Thanksgiving Day 2011

So here I sit on Thanksgiving Day, not at a table laden with more food than could feed an army of starving velociraptors, but at my computer.

I have a lot to be thankful for, more than I can enumerate. I'm especially thankful for my lifetime companion of 40+ years, safe and comfortable surroundings with an adorable office cat, my daughter safely launched in the career she was meant to be in, more intellectual pursuits than I can handle (and the health and wits to pursue them), a house with no mortgage amid beautiful woodlands in a time/space location relatively safe from fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and so far, even hurricanes. 

Even with its occasional setbacks, life really is good. Now if I could just find a hubcap for my bitchin' red Camaro that would stay on...

The power of publicity

Check out this very cool banner ad my publisher has posted on the Hellnotes review site!

FPA Book Awards

Hearty congratulations to all the Kitsune Books winners from this week's Florida Publishers Association Book Awards!

• Mary Jane Ryals (Gold, Cookie & Me)
• Christopher McIlroy (Silver, Here I Am a Writer)
• K.E.M. Johnston (Silver, Big Boys Don't Spy)
• Jeannine Hall Gailey (Silver, She Returns to the Floating World)
• Gianna Russo (Silver, Moonflower)

A small demise

I was reading recently about the demise of punctuation, and in particular, the apostrophe. Who needs 'em anyway, when the written context lets (let's?) you know what is meant, and verbally, of course, it doesn't exist. I mean, you can't hear its use or misuse...you can only see it.

I concede that in these days of careless texting and Internet posting, a phrase like "the bicyclists fault" is clearly understood, no matter its lack of correctness...or even cases where the apostrophe is used but not needed, as in "how many turkey's do we need" and so on. It's in signage, marketing materials, newspapers and magazines, and ubiquitous across the Internet: the death of the apostrophe.

For a prescriptive grammarian (and aren't we all), this is a migraine of Olympian proportions. I would hope professional writers and editors will at least hold this creeping death at bay in our published books. I, for one,  intend to go to my grave clutching all the little apostrophes (apostrophe's?) I can carry!