Writing in the News

Win SIGNED 1st Edition of The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind

August 23, 2011

Finally, finally, finally!
We are indebted to the publishers of Terry Goodkind’s latest book, The Omen Machine, the latest in the Sword of Truth series.  They have made a SIGNED 1st Edition Copy of this just released Hard Bound book available to Uphill Writing, and I am happy to make it available to YOU!
Actually, this volume [...]

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Characters are Where You Find Them

February 18, 2011

The Fremont Area Writers Club is a wonderful group of people.  Joining the club, and eventually becoming president has changed my life, for the good, and in some unexpected ways.
For instance, yesterday evening I hosted our monthly Open Mic Night at a local Borders bookstore.  The store was nearly empty of customers, and the on-duty [...]

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The BANNED Words of 2010

January 3, 2011

Each year, in retrospect, various pundits come out of the woodwork to tell us what we did wrong in the previous 365 days.  I sometimes find these lists funny, but more often comical.
The lists of words that “…should not be allowed in the dictionary…” acutally falls into both groups.
I’ve seen several lists of the words that [...]

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Book Review: Bored of the Rings

May 26, 2010

 
In 1969, during an upheavel of popularity of the J.R.R. Tolkien work, The Lord of the Rings, Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenny wrote a parody, “Bored of the Rings”.  The book was published by Harvard Lampoon.  
This outrageous parody managed, in a scant 149 pages, to cover most of the story of the original [...]

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OED – 99 Year-Old Mistake

May 12, 2010

Quote from NPR..org
“Maybe it’s because of the uncommonly high regard in which the Oxford English Dictionary is held, but it took 99 years for a user to spot an erroneous definition of a common word. The OED defined siphon as working because of atmospheric pressure. Siphon works thanks to gravity. The [...]

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Language and the Brain

April 30, 2010

SPECIAL FEATURE:
I found this news story about language and the brain and wanted to pass it on:
Sign language study shows multiple brain regions wired for language
ScienceDaily (2010-04-29) — A new study finds that there is no single advanced area of the human brain that gives it language capabilities above and beyond those of any other [...]

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Williams Syndrome

April 14, 2010

In the news, recently, I found information on “Williams Syndrome”.  This is a rare “disease” which occurs in 1 in 10,000 people.  While it causes a plethora of medical problems, it has one specific side-effect that might be considered a positive.  It breaks down social prejudice.
It has been suggested that a modified strain of this [...]

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Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Amazon

April 2, 2010

Amazon.com has made deals with publishers HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster which allows the publishers to set their own prices for books sold on the Amazon mega-site.

It is estimated that while some best-sellers will go for $9.99, most will be priced at $12.99 to $14.99.   Many older books will cost less than $9.99. 
The deals made [...]

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Superman… Again!

February 23, 2010

Speaking of writing and books, a near-mint condition of Action Comics #1, the book that saw the birth of Superman, sold at auction Monday for an amazing $1,000,000.

The comic, published in June of 1938 and began the amazing career of a caped hero that has lasted 72 years.  Superman is known world-wide.
Now THAT is a [...]

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Avatar: The Novel

February 22, 2010

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, James Cameron has announced his intention to pen a novel based upon the movie Avatar.  “There are things you can do in books that you can’t do with films,” Cameron said.  The novel will be his opportunity to fill in much of the missing back-story left [...]

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