I noticed something odd in the airport bookstore back at PDX. They had a promotion, bring back your book after you'd read it for half the cover price refunded. This made me wonder if there was a strip-and-ship scam somewhere in the works, then I finally decided it was advertising expense -- anyone who bought a book once would presumably buy another, and I suspect the actual redemption rate is quite low, given that the promotion requires the original sales receipt.
E and I spent some time this evening discussing the recent gender and race bias questions which have been floating around the blogosphere. (She's an English professor and pays attention to this sort of thing.) E says the numbers I was rattling off about non-white participation in professional SF weren't too different in literature as a whole, and even in faculty representation in English departments. We talked about some of the underlying issues, and where some efforts at fixes might lie. More from me on this later when I follow up on this topic again.
I also meant to mention something sort of funny which happened while I was proofing the typeset pages of "The Man With One Bright Eye" for the upcoming DAW antho Fate Fantastic, ed. Marty Greenberg and Dan Hoyt [ Amazon ]. The story gave me shivers, and I'm the one who wrote it. Sometimes I get to fall in love with my own work all over again.
That's really one of the coolest feelings.
More tomorrow.