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Back in 2004 I coined a term, “biblioblogosphere,” that managed to catch on. I wasn’t trying to coin a term. (What an interesting phrase, involving smelting and mints and all that.) I was just writing, and that’s the word that came out–not a hyphenated expression, not a malapropism, just a word, intended to be humorous–long, pompous, a little retro, with a good “scan,” as the poets say.

I think one reason “biblioblogosphere” caught on is that it was immediately challenged. I am not a linguist (though I do like the occasional tongue taco–and what a glorious city that I live in, that tongue tacos can be had at a whim). But I suspect once upon a time (now I am going to be very ahistorical, so no need to correct me) a caveperson sitting around a fire said, “Heyyyy… let’s call this: FIRE,” and several other cavepeople nibbling on bones left over from their Humongasaurus roast said “Yo, whatev” and began using the term, while three other cavepeople immediately said “That’s a terrible term!” and offered their own suggestions, like furor and fur and floober, which they then used at every opportunity (although only two of which eventually caught on, though for other use), and then the “Yo, whatev” crowd had cavepeople who became indignantly protective of their choice and said, “No, really, it’s a good term,” and that cast more light on a term that otherwise could have floated away as yet more flotsam and jetsam on the stream of self-published writing.

N.b. I have observed that on occasion, some genders are more reluctant than other genders to let other genders create new terms. But I will not dwell on that.

(Incidentally, that 2004 post referenced “weblog,” a term since shortened to “blog,” perhaps because “weblog” was hard to pronounce? When did it die, or do I care?)

I didn’t get serious or weepy about being challenged (at times, in lengthy and indignant tomes), or even about the long-term viability of “my” word… though it made me laugh at the nature of people. I didn’t have a lot invested in seeing my neologism push its delicate tendril through the soil and establish mighty trunk and roots. (Aside from this strange offshoot, which I just discovered.)

At the time, I had spent several years as senior editor on a weekly newsletter, and I was steeped in words in a way that (oddly enough) is not true in higher ed, unless you think the following are real words: promulgate, synergy, utilize… which I do not.  I had a quotidian attention to words that fertilized my brain at both conscious and unconscious levels.

That attention emerged again last week, at least briefly, when after an hour of mission-statement exercises with our cross-campus Vision Task Force (more fun than it sounds, especially since we served lunch) I stepped back and announced, to a collective gasp, that our verbs were flabby. I then rushed in to assure everyone that we had done very very good work and so forth.

There was some energetic thinking done that day, and we are on the road to a real mission statement, but — and I mean this very seriously — my leadership includes the awareness that I am “good with words,” and that something good can almost always be forged into something much better. Part of writing (and this comes from the MFA workshop experience, as well) is to understand that I am obligated to be merciless with my writing. When I am absolutely sure an essay is ready to be submitted for publication, I then send it to several more people for comments, and give it

As promised, here are the links from today’s workshop (plus any more I added AFTER the workshop). Thanks for showing up! I’m writing this in advance, but I’m sure we had fun.

Here’s the link to Tallahassee Writers’ Association. Come to a meeting! Our next meeting is Thursday, August 21 at the American Legion.  I’ll be there — feel free to sit with me and I’ll introduce you around.

This is a wiki page for workshops I’ve taught about “writing for the web.” The handouts are particularly useful if you’re thinking about writing, and the syllabus lists some great examples of (online) creative nonfiction.

It’s just one woman’s list, but here’s my LibraryThing collection of creative nonfiction. The library also owns some of these books and for materials they don’t own, they can get them for you through interlibrary loan.

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Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. — Theodore Levitt (quoted in Helene Blowers, “Innovation Starts with ‘I’“)

I revived Twitterprose yesterday, and will try to keep it going for a while.

Twitterprose publishes a line a day from the best creative nonfiction. You can follow Twitterprose (at least) two ways:

It’s a blog! Subscribe to the Twitterprose feed, and you’re done.

It’s a Twitter feed! If you’re a Twitter user, just follow Twitterprose.

I started Twitterprose last June, when I was in between my first and second jobs in Tallahassee. I stopped updating in August, when I was getting busy with my new job, starting a community writing critique group, continuing to write and revise personal writing, and otherwise dog-paddling through life.

But last night I grumpily decided to upgrade this blog to WordPress 2.5 — not because I was bursting to see the new Wordpress administrative interface with its adorably unreadable eensy-teensy fonts (think “serial number on the back of an iPod”), but because there’s reportedly some bug that afflicts earlier versions of WordPress.

I say “reportedly” because though I read a panicky tweet on Twitter and saw some blog posts, I don’t see this bug reported on the WordPress blog. I hope I baven’t been FUDded into this upgrade (FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), but I don’t need to get on the road and find my blog has been misbehaving.

So I upgraded poor neglected Twitterprose, on the assumption that if it died, that would be a clear warning (poor little Twitterprose, serving as the queen’s taster). The first question is always “can I post to my blog,” and so I rummaged through my bookshelves for a sacrificial first line.

