a front page story, as is Sharon Begley at Newsweek. Not one Canadian newspaper will even respond to my polite letters of pitching the idea. Sigh. But ask around: from Paul Saffo to Kevin Kelly, from William Powers to Nick Carr to David Pogue to Michael PubLunch Cader to Hillet Italie at AP to Nick Bilton and John Markoff, they all know about my eccentric idea. For some reason, not related to fear of the tech industry, not one USA reporter or Canadian is willing to entertain my ideas. Roy Greenslade in the UK, where eccentricity is understood, tells me right on. So i soldier on until the MRI and PET scan studies come out. Let me be wrong. I want to to be wrong. but WHAT IF i am right? that’s all i am pleading.
————————-
headline:
MRI brain imaging lab studies differences in screen, paper reading
by danny blooming
April 20, 2010
BOSTON — Dr Ellen Marker studies reading. But not off screens or in
paper books.
Her research is done in a Quincy laboratory.
The pioneering neuroscientist analyzes brains in their most enthusiastic
reading state, hoping to understand the differences between reading
off screens and reading on paper surfaces.
Like me, Dr Marker feels that her studies will show reading on paper
is superior to reading off screens in terms of
retention, processing, analysis and critical thinking.
But first, let’s see what the scans will be like.
Dr Marker asks me to put myself into an fMRI machine so she and his
team can study which areas of the brain are activated by reading text
on paper compared to reading the same text on a computer screen or a
Kindle e-reader.
And this is why I’m here. Today I will donate my brain scans to science.
Among the things that Market has discovered so far is that reading on
paper might be
something we as a civilization should not ever give up.
“Even though reading on screens is useful and convenient, and I do it
all the time, I feel that
reading on paper is somethine we should never cede to the digital
revolution,” Marker, 43, says. “We need both.”
On the day I climb into the brain imaging cocoon, I am thinking about
what it all might mean.
But since I am just a guinea pig and not a scientist, I will have to
wait for the results.
I enter a sterile lab, and Marker and her four associates greet me,
all in white lab coats.
As they hand me my a pale blue gown to change into, I have
second thoughts — “How can I read while lying down horizontally my
back, not my preferred reading mode?” — but decide to push myself.
Science needs me!
The scientists load me into the machine and I’m off.
Next step: They strap my head down, because any movement distorts the
brain imaging. Ever try to read a book without facial movements?
I feel as if I’m being shoved into the middle of a toilet paper roll,
the walls so close my eyelashes almost graze them.
Then I hear a voice through the earphones I’m wearing. It’s Dr Marker.
“You okay in there?” she asks.
Graduate student Dan Smith, 52, tells me to relax before
running around to join the other scientists in the control room.
With the invention of the fMRI only 20 years ago, along came the
ability to look at brain activity. Marker says that by understanding a
function as gigantic as reading, how the reading brain does its magic
dance, a response that hijacks all of
one’s attention, she might also learn how reading on screens could be
inferior to reading on paper.
“The more we understand how the brain works,” she says, “the more we
will be able to help people modulate its activity.”
As the machine switches on, it sounds like a jackhammer. I follow
Marker’s instructions and as I do, the group watches my brain on
their computer monitors. I willl read passages from a novel, and then
later I will read
the same passages on a Kindle. I just hope the Kindle does not blow up
inside the brain scan machine!
Research and teaching take up most of Marker’s time, but when she has a
spare moment, she thinks about what all this might mean for the future
of humankind.
During my first hour in the fMRI machine, researchers map my brain’s
reading paths
to find out which parts correlate to
which regions of the brain.
“You have 10 minutes,” Marker says through my earphones near the end
of our test. “Keep reading.”
On the
other side of the glass pane, the scientists can see my brain lighting
up as I read on paper and as I read on a screen. Regions light up in
different ways, Marker says.
Komisaruk discusses what her research could do for the future of
humankind. “We need to know
if reading on screens is going to be good if it replaces all our
reading on paper.”
Marker’s lab has paid me a
$100 subject fee, so I want to give them their money’s worth.
