I’ve been running a literary Q&A series over at Identity Theory. Here are some highlights:
Dan Chaon wants to be an assassin.
Nick Antosca’s favorite sentence is from Salter.
Julianna Baggott calls writing “the daily practice of empathy.”
Bethanne Patrick explains how literature reminds us of our common humanity.
Michelle Haimoff says “the point of writing is to make the controversial beautiful.”
Over at Identity Theory we posted a fiction piece by Bezalel Stern called “Election.” It feels like a parable.
We also have an essay Continue reading
HTML5, the Flash-killing web language of the future, won’t be set in stone until the W3C finalizes its specs in 2014, but it’s already been making an impact on the Web and in mobile devices for the past couple of years.
The following links provide helpful information on getting a start in HTML5 web development, from the history of HTML, to the basics of setting up a HTML5 site, to more advanced resources for the rapid deployment of websites that make full use of the possibilities of the language. Continue reading
I switched this blog to the default WordPress.org Twenty Eleven theme. Reasons include:
1. I want to update this blog more often.
2. I developed ill will toward the old design.
3. I want to learn how to expand and optimize the theme most popular among WordPress bloggers.
4. It looks better.
I relocated from Burlington, VT to Asheville, NC this month. Asheville is nearly twice as populated and receives on average 68 fewer inches of snow in the winter. Neither of those facts caused me to move here.
So far, my favorite places in the city include Malaprop’s Bookstore, French Broad Chocolate Lounge, and the Battery Park Book Exchange.
I am renting a house, in the south part of town, from a young lady who owns four cats but as far as I can ascertain is not crazy.
I am reading And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields. Finished Cat’s Cradle over Thanksgiving. So Vonnegut is on the brain. He said, in defending the straightforward writing style he developed during his brief career as a PR man and journalist, “The point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible.”
A recent NY Times article on refugee farming highlighted a couple of my web clients, the Association of Africans Living in Vermont and ISED Solutions, for their work in that aspect of refugee resettlement.
Also, photographer Ned Castle has been featured in the press for the second phase of his Highlow Project, including this interview with Vermont Public Radio’s Jane Lindholm.
My literary webzine, Identity Theory, relaunched recently with a minor redesign, which I put online for the purpose of generating new submissions while I redevelop the entire site.
The task of rebuilding Identity Theory from the ground up is daunting because there are so many old stories — ten years’ worth — that are difficult to transfer to a more high-powered content management system, not to mention that the site contains a handful of multi-author blogs, substantial “orphaned” content, and dozens of photo galleries. (I also worry about losing the search placement we’ve built up through eleven years of backlinks, though I have some faith in 301s.)