Saturday Notes

I interviewed the fabulous Cecilia Woloch yesterday for an upcoming feature in Ouroboros Review. Her new collection, Carpathia, is out now and I'll be doing a review here on Modern Confessional soon. Cecilia will be in Atlanta in October for the annual Voices Carry reading and a fun Atlanta Queer Literary Festival fundraising event called "I See Straight People." More details on both of these soon.

Thanks to everyone who has bought Conquering Venus. I hope you're enjoying it! If you have time, please write a review on Amazon.com, BN.com or other online point of purchase. Even if you bought it directly from a bookstore, you can still put up reviews. I'm also trying to get reviews and press in other magazines, journals and online, so if anyone has a suggestion, please leave a comment. There's also a photo essay of inspirations for the novel at the book blog at this link.

I was absolutely outraged that Scotland let the terrorist who blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie go on "compassionate grounds" because he's dying of cancer. He should have died in prison. Instead, he goes home to Libya to a hero's welcome and to say goodbye to his family. The people on flight 103 and those who died on the ground didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye, so why should this madman? Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill should resign and if it comes to light that the UK made a deal with Libya for trade and oil in exchange for his release, they should all be removed from office. Of course, even if that proves to be true, nothing will happen. Just like here in America with the revelations of Bush-era shenanigans, including raising terror alerts before the 2004 election to scare the public, no one will ever be punished.