Been Around The Blogs, and I, I, I – Part 1091
So I hear that MWA (Mystery Writers of America) delisted the much-maligned Harlequin over the whole self-publishing/vanity press hoopla.
Lee Goldberg writes:
Any author who signs with Harlequin or any of its imprints from this date onward may not use their Harlequin books as the basis for active status membership nor will such books be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration. However books published by Harlequin under contracts signed before December 2, 2009 may still be the basis for Active Status membership and will still be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration (you may find the full text of the decision at the end of this bulletin).
Although Harlequin no longer offers its eHarlequin Critique Service and has changed the name of its pay-to-publish service, Harlequin still remains in violation of MWA rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.
Poor Harlequin, I wonder what action they’re gonna take after this? There’s a letter from Harlequin too if you can be arsed to pop over and read it.
Moving on, check out this First Page excerpt posted up at Dear Author. Basically a woman is walking round a garden in the rain, then suddenly overcome with lust, she starts rubbing her breasts against the cock of a statue. Nice. It was err… different.
Grace liked to walk the estate grounds when it rained. The white stone of the statues turned to pale grey. It was the smell of rain on stone that made her take her clothes off and rub her bare breasts on the rock hard cock of Apollo. She loved to watch the water settle in various crevices then lap it up with her tongue. It was especially pleasurable to lick between his toes also it was the perfect vantage point to admire the finely crafted sculpture.
Oh yeah, there’s an NYT best-seller right there.
In non-romance related news, it appears Tiger Woods has been nobbing several women behind his wife’s back. Jesus, when the fuck did he find the time?
Anyhoo, this article tries to estimate how much the ‘car crash’ will eventually cost him. His image is tarnished now, so a few of his endorsers may drop him like a sack of spuds.
Some damage has already been done, and when you’re dealing with stratospheric numbers like those for Tiger Woods, that’s a lot of money. Even if Woods takes a 10 percent hit on his endorsement income going forward, that’s $10 million a year, or $100 million over the next decade. A very expensive domestic incident.
The next few days will be critical in seeing if it gets worse. Where was he going at 2:25 a.m.? Why couldn’t he drive his SUV around the same fire hydrant and tree he’s avoided hundreds of times during the years he’s lived in that Florida compound? Did his wife, Elin Nordegren, smash the rear window of his Escalade in a frenzied effort to get her husband out of the wreck, or was she chasing him with the club and smashed the window in a furious rage over published reports of an extramarital affair?
Feet of clay indeed. I guess I’ll never look at him the same way again. Cheating Skank.
Woods’ race has been mostly ignored in the mainstream media and tabloid coverage of his infidelities. But the fact that Woods’ ex-model Swedish wife and the three women he is accused of having affairs with are white has not escaped attention in the black community.
On talk radio shows aimed at black audiences, Woods’ apparent preference for Caucasian women has been the subject of abuse and humour. One parody song played on the Tom Joyner radio show even asked: “The question everyone in America wants to ask you is, how many white women does one brother want?”
Similar themes have played out on other black talk shows and blogs and doubtless among many black Americans discussing the racial complexities of the case. The issue is complicated because of Woods’ mixed background and the fact that he does not define himself racially…
But, in general, America and the world have hailed Woods as a black sporting star who has broken down racial barriers. That would explain why the black community has turned on him in the past week, as the issue of black-white sexual relationships has long been fraught with controversy in the US. “We’ve discussed this for years among black women,” Denene Millner, author of several books on black relationships, told the Associated Press news agency. “Why is it when they get to this level … they tend to go directly for the nearest blonde?”
A lot of people will probably wonder why this matters, but in the black community, it just does. I wonder if Obama would have been as popular amongst blacks had his wife been white? Just a thought.
In other news, Katiebabs reports that apparently Laurell K Hamilton is bitching about “watching other shows in the genre she pioneered go on the air”. I assume she’s talking about The Twilight saga?
Wishful thinking much?
Anyway that’s all I’ve got for the moment, catch you all laterz!
Posted by Karen Scott · 
