You've Got Our Ear!

Dear Vi's and Vins,

I swear that this will be the only cute kitten picture that I will subject you to in 2009.  On my honor! :-)  But I really needed a big ear, and this one just fit the bill.

Robin and I are so looking forward to getting together after our recent long separation (sob!), and among other vital catch-up items, we will be talking about you.  We want to make sure that we address topics and issues that are important to you in this coming year at Shrinking Violets. While we both are mighty intuitive beings, seems wisest to just ask.  

So, without further ado--

What are some topics that you'd like to see covered during 2009?

Are their any introverted authors/illustrators, or folks in the biz, that you would like to see interviewed and/or profiled?  (And if you have any connections to those said parties, do let us know!)

Any suggestions for us of other features that you'd like to see here in this space?  We are open to your ideas.  Please share!

While you are percolating, I'll leave you with this from someone I hope to interview for SVP here this year-- author Anneli Rufus. This is a clip from her Salon Mag interview she did talking about her book, Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto. Glorious, gorgeous stuff. 


We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, of celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave -- like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels and sole survivors. Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the Kabbalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarefied. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline. A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions.

A talent for seldom being bored. Desert islands are fine but not required. We are the ones who would rather see films than talk about them. Would rather write plays than act in them. Rather walk Angkor Wat and Portobello Road alone. Rather run cross-country than in a relay race, rather surf than play volleyball. Rather cruise museums alone than with someone who lingers over early bronzes and tells us why we should adore Frida Kahlo.

Peace to you each in this New Year,

Mary & Robin