If you’re reading this blog then you probably have some experience with the short story. You either read them, or maybe you have even written a few yourself. Heck, maybe you even love short stories and do nothing but read and write them! I am one of those people who love the short story, and there’s nothing better than sitting down with a literary magazine and losing yourself in a few good stories.

But have you ever really thought about the history of the short story? Where did it come from? When was it the most popular? These aren’t required questions to enjoy the literary form, but it does add a little depth to know what you are reading (or writing) didn’t just suddenly appear – there’s an evolutionary process that brought us this wonderful gem.

Once upon a time…

Long before computers, books, the printing press and probably even the English language, cavemen used to sit around their fires and tell their families of the long, hard hunt they just returned from. Or perhaps they told stories that were passed down to them by their elders, and these stories helped to explain the forces of nature or the movement of the moon and sun across the sky.

Continue Reading

Have you noticed my posts have been a little sparse lately? Well, if you have you’re not alone. This past week has been hectic, to say the least, and I have been doing a little traveling with spotty internet, so posting hasn’t been easy.

The good news is, however, that I’m back and will be posting according to my unofficial "official" posting schedule. The summer months are always a little slower as far as blogging goes. I’m planning to step things up in the fall and winter months. And, like I have mentioned in the past, will be re-organizing the ads and maybe making a few other changes to the blog.

I hope everyone out there in the blogosphere is enjoying their summer! Have a safe and happy Monday!

Continue Reading

Sony is taking a positive step forward by adopting epub standards for its eReader P-505. What does this mean? Basically epub is a format for ebooks that can be used across many different hardware and software platforms. For a more detailed, and better description, check out this website.

What I find particularly refreshing about Sony’s move towards epub, is that it opens the doors for publishers to get their books onto the eReader. I came across this article from Publishers Weekly, and it states:

Brennan Mullin, v-p of Sony Audio, said the company was adopting the epub standard to encourage more vendors, booksellers and publishers to get involved in the e-book market and to broaden the amount of content that can be viewed on the Reader. The move to use epub is a significant change in approach for Sony, which has used its own standards and restricted consumers to buying e-books for the Reader from its own store. The use of epub will allow consumers to buy titles from a variety of outlets and will grow the number of titles compatible with the Reader to well passed the 45,000 now available through its online store.

Continue Reading

Before I start, I want to apologize for my decreased posting frequency. My blog posting always slows a little during the summer months. Nevertheless I haven’t forgotten about you and I should be back to my old posting self shortly. Thank you for your patience!

With that said, I’m proud to say that I finally selected an ebook reader application for my iPhone! I thought that the ebook app would be the first thing I’d buy on July 11, but not so. There were a few ebook readers to chose from, but none of them really made me excited.

Originally, I was going to go with Bookshelf. Then I tried downloading the program onto my Mac and could never get it working. So I eventually gave up. The application itself does look promising, however, I just didn’t have the patience to fiddle around with a buggy program. I have read a lot of positive reviews about Bookshelf, so it is staying on my shortlist of ebook apps in the future.

Continue Reading

Another week is gone and another Friday is here. I’m happy to say that I finally got my entire iTunes library transferred from my older Dell laptop, to my Mac – which for me was no small feat. I also was able to get my iPhone synced up to the Mac which, thanks to Apple, was easy and painless. Having two computers running on two different platforms has been a royal pain. But I’m slowly shifting to the Mac and one day I’ll be able to say goodbye to the Dell (sniff).

Have a happy and safe weekend!

Continue Reading

I usually don’t like to dive into the political arena with this blog as there are plenty of other blogs out there dedicated just that subject. However, when one writes a blog on literature/writing, and deals with subjects like free speech, sometimes it’s hard to avoid brushing on a few political topics every now and then.

I’m sure many of you have already seen the news about The New Yorker magazine’s new front cover. For those of you who haven’t seen or heard, here’s a brief description from this New York Times article:

The cover of the magazine depicts Mr. Obama wearing a turban, while he offers a fist bump to his gun-toting wife. An American flag singes behind them in the fireplace.

The link to that article will also give you a glimpse of the controversial cover. Obviously, on the surface, the way Obama is depicted can be considered offensive. It’s meant to stir up feelings of hatred, fear and maybe even a little patriotism. But the picture is not meant to be looked at "just on the surface". It’s satire.

Continue Reading

Yeah, I know it’s Saturday, not Friday. As I already wrote about in this post, Friday July 11 was the rollout for Apple’s iPhone 3G and the release of the new 2.0 firmware, which includes the ability to download 3rd party native applications. So I spent the majority of the evening, first updating my 1st generation iPhone to 2.0, and then exploring the app store on iTunes. A lot of really cool apps are available – many for free and some with a small price tag (I bought the classic word game Scrabble for $9.99).

Well, instead of using up an entire Friday Link Love post on the cool new iPhone apps, I will save that for another day. I still haven’t found the "perfect" ebook reading app (there are several I’m exploring right now), so you can expect a full write-up very shortly!

It’s no longer Friday, but it is still the weekend, and that should be enough to celebrate! Have a happy and safe weekend!

Continue Reading

Everyone knows that the 2nd generation 3G iPhone is being released this Friday (July 11) and along with it, an application store on the Apple website that will finally allow iPhone/iPod Touch users to download native apps to our beloved devices. And if you didn’t know that, then you have been living under a rock for the last 7 months and probably aren’t worthy of the iPhone!

Well I’m pleased to announce that among these applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch will be a native ebook reader (actually, there will be several, according to reports I’ve read)! A recent post on The Unofficial Apple Weblog announced one particular ebook reader that looks promising.

ZappTek plans on partnering with "today’s hottest writers" to distribute new fiction using Legends to bring the reading experience to iPhone / iPod Touch 2.0. Each book appears as an icon on the Home screen, and the books automatically re-open to the last page you were reading. You can also bookmark or annotate any page.

It appears that the app itself will be free, but they will charge $1.99 for short stories and $4.99 for novels. Not too shabby.

The app is called Legends and so far, has more features than most other ebook apps for the iPhone I have seen announced. One of the biggest features is bookmarking, so you don’t have to scroll down 20+ pages to find where you left off. Also, if you look on the Legends website, the app looks clean and easy to use.

Continue Reading

Back in March I wrote this post about  a new law in Indiana that would require retailers to register with the state if they (the retailers) sold material that was considered "sexually explicit." Registering meant that retailers would have to pay a $250 registration fee and provide detail to the state about the types of sexually explicit material to be sold.

Well, in a clear victory for freedom of speech/expression, a judge shot the law down pretty quickly. Here’s a snippet from this Publishers Weekly article:

Judge Sarah Evans Baker (who also struck down, in 1984, an anti-pornography law) said in her ruling that the law has too vast a reach "as written." She elaborated: "A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale–all incidents of unquestionably lawful, non-obscene, non-pornographic material being sold to adults–would appear to necessitate registration under the statute." Ultimately, Judge Baker said that "such a vague mandate will be unduly burdensome" and "will have a chilling effect on expression."

Continue Reading

Today I’m doing a bit of summer cleaning in my home office. My wife bought my two large bookshelves to store my small but growing book collection and I thought it would be a good time to do a little cleaning as well. I have thrown out a lot of old papers – especially from college (sniff, sniff), magazines, dead batteries, and other stuff that has been collecting dust over the years.

Continue Reading