Links: Including Something about Nipples and Feet

Via @rocza on Twitter: the Two Nerdy History Girls blog (which is pretty much the gold standard of awesome sauce) has a profile of a ring owned by Jane Austen set to be auctioned off by Sotheby's.

There's no dispute over the latest piece of Jane Austen memorabilia to come to market, however. The ring, left, has never left Jane's family, being passed down from Jane to her sister Cassandra, and then through various Austen descendants to the present day. The ring has been so privately cherished that, as the auction catalogue notes, it has been “hitherto unknown to scholars.”

The pre-sale estimates, they report, are between £20,000-£30,000. This leaves me with two questions:

1. Who here thinks the final price will be much, much higher? *raises hand*

2. Was this ring used to assist Jane in battling zombies, vampires, vampire-zombies, werewolves, selkies, pestering obsequious clergymen, or elves? Expect the final bid to be in the millions, then.
 


 

Via Pam Regis: McDaniel College has a “new 5-course sequence on Romance Writing.”

The graduate-level courses will be focused on writing fiction, and will be taught online by Pam Regis, Francine Prose, and Jennifer Crusie.

The initial course, “Reading the Romance” focuses on the genre “through an analysis of the craft elements in novels by respected romance writers:

Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Heaven, Texas. 1995.
Nora Roberts. Montana Sky. 1996.
Loretta Chase. Lord of Scoundrels. 1995.
Beverly Jenkins. Indigo. 1996.
Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich. Dogs and Goddesses. 2009.
Melissa Marr. Wicked Lovely. 2007.
Patricia Gaffney. The Saving Graces. 1999.
Barbara O’Neal. How to Bake a Perfect Life. 2010.”

Crusie will also be teaching four additional courses that focus on specific elements of writing fictional narrative, such as character and structure.

Credit hours transfer into a McDaniel Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) degree, and the development costs were funded by  gift from the Nora Roberts Foundation. Cost:
$1,290 per course.


Via Susan, it seems New Zealand has pretty much everything, including someone who makes adorable romance hero dishtowels.

I've found my new kitchen decor theme!


Via StarOpal: Raul Lemesoff's Arma de Instruccion Masiva (Weapon of Mass Instruction) – a former military vehicle transformed into a library shaped like a tank.

“More than just an art stunt, Lemesoff's project is educating his community by sharing knowledge in the form of books. The tank is comprised of approximately 900 books at any given time. Lemesoff continues to restock his collection, only to carry on handing out books for free.”

 

Dude. That's so completely awesome. I want to go to Argentina, just to see it.


Via Cleo: a list of some of the more ridiculous suggestions on sex techniques from Cosmo:

Says Cleo, ” By the time I time I got to “tickle his feet with your nipples” and “feed each other ice cream [in the dark]” I couldn't breathe.”

I so better be seeing some of these used in an upcoming erotic romance fanfic rewrite of The Hunger Games told from the trees' perspective.

I WAS KIDDING. Put down the Scrivener. PUT IT DOWN. I was totally joking!

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  1. Scrin says:

    Cracked.com did a couple of hilarious articles on the quality of advice you find in Cosmo. http://www.cracked.com/article… and http://www.cracked.com/article…

  2. I don’t want to add to my student loan debt. I don’t want to add to my student loan debt. I don’t want to add to my student loan debt. Maybe if I say it enough times, it’ll stick. This is the first time since I graduated from grad school that I’ve been seriously tempted to do so.

  3. Ren says:

    I’ve long thought Cosmo gets its sex tips from porn, not considering the rampant junk abuse therein is a result of the participants having calluses from occupational overuse and inability to perceive sensation of less than rip-it-off intensity.

    The “Is he cheating? HE’S A MAN, ISN’T HE!” thing is just too depressing to be funny anymore.

  4. Vicki says:

    Thank the goddess I was reading the sex tips on the office computer while sipping my latte – the keyboard may be a little sticky now. I had to stop after the first page because the nurse is putting a patient in the room for me now and it bothers the parents if I am giggling insanely while examining their precious child. But I do want to finish reading the sex hints and, if anyone uses them in a story, please let me know. Otherwise, I may have to fire up the Scrivener tonight and pound away, so to speak.

  5. Lil says:

    Okay, I think teaching writing courses is a great way for writers to earn some money. And some writers do give great advice. (If you want to skip the tuition, check out Joanna Bourne’s tips for writers on her blog. Some of the best writing advice I’ve seen anywhere.)

    However, I always wonder how many of the really good Romance writers (and by really good, I mean the ones I like) are the product of university writing courses? As opposed to reading good books until they absorbed how to do it.

