I was given the worst possible diagnosis--4th stage metastasized, inoperable, uteral sarcoma. Two months to live. The first doctor told my family and myself that I had eight large tumors in my abdomen. He wanted me to do extensive chemotherapy, a re-sectioning of my stomach and then even more chemotherapy....

Recently I was given just 24 hours to explore a first production build of the Apple iTablet -- and here are my first impressions and discoveries. First, it's more like an iPhone than a MacBook. The operating system depends on gestures, and expands the vocabulary. Your hand is going to...

For almost half of her 7.5 years, our daughter has gone to sleep as her mother delivers a lecture. Not the kind of lecture that follows bad behavior -- our kid just prefers facts to fiction. And so her mother gives a nightly discourse called "Bore Me to Sleep."

Our...

1. You don't know the right people.
2. 80% of you will never finish your manuscript.
3. Less than 2% of completed manuscripts get a publishing contract.
4. Traditional publishers don't believe your book will ever sell.

Fortunately for you, the publishing industry is in transition and...

When Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, set out to write Clean Energy Common Sense, her goal was simple: To bring more people into the climate change conversation now. Now? Conversations on climate change are happening in real time across the internet, on talk radio, in...

The following is an excerpt from The 50th Law, adapted for HuffPost.

Every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive, an opportunity. It is how you look at it that matters. Your lack of resources can be an advantage, forcing you to be more inventive with the...

Life is filled with crap! What's a nice person to do?!

Cheer up! The worst is yet to come.
--Anonymous

Let's face it: there's an enormous amount of crap on this planet and it has to be dealt with on a daily basis. Buddhism teaches that to be human...

A study released last week put the spotlight on a workplace demographic shift that is occurring: women are expected to become a majority of labor union workers within the next decade. This is an important fact that is also a reminder of the important job ahead of us.

The

It's the rally cry of publishers...

Want a book deal? Show me your platform.

If only they knew how easy it's become to fake a monster platform in a 2.0 world...

A few years back, proving your platform meant whipping out your big black book of press...

Self-publishing companies like Blurb, Lulu and ibook have experienced strong growth in the past few years, providing one of the few bright spots in the consumer economy. There are a few reasons for this growth: software platforms are more user-friendly; variable printing technologies have advanced so that...

In novels, poems and everyday life itself, if one is alert, small, ordinary things point toward the larger issues in a human existence. "Only when I am quiet for a long time/and do not speak/do the objects of my life draw near," the poet Jane Hirshfield has written. In...

Bookshop Santa Cruz, a leading independent bookstore in ever-so-liberal Santa Cruz, California, has launched a promotion to go along with the selling of Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue.

Bookshop Santa Cruz is giving a bag of Sarah "Palin's Just Plain Nutz" for everyone who purchases a copy of Palin's

My debut novel, "Fat Chick," will be published at the end of this month by The Vineyard Press.

At age 51, I never thought I'd be "debuting". In fact, I thought I'd be on the downward slope of a successful advertising career. But, plans were meant for changing.

HOW...

A man with a gun steps out of the dark. He confronts Frank O'Hara, and the moment of crisis, as it so often does, reveals character. O'Hara--poet, art critic, bon vivant--famously said you don't need schooling or fine pedigree to write poetry; rather, "you just go on your nerve."...

Jennet Conant's recent book The Irregulars is the perfect Washington summer read: it's a breezy society tale about British spying on America before and during World War II, which Franklin Roosevelt tacitly approved, by a ragtag group of future literary stars, including Ian Fleming and his friend Roald Dahl.

Dahl...

The economy and future of publishing being what they are, it seems prudent for writers to keep our day jobs, or to find one. The good news is that in addition to being an extremely non-bestselling author, I am also a concierge. The bad news is that I'm not very...

There are those who would argue that each and every one of Nicholas Sparks' novels, beginning with The Notebook, is pure schmaltz. Many argue he aims for the tear ducts and won't rest until they are drained dry. Still, say what you want, Sparks writes books that touch the heart...