Three things that came to my attention today.
One, there’s a new blog in town: Prospero, all about books and culture, from the Economist. And they’re running a literary parody competition, with some lusciously witty examples.
Two, PW tells me that Farrar, Straus & Giroux are teaming with Scientific American to create a new publishing imprint. I don’t know what the new imprint will be called, but I’m curious about the kind of books they’ll publish.
Third, a TED Talk from Elif Shafak, about storytelling (thanks, Mark):
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
For once there was no mist when I woke up–and today I woke up at an ungodly hour (6:45) due to an insane woodpecker (a flicker, which are normally fairly well-behaved) hammering diligently on the roof. Tuh.
Nicola Griffith 
Ack, since we moved we wake every morning to the sound of Blue Jays possibly fighting, or whatever it is that Blue Jays do at 6am. I get up, I pee, slouch back to bed and lay there for an hour trying to remember what I dreamed about until the desire for coffee becomes too strong. Not good coffee, instant.
That was an excellent talk. Thanks for posting.
Much resonated with me particularly what she said near the end about knowledge that does not take us beyond ourselves being dangerous.
I am sad indeed with the current state cultural ghettoization of creative artists. Shafaq's talk reminded me to challenge my own internal stereotypes.
Natalie in Guelph Ontario.
Natalie, I think the bane of all fiction is stereotyping of any kind. Sadly, a lot of fiction based on identity politics is theme-drenched and turgid, but oppressed groups seem to need to go through it before they can get out into the open meadow on the other side. But, oh, once we're there, we can roll around and laugh and play, run and jump and sings songs, tell tales about anything we want…