Carrie wrote a really powerful and touching essay for the journal Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts about her experience being read to as a child while recovering from painful surgeries:
This is the true story of how I journeyed through an interstitial world, and how that journey transformed me. It’s also the story of how fiction saved me. Some of these memories are confused and some may be entirely false, but they are the memories I carry, and so I call them true.
When I was a little girl, I had three operations that required fairly long hospitalizations. These surgeries took place when I was ten, eleven, and twelve. After each operation, I lay for days in a space that was entirely detached from the rest of the world. To soothe me and to fill the hours, my mother read to me. Some of my most vivid, and yet least reliable, childhood memories are of drifting into a morphine-induced sleep as her voice went farther and father away from my conscious mind and her stories became my dreams. I spent my time floating between reality and fantasy, in a place that was both part of and removed from the world.
We (Elyse, RedHeadedGirl, Amanda and I) read this essay in an early draft, and I’m so proud and excited to see it published. Congrats and well done, Carrie.
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Scribd has announced the addition of 30,000 audiobooks to it’s $8.99/month subscription plan:
Scribd made its $8.99-per-month ebook subscription a better deal Wednesday by adding 30,000 digital audiobooks to the package. The move helps Scribd stand out from rival services Oyster and Kindle Unlimited and could attract new users who previously used services like the Amazon-owned Audible. Scribd’s service already included around 500,000 ebooks.
Audiobooks are “a natural extension of Scribd’s existing content offering,” CEO Trip Adler said. “This has been one of our most popular requests.”
Elyse reviewed Scribd and disliked the search mechanism, but Angie James in a recent podcast had a lot of complimentary things to say about the features offered.
The addition of audiobooks makes me very curious. What about you? Have you tried Scribd? Are you more interested now that there’s audio content?
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From Carrie: the award for Best Use of Princess Bride Images this week (it has to be a weekly award, obviously) goes to Mary Robinette Kowal, who has a short answer to men who ask if her books are romances, because they don’t read romance.
Well played, ma’am. Well played.
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Maya Rodale is doing research for an upcoming book, Dangerous Books for Girls, about the romance and the women who read it. She has a survey up for romance readers, and would welcome your opinion and input, if you are so inclined.
ETA — Heads up: folks have reported that the survey is VERY long, and could take upwards of an hour. My apologies on that one for not specifying the time commitment involved. My bad.
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From Peggy, a Most Excellent Librarian, comes this very cool collection: the Maine State Library has published online a collection of letters from author Emilie Loring. Peggy says,
Talk about going way old school. I read all of Loring’s books when I was a teenager. She was probably the first romance writer I completely devoured.
Did you read Emilie Loring’s books, too?
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There are many excellent resources for cosplay online, and especially on Etsy. But from James L. comes this link to Castle Corsetry, where there are comic corsets and waist cinchers, and nerd corsets, too.
Oh, the temptation.
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And finally, I’m starting up the collection of ideas for the 2014 Gift Guide, wherein I post all sorts of gifty type ideas for readers you know and love, and you get really annoyed with me or maybe send links to people saying, ‘THIS RIGHT THERE THIS IS WHAT I WOULD LIKE.’ Either way, if you have suggestions for gifts for the 2014 Gift Guide, or maybe you have a spiffy online store of readerly-awesomeness you would like to share, please email me. I’d love to hear from you!
Carrie, what a beautiful story! Such a reminder for us to look at each others heart, because that is where the REAL person lives. Blessings on you for sharing this story of your life.
I have tried ScribD and liked it, but I only have it on my iPad. I have been trying to get away from reading books on the iPad or my iPhone because of the amount of time I spend on backlit screens at work. My eyes are paying the price. So for regular books, I gravitate towards my kindle. So the audio book addition to ScribD would be an interesting feature to me. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, purchased through audible.com…
Carrie, I was touched beyond words by your essay. I can’t do it or your journey any justice with more words of my own, so I’ll leave with “Thank you.”
@Michelle and Darlynne – thank you so much, you guys! And thanks to Sarah for posting the link!
Thank you for the wonderful essay Carrie. As someone who spent a lot of time in the hospital as a child, you really touched my inner self. When I tell you I am never without a copy of “The Original Mother Goose” illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright (as I was a much younger child), you’ll totally understand the comfort it gives me.
I started taking that survey. It is LONG!!!! I’m on question 43 and there is no end in sight. I want to stop now, but I’m afraid the answers I’ve already given will be lost. This has already taken about 45 minutes. That survey is not for those who have other things to do.
Just FYI, guys, the survey is hella long and will take more than a few minutes. It took me about an hour and a half, but it is late and I’m a bit long winded.
[…] Book linkity from Smart Bitches. […]
@Kelly & RJ:
My apologies – I should have indicated the time commitment involved, and I apologize that I didn’t. I’m sorry about that.
Beautiful essay CarrieS. Thanks for writing it.
I also started the survey yesterday and eventually had to abandon it well before completion.
In general terms, and this is addressed to those of the Bitchery who understand surveys better than I do, it seems that so many free form answers (Tell me more!) would undermine any specific results being sought. In other words: Yes/No and ABCD can be quantified, right? But how would one evaluate answers that, by their nature, are all over the map?
I don’t really expect a response to this, but I kept wondering how effective a survey like this could be.
I made the mistake of starting the survey on my iPad the other day. I persevered to the end, but I felt like I didn’t give the answers that I would have liked to if it had been easier to type. It is soooo looooooong.
@Darlynne I think it is because the survey creator is writing a book that the “Tell me more” provides her with fuel for the writing & possible anecdotes.
I did finish the survey & it was late & I got shorter winded as it went & told her less. It was past my bedtime, which is around midnight. So, if you’re going to be helpful, plan at least an hour possible 90 min to complete. There should have been rewards for doing this.
@SBSarah Did you know it was long? Regardless, apology accepted. Just wanted to warn others.
I filled all the survey and I hope it will be helpful! I actually had a lot of fun answering it.
CarrieS: thanks so much for sharing that! I’m overwhelmed.