After all, it’s not easy to get funding for this stuff — Marker
says she spends at least half of her time applying for grants.
“There’s no premium on studying paper reading modes versus
screen-reading modes in this society,” she tells me
as Smith murmurs, “What do you expect? The gadgetheads want to take over.”
When the tests are over, Market tells me the data takes two hours to
convert, but it can take much longer to
make sense of it.
“We’ll be at this for a while,” she says.
One of the biggest conundrums turns out to be a nagging
question for all mankind: What if reading on screens is not good
for retention of data, emotional connections and critical thinking skills?
Marker begins slipping more and more
into her thoughts. “Neurons, little bags of chemicals, create
awareness,” he says, “but how? How does the brain create the mind?
What is reading, really?”
I see that at the heart of all her research, there is a
philosopher trying not only to understand reading, but also figure out
the nuts and bolts that make up the human experience.
“It’s the hard question I want to answer,” she says. “What creates
consciousness?
“I find that,” she adds, “and I find the Nobel Prize.”
NOTE:
And as Mike Shatzkin told me when I told him my views on paper vs
screen reading, he said: “Danny, you may very well be right, but just
as nobody heeded the calls that radiation and cancer might impact cell
phone use, do you think makers of device readers will listen to you or
even care if you are right? No way!”
AN real INTERVIEW by danny bloom WITH DR ANNE MANGEN IN NORWAY ON READING ON PAPER AND READING ON SCREENS
conducted by Danny Bloom in Taiwan (August 15, 2009)
Anne Mangen is a reading specialst at the National Centre for Reading Research and Education at Stavanger University in Norway, and a paper she published in late 2008 in the UK on the differences betweem reading on paper and reading on screens has catapulted her to the forefront of the debate on this very controverisal topic.
In a recent email interview, I asked Dr Mangen to go over some of the
issues involved here. As some readers might know, I have been advocating that society adopt a new word for reading on screens, since I feel screen reading is so different from reading on paper, and I feel that with a new word we can study the differences better — and point out the differences better, too — and I have gently, quietly suggested the word “screening” to mean “reading text on a screen”. Of
course, not everyone agrees with me; and even Dr Mangen does not agree with me, even though it was her 2008 academic paper that got me started on this quixotic quest. But that’s okay. I respect Dr Mangen highly, and I still consider her my mentor on all this.
When I asked her that since reading on paper is very different from reading on screens, does she think that at some point we might need a new word in English for “reading on screens”, she replied: “Not really, because I doubt that one single word is able to denote the complexity of the process in any accurate and useful way.”
Dr Mangen went on: “The term “reading” is already a general term
covering a range of very different processes on different cognitive
and perceptual levels, undertaken in a range of different situations,
with a vast number of different textual material. As well as
non-textual material, when one talks about “reading faces”, or
“reading the next move in a game of chess. When talking about
reading, there always follows a requirement to supply more precise and
narrower concepts to clarify what aspects of the reading process and
experience we are currently talking about, and this requirement is no
different whether we read on paper or on screen (or on any other
device). ”
She added: “I think the main dichotomy might remain that between
“screen reading” and “print reading”, and then one will have to employ
add-on and ad hoc clarifications and specifications of these general
concepts, such as for instance scrolling and hypertextual reading as
instances of screen reading, and turning the page when print reading.”
“Moreover, terms like scan, skim, browse, and close-read apply equally
as well to screen reading as to print reading. What is interesting is
what terms and processes such as these actually entail in the two
different reading conditions (i.e., reading on screen and print). And
this is what has to be specified additionally, I think, instead of
replacing the generic term “reading” with “screening”as you suggest,
Danny, — which will be too un-nuanced and indistinct and hence, not
very useful — at least not scientifically,” she said.
“In general, I should add that I am critical to unnecessary
neologizing, as I think that too much research (particularly in the
arts and humanities) is about creating new words and concepts where
they are not needed, hence taking the focus away from discussing
substance and content of theoretical arguments and developments to
rather focusing on rhetoric and language,” she added.
