TSS: A few updates

I no longer set reading goals for myself because I tend not to work very hard to meet them.  The only one I really set last year and which I intend to continue in 2014 is to read more diversely.

I did not do a wrap-up post for the A More Diverse Universe blog tour this year.  Mostly because I didn't have much time to do so, but partly because there wasn't a ton of participation.  I was sad about that, though I suppose it was inevitable, given the very little time and resources I put against promoting it.

But I've been reading many other people's reading goals for 2014, and it's really warmed my heart to see that "read more diversely" has popped up on several people's goals for this new year.  Honestly, I can't tell you how wonderful that makes me feel.  I said on Amy's blog that I want #diversiverse to be more a lifestyle than a weekend, and it's true.  If that one weekend of low participation at least got on people's radar and made you think about how active you must be in your reading choices in order to read a diverse range of authors, then A More Diverse Universe was a success, and I'm so happy to have contributed at least a tiny amount to that (even if I can't really take any credit for it at all).  It makes me feel really good.  So thanks!

In other news, I have joined the Chicago Public Library Foundation's Junior Board!  I haven't been to any meetings yet, but I met with someone yesterday to talk about goals and plans for 2014, and I really think that I can use my experiences and thinking and passion to make the library an even stronger asset for this city, and make it a place that everyone feels welcome to visit.  I'm really excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to meeting new people and making a positive impact in a way that is meaningful to me.

It's Long Awaited Reads month!  I am reading a book from my shelves right now, Demobbed, as part of this event.  I am also REALLY HOPING that Wild Ones comes in for me at the library.  I suppose I haven't been waiting YEARS to read that one but I did request it from the library back in October after listening to the brilliant 99% Invisible podcast, and it has been "in transit" for over two weeks now and once I get it in my hands, it will feel like I've waited forever to read it.

I do also have many books out from the library at this time, so I'm not sure I'll get to any other long awaited reads in January, but considering the bitter cold and huge amounts of snow we've gotten recently, it may mean a lot more time spent inside reading, so who knows!

I have been doing many more audiobooks than podcasts in the past few weeks, so I don't have any new links to share with you on that front.  But rest assured that I will share with you what I like!

[TSS] Podcast Round-Up

First!  There's about one month left before the A More Diverse Universe tour starts.  Sign up here!   And, hey, if you want to talk about the event on your blog, too... please feel free :-)

I haven't had a podcast round-up for a while, and I thought I'd share just a couple that have resonated with me over the past few weeks.

TED Radio Hour - Identity:  I seem to be obsessed with identity this year.  What makes us feel like we belong and how much does a label hold us back?  I heard Elif Shafak's commentary right after I finished the book Americanah, by Chimamanda Adichie, and the contrast really struck me.  Adichie's novel feels like it's written in Adichie's voice - one of a Nigerian immigrant to America.  She talks about experiences she has had or that people close to her have had.  She writes what she knows, and she writes it very, very well.

Shafak is a Muslim woman who spends part of her time in Istanbul.  Some of her books are about Muslim women and some are not.  She talks about how restricted she feels when people tell her they are surprised and disappointed by the books she writes that do not feature strong female Muslim characters.  Why does she always have to write about them?  Why can't she write about white men?

This is something I've often thought about as I make more of an effort to read more diversely.  It's a always centered on being a person of color.  I don't know many books by Indian authors here that are not about the Indian immigrant experience or about Indian corruption.  Why can't we just have books about Indian detectives solving crimes?  I think there's a lot of pressure for people of certain backgrounds to write about those backgrounds, and it can be quite limiting.  Shafak's commentary was really good to hear.
little hard in the US to find books by people of color that are not

But I'm still super-thrilled that Adichie wrote Americanah because I think that is very valuable, too.

State of the Re:  Union - Portland:  A really great sub-story about putting in a bike lane in a city that is run by hipsters and therefore all about the bike lanes.  But this one causes a lot of strife for a small community of African-Americans and the way the city uses the situation as a learning experience is a great story to hear.

On the Media - My Detainment Story:  A truly horrifying story about an American citizen's family being stopped at the American border and just how badly they were treated.

