THE WFC BOOK EDITORIAL COMMITTEE has completed its deliberations, and by now everyone who ever submitted a story to a WFC (and owned up to it) should have a PM in their Husi inbox. I know a few people have already said "sure, no problem" either in an earlier round of PMs or in a comment to a diary, but this is just to make it clear what you're agreeing to and so I have things all in one place. It also serves as your official notification of which stories were chosen to be included. It is a form letter, for which I apologize, and the tone is a little formal, but I thought I'd summarize things quickly once again, just in case there's anyone who hasn't been following these diaries with rapt attention and absorbing every word into the very fibre of their being.

Two notes:

1. Not to get too into legal technicalities, but it goes without saying that by giving permission for something of yours (whether a story or a cover image) to be included, you warrant that it's yours to give, i.e., you didn't rip someone else off, right? OK.
2. When I say there'll be a chance to see it before it's printed, that means it'll be made available and a reasonable period given for review. I can't wait for an OK from everyone before going forward, so you'll have to either watch this space for the announcement, or else trust me not to screw things up too badly.

One more thing: If I don't hear from authors before the April 30 deadline I'll assume I can't use their stories, but if you're a WFC writer and definitely don't want me to use your stor[y|ies] for any reason, I'd appreciate if you could drop me a quick note to let me know before that if possible (you do not have to tell me the reason, it just makes my life easier the earlier I know).

Also, to that end, there are a few WFC participants who may not frequent this fair site very much anymore, so if you know anyone on the list below who fits that description and have a way of getting in touch with them outside of Husi, please let them know that they've got a PM waiting:

Participants in Writing Fun Challenges One through Five:
2 plus 3 equals 5
256
aethucyn
ana
aphrael
blixco
BlueOregon
cam
CheeseburgerBrown
CRwM
dakini
Driusan
DullTrev
fleece
The Fool
georgeha
greyrat
Herring
hulver
joh3n
Kellnerin
Merekat
misslake
MissTrish
mns
paperdoll
Pasofol
persimmon
randomxs
rmg
Scrymarch
StarRunner
toxicfur
TPD
ucblockhead
yicky yacky
zarathus

Wow, that's a lot of people, who all rock for submitting something of theirs for the general consumption/criticism/admiration of the Husi community. I dunno about you, but I think that's pretty cool.

Also, if you are on the list and did not get a PM, please yell at me. Or if you got a PM but it was obviously not the right one -- for instance, it was asking you for permission to print "The Man in the 20th-Century House," which you would not have gotten, since even I do not engage in PM conversations with myself, but just as an example -- then give a holler as well.

Some of you have already replied, which is awesome. Since the PM system is a bit opaque I'll acknowledge all responses, but give me a couple days to sort through them all.

Here ends the WFC Book content.

---

Miscellany follows:

I MET D FOR LUNCH a while back; what we often do is go to somewhere like Panera, and he'll order the food while I get the drinks. I don't know why we settled on this division of labor, but it works, more or less. This time as I was waiting for my Chai Tea Lattes (pause to ponder the redundancy) to be made, a guy stepped up to the register to order a Bacon Turkey Bravo.

"What's your name?" asked the cashier.

"Bobo," came the prompt reply.

"Is it really?"

"No, but it stops people from taking my food," he admitted as he handed over his money. "Good question, though. No one's ever asked before."

I HUNG OUT WITH rockstar johnny and his publishing co-conspirator Gary in Cambridge the other day, to talk about his future famous novella, The Pains. On my way in, Elvis Costello was on the radio singing, "Every Day I Write the Book." That was followed by Tracy Chapman and "Give Me One Reason," but it should really have been "Telling Stories."

The T from Alewife was about half full. I was sitting across from a woman with several bags of shopping around her. As we pulled into a stop, she tore a corner of bright green tissue paper from her GAP shopping bag, one of the folding paper ones with handles, wrapped her chewing gum in it, and put dropped it back into the bag.

It was at this point, when I went to write this down, that I realized that the pencil I had stuck in my hair before leaving home was no longer there. I pulled out another pencil out of my bag, then turned around to lean on the wall behind me as I wrote on a spare scrap of paper (my notebook was in my other jacket).

As I got up to get off at Kendall, I saw my original pencil lying on the floor.

Every so often, I wonder if someone else on the train is noticing another passenger plucking at her hair, scribbling notes, then picking pencils up off the floor ... but aethucyn's probably right.

FRIDAY D AND I went out for dinner at a place we hadn't been to for a while. It's an Italian place that's sort of like Bertucci's without the chaininess. Soon after we'd been seated we heard a huge crash in the direction of the hostess station and turned to see a tray upended on the floor surrounded by crayons and bits of crumpled paper that might have been cut-off paper cups.

"Hi, how're you doing?" our waitress asked from behind us.

We turned to her, with a slight context-switching delay as we tried to refocus. By way of explanation, D pointed out what we'd been looking at.

"Oh!" said the waitress, suddenly noticing the commotion, and a group of diners who had been on their way out when the incident had occurred, blocking their way.

"They just don't want us to leave," one of them joked.

"Sorry, we were a bit distracted. I bet you're going to ask us if we wanted something to drink," D said to the temporarily stunned waitress.

"Yeah, that's OK, you distracted me from my usual 'Hi my name is April' speech. So hi, my name is April, can I start you off with something to drink?"

We ordered our drinks, and when she came back we gave our food order. "Good choices," April commented, which always makes me wonder what they say when they think your choices are subpar.

"Sometimes things just work out," said D.

"Sometimes," April nodded, still a little distractedly, it appeared to me. "You do what you gotta do."

But she seemed to be back on her game again by the time we were done. "Have a fantastic sparkly evening," she told us as she left the check.

PLAGIARISM CORNER: So, it seems a writer in the New York Times Book Review recently ripped off an essay of Anne Fadiman's (mentioned here by ana, with correct attribution).

What was interesting to me from that linked post, besides the "hey, I read that, it was a good essay" (the original one), is that it seems like the main thing to come out of Jonathan Lethem giving away film rights to his latest book is that everyone's now linking to his Harper's essay on plagiarism and copyright. I don't know if that's the effect he was looking for, but there you are.