When I mentioned to Dr Mangen that my concept behind using the word
screening to try to capture the fact that the experience of reading on
a screen is fundamentally different from reading on paper — and not a
priori worse or better; just different, she agreed, saying: “Yes, the
experience of reading on a screen is different from reading on paper;
although in what ways and to what extent must be specified in each
instance, situation and purpose of reading.”
But she added: “However, whether reading on a screen is better or
worse than reading on paper depends on a range of variables — the
reader’s prior experience with both formats, the purpose and situation
of the reading act, the type and genre of text, the disposition of the
reader, and other variables.”
When I told her that I wanted to introduce the word screening as a new
word for reading on screens in order to draw attention to the vast
literary shift that is washing over us right now, as we speak, and if
she agreed that we are now witnessing a vast literary shift, Dr Mangen
replied: ” Yes, I would say that the current shift from paper to
screen represents a vast literary shift, the implications of which —
short-term and, in particular, long-term — we are not yet aware of.”
I asked Dr Mangen if she feels, as I do, that reading on screens might
hamper or hinder the critical analysis skills of what pepople are
readingsne replied:
“This question is a too general – but very important also–and it
cannot be dealt with in such a general, either/or manner, as you
phrase it. The precise reading situation, context, purpose, kind of
text, reader dispositions, device characteristics, and other
vairables, would have to be specified in order to yield any
constructive and interesting answers to your question. So your
question is too general, but it’s an important one.”
I asked Dr Mange a specific question, asking her: “If in the future
most reading is done on screens, from computers to iPhones to Kindles
to even textbooks on screens, could this hurt the critical thinking
skills of young people to think, analyze and assess information?”
Dr Mangen replied: “It’s tempting to answer with the cliché, and say
that only time will tell, but I do think it is appropriate and
important to raise these critical questions, over and over — even at
the risk of being marginalized as a Luddite, Danny. Maryanne Wolfe at
Tufts University in Boston raises this issue, too, from a
cognitive/neuroscientific point of view, in her excellent book “Proust
and the Squid”, which I highly recommend to you.”
Finally, I asked Dr Mange if she was willing or ready to say goodbye
to Mr. Paper and greet the Screen Age with a completely open-minded
welcome, she said: “No, at least not when it comes to the educational
aspects of reading.”
So it goes. I was in Taiwan tapping on my computer keyboard in a
computer lab at a local university, since I don’t even own a computer
and never have, and she was on the other side of the world in Norway,
on summer vacation, and I felt it was a good interview, a very good
interview indeed. I learned a lot.
INFO:
Anne Mangen
PhD., associate professor
National Centre for Reading Research and Education
University of Stavanger
NORWAY
Dr Mangen quote”
“Yes, I would say that the current shift from paper to
screen represents a vast literary shift, the implications of which –
short-term and, in particular, long-term — we are not yet aware of.”
I asked Dr Mange a specific question, asking her: “If in the future
most reading is done on screens, from computers to iPhones to Kindles
to even textbooks on screens, could this hurt the critical thinking
skills of young people to think, analyze and assess information?”
Dr Mangen replied: “It’s tempting to answer with the cliché, and say
that only time will tell, but I do think it is appropriate and
important to raise these critical questions, over and over — even at
the risk of being marginalized as a Luddite, Danny. Maryanne Wolfe at
Tufts University in Boston raises this issue, too, from a
cognitive/neuroscientific point of view, in her excellent book “Proust
and the Squid”, which I highly recommend to you.”
Dear Camp Counselor margo9, above, re:
“Danny, you are 62 and think you are at the end of your life? Unless you are ill, you have lots of time left! I am old enough to have been your Camp Counsellor.”
Danny Sez: Well, just hypochondrical humour of a kidding death sort, had massive heart attack Nov. 6, 2009, rushed to ER in a taxi, ICU for 7 days, stent in my ticker now, and Doctor Ong here in Taiwan tells me my days are numbered — as in take a number at the bank counter and wait your turn — but that I could make it as far as 2032 if I mind my veggies and exercise. So I am not really “near” death, anymore than any of us else are. But I do know now that my days are really numbered and I might not be posting here tomorrow. Sigh. But, no regrets. ”Je ne regret rien pas”, as Maureen Dowd wrote a few weeks ago. Sic: she meant “je ne regrette rien”… Me too.
