For those of you in search of agents...

This was in this morning's Publishers Lunch (which you should subscribe to if you're in the category above):

Amy Jameson has left Janklow & Nesbit, where she worked for almost seven years, to start her own agency, A+B Works. She will represent children's literature, with a focus on young adult fiction, as well as books for adults.

I don't know anything about her, but agents with experience who are just starting their own agency are good prospects for writers in search of representation: they're unlikely to be frauds or totally incompetent, they're eager to prove themselves, they need the money that comes with sales, and best of all, they're looking for clients.

For those of you in search of agents...

This was in this morning's Publishers Lunch (which you should subscribe to if you're in the category above):

Amy Jameson has left Janklow & Nesbit, where she worked for almost seven years, to start her own agency, A+B Works. She will represent children's literature, with a focus on young adult fiction, as well as books for adults.

I don't know anything about her, but agents with experience who are just starting their own agency are good prospects for writers in search of representation: they're unlikely to be frauds or totally incompetent, they're eager to prove themselves, they need the money that comes with sales, and best of all, they're looking for clients.

Big Brother is Watching your Livejournal

This woman got a visit from the Secret Service over an anti-Bush comment in her journal.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html

I don't usually make political posts here, and it's mostly because the vast majority of my readers detest Bush as much as I do, and the ones who are planning to vote for him are not going to be swayed by anything like, say, FOUR HUNDRED TONS of explosives, a half pound of which is sufficient to blow up an airplane and which are undetectable by most security devices and which may well have killed a number of Iraqi civilians and American soldiers already, going missing due to his failure to secure a site which he was repeatedly warned by the IAEA to secure. Oh no. Their minds are made up. The facts will not convince them, and me pointing out the facts will not convince them, so why bother?

But there's another reason. I get so angry when I think of all the unnecessary deaths Bush has caused-- Americans dying for lack of health insurance, American soldiers dying who would be alive if he hadn't decided to up and go to war with a country that was no threat to us, Iraqi civilians dying who, even if one could make the rather Jesuitical claim that Saddam Hussein would have killed some of them even if we hadn't, at least then their families would be enraged at him rather than us, and perhaps three thousand people who might not have died on 9/11 if Bush had paid attention to the August memo entitled "Al Quaeda Determined to Strike in America"--

That it's possible that I might say something that expresses my anger. And I know the Feds are watching. Maybe not my particular journal at any particular time, but they're watching. And now that even US citizens can be stripped of their rights, held indefinitely with trial, legal representation, bail, or communication with the outside world, when the Bush administration is pushing to make torture legal--

I don't want to get a visit from those guys. I don't want them watching me more closely than they already am.

I don't think I'm a coward. But the other day I was listening to a Sondheim musical, and I reflected on how much sympathy I'd always felt for the character Czolgocz, who was not a lunatic but an idealist, and I thought (purely hypothetically), but I thought... stuff. Which I considered posting. It wouldn't have been a ranting entry, it would have been about how reasonable people can be pushed into reconsidering their most deeply held beliefs, and I would have related it to those time-travel stories where people try to kill Hitler as a baby, and I would have wondered, purely and totally hypothetically because I would never ever ever do anything like that or encourage anyone else to, still--

Well, I decided not to post it. Because someone might be watching. And while I think it's totally reasonable to investigate what might be a real threat, there is now sometimes no defense for the innocent, no trials, no rights. You think it only happens to non-citizens? To Muslims? To people at the wrong place saying the wrong things at the wrong time... Oh, wait, that would be me.

Is this really the kind of government we want?

Big Brother is Watching your Livejournal

This woman got a visit from the Secret Service over an anti-Bush comment in her journal.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/anniesj/331112.html

I don't usually make political posts here, and it's mostly because the vast majority of my readers detest Bush as much as I do, and the ones who are planning to vote for him are not going to be swayed by anything like, say, FOUR HUNDRED TONS of explosives, a half pound of which is sufficient to blow up an airplane and which are undetectable by most security devices and which may well have killed a number of Iraqi civilians and American soldiers already, going missing due to his failure to secure a site which he was repeatedly warned by the IAEA to secure. Oh no. Their minds are made up. The facts will not convince them, and me pointing out the facts will not convince them, so why bother?

But there's another reason. I get so angry when I think of all the unnecessary deaths Bush has caused-- Americans dying for lack of health insurance, American soldiers dying who would be alive if he hadn't decided to up and go to war with a country that was no threat to us, Iraqi civilians dying who, even if one could make the rather Jesuitical claim that Saddam Hussein would have killed some of them even if we hadn't, at least then their families would be enraged at him rather than us, and perhaps three thousand people who might not have died on 9/11 if Bush had paid attention to the August memo entitled "Al Quaeda Determined to Strike in America"--

That it's possible that I might say something that expresses my anger. And I know the Feds are watching. Maybe not my particular journal at any particular time, but they're watching. And now that even US citizens can be stripped of their rights, held indefinitely with trial, legal representation, bail, or communication with the outside world, when the Bush administration is pushing to make torture legal--

I don't want to get a visit from those guys. I don't want them watching me more closely than they already am.

I don't think I'm a coward. But the other day I was listening to a Sondheim musical, and I reflected on how much sympathy I'd always felt for the character Czolgocz, who was not a lunatic but an idealist, and I thought (purely hypothetically), but I thought... stuff. Which I considered posting. It wouldn't have been a ranting entry, it would have been about how reasonable people can be pushed into reconsidering their most deeply held beliefs, and I would have related it to those time-travel stories where people try to kill Hitler as a baby, and I would have wondered, purely and totally hypothetically because I would never ever ever do anything like that or encourage anyone else to, still--

Well, I decided not to post it. Because someone might be watching. And while I think it's totally reasonable to investigate what might be a real threat, there is now sometimes no defense for the innocent, no trials, no rights. You think it only happens to non-citizens? To Muslims? To people at the wrong place saying the wrong things at the wrong time... Oh, wait, that would be me.

Is this really the kind of government we want?

Come along, follow me

I just made a donation to Election Protection, which is sponsoring poll monitors to ensure that voters are not intimidated or tricked into not voting. Yes, I am infuriated that we have to do this. Yes, it does very much remind me of my childhood in a third-world country where voter intimidation, election fraud, and outright violence was just the way elections went. But at least I can do my best to fight back.

http://www.electionprotection2004.org/

Election Protection is non-partisan. You can volunteer (or donate-- they seem to have enough volunteers now) regardless of party affiliation.

Come along, follow me

I just made a donation to Election Protection, which is sponsoring poll monitors to ensure that voters are not intimidated or tricked into not voting. Yes, I am infuriated that we have to do this. Yes, it does very much remind me of my childhood in a third-world country where voter intimidation, election fraud, and outright violence was just the way elections went. But at least I can do my best to fight back.

http://www.electionprotection2004.org/

Election Protection is non-partisan. You can volunteer (or donate-- they seem to have enough volunteers now) regardless of party affiliation.