A Brief Guide to Some Bells & Whistles

This week has brought more than the usual share of new visitors to Beatrice, some whose interest was piqued by the video from my BookBloggerCon talk on professionalism and ethics, and some perhaps by the news that my position as director of e-marketing strategy at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt no longer existed. Either way, welcome! I try to post something that, as the tagline up above says, “introduces readers to writers” every Monday through Friday, and I certainly hope you’ll enjoy those posts, but I wanted to take a moment to mention some of the other ways I go about this (ways I don’t think I’ve ever laid out for long-time readers before, either, so all the more reason).

First of all, in case you don’t want to keep visiting the site every day looking for the next post, you can subscribe to the RSS feed and always be assured, with your news reader open, you’ll find out about any new content very soon after I publish it. You’ll get the entire post, too—no truncating posts as a way to force you to visit the site and jack up pageviews here!

You can also become a fan of Beatrice on Facebook, if you’re a member. There are two main things I’m doing with this. First, it’s an easy way for you to find out about any Beatrice readings or other events that are in the works. Second, I’ve begun using it as a way to share links to other items of literary note I find from around the web, as well as news about books and writers I like and admire—usually no more than one or two of those a day, however, because I’m not trying to create unnecessary clutter.

Finally, you can follow me on Twitter, where… well, as I described it once, “Come for the publishing news, stay for the updates on the music coming from the upstairs apartment.” Actually, though, we’ve moved into a much quieter apartment, so there’s not so much of that anymore. But I do use it as a place to say things that are on my mind but wouldn’t fit into the Beatrice mold, and sometimes there’s a lot on my mind, is all I’m saying.

I’m really glad that so many passionate readers find Beatrice entertaining (or useful)—thank you for visiting, and even more thanks for returning!

4 June 2010 | uncategorized |

Clive James, “Windows Is Shutting Down”

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes,
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.

Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

Opal Sunsest: Selected Poems, recently released in paperback, cherrypicks from Clive James‘ two previous collections, The Book of My Enemy and Angels Over Elsinore, and it includes “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered” and many, many others poems. But here’s one that isn’t in Opal Sunset, oddly enough: “Opal Room, Wallace Collection,” read by a man who goes by Tom O’Bedlam:

3 June 2010 | poetry |