[TSS] I'm blogging like it's my job, and I'm not sure if I'm good at my job

Last week, I wrote about the A More Diverse Universe blog tour coming in November! Then I did zero things to raise awareness around it.  Maybe a few tweets.  And, depressingly, only 15 people have signed up so far.  Well, that's not fair.  I said people could sign up via the Mr. Linky on the blog post (and I think if you are on Chrome, you may not even be able to see the Mr. Linky).  But no one needs to sign up because the event is far less structured than last year in the hopes that it will be quite easy to manage.  So maybe everyone plans to participate but just didn't want to deal with Mr. Linky? Fingers crossed that is the case :-)

I know that many people say this all the time and I am just repeating what has been said many times before, but seriously, blogging can be really hard sometimes.  It's difficult to do it well when you have other commitments in your life, and those commitments just keep getting bigger and take up more and more time.  So then you have less time to read and even less time to blog, and you sometimes feel annoyed that you are trying to catch up on blogging instead of doing so many other brilliant activities that you can't think of at the moment but are sure that you could do if you just had the time to spend doing them.  So then you blog, but maybe you don't put your heart into it, and you aren't sure if you are even doing it that well.  And I have enough of a Type A personality to not really want to do something if I can't do it well.

So how does that relate to A More Diverse Universe?  Well, I really want the event to happen again, and I want it to be great, but I also just do not have the time (though I hope I do have the heart) to put that much into it, and so I am not convinced that I am doing it well.  And in that case, is it worth me doing it?

Just to throw it out there, I am going to be really, really disappointed with myself if A More Diverse Universe tour is not at least as big (fine, let's be honest - bigger) than last year even though I said in last week's post that this year it's being done on the fly because there just isn't the bandwidth to do more.  And even though I know I just can't talk it up or hype it up or do as much for it as before.  I still want it to be huge and amazing and a small but important impetus for social change.  I just want it to do that with minimal help from me.  OR, I want to have enough time to work on A More Diverse Universe and make it a grand success without giving up all the other things that I could be doing with my time instead.

I realize this is completely illogical.  It makes no sense and puts a lot of pressure on me for no reason.  But when you spend a lot of time doing something - and that something takes time away from you doing other things - then you want to see some sort of pay-off.  And obviously there isn't a monetary pay-off, so I need SOMETHING.  Blogging is, in essence, our attempt to win friends and influence people.  You hope that what you say will somehow convince someone else to pick reading a book you recommend over doing something - over doing anything - else with that amount of time that they have available.  And big blogging events like A More Diverse Universe are asking for even more.  Now, you are no longer saying "read this book" but "read this type of book right now" and, if the event is truly a success, "read this type of book consistently for the rest of your life."  How do you convince someone you've never met to make a commitment to a cause that matters to you but not necessarily to her?  And what happens to your self-esteem when you judge your own success on your ability to do just that?

It's hard for me to think of blogging as a hobby.  I enjoy it, yes, but I also feel like it's an obligation I have - to myself, to other people, to the history of me having done this for eight years, to the authors I love, and to the books I want other people to read.  I approach blogging like it's a job that I have to do to get the result that I want: influence over people's reading choices.  And while that may take some of the fun and spontaneity out of blogging, it also drives me to put much more time and effort and thought into it than I otherwise would.  I need to know that it matter

It's easy to generally believe that your blog is important and people read it and think about what you say and will maybe read the books you recommend.  But it all becomes much more real when you host an event like A More Diverse Universe and hope desperately that people sign up and participate to prove to yourself that you count.  That when you speak, people listen.  It's like hosting a party and 30 minutes after the start time, no one has arrived, and you start to feel that panicky feeling in your gut that while people enjoy your company, no one wants to be the first one to arrive, and you didn't realize it until just now.

 I realize this post probably sounds quite needy and perhaps you think I am trying to guilt you into signing up for A More Diverse Universe.  I'm not.  (Um, but I think you should.  Obviously.  See entire post above.)  It just got me to thinking about how vulnerable we can be here in the digital world.  When do all of you feel most vulnerable while blogging and how do you deal with it?  And how do you feel about the idea of "doing something well or not doing it at all?"

[TSS] What I'm doing when I'm not reading

Has anyone read a book by Italian author Italo Calvino?  There was a Radiolab short featuring a story by him and I was completely enthralled by it.  I have just purchased a copy of Invisible Cities for my Kindle and I hope it's as captivating as I think it will be.

