Notebook

Notes about writing and the writing life, with a few random observations about parenting, politics, and pop culture tossed in, just to keep things lively and interesting.

[ann-douglas-blog]

I urge you to protect your good name and refuse to sign such unworthy and inaccurate missives in the future.

Elizabeth May, Leader of The Green Party of Canada, in a hard-hitting but respectful reply to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver's open letter of January 9, 2012. Via @thetyee and @RyanPainterShow on Twitter.

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Four goals for 2012

These are the four goals I've set for myself this year.

Messages on Facebook are no substitute for face-to-face conversations. I want to challenge myself to connect with family and friends more often and in more meaningful ways.

I have a fabulous new treadmill. I need to use it more often. It’s that simple.

Taking on writing projects that force me to step outside my comfort zone as a writer and finding new ways to connect with others who share my passions for social justice and democracy.

Finding creative ways to showcase family memorabilia and other items that really matter to me.

And now a quick update (because we're already 11 days into January.

Goal 1: Doing well on this front.

Goal 2: No progress to report on this front. When I'm busy, this is the first thing that falls off my to do list. That needs to change if I want to live to be 94 or 97, like my two grandmothers did.

Goal 3. Major success. Will have more to say about this in a few months' time.

Goal 4. Have come up with a plan. Happy and excited about the possibilities on this front.

[ann-douglas-blog]

When we reach beyond ourselves, maybe, just maybe, we set in motion something that will resonate through those tied to us in ways we might not foresee.

- Rebecca Altman, Reach Beyond Yourself, via @odemagazine on Twitter.

[lunchboxawesome]

Bento Day 79:

Z requested this one… I hope he eats his lunch and doesn’t sling them across the room! =)

[guardian]

Parents in Japan have been ­turning their lunchboxes into works of art known as Kyaraben or cartoon bento. Now the trend has spread to the US where graphic designer Heather ­Sitarzewski has been making her son his own pasta Miss Piggys and grape-nosed Mickey Mouses every day. Suddenly cutting off the sandwich crusts seems like less of a chore… See a whole gallery of lunchboxes made awesome images here.

[ann-douglas-blog]

Apparently, using a cookie cutter to cut shapes out of a grilled cheese sandwich isn't going to cut it anymore. 

[ann-douglas-blog]

I can't believe I live in a world where libraries are under threat. Libraries.

Things are beyond serious in Toronto. Every library lover needs to speak out (again).

Here's how.

[ann-douglas-blog]

[ann-douglas-blog]

Happy Short Story Day!

Because today (December 22) is the shortest day of the year, it's the day when we celebrate the shortest but most brilliant form of literature, the short story. (It's actually a UK holiday, but the rest of us are encouraged to join in.) You can listen to short stories on the National Short Story Day website. Or write a very short one of your own (ten words maximum) and share it via Twitter.

If you're looking for a terrific short story to read at some point during the day, here's a link to one of my all-time favourites, Charles D'Ambriosio's Her Real Name.

Finally, here's a roundup of the short story collections I've read over the past year, along with mini-reviews of each. 

[utnereader-blog]

It’s a cardinal human experience: Someone we love dies, and we grieve the loss. This powerful emotion has inspired scores of poets, from Aeschylus to Jay-Z, and serves as the central metaphor of humanity for at least one of the world’s major religions.

In contemporary Western psychology, however, bereavement represents a conundrum. A depressed mood, diminished pleasure in normal activities, disrupted appetite and sleep patterns, thoughts of death—these are the hallmarks of bereavement. And they’re also the measures clinicians use to diagnose treatable depression. This confusion is reopening the debate over what constitutes mental health.

Keep reading …

[ann-douglas-blog]

"Because bereavement and clinical depression share overlapping symptoms, the current version of the DSM prohibits prescribing psychiatric medications until two months after the death of a loved one. In the proposed DSM-5, this period is reduced to just two weeks."

And yet medication can't take away the pain of losing someone you love. If anything, numbing the pain will only delay the painful but necessary process of grieving. Grief is patient. It will wait for you.

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Mind-Body/Mourning-In-America-Medicalization-Of-Bereavement.aspx#ixzz1hH6ohhXP

[ann-douglas-blog]

Here we were, a generation of workers fueling the largest expansion of business since the transcontinental railroad and we didn't have living wage jobs or benefits. The bigger these companies got, the more we were asked to give. The start-up model where everyone worked 72 hours a week and got paid nothing had become the new standard of productivity and wage rates.

- Vanessa Veselka, In the Wake of Protest: One Woman's Attempt to Unionize Amazon, The Atlantic (December 12, 2011).