  6. Flo_over says:

    I would take that romance course over the schlock of “Lesbian Literature” that my college foisted on me.  Utter waste of time.  This actually sounds intriguing!

    On a fun note, I wish to build my own Arma de Instruccion Masiva!  I would drive it around my neighborhood and hand out books.  Yes I would!

    Also… Cosmo… yikes.  Way to break up happy relationships!

  7. SarinaArahovas says:

    Holy God, does it finally feel good to be a McDaniel student!

  8. Emily A. says:

    Okay I had a really hard time reading the Cosmo stuff, because there was a big gray box on the screen that wouldn’t go away.
    I stopped reading cosmo after they gave advice for relationships that seriously said almost exactly “Always let him have the remote because it’s unfair of you to subject him to America’s Next Top Model.”
    First of all I don’t watch ANTM: I watch Burn Notice.
    Second of all even if I did watch ANTM how unfair would be to get him to watch a little of it with in exchange for me watching sports.
    Sigh.

  9. Lori says:

    I saw the Cosmo “tips” on Jezebel, and the commentary was awesome.  Great to introduce some sanity into the mix.
    http://jezebel.com/cosmo/
    I love the tank library, every city should have one!

  10. Amy Raby (Alpha Lyra) says:

    The article about the Cosmo sex tips is hilarious! I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Cosmo’s tips are a little bit… out there.

  11. ann_somerville says:

    “The ring, left, has never left Jane’s family, being passed down from Jane to her sister Cassandra, and then through various Austen descendants to the present day. “

    How sad that either poverty or indifference means the ring now has to be sold, and presumably leave the family. Not many non-noble families have heirlooms with that kind of history attached to them.

  12. Faellie says:

    Selling the Jane Austen ring is not necessarily about poverty or indifference.  How do you keep something as valuable as that safe in an ordinary private home?  How do you divide it equally between your children, or your other relatives if you don’t have children?  How do you ensure its significance is continued to be recognised?

    Lots of families have objects which have been treasured through many generations – take a look at the Antiques Roadshow.  It’s the things of relatively ordinary value that get kept and treasured.  Once an extraordinary value is put on something, the likelihood of a sale goes way up, for sadly practical reasons.

  13. Tam B. says:

    Sarah I think we should all chip in to create and build a pink romance tank for the next big conference you attend.  You could arrive in style and have all attending authors donate books to be given away.

    And now I know why I don’t read Cosmo.  Who writes that stuff?  Who researches it?

  14. ShawnyJ says:

    I admit there was a time where I thought Cosmo tips like “ride him piggyback around the kitchen and spank him with a spatula” might be plausible, but that was before I had an actual boyfriend to test the tips out on. Thank goodness I’d developed some critical thinking skills by the time I actually started dating.
    And the bit about rhinestone Tuesdays in the midwest? Tears in my eyes and red wine out my nose.

  15. Christine Merrill says:

    I’m sure my husbnad won’t mind if I mortgage the house and get that ring.  I’ll tell him it’s just like the Green Lantern’s power ring.  Only for regency writers.

  16. Anony Miss says:

    The Cosmo article made me insanely giggle in the middle of our highest-stress work day.

    So I am happy, if possibly on probation… 🙂

  17. JimLynch says:

    Loved the COSMO article.  Although in their defense (albeit slightly), it must be pretty rough having to come up with different wild & wonderful sex tips every friggin’ month, ad nauseum.

  18. Joanna S. says:

    As the writer of the article so brilliantly notes: “At its core, Cosmo is just a girl, standing in front of a boy, trying to figure what to do with his penis.”

    So true, good sir.  So. True!

  19. Camilla says:

    I gave up Cosmo in the 80’s after a headline to the effect of “Sex with your boss during office hours, good or bad?”
    Really???

  20. JimLynch says:

    BTW, The Onion did a brief article on this back in 1999:

    Bleary-Eyed Cosmopolitan Staffer Cranks Out 10 Billionth Way To Bring Out The Animal In Your Man
    January 13, 1999 | ISSUE 35•01

    NEW YORK—Cosmopolitan writer Melissa Rutherford achieved a journalistic milestone Tuesday, when she cranked out the magazine’s 10 billionth article revealing how to bring out the animal in your man. “Surprise him by greeting him after work in a sexy new red cocktail dress,” wrote the drained, numb Rutherford, who has advised Cosmopolitan readers how to bring out the animal in their men 135,285 times during her six-year tenure with the magazine. “If that doesn’t do the trick, tell him you left something in the kitchen, leave the room, and then come back in the altogether!” Upon completing the piece, Rutherford jumped out a 34th-story window.

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