Here's a description of the story on the Radiolab website:

According to one theory, the moon formed when a Mars-sized chunk of rock collided with Earth. After the moon coalesced out of the debris from that impact, it was much closer to Earth than it is today. This idea is taken to it's fanciful limit in Italo Calvino's story "The Distance of the Moon" (from his collection Cosmicomics). The story, narrated by a character with the impossible-to-pronounce name Qfwfq, tells of a strange crew who jump between Earth and moon, and sometimes hover in the nether reaches of gravity between the two.

 And here's the podcast where you can listen to the story in full and perhaps become as enthralled as me.

It's fantastic and well worth the 40 minute investment.  Liev Schrieber is an amazing narrator.

If you want a shorter commitment, the below Dove video that compares how women describe themselves with how other people describe them has been making the round this week.  I'm really only posting it here for context, since you may have already seen it.  But I actually want you to click through to here.  Why?  It puts the whole video in fantastic context and really offers a lot of great insight.  Need a teaser to get you to click through?

And my primary problem with this Dove ad is that it’s not really challenging the message like it makes us feel like it is. It doesn’t really tell us that the definition of beauty is broader than we have been trained to think it is, and it doesn’t really tell us that fitting inside that definition isn’t the most important thing. It doesn’t really push back against the constant objectification of women. All it’s really saying is that you’re actually not quite as far off from the narrow definition as you might think that you are (if you look like the featured women, I guess).   -jazzy little drops 

See?  Pretty powerful commentary, isn't it?  So go ahead and click through.



And that's what I'm doing when I'm not reading! That is, besides gearing up for my sister's wedding, which is on SATURDAY!  Very exciting/stressful/emotional week coming up for me!

What about you?

[TSS] What I'm doing when I'm not reading

 It's been about a month since my last "What I'm doing when I'm not reading" post, so I thought I'd update all of you on my non-reading activities.  Perhaps I'll make this a monthly series!

As usual, one of the main things I've been doing when I'm not reading is listening to podcasts.  One of the more recent ones I've subscribed to is PRI's Science podcast.  It is not on very regularly (at least not over the past few months), but it's hosted by this awesome woman in Boston, Rhitu Chatterjee, and she finds stories from all over the world to share with her listeners.  My favorite story from the most recent podcast is about children in Kolkata slums who are taking action to bring positive change to their community.  They are going to be featured on a PBS documentary in June called The Revolutionary Optimists, which sounds fantastic.  Here's a little snippet of what they're doing:

Isn't it so cool?  I think so.

Chatterjee also did a documentary about changing gender roles in India, focusing on a 12-year-old tomboy in rural Rajasthan, Sarita.  Sarita is the youngest of three sisters and wishes desperately for a brother so that she can be certain her parents will be taken care of later in life.  There's a full article and podcast about Sarita here, but below is a video of her life in her own words and pictures. 

She's a very charismatic kid!

And that's what I'm doing when I'm not reading - what about you?

TSS: What I'm doing when I'm not reading

Well, everyone, I've been doing many things with my life recently, but reading is not one of them.  I don't have many more posts scheduled at all!  But there is more to life than reading, I must say, and there have been some pretty amazing things I've come across this week that I would like to share with you.  So, if you don't mind this interlude (which may easily become a regular posting on this blog), here are the things that I've been doing that are not reading:

For those of you who read and loved Nothing to Envy, about life in North Korea, I think you'll be interested to know about a new documentary out called Defector.  It has an absolutely amazing website, too, telling the story of a real woman's escape from the country.  I could easily spend an hour on this site.  I am looking forward to seeing this movie, too, though it isn't yet available for download.

This American Life has a two-part series about Harper High School, a Chicago school that has dealt with more gun violence, more regularly, than any school should have to.  The first half of the series aired last week and the second half airs today.  It was such a powerful story that really brings the personal impact of violence to light, and makes the gang members and police officers so much more human and relate-able than most stories about guns do.  I highly recommend a listen.  I know it's a big time commitment, but it's so compelling and beautifully told I think it is well worth the time.

The PBS series Makers:  Women Who Make America starts this week!  I am so excited about this.  I hope all those people who showered love and viewership on PBS during Downton Abbey will now transfer their love to PBS' other amazing programming, such as series like this.  Just this trailer gives me shivers!

