A couple of links

- The Publishing Contrarian has a cranky and contrarian post about book reviewers. More on this post when I have a chance.

- Be sure to check out the latest edition of Open Letters Monthly. I am particularly interested in this article in which Sam Sacks laments the great divorce of Christianity from literature.

- I am not hip to all of this social networking going on via the Internets, but I am told it is quite popular. One such site is Gather.com which bills itself as

a free social networking website where members can find and share the best user-created content online. Gather.com members are rewarded for their participation with Gather Points™, or even cash for top contributors.

They are in the midst of a First Chapters Writing Competition which will "launch the career of one talented Gather member and introduce many others to the industry." More information is available here. If this strikes you as some sort of marketing scam feel free to ignore it. If, however, you enjoy this sort of thing (social networking, contests, etc.) please do check it out.