Bird’s Eye: If you’re around Toronto, join a flash mob this Tuesday! An abortion clinic fights back when the landlord’s children start becoming targets. Mary Robinette found that the first line of her new book had been dropped, and protested by running a contest on her blog post in which you identify famous books by their second lines. (Your editor got 90%, and felt very pleased.) The result was her blog has gotten huge publicity, and her “disaster” has sold way more books than a regular release. When life gives you sars, make sarsaparilla.
* Cut Military Spending; Fund Human Needs Flash Mob Plan
At 5 pm, Tuesday April 17, be at the NW corner of Dundas Square in Toronto. (Bring NO PROPS, please!)
a) at the sound of the first whistle, begin PANTOMIMING shooting a machine gun into the air. Continue until:
b) at the sound of the second whistle, break the imaginary gun over your knee, throw it to the ground and begin stomping on it. Continue until:
c) the sound of the third whistle. Stop and walk away.
This performance will be repeated at 5:30 pm at the north food court of Eaton Centre.
(to find the food court, go down escalators inside the Eaton Centre entrance at the NE corner of Dundas and Yonge.)
The performance will be repeated at 6 pm at the NE corner of Bay and Queen Streets (at the old City Hall.)
Any questions? Email Metta Spencer
* A Clinic’s Landlord Turns The Tables On Anti-Abortion Protesters Washington Post
The abortion conflict has become a way of life for Stave. He’s not just a landlord. The clinic was operated by his father, who was a doctor. Then his sister managed it. “I’ve been a member of this fight since Roe v. Wade, since I was 5 years old,” he said. The office was firebombed when he was a kid, and protesters gathered outside the family home as he was growing up. So he’s no stranger to the harassment and bullying of doctors and their families.
…But his tormentors crossed the line last fall when a big group showed up at his daughter’s middle school on the first day of classes and again at back-to-school night. They had signs displaying his name and contact information as well as those gory images of the fetuses….Soon after that, the harassing calls started coming to his home. By the dozens, at all hours. Friends asked him how they could help. He began to take down the names and phone numbers of people who made unwanted calls. And he gave the information to his friends and asked them to call these folks back.
“In a very calm, very respectful voice, they said that the Stave family thanks you for your prayers,” he said. “They cannot terminate the lease, and they do not want to. They support women’s rights.” This started with a dozen or so friends, and then it grew. Soon, more than a thousand volunteers were dialing. If they could find the information, Stave’s supporters would ask during the callbacks how the children in the family were doing and mention their names and the names of their schools. “And then,” Stave said, “we’d tell them that we bless their home on such and such street,” giving the address. The family of a protester who called Stave’s home could get up to 5,000 calls in return.
* What Happened To My Novel’s First Sentence? Mary Robinette Kowal
We talk a lot about how important the first line in a novel is. Everyone knows the famous ones, like “Call me Ishmael.”
Imagine what would happen if the unthinkable occurred. What if the first line were accidentally omitted by the typesetter? Would Moby Dick have been the same if it started, ”Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.” I’ve got a quiz for you to try your hand at identifying ten famous books by their second lines.
It turns out, that in most cases, it’s not always as devastating as one would think. The books are still recognizable and the story is intact. That’s good. That’s very reassuring.
Because that’s what has happened to Glamour in Glass
.
When my novel comes out tomorrow, it will be missing the first line. We don’t know how it happened yet, since the last time my editor and I looked at it, the sentence was there. Somehow, that sentence got omitted between here and the printer. The electronic version is being corrected and future editions will have that line, but for now… there are some collector’s editions out there.