Watch MAKERS: Women Who Make America Trailer on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.

And that's what I'm doing when I'm not reading!  What about you?

[TSS] On the Soapbox: Being a Book Snob

I attended my first real book club meeting this past week.  We discussed Gone Girl, though we didn't really discuss Gone Girl much at all.  That was fine with me.  I have all of you to discuss books with and I don't really need a book club to fill that void.  It was fun to sit and drink wine and chat about life and gossip about work.

When I voiced my thoughts on Gone Girl, I said that I thought both the husband and the wife were insane and defended my reasons for thinking the guy was just as horrible as the woman.  People seemed to think I was really "anti" the guy.  (This is true.  I was.  I was "anti" both main characters in this book.)  I said that I don't read books like Gone Girl very often, and then later in conversation said that I hadn't liked the book The Pillars of the Earth, which another girl loved.  And then somehow it was decided that I was a book snob.

Then it came time to pick next month's book.  I didn't put forward any suggestions, mostly because it was only my second book club meeting and because I was sensitive to being considered a snob.  I didn't want to come up with a book suggestion that was completely out of the range of scope.  As the conversation continued, I was relieved that I hadn't made any suggestions because I came to realize that almost any book I would have suggested would probably have fallen out of scope. 

Someone came up with two suggestions, both non-fiction.  Both received a lukewarm reception because many girls just "don't really like non-fiction.  Someone else said that she'd be up to read a classic.  And that was shot down because people "don't want to read a difficult book."  And then there were a few more suggestions, but nothing really was decided.

And this is what bothers me so much.  Yes, I'm a book snob.  I will most definitely judge you if you tell me that your favorite book is Twilight or that you only read young adult dystopian fiction or that you really like to read light chick lit and nothing else.  I'm sorry, that's just the way I am.  I will also judge you if you tell me your favorite restaurant is Chipotle.  There are some things that matter to me a lot, and food and books are two of them.  You have your stuff, too, I'm sure.  You can judge me for my horrible taste in music and the amount of time it takes me to see the movies everyone else has already seen and my inability to finish a beer while it's still cold.

Snobbishness exists in many forms.  But you know what?  I don't think I was the only book snob in that room.  If you  make such blanket statements as "I don't like non-fiction" or "I don't want to read anything too difficult" or "That book sounds a little too deep for me," then you are a book snob, too.  At least I was open enough to try reading something out of my comfort zone.  No, I generally don't read thrillers, but I did read the thriller you chose for book club.  If you completely rule out all non-fiction (which is as arbitrary as ruling out all books that have red covers),

and then also rule out all classics (which is as arbitrary as ruling out all books that have blue covers), then I am not sure what makes me a snob and you normal.  It sounds to me as though you have your own preconceptions that you aren't willing to challenge.

I still don't know what our next book club pick will be.  I am pretty sure, though, that I'll attend more for the wine and gossip than for the book discussion.  And confine all of my passionate reactions to books for all of you :-)

TSS: The Forgotten Pleasures of Browsing

I am not sure when or how it happened, but some time after becoming a book blogger, I stopped being a book browser.  I would go to the library and the bookstore and book fairs and Amazon armed with a wish list and look for specific authors and titles that I have been wanting for months.  And I would feel so thrilled to get a book that I wanted - it was like a treasure hunt and I was always shocked to find that a book so high up on my wish list was, for some unknown reason, not high up on anyone else's, and it felt so wonderful to find a book waiting for me like a gift.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot about the pleasure of walking slowly down a library aisle, looking at so many titles of books, pulling one down from the shelf, and deciding that it was one I wanted to take home with me.  I forgot about opening up a book I know nothing about and realizing that I can get just as immersed in that one as I can in all those other books that my friends keep telling me to read.  I forgot about how calming it can be to go into a bookstore without an agenda, just open to finding something that appeals to you.

I forgot that I found one of my absolute favorite authors - Georgette Heyer herself - by browsing the shelves of a library and picking a book that I thought I'd like.

Most of the books and authors I love - The Book Thief, Terry Pratchett, the Marcus Didius Falco series, Diana Wynne Jones - have been recommended to me by other people.  But some of them I found on my own, just by meandering down the aisles and reading book jackets.