So yes, lots of time left to try to get to the bottom of this reading vs screening thing. MRI and PET studies should come out by 2015 or 2020, and I hope to be around and compare notes. If not, others will carry on. I am just a very small potatoe in this multidextrous stew. And I may very likely be proved wrong. That’s what i want! Prove wrong, guys! Go ahead, make my day! Smile.
RE: “Thanks for your posts — my brother is a neurophysiologist and we are all interested in Brains and how they work. Yes, the ‘Squid’ book is fascinating. Me, I’m multidextrous — I handwrite, keyboard, read onscreen, read on paper, write on anything — but I am the Transitional Generation, perhaps, and my neural pathways are already set. The effect on YOUNG brains of all this is what folks should be concerned about. Plus Nature Deficit Disorder.”
WELL SAID, Mago9.
danny bloom (1949-2032)
Dear Camp Counsellor My Eye!
Okay, when i was 9 yrs old at YMCA summer camp in the Berkshire
of western Mass., good ol’ 1950s, you were 19 and running us younger kids
into the ground, especially with KP kitchen duty spudding potatoes for the camp population of 500 kids. I DO REMEMBER YOU NOW! (smile)
And he not busy being born is busy dying, as Leonard Cohen Bobby Dylan sang, so I am up for another 20 years of this thing called LIFE 101. But as time passes, I just want to bow out of this discussion with this brief note:
I am not worried about screen-reading being SO inferior to paper reading in terms of brain chemistry. BUT i do worry a bit. I can illustrate like thisL just today when i read a story online about a Japanese teenager who lost her family in the tsunami , when i read the news story online, i understood every word and every word registered in my brain yes, BUT later when i printed it out and read the same exact story on hard copy paper, in the park, sitting alone on a bench, TEARS came to my eyes as paper-read the same story, word by word, the POWER of the WORDS sinking DEEPER into my EQ pool, and this did not happen with screening it initially. THIS IS WHAT I AM DRIVING AT. SOMETHING IS LOST in screening. Something gained too. yes. I am no Luddite. Although, yes , i know, i am a bit luddicrous in most people’s eyes! I was born in Ludlow, Massachusetts, just outside of Springfield, maybe that is why? Let’s look into this READING vs SCREENING issue more with MRI machines? IDEA: why don’t you make contact with Anne Mangen in Norway, she is the top person on this and she has MORE of an open mind than I do….find her: I spoke to her by phone last summer. she’s fluent in English, married to a Canadian bloke in Norway
anne.mangen@uis.no
best page on the internets. hands down. hilarious.
i’m getting the modernist one. brilliant.
ms atwood, why do you sell knick-knacks?
the handmaid’s tale paints a sorry picture of the future. let’s hope it’s a tale told by a fool.
and charity begins at home, you know: please don’t abort your little ones, ladies.
that’s all i have to say at this time.
Willian, you should washing your dirty mouth before posting anything, simply ignore him. For the author of Dead Author, congratulation, and keep up doing a great job. Nice to meet you, members of this amazing community.
Love the modernist T-shirt. The modernists are passing away…passing away….
Pingback: EVADNE MACEDO ON WRITING » Blog Archive » Potatoes, publishing pie and stories with Doug Gibson
I realize this is probably the WRONG place to post this, but after last night at Moncton’s Frye Festival I now consider myself a MAGGY GROUPIE. Yeah, she may not be a rock star, and she and I are close in age (I’m a granny groupie), but her funny, funny lecture and chat last evening gave me the opportunity to laugh until my sides hurt. One smart, with-it woman. Congratulations!
Pingback: LitBits 20 | Bella's Bookshelves
On page 30 of a recent Canadian Hello magazine, Ms Atwood is wearing a beautiful coat and scarf. Where does Ms Atwood get her lovely clothes?