Randomly...

• Blogger Slacker: I've been a bad blogger lately. Busy busy busy. But I'll be back this week blogging full force so don't forget to visit daily.
• Newsletters: An easy way to keep up with what your favorite publishers are doing is to have them keep you informed in the comfort of your own inbox. I subscribe to several publisher's e-newsletters such as those sent by the Penguin group and Simon & Schuster. You can sign up for free on publishers' websites.
• NYT Book Review: This week, The New York Times Book Review has a special children's book section just in time for the holidays. You'll find tons of reviews as well as a slideshow of the Best Illustrated Books for 2006.
• Spam Poetry: You may have seen the list of spam subject lines I posted recently. Well, I've started an explosion of spamthusiasm among my fellow Writer's Digest Books editors and we've begun composing spam poetry--we call them "Spamasterpieces." Check out our website to read some. We'll be posting them regularly. (I composed a particularly good one this morning. I'm developing and odd sort of loving relationship with my spam. I guess better the unwanted email than the luncheon meat product--for which there is a fan club. Huh.)
• Scrabble: Oh oh did I kick my husband's butt at Scrabble last night. Okay--he did beat me the second game but only by like five points and I kept picking nothing but one-point letters. But the first game was a complete blowout (I even used all seven tiles in one turn) and I won game three (the one that decided the Pope-Katkin household Scrabble Champion) by a bunch. If you ever play Scrabble with my husband, bring a dictionary--he makes up words and pretends he knows exactly what they mean. (A side note: He proposed to me during a Scrabble game, spelling out "will you marry me" with tiles, slowly, turn-after-turn. It was cute. The bad part--I was winning by 90 points and we never got to finish the game.)