I didn't realize until recently just how much I miss that feeling.  This year, I very firmly set no reading goals for myself, but decided to just read what I wanted to read, when I wanted to read it.  And I did.  So instead of forcing myself to read only from my bookshelf (which would be a very worthy goal, I admit), I allowed myself to read what I wanted from my shelf and supplement it with other books.  I went to the University of Michigan's browsing collection in the Undergrad library and read my first Jo Walton book.  I looked through Project Gutenberg's offerings and found a hidden gem no one I knew had ever read.  I availed myself of the Chicago Public Library's extensive audiobook download collection and listened to a story I have had on my radar for a while but never had the motivation to read.  I went to the book store and discovered a fun and entertaining comic series that I'd never heard of before.

The result is one of my most varied and successful reading years in memory.  No, I haven't loved every book that I've read, but I've loved the flexibility that I gave myself to read what I want.  I love going to the library and just wandering around until something jumps out at me.  I love ignoring my TBR list, and picking books by authors that I enjoy but whose books weren't necessarily at the top of my list.  I don't need to read only the book that I want the MOST, I can read the book that I want RIGHT NOW.  It seems simple, but it's not.  With so much choice, and so many recommendations, and so little time, we can so easily put ourselves on a schedule or force ourselves to follow rules that don't always make us happy.

If there is one thing about book blogging that I regret, it's this loss of spontaneity - there's always the thought at the back of your mind about how quickly you can review a book or how recently you reviewed another like it or how likely your followers are to be interested in one book vs. the other option.  But the joy of reading exists not only in the act of reading itself - it is there in the anticipation you feel when you go to a bookstore, the affinity you feel when you are introduced to the main character, the thrill you feel when you realize that a book is really, really good.  The excitement of finding a book that no one else in your circle has ever encountered before.

And, for me, much of that joy has come about through browsing shelves and websites and catalogs that I haven't for a very long time, welcoming authors and characters and books to my life that would otherwise have consistently been de-prioritized in my reading queue.  Because now I know Miles Vorkosigan, have met Terry Pratchett's Dodger, understand much more the court cases leading up to Brown vs. Board of Education, and why so many people love Dorothy Sayers.  And I don't know if I'd ever have given them the benefit of the doubt if I didn't allow myself the freedom to leave my wish list and TBR list at home once in a while.

Do you still treat yourself to aimless browsing?  What books have you discovered this way?

[TSS]: Books and Movies

It has been a long while since I've put up a Sunday Salon post, but I have some miscellany I'd like to share with you all, and this is the perfect venue for it!

I recently started watching POV (Point of View) on PBS.  It's a series of independent documentary films.  It's really, really good!  Has everyone been watching this series and not telling me about it?!  I have seen two episodes so far - one about a very conservative Muslim woman in Syria who is working to educate and empower girls through the Qu'ran, and one about Navajo high school students who want to go to college and get off the reservation but struggle to do so because of a whole host of difficulties.  They were both very, very interesting to watch, and I highly recommend tuning into the series if you live in the US.  Up Heartbreak Hill will make your eyes water, probably, but the GOOD kind of eye-watering.  It's so, so good.  I never knew a teenage guy with a massive pink mohawk could be so eloquent.  With all the garbage that comes to us through the airwaves, it's important that we remember those people who bring us quality programming and expand our understanding of the world.  This series is very powerful - watch it!

This weekend is the Newberry Library's Annual Book Sale!  I usually volunteer at this event, but I did not this year.  Instead, I went as a member of the public and was very efficient with my visit there, if I may say so.  I was there for less than an hour, but picked up seven books for only $11!  AND just to sweeten the deal even more, FOUR of those seven books were ones that were already on my wish list!  I don't usually share my book hauls, but here's the list:

The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis - SO excited to have found this one on the shelf!  I have had plans to read this one with Marg for quite a while, so I'm glad to now have it on my shelf so that I'm ready for it.

The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson - I really enjoyed The True Deceiver, so I'm excited to read a book that's so different in tone by the same author.

A Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest Gaines - A more recent addition to my wish list about a murder in the Deep South in the 1970s.  Very excited to read it as it comes highly, highly recommended by Jill.  This will probably be the first one I pick up of the seven here.

