Slings 'n' Arrows

You know, I love the blogosphere because it provides the belief that there's someone else out there who is cranky like me. Big A little a had to fortify herself with espresso whilst wearing all black in order to review the floridly floral looking Bloom, which, as Jules assured us yesterday, is delightful. On this day of ultimate goopiness, I, too, take refuge in an all-black wardrobe, lots of coffee, and, well, you know, sarcasm. The only BitterSweet "conversational" candies I've approved of come in flavors such as Banana Chalk, Pink Sand and Fossilized Antacid (because isn't that what all of those nasty candies taste like anyway?). I'm just not in love with love, Hallmark-style, y'know? But that's okay.

'Cause I AM in love with a good story. And have been waiting eagerly to see the results of the 2007 Cybils Awards, which have been announced. The people who were on the SF/F panel suffered through all of this in December -- but CONGRATULATIONS Shannon Hale and Adam Rex, from all of us on SF/F Nominating Panel! It was SO hard for us to choose -- Judges, you did the REALLY hard work, and you rock, hard.

By way of one of Miss Erin's great lists of "things making me happy right now," I stumbled across crazycool author Lisa Graff beauty experiment, and have watched in amused horror as treats her acne with... eyedrops? and soaks her feet in ...soymilk? and other bizarre things. She dropped by Miss Erin's on Tuesday, and don't miss her at MotherReader's on Wednesday and continues to chat about her new book and other random stuff (including The BERNETTA WALLFLOWER Con Artist Giveaway) today at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Via Jen Robinson's Book Page I've found a great podcast with Mark at Just One More Book! - he's interviewing the author of the Anne prequel. Ach, the sacrilege! Oh, okay, fine, maybe it's not quite sacrilege per se, but I'm making a whole bunch of you read the prequel before I do. (I'm looking at you, Little Willow. You too, Jen.) If the new book ruins everything, I don't want to look.

This is surprisingly happy news indeed: Black Holly and Tony DiTerlizzi are HAPPY WITH THE WAY SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES CAME TO FILM. Could this be a first!?!? There's hope, then, for the rest of great kid's books turned into film, then. Maybe. According to Sci-Fi Wire, Holly believes they got the family dynamics right, and added, "We actually did get to see all the scripts and give our feedback and give our thoughts, and they listened to us. And when they agreed with us, hopefully we were in some ways useful." The film opens, for you lucky ducks in the U.S., today. No spoilers 'til I've seen it, 'kay? (Via ReadersRead Blog.)

If you love, love, LOVE Meg Cabot (and okay, in your secret romanticizing heart of hearts -- you know you do), run on over to the Three Librarians - she's in the hot seat over at the YA YA YAs.

And, via SF Signal, if you love your comic and graphic icons, check out SF Universe's list of 10 Greatest Black Superheroes. Yay, Green Lantern! Whoo!

Literaticat is in need of ...affirmations. Send them, won't you please? (Try and spell them correctly, though.)

FRIDAY IS THE DAY we close the comments for our Tuesday book giveaway. Drop by our conversation with author Sherri L. Smith, and be sure to put in your thoughts. We've had some really interesting dialogue on the topic of race and ethnicity in writing, about "representing" and being genuine. What say you?

And speaking of affirmations, we're really lucky to be in the middle of the cool, bright, opinionated, talented people like yourselves, people, who like a. fortis and me, are accomplished at making stuff up. So, go on and give yourself one of those nasty chalky hearts, from us. Make one here (oh, stop bellyaching, they DO have them in nausea-inducing pastels, too) or pulverize a few and see if they aren't more useful for drawing stick figures on the sidewalk.