My dad mentioned a while…

My dad mentioned a while ago that he'd seen a long entry on me in the library in a hardbound series called Contemporary Authors. He was quite favorably impressed, which you can imagine is a relief given the ongoing difficulties my parents have with my writing. I was startled to discover during my compulsive Amazon check this morning that you can now purchase a downloadable version of my entry, for roughly three bucks. I've never seen such a thing. I can't imagine who they think they're selling to, other than me, but still, pretty cool. Quite out of date -- looks like it was written in 2000 or 2001. But nice.

I'm having a bit of a rough day. Got home tired after midnight, and though Kevin was there to pick me up at the airport, I was exhausted and in fragile mood, which he managed to set off quite accidentally. I was up and weepy until late, and then had to get up in a horribly cranky mood early this morning for an 8 a.m. appointment. with the lady who is cleaning our old apartment. I've never paid cleaners before, but $80 is well worth not having to spend six hours scrubbing our old place for the new tenants. It's only going to take her three hours, but I'm sure it would take me six. And it wouldn't be as clean afterwards. Sigh. Anyway, cranky, bitchy mood -- furious with the world for no reason that I can think of. I almost yelled at Kevin, which never happens. Very weird.

I got the cleaning lady settled and then came to Westgate for urgent e-mail catchup and breakfast. A salmon bagel and some chai later, I'm feeling more like myself now, though still stressed and behind. I had hoped to do some writing this morning, but I think I may just work on e-mail for another hour first and try to finish catching up with the most urgent aspects. Then hopefully writing from 11 to 1 or so. We'll see.

In the meantime, you can go back a few entries and enjoy all the photos I've added to earlier entries, like the flowers from Jed, and me reading, plus tea.

2 thoughts on “My dad mentioned a while…”

  1. I like that photo of you reading—it seems to me somehow more dynamic than a lot of photos of people reading, maybe partly ’cause of the wind (I assume) moving your dress.

    I have a vague idea a bunch of authors were up in arms about the Contemporary Authors things being available on Amazon—something about personal data like contact info being included when it shouldn’t have been?—but I may be completely wrong about that.

    Just read a long interview with Tiptree from Contemporary Authors from back in the early ’80s; I think that Tiptree herself wrote most of the accompanying bio. I wonder if they let all authors do that. Regardless, I think it’s cool that they included you. I would imagine they’ll update your entry sometime soon….

    I can imagine that someone doing scholarly research on a particular author might want to buy/download the C.A. bio from Amazon. Though of course it would be cheaper to just go to the library and look at their copy of C.A. But more convenient to download.

  2. there’s an online version of CA to which many academic and public libraries subscribe and which is available to users from home (if their library offers remote access, which many do).

    Your online entry has a date of 6/17/2002. I’ll send you a PDF.

    “How Entries Are Compiled
    The editors make every effort to secure new information directly from the authors; listees’ responses to our questionnaires and query letters provide most of the information featured in CA.

    For deceased writers, or those who fail to reply to requests for data, we consult other reliable biographical sources, such as those indexed in Gale’s Biography and Genealogy Master Index, and bibliographical sources, including National Union Catalog, LC MARC, and British National Bibliography. Further details come from published interviews, feature stories, book reviews, and material supplied by the authors’ publishers. An asterisk (*) at the end of a sketch indicates that the listing has been compiled from secondary sources believed to be reliable but has not been personally verified by the author.”

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