[ann-douglas-blog]

UBC researchers, who have a knack for uncovering the most fascinating facts about human behaviour, have discovered that people who are communicating via text message are more likely to be playing fast and easy with the truth than people who are using other modes of communication. The more anonymous the method of communication, the greater the tendency to be "morally lax," the researchers report.

[ann-douglas-blog]

QUESTION: How do you want authors to behave on social media?

What words of wisdom would you offer to an author who is brand new to social media and who is trying to figure out how (and how often) to promote his or her books?

As you know, some authors promote their books rather shamelessly:

Another rave review for ICE ON FIRE! "A must-read tale of torrid romance in a cold climate ruled by an even more cold-hearted would-be emperor." - The author's mom. Please RT.

Others take a much more subtle approach:

Bio: I write stuff. It's your job to guess what it is.

What do you consider reasonable (perhaps even classy or clever) when it comes to self-promotion via social media?

What makes you want to hit the unfollow button and toss an author's books in the recycling bin?

Note: I'm asking your opinion because I'm going to be co-leading a workshop for authors on self-promotion (including the effective use of social media) in 2012. I'd like to round out my impressions by hearing your thoughts and opinions. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

[ann-douglas-blog]

The answer is simple, notes Sparksheet (@sparksheet): it's cheap.

[nationalpost-blog]

Canadians want children of own gender to carry on legacy: study Despite a cultural push to be neutral or even indifferent about the sex of their babies, university-educated Canadians overwhelmingly prefer to have a child of their own gender as they unconsciously try to create a “meme” of themselves to live on after they die, a new study suggests. Fifty or even 20 years ago, the same study of evolutionary biology might have veered heavily in favour of boys — the traditional breadwinners, deemed to be physiologically stronger and with a greater capacity to produce more children and grandchildren. It’s a value that still exists in many parts of the world. But the major strides made by women in modern Western society have meant there’s never been a better time to be born a girl —and women are keenly aware of it, said Lonnie Aarssen, a Queen’s University biology professor who co-authored the study with former undergraduate student Michael Higginson. “It’s interesting to see this emergence just in my lifetime of opportunities for women to break free from that patriarchal subjugation,” he said. “And it’s being expressed as a flip now to actually favouring offspring that have potential to represent copies of themselves because they’re the same gender.” This is particularly linked to women seeing themselves as able to leave some kind of role model legacy for their daughters because they see greater opportunities for them today, Dr. Aarssen added. (Photo: foltolia)

[ann-douglas-blog]

I grew up in a family in which I was the oldest of four girls. It never occurred to me, back when I was pregnant, that I might actually give birth to a boy -- until I did. That's how girl-centric my view of the world was.

Having sons has taught me so much about living, including how to relax and have fun. (The bizarre bathroom humour that crops up around the dinner table, night after night, starting from around the time boys are five years of age, will do that for a person.)

If I'd been asked to fill out a form to order my ideal family back when I was 24 and pregnant for the first time, I might have placed an order for all girls. But that wouldn't have been my ideal family at all. The family I ended up with -- girl, boy, boy, boy -- was exactly what the psychologist ordered. 

[ann-douglas-blog]

Nope. Now that is scary!

It never hurts to toss out an interesting challenge.....

[ann-douglas-blog]

This series of videos -- created by award-winning video journalist Michelle Michael -- offer practical advice on how you can increase the quality of your videos while you're working solo.

[ann-douglas-blog]

"A good letter is 'good talk' on paper....The words should be down on paper in the same way you would say them -- not propped up on literary stilts which take away the personality of your letter." Source: The Etiquette of Letter Writing. Toronto: Barber-Ellis, 1954. 28 page booklet.

[ann-douglas-blog]

"One 
of 
the 
things 
that 
distinguishes
 (quote‐unquote)
 "new 
journalism" 
from
 some 
of 
its more 
traditional 
forms 
is 
that 
the 
reader 
is 
really 
going
 to 
be 
looking
 for 
analysis,
meaning,
 context, 
argument. 
Unless
 you 
come
 across
 some 
really
 fresh 
and 
proprietary information
 ‐‐ 
it's
 great
 to
 get 
a 
scoop, 
but 
it 
won't 
happen
 very 
often
 ‐‐ 
it's 
not
 enough just
 to 
present 
the 
information 
verbatim.
 One 
of 
the 
flaws 
of
 political
 journalism, 
in
 fact, 
is 
that 
a 
lot 
of 
what 
amounts 
to 
spin
 is 
given 
authority 
by 
being 
reported
 at 
face
 value.


Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight), May 17, 2011, Columbia Journalism School (via @janefriedman on Twitter)