by Sue Horner | Oct 16, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Yesterday was Blog Action Day, where more than 9,000 bloggers had signed up to “raise awareness, initiate action and shake the web” by discussing poverty. High housing costs often mean a decision between paying the rent and eating properly. In my...
by Sue Horner | Oct 15, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I’m mad at Stephen Harper. Yes, Canada’s newly re-elected Prime Minister is still in the saddle after a useless election that he called, thinking he could turn a minority government into a majority. Although he did gain 16 more seats, he was 12 shy of the...
by Sue Horner | Oct 14, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Here’s a secret about a lot of writers, or maybe just humans. We have fragile egos. We crave positive feedback, and when we don’t get much (or any), we’re often struck by a feeling of “I’m not as good as [fill in name of admired author...
by Sue Horner | Oct 9, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
This spring, I posted about the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. I recently found out that The Bookseller has crowned the Diagram of Diagrams, bestowing the title of Oddest Book Title among all the winners of the past 30 years. You may be surprised to...
by Sue Horner | Oct 7, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
An appealing recent entry from WordSpy (a web site devoted to “lexpionage,” the sleuthing of new words and phrases) is “stay-at-work mom.” The term refers to a mother who returns to work soon after giving birth. I think it equally applies to...
by Sue Horner | Oct 3, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The library in my town has been there for me for many years. When my children were small, we joined the reading program every summer, and we were frequent borrowers of books and occasionally toys throughout the year. It’s the first place I turn when I hear of a...
by Sue Horner | Oct 2, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A flyer in today’s newspaper is trolling for subscribers to a new magazine, and I’m kind of creeped out. Founder Moses Znaimer, the new executive director of the Canadian Association for Retired Persons (CARP), replaced the old CARP magazine with a glossy...
by Sue Horner | Oct 1, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Hooray, Canada finally has a National Do Not Call List! Have you registered yet? If you tried and got a “service not available” message, try again in a few minutes. The site seems to get bogged down, no doubt in the huge numbers of people trying to...
by Sue Horner | Sep 30, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
As I wrote this, Mitch Joel was saying there’s never been a better time to start your own blog. Technorati said in its State of the Blogosphere/2008 report that “blogging is not dead” and “blogs are here to stay.” The report also notes...
by Sue Horner | Sep 23, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I scared myself recently by turning down two jobs. Two! Before you wonder how well my brain is functioning, let me tell you why I turned away work, and why you should seriously consider doing the same when you have the option. Both jobs had unreasonable deadlines; I...
