Happy Columbus Day!

[shalanna]

Do the schoolkids get today off? I remember, dimly, that we sat in our first-grade desks (actually in the desks, too--they were the kind that start out as plastic chairs with the metal arm that reaches around to become the Formica[TM] desk surface) and drew pictures of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. And we sang. "Columbus sailed the ocean blue/in fourteen hundred ninety-two. . . ."

Agent007 again reminds us of the problems that we have if we're writers who aren't good-looking. Refers us to a recent New York Times article about authors as commodities. People over on Deidre Knight's agency weblog mocked me for mentioning this in the Q&A post, and wrote, "What are you talking about?" Yet it's apparently an actual issue. Lose 20 pounds and look like a cheerleader in your author photo if you want to get on Oprah.

Fortunately, I'm great on the radio, and that's something you can do as a call-in. Twenty years as a ham (amateur radio license holder, tech-plus license) has helped me become a talker-on-my-feet to just about anybody on the other end of the wire. Now all I need is something to talk about other than my boring life--like, maybe, a New York-published novel.

Comments

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Nope... no day off. I am not sure that they still really teach that Columbus discovered America! I think the only people that still get today off are the postal workers.

[jandersoncoats.livejournal.com]

My kiddo had to go to school today. Last year (first grade) he brought some delightful propaganda home about Columbus courtesy of Weekly Reader.

"Columbus landed on an island. He saw huts. The Taino people lived in the huts." On the back were some of those "thinking questions" like What would you ask Columbus if you met him? I'm sure other kids wrote things like If he liked the Taino people or If he missed his home.

My kid wrote, in careful first-grade printing, If he drank any grog.

Can't wait to see what comes home this year.

[pameladean]

Only if you're the kind of writer that Oprah would want to have on her show in the first place. And only if you want to be on any show. I'd rather languish in obscurity forever than go on a national TV show. Ick ick ick.

So I can be as fat as I want to. Nyah to the whole TV industry and its idiot notions.

P.