(The upgrade went well. But I resignedly gird my loins for the next “OMG you must upgrade WordPress NOW” post.)

When I flipped through Jeffrey Steingarten’s The Man Who Ate Everything, I remembered why I like doing Twitterprose.

I’m a reader, a writer, and a librarian. Why wouldn’t I want to select great first lines from creative nonfiction and share them with the hungry world? I’m also a bit of a geek. Why wouldn’t I want to use social software to do this?  I’m also plowing through acres of books and essays right now as I work on an review essay about food writing, so it’s not as if I’m short of good things to share.

I’m also feeling the afterglow of Helene Blowers’ talk at Computers in Libraries this week about the “I in Innovation” (see her slides).

When Twitterprose stopped, no one rushed in to fill its gap. Debra Hamel does a marvelous job with Twitterlit, but Twitterprose focuses exclusively on creative nonfiction. I also try to link to online journals, LibraryThing, WorldCat, and the occasional obscure bookseller, leaving Amazon as a source of last resort. Nothing wrong with Amazon — I shop there regularly — but the librarian in me wants to do more than offer up first lines; I want to share new and interesting places to find them. (The social networker in me also hopes you’ll share your own ideas for great reading I can highlight in Twitterprose.)

As Helene drummed into us this Tuesday, creativity is well and good, but innovation is defined by action. So let me try once more. I’ve salted Twitterprose with great lines for the next several days which will automagically appear whilst I romp in Miami at IA Summit 2008, courtesy of the magic of a tool called Twitterfeed and the Wordpress scheduled posting function.

Let’s see if I can make time in my life to cup my hands around the small flame of this idea.

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This is about two women, a blog, and a statewide mentoring program.

I recently had to write a midway review for my participation in the 2007-2008 Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute — also known as the “mentoring program.”

Mentors are like favorite aunts. We can hone in on helping our mentees with a focus that isn’t always possible from the most caring supervisor. Cheryl has a bucket of great ideas, a passion for librarianship, and a genuine heart. As we worked our way through the goals process and listed all the things she could do, it became clear that she had an idea pulling at her sleeve: a poetry blog that would serve poets, readers, and librarians in this part of the country.

So The Poetry Scene lives — and it’s marvelous. Talk about a focused site for under-served populations!

For all the other activities she’s done in the program, Cheryl’s ability to start with two things she cared about — poetry and librarianship — and turn them into a living, breathing service is the standout example of what a joy it has been to be part of her world. But our relationship has also been a reminder of what has brought me joy as a librarian.

As I summarized the value this program has had for me, I realized that my relationship with Cheryl, my mentee, has reinforced something I have learned over the past decade.

As a junior manager, I thought the “people” side of work was a chore to be dealt with as hastily as possible, and that my own skills were my central contribution. But in several successive jobs I learned that it’s not about me, it’s about the people I work with. I needed to back off, be less invested in “my way,” listen more carefully, go fight for the tools and training and time they need to do their job, know when to hold my breath and be patient while they figured things out for themselves, and help tip back the bushel so their lights would shine.

In many cases people have terrific skills and potential, and they don’t need “larnin’” as much as they need a cheerleader — someone to coach them to their natural excellence and ensure them that their ideas can really take root. They also need someone who just plain cares about them and is in their corner for their success. There is no shiny new tool, no public accolade, no triumphant “win” that can hold even the feeblest dimestore birthday-candle glimmer to the warmth you can experience by helping someone else fill the world with their brilliant light.

Supervision is tough work, and mentoring (by definition a highly self-selected relationship) only exposes us to the fun, cool side of it. I can’t imagine a mentoring relationship where I’d have to tell someone that her job was eliminated or that she smelled. (It’s actually harder to tell someone they smell — and I mean pee-yew, “patrons are talking” odiferous. A decade later, and I can still feel my blood pressure rise just thinking about that conversation.) Mentoring relationships also sidestep the boring, routine paperwork, the picayune tasks, and the quotidian slog.

But participating in the mentoring program has been a deeply satisfying reminder of my own progress as a professional — and what it means to be a part of someone’s success. I can have a strong, happy career without ever supervising again (much as I’m a Real Woman without having had a child), but if that’s my career trajectory, I’m going to make a point of being a “favorite aunt” as often as possible.

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At first, when I couldn’t find a post I had made on Chowhound yesterday morning before I left for work, I chalked it up to my own sloppy surfing. I have been acutely focused on Friday’s talk, as many people from MPOW are coming, which I am finding very stressful to the point of frazzlement and hair-pulling (if I flub a talk 300 hundred miles from home, I can fly home and be done with it; but I see these folks every day).

But then I looked in the cache for Bloglines and found my own Chowhound post and the one that prompted it, in reference to this discussion of Urbane, a new restaurant in Tallahassee.

It’s not even the first Chowhound post of mine that has evaporated into the net-ether. Last week I linked to my review of the Shell Oyster Bar, and that vanished. I thought, well enough: they don’t want bloggers using Chowhound as a honeypot.