Blood & Thunder:  The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, by Hampton Sides - I read Lions of the West with Kari recently and we both wanted to delve more deeply into frontier history, so here we go!

Two Old Women, by Velma Willis - A folk tale about two old Alaskan women who are forced to fend for themselves in the wilderness.  Sounds like a fun, quick read, and one I'm glad to have found as I try to read more diversely.

Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier - EVERYONE IN BLOGOSPHERE loves du Maurier and I've never read her!  I found an uh-mazing vintage edition of this novel and had to pick it up.

Elyza, by Clare Darcy - I like this author's light-hearted Regency romances, even if they aren't always exactly historically accurate.  This one gets high ratings, but I've never found it in a library, so I'm excited to have grabbed this one!

As for what I'm reading at the moment, I am sloughing my way through a few books.  That isn't really fair to say, though, as I'm very interested in all of them.  I am very annoyed by my inability to download and listen to most audiobooks through the library now as my laptop has completely crashed and my iTunes refuses to let me download audiobooks books without wiping out my entire current library.  (How is this possible?!)  Therefore, I am forced to only download books directly to my phone via the OverDrive app, and the app only lets you download MP3 files, not the .WMA files that most books appear to be.  ALSO, the app does not let you listen at 2X speed, so I constantly feel like I am listening to such a slow story when I could be all the way done by now.  Clearly, I need to learn patience.

I am currently listening to The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold on audiobook, the first in her science fiction Vorkosigan series (well, technically the second, but the first that features Miles as the protagonist).  It's very good, but the OverDrive app is really annoying in where it starts and stops so I often find that I've been listening to the same part twice and only realize it maybe 5-10 minutes after I've started (this says a lot about my attention span). So that is upsetting.  But the book is very good!

I'm also STILL reading A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth.  Only about 370 pages to go now, though!  Woohoo :-)  I try to ignore the fact that 370 pages is the length of a good-sized novel, and be proud of the fact that I am 75% of the way done!  I am absolutely committed to finishing the book, but I don't think I will try any more Vikram Seth for at least a few years.  I enjoy his writing style and his characters and the plot, but WHY DOES IT TAKE 1500 PAGES TO TELL A STORY?  I feel this is unreasonable.  Also, 1500 pages of very small font, so it's really like, 1800 pages.  I keep reading and reading and reading and never feel that I am making much progress.  I also feel like, 1121 pages into a book, you should be more than 75% of the way through.  BUT I AM NOT.  Sigh.

I also started Nothing to Envy this week, about people who have escaped from North Korea.  It came highly recommended in the comments of my review of Pyongyang, and I'm so glad you all told me about it!  I'm really liking the narrative style, and I'm glad I was able to pull it into my reading queue so quickly after reading De Lisle's book.  Demick has a much more sympathetic tone than De Lisle did.

And that's all for me!  What are you reading this week?

[TSS] Which author defines your growth as a reader?

Like most of you, I've been reading for years and years, quite happily.  But I don't know that I evolved much as a reader until high school, and it's only now that I'm really willing to try many new books and stories and can tell how reading certain things has changed my mindset and my perspective on the world.

I read one of Georgette Heyer's mysteries, A Blunt Instrument, this past week, and I think my relationship with her as an author really personifies the way that I have grown and matured as a reader.  This is mainly because she's an author I've read so steadily for so long.  I read my first Georgette Heyer novel, The Nonesuch, when I was a junior in high school.  I am still making my way through her extensive catalog today.

[TSS] Musings: Letters on an Elk Hunt

Just kidding!  My review on Letters of an Elk Hunt (the sequel to one of my favorite reads last year, Letters of a Woman Homesteader) is over at the fabulous Project Gutenberg Project blog, where we review public domain books available for free via the Project Gutenberg website.  I hope you'll make the short trip over there via click and read my review and those of the other contributors, too- and download a book or two!

About the Project Gutenberg Project blog:

“started with the goal of making public domain titles from sites such as Project Gutenberg and Librivox more accessible. Although a great resource, Project Gutenberg doesn’t currently categorize books by topic or genre, so it’s difficult to find obscure gems. Solution: research, discussion, and reviews!”

Other regular contributors are:  Iris, Alexandra, Chris, Lu, Meghan, Nymeth, and Tasha.  We accept contributions from everyone, though, so feel free to submit a guest post!