Video from the Baltimore Book Festival

It was wet. Very. For most of the afternoon, this was the raging river at my heels:

The view from my perch (the last table in the author tent):

Baltimore, here I come

This saturday from 11am through 7pm, I will be signing/selling/schmoozing at the Baltimore Book Festival. Come & see me!

Here's an article about the event from the Baltimore Sun.

Best $5 I ever spent!

This arrived via email and is just too much fun not to share:

Instead of (or in addition to) sending around more emails about how horrible Sarah Palin is as a potential vice president, let's all make a donation to Planned Parenthood... in her name.

When you make a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name, they'll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor.

You'll need to fill in the address to let Planned Parenthood know where to send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street, 1st Floor
Arlington, VA 22202

Make sure to chose the "Honorary or Memorial Donations" link on the left side of the page at:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/donate/donate-89.htm

I just made a donation. The thank you email I received in response says:

Your contribution to Planned Parenthood Federation of America is tax deductible to the fullest extent allowable under law. IRS regulations require us to state that we did not provide any goods or services to you in consideration of your contribution.

However, I believe I was provided a wonderful service for my contribution. It's called poetic justice. Priceless!

Misinformation Study

There's No Arguing With Conservatives... No, Seriously...

A new study out of Yale University confirms that offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies with greater vigor. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more ignorant. (Or is that ignoranter?) From the September 14th Washington Post article on the study:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003.

Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse. A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation.

Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research.

** The added links are my doing and did not appear in the original Washington Post article or the forwarded email I received. ~ Alessia

Mystique Books reviews Switch

Y'know, it totally doesn't suck to start one's day with a review quote that reads: This book is a work of genius.

Here's what Rachel Nail of Mystique Books says about Switch:

I've always been told to unplug electrical devices during thunderstorms. Something about a lightning traveling along the building's wires and coming out the other end. This hazard had the possibility of causing complications with computers, telephones, disk players...sex toys?

This book is a work of genius. To have the two lovers switch bodies during sex was an awesome twist to any story, not to mention very, very sexy. I was hooked to the story, wondering what would happen. My only complaint was that the reader was left wondering how, if at all, Mandy and Bruce return to their bodies. An excellent read!

Four and a half Mystique Moons. (Excellent)

Class Five sensuality. (Raging Carnality)

Fetish Fleamarket

Well, I'm heading for DC at o'dark-thirty tomorrow morning for The Crucible's Leather Fleamarket & Play Party #17. From 11am 'til 6pm on Saturday, Bridget Midway & I will be manning (womanning?) our table at the fetish fleamarket, selling our edgier books & schmoozing. While I hope to be hella busy, I also hope to have time to shop. Who knows what trinkets I might acquire? I've wanted a white leather halter/vest for a while. And one can never have too many corsets. Plus, I'm sure there will be lots of TOYS. I lurves me some toys. They're the cherry on many a sundae.

So, if you're in the DC area, stop by and see us. Buy a book. Better yet, buy two books, and I'll give you the third for free. Free is good.

Remembering

TRS reviews Time Warp

Time Warp
Alessia Brio
Contemporary erotic romance
Available from Phaze
ISBN: 1-59426-522-4
April 2007

Alex and Dan Gallagher have everything on their first anniversary. He's finally divorced from his wife. The one he had been cheating on for her. Life is good in the suburbs for the two. By the third anniversary things have drastically changed. He's been seeing his first wife, Beth, again, is planning to move out and remarry her. Alex has a devilish plan up her sleeve to make sure that doesn't happen.

Alessia Brio gives us a tale of what could happen to a cheating spouse when the partner is a pharmacist or in the medical profession. Alex is painted as patient, willing to wait until their special day to enact the plan she's developed since she found Dan cheating. We can almost hear her evil laugh as she sets him up to have her way with him one last time and make sure Beth doesn't want him. She's done her research on the internet and is a totally modern woman buying toys, checking out the meds, the knots and getting everything ready.

The author does a great job with her storyline. It's like we have a tape and can fast forward from anniversary to anniversary, hitting only the highlights and cutting out the 'commercials' that happened between times. The author leaves it up to us to fill in the blanks in any way we want. This is an interesting way to tell a story and I found I had a lot of fun with it.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Explicit

Reviewer: Dee Dailey
September 9, 2008

http://theromancestudio.com/reviews/reviews/timewarpbrio.htm

BLURB: Dan doesn't appreciate Alex any longer, and Alex just does not appreciate Dan's infidelity. When cunning and creativity combine in a woman scorned, revenge turns criminally delicious. Who's really the guilty party inthis twisted tale of torment?

Advocacy

I have been told that it's bad for business to mix political (or any other) advocacy with my work as an author.

If current or future book sales are more important to an author, then s/he can choose to remain neutral. Perhaps s/he will reconsider when those books start disappearing from public libraries.

I refuse to put career before conscience. And, I'm exceptionally proud of my partner for choosing to make his views known as well.

peace & passion,

~ Alessia