But what was wrong with the following posts? (Posting dates refer to Bloglines’ feeds, not to Chowhound’s timeline.) I thought we were having a smart exchange about the nature of expression with respect to food.

And how comfortable are we about living in a world where commercial enterprises calling the shots on intellectual freedom — with nary a word to the authors? Yes, I know they say they can do that — but is that the world we want to live in?

The other poster’s comment (sorry, I don’t remember who it was!), Tue, Feb 12 2008 4:35 PM:

“Coffee & Doughnuts” sounds lifted directly from The French Laundry Cookbook. “Coffee & Doughnuts” is one Thomas Keller’s signature dishes. It is one of my most revered and treasured cookbooks. IMHO it is one thing for a recreational chef to prepare something right from a cookbook, but for a “Chef” who is paid for his creativity, technique, and talent to plaguarize…I would expect more than that. I have followed previous threads on different sites and this topic of chefs plaguarizing has been thoroughly dissected. Bascially, is it right for a chef to put a dish on his menu, take credit for it, when it has been directly lifted from another chef. Take classic dishes for example; Nicoise Salad, Beef Bourgogne, Tarte Tatin, the list is endless. These dishes are constantly replicated, however a good chef will reinterpret. In this case the classic dish is actually a cup of joe with fresh doughnuts. Thomas Keller is world renowned for his whimsical approach to classic dishes. So is it fair for another “chef” to steal his dish, even though it was published in his cookbook (meant for the home cook)?

My response (Wed, Feb 13 2008 9:54 AM):

Well — this was not a cup of joe with doughnuts (which I would not have bothered with); it was a silky mocha semifreddo topped with cream — a fake frozen latte — served with doughnut holes, really very moist, hot quasi-beignets. So if the name is borrowed but the dish is reinterpreted, is that not acceptable? In the literary world, titles of books are not copyrighted; unless someone outright trademarks them in advance, they are not protected. I can’t present the text of Pride and Prejudice as my own, but I can certainly use that title and then whimsically write my own take on this classic. To me this is not “lifting” (let alone plagiarizing) but responding. Food is a conversation. Urbane’s chef replied to Keller, “This is how *I* see this dish.” That to me is not only legitimate but delightful. Riffing on other chef’s interpretations is a way of saying we are all participating in an ongoing discussion about cuisine. Urbane’s interpretation may well be conditioned by the idea that in Tallahassee, palates are far less jaded than in the Bay Area, and a local diner might be acutely disappointed by a dish that would seem cute or whimsical for the culinary Brahmins of the world. I appreciate your erudition here, by the way — I will probably never dine at the French Laundry, but it’s nice to find out that a local dish has more classic roots than I realized. I just hope we never find ourselves dining on “Lamb Shanks French Laundry — All Rights Reserved.”

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Vampire Hunter D
Author: Hideyuki Kikuchi
Illustrator: Yoshitaka Amano
Publisher: DH Press/Digital Manga Publishing
ISBN 10: 1-59582-012-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-59582-012-9

This Japanese novel was known to anime fans for twenty years as the basis for the popular 1985 anime movie, one of the first American anime releases. Kikuchi became known as the author of a large series of Vampire Hunter D novels and short stories, but none were available in English until DH Press began publishing translations by Kevin Leahy in 2005.

Kikuchi has synthesized the American pulp genres of science-fiction, adventure fantasy, horror, and Westerns. In 12,090 A.D., civilization is slowly rebuilding after millennia of destruction by global atomic war and terrorism by mutated monsters, followed by dominance by vampires who formed a ruling class of immortal Nobility until they became decadent. Human townships are now throwing off the rule of their local vampire lords, often with the help of wandering mercenary Vampire Hunters.

Doris Lang, a young woman near a frontier town trying to run her late father’s farm, is bitten by vampire Count Magnus Lee. Lee is amused by her proud spirit and intends to make her his latest wife instead of a common mindless bloodthirsty vampire. Doris is also threatened by both her own townspeople, who want to kill her before she becomes a vampire, and Count Lee’s haughty daughter Larmica who tries to eliminate her rather than suffer the humiliation of gaining a human stepmother. Doris’ plight is desperate until a lone stranger rides into town on his horse; the mysterious Vampire Hunter known only as “D”.

Kikuchi’s writing style is awkwardly both stilted and florid, possibly in a deliberate emulation of 1930s pulp fiction, or World War I-era French thrillers such as Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera. Here Count Lee is talking with his daughter after they have temporarily trapped D under their castle:

“Last night, when you returned from the farm and spoke of the stripling we just disposed of, the tone of your voice, the manner of your complaints – even I, your own father, cannot recall ever hearing you so indignant, yet your indignation held a feverish sentiment that was equally new. Could it be you’re smitten with the scoundrel?”

Unanticipated though her father’s words were, Larmica donned a smile that positively defied description. Not only that, she licked her lips as well.

The setting is colorful, though; an original blend of horror stereotypes and decayed futuristic s-f technology. And old-fashioned pulp writers still have many fans. Kikuchi’s style may not be for everyone, but more than just anime fans will enjoy this first Vampire Hunter D novel.