Clippings 22: social media & other news

I’ve been on Facebook and Shelfari for a (relatively) long time, and love the interaction that takes place there.  But I strongly resisted getting on Twitter, mostly to streamline my life as much as possible and eliminate distractions from my writing time.  (God knows I can procrastinate with the best of them!)  But I’ve been adjusting my daily schedule, fine tuning it a little better to protect my writing hours, and for a variety of reasons decided it was time to start tweeting.  So now you can follow me on Twitter at @mindywithrow. Most of my tweets are about books or the writing life, but some are personal, too—and I’d love to connect with you there.  I found this list of authors on Twitter and have already met a number of interesting characters (authors, reviewers, publishers) that I hope to learn a lot from.

Speaking of social media, fellow bloggers may be interested in the ongoing Blog Improvement Project over at Sophisticated Dorkiness.  This week Kim has a brief and clear explanation of how to use anchor text. Her post was a helpful reminder to me, since it’s been a few years since I managed a large website and had to pay close attention to such details.  As she pointed out, not only does it improve your own search rankings, but it’s a best blogging practice.  Thanks, Kim!

In other news:

Carrie K, a fellow (and active!) book blogger, has moved to a new domain.  If you haven’t read her before, pop over to Books and Movies and check out some of her recent reviews.

StorySouth has opened the voting on their 2009 Million Writers Award for best story of the year.  I’m a big fan of short fiction, and several of these are really exceptional. Get your vote in before the June 17 deadline!

I tend to listen to podcasts in spurts; nothing for a few weeks and then I catch up on them all at once, usually in the car (another result of my wanting-to-interact-but-guarding-my-time duality).  For awhile, my favorite reading/writing/ideas podcasts have been The New Yorker: Fiction; PRI: Selected Shorts; and Speaking of Faith.  But my professor husband, who got me interested in Philosophy Bites, recently also found for me the Writers at Warwick series. They haven’t posted anything new this year (so far–hope they do eventually!), but they have a bit of an archive that I’m working my way through. 

More speakers have been confirmed for the 2010 Festival of Faith & Writing. Parker Palmer, Luci Shaw, Beena Kamlani, and Dara Horn will be joining Kate DiCamillo, Eugene Peterson, Scott Cairns, and many others already announced.  If you want to keep track of the plans as they unfold, sign up for the Festival’s eNews updates.

What else is going on in the bookblogging world that we should all know about?  Contests?  Summer reading lists?  Blog tours?  Writing seminars?  Post your announcements/reports/links in the comments.

19. May 2009 by Mindy
Categories: Clippings | 6 comments

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