You may have read Faulkner, but have you heard him?

I love his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech. It is so amazing.

William Faulkner reads his speech accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature,
which he was awarded in 1949. At the time this speech was given, the world had
just emerged from the chaos of the Second World War, and the threat of atomic
annihilation hung over humanity. Faulkner's faith in the human spirit, as
expressed in this speech, rejects in his way the horrors of the preceding
decade.

Recently I submitted a non fiction book proposal to an agent, thankfully not one of THESE agents:

20 Worst Agents List

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency*
Benedict Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc.
Capital Literary
Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
Harris Literary Agency
The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
-Children's Literary Agency
-Christian Literary Agency
-NewYork Literary Agency
-Poets Literary Agency
-The Screenplay Agency
-Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency, formerly Sydra-Techniques)
-Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Martin-McLean Literary Associates
Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
B.K. Nelson, Inc.
The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency, Simply
Nonfiction, and Michele Glance Rooney Literary Agency)
Southeast Literary Agency
Mark Sullivan Associates
West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

*One of these agents, Barbara Bauer, managed to get AbsoluteWrite.com shut down. She phoned the hosting service and screamed foul. And so their hosting service shut them down... funny, because suddenly one of the hosting service's employees started up her own writer resource web site the same day. Hmmmm..... Check out the story here and here.

For ALL the dirt, check out the Technorati Tag.

I picked up a new book this weekend, The Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families and I have to say, so far I am not impressed.

I am only a quarter of the way in, so it's a bit too soon to judge. So far, however, this is my take:

1. All the moms are writers (meaning they are Work at Home moms or Work Outside the Home moms... there are no 'Stay At Home' moms)
2. Out of all the essays I've read, the point has been: going to work is hard but saves your sanity and staying at home is hard and makes you a little dumb.
3. Most of the moms are highly paid career women before and after they have kids.
4. Most of the moms have high levels of education, live in major cities (Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles) and the only time finances are discussed are when they are talking about having 'their own' money... no one in this book worries about paying rent and putting food on the table.

What about the moms who hate work or have to work because they are single moms? What about the moms who revel in staying at home and feel they are achieving goals (like taking courses or volunteering...) what about the AVERAGE mom?

Just about every mom in the book - so far - is a writer, so there are interesting takes on juggling freelancing vs full time publishing jobs vs part time editorial positions...

I think it rates a 2.5 out of 5.