Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Of author blogs, writing contests, jilted journalists, and a J-school's flub

The fridge is overloaded, links are threatening to leak all over. Here goes:

• Follow along as (my friend) novelist Christina Baker Kline chronicles the year ahead as she writes a new historical novel, Orphan Train. Along the way, her upcoming novel Bird in Hand will hit the market, she'll teach in London and at Fordham's MFA program, and otherwise be her amazing self. She's a first-time (and already a first-rate) blogger. So go, visit!

• Gotham Writers' Workshop is holding a two day writing weekend, June 20-21, in Manhattan, at a very reasonable fee.

• Here's a thoughtful piece on writing contests, and oh yes, those contest fees.

• One estimate has it that nearly 15,000 folks have already been laid off, downsized, terminated, bought out, or otherwise thrown from the media train in the last year. This new site's title says it all: Jilted Journalist.

• I have "met" so many interesting writers and other literary types over on Twitter, many of whom have terrific blogs which I never would have found otherwise. I’m going to try to list at least one here each week, and I'll start with Blog of Innocence, where Lethe Bashar (find him on Twitter @blogofinnocence) shares "essays and meditations on social technology, science, writing, art, and life."

• I got my journalism degree at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, and have always been proud of that. But this week I couldn't agree more with Simon Dumenco's AdAge column drubbing the (relatively new) Dean of Newhouse for presenting the University's Lifetime Achievement Mirror Award to….wait for it…Arianna Huffington.

Yes, the same Arianna whose Huffington Post refuses to pay writers, who says that's "not our business model," and who instead insists that "visibility, promotion and distribution" are compensation enough.

If I were a parent paying $40,000 a year for an SU journalism education I'd want to ask: Why is my child's journalism school Dean more or less affirming the Huffington "business model" of not paying writers, by honoring its founder? And if I were a student there now, I'd want to know: Why is SU condoning the decimation of the very profession it is preparing me to enter?

• Since it is Friday, and I don't want to end on a sour note, here's another blog about a forthcoming memoir which pivots on the popular what-I-did-for-a-year theme. This one's The Happiness Project. The question is, can one woman get happy by following all the theories, suggestions, and advice out there?

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out

► Yes, it's a long way off. But the folks at Nonfiction Now/The Bedell Nonfiction Conference have announced their next date: November 4-6, 2010. Maybe by then the publishing/media/entire world will have rebounded enough so that we can all afford airfare to Iowa. And for those thinking of proposing a panel presentation – no excuses - now you have plenty of time to plan.

► Apparently, I'm a Flower Smeller, according to my blogger-writer friend at Exile on Ninth Street. Yikes, can it really have been almost a month since he said so? I'll be passing on the accolade here next week. Thanks to Todd, who apparently is not only a Flower Smeller himself, but a semi-famous one too.

► I'm intrigued by entrepreneurial journalists like those behind Spot.us, where writers suggest investigative pieces that think ought to be written, and site visitors vote with dollars to fund the project, so writers can get on with what they do best. I'm guessing we are going to be seeing more ventures of this kind, what with thousands of print journalists being pink-slipped, magazines dying by the dozen, newspapers disappearing, and the trend, unfortunately, likely to continue through a good chunk of 2009.

► Even the grey lady is (finally) getting linky. The New York Times homepage now has a (sort of hard to find) small square button which says "Try our EXTRA home page." Click it and you get an enhanced NYT home page, with lists of links to relevant stories from other sources. There are the likely, predictable suspects, such as the Weekly Standard, Washington Post, and Talking Points Memo, but many also from less obvious sites – today, for example, Hot Air TV, Half Sigma, even Gawker.

►Blood Dazzler, by my friend Patricia Smith was named one of the top five books of the year by NPR. Patricia's brand new (really new) blog is here.

►Following the advice of a (successful) writing coach friend, I've stuck a name on my next nonfiction workshop series, calling it: Resolve to Write in 09. For info, email: LisaRomeoWrites at gmail dot com.