![]() ![]() I'll be offering the books at a discounted rate in exchange for feedback. The fictional book is a "choose your own adventure" story. ![]() I'm also planning on bringing a handful of "test copies" of my latest project. I'll have signed copies of my two published books, Shipwrecks of Coos County (Arcadia, 2011) and Paw Prints: A Collection of Pet Stories (Create Space, 2013), available for sale. It's a great place to meet and visit with some of your favorite local authors or chat with a publisher about getting your writing published. Last year there were around 50 different authors and 2 or 3 publishers. The event is free to the public and the doors open at 10 am. ![]() I just wanted to take a few moments to check in and give everyone a quick update.įirst, I'm excited about this Saturday's 3rd Annual Florence Festival of Books. ![]()
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![]() ![]() And when will Ashley and her brother, Ivy, a gay man with a very wealthy and very Asian life partner-ever grow up? Then there is Maisie, Liz's mother, the family matriarch who has just turned eighty, who never lets Liz forget that she's not her perfect dead sister, Juliet. A successful investment banker, Clayton is too often found in his pied-à-terre in Manhattan-which Liz is sure he uses to have an affair. Besides, Clayton and Liz Waters have enough problems of their own. ![]() Knowing her parents would be horrified at the idea of common strangers trampling through their home, Ashley won't tell them. With a new coat of paint, the first floor would be a perfect place for soireés for paying guests. ![]() Sipping wine on the porch and watching a blood-red sunset, Ashley and Mary Beth hit on a brilliant and lucrative idea. While they don't make much money, the girls do have a million-dollar view that comes with living in that fabulous house on Sullivans Island. Though they both know what they want out of life, their parents barely support their dreams and worry for their precarious finances. Mary Beth, a gifted cook from Tennessee, works for a caterer while searching for a good teaching job. Ashley is a gallery assistant who aspires to become an artist. "Best friends since the first day of classes at The College of Charleston, Ashley Anne Waters and Mary Beth Smythe, now 23 years old, live in Ashley's parents' beach house rent-free. ![]() ![]() ![]() And Toole's attempt to show that Lovelace anticipated the concept of object-oriented programming is rather comical. ![]() ![]() Her mother, not wanting Ada to inherit her father's 'poetic' temperament, immersed her in the study of science, logic and mathematics. Her most significant work was an extensive set of notes, done in collaboration with Charles Babbage, that accompanied Babbage's description of the first computer - the Analytical Engine.īetty Toole's narration is well researched, but her obvious admiration for Lovelace often leads her to defend Ada's actions rather than examine them. Born Ada Gordon on December 10, 1815, Ada Lovelace was the daughter of the 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' poet Lord Byron. She was a capable mathematician with a talent for synthesis. Born in 1815, she was a friend of Charles Dickens and was tutored by scientific luminaries such as DeMorgan and Faraday. Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, is known for being the world's first programmer, for having the Department of Defense computer language standard named after her, and - to those who have read Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine - for her penchants for gambling and having affairs.Īn annotated collection of Lovelace's letters, Enchantress lets us see beyond the usual caricatures. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Ma keeps him hidden in Wardrobe when Old Nick visits and Jack counts Old Nick’s panting breaths the way other children count sheep Old Nick is always gone when Jack wakes up. ![]() I was expecting the abuse to be a primary factor in the story but Jack is never exposed to it. ![]() Ma has even hidden her absolute disgust of the place, her pain, and her nightmare. Ma has protected him so thoroughly that their 11×11 foot cell is Jack’s fairyland, his home, his sanctuary. Jack, our narrator, is completely unharmed. I’ve read Lolita, Bastard Out of Carolina, and a dozen other stories about abused women, and even abused children, but this story is completely unique among them. The innocence of children, their ability to see the world as unique, beautiful and inspiring, is precisely what one needs to stomach an abuse story. Room immediately appealed to me because it was a child narrator in an extremely unusual situation: the child is the product of a mother, who has been sealed in a shed, by a sexual abuser. I read a lot and I find myself predicting things when they aren’t innovative (this could be a moment for a 50 Shades of Grey rant, but we’ll wait, shall we?). I am always on the hunt for a new narrative-not new as in recent, new as in different. ![]() ![]() ![]() To understand why one woman’s achievement so shook the prejudices of the Victorian age-and why newspapers from the New York Times to the Times of India thought it worthwhile to devote thousands of words to an exam that today means little to anybody but the students themselves-it is necessary to understand why Cambridge mathematics mattered in the 19th century. It was the day that Philippa Fawcett placed “above the Senior Wrangler.” That day was June 7, 1890, when-for the first and only time-a woman ranked first in the mathematical examinations held at the University of Cambridge. For all that, though, it is still possible to point to one single achievement, and one single day, and say: this is when everything began to change. It took generations to transform this received opinion that, a long series of scientific studies, and the determination and hard work of many thousands of women. Mainstream medicine was clear on this point: to dream of studying at the university level was to chance madness or sterility, if not both. ![]() ![]() For much of the 19th century, women were not expected to shine either academically or athletically, and those who attempted to do so were cautioned that they were taking an appalling risk. To be female was also to be fragile, dependent, prone to nerves and-not least-possessed of a mind that was several degrees inferior to a man’s. To be a woman in the Victorian age was to be weak: the connection was that definite. ![]() |