Matter Notes:

Karen Michalson
Tom Godfrey Photography

Matter Notes: A lawyer's private notes on a legal matter; considered inviolate and non-disclosable. By metaphor and game, my occasional blog posts on the war on the humanities and other cultural atrocities; with frequent diversions into creative matters.

In both cases, a form of work product. Scribere est agere.

03
November
2013

Risingshadow.net Guest Post

I haven’t posted here in a few weeks, but I did write a guest post on my Enemy Glory series for the speculative fiction website Risingshadow.net.  Risingshadow has a facebook page. It also has tens of thousands of books in its database, and the folks who maintain it are truly passionate about sharing information with […]

18
August
2013

About Leda

I don’t write poetry.  Well, not really, but a poem did show up around last Easter and another one showed up now, referencing the myth of Leda and the swan.  It’s the damnedest thing. About Leda     Leda went ‘round the world at large In her cottage by the sea And heard three Fates with a […]

11
August
2013

My last post concerned a crime against the humanities; this one concerns the expected demise of Barnes & Noble

Despite being the only remaining national chain physical bookstore in the USA, and having a near-monopoly on shelf space, Barnes & Noble can’t make money selling bad coffee, embarrassing trinkets, and an occasional book so it’s closing more stores.  CEO William Lynch has resigned and, according to USA Today, Barnes & Noble is not planning […]

30
June
2013

Is Writing a Dying Profession?

Ewan Morrison thinks so.  In a piece in The Guardian called “Are books dead, and can authors survive?” Morrison predicts that ebooks will kill paper books within 25 years.  He provides numbers: Barnes & Noble now sells three times more digital books than physical books. Amazon sells 242 ebooks for every 100 hardbacks.  Also, baby […]