Promoting your work and yourself!

I found this recent blog rant VERY interesting.  It's an NYU professor's assessment of possible reasons why his male students are getting ahead more than his equally talented and hard-working female students.

You can tell this subject is a bit of a lightning rod by looking at the comments.  The hundreds of comments.  Some of them angry, some of them offensive, some of them offended.  You may be offended yourself already, just thinking about what he *might* have said.

I think he has a good point -- that promoting yourself, and being brave enough to try things when you know you will fail at least some of the time (fail badly and fail publicly) is required for getting ahead.

His article reminded me, actually, of that odd little book called "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People."  It's not my usual sort of reading -- but I did read it, ten or twelve years ago, and I was glad I did.  It framed the world for me in a different way than I'd seen the world before.  Now, I don't wear that pair of glasses all the time.  I don't need to.  But it's helpful to have them in my drawer, at those moments when I'm trying to figure out what I can do to get where I want to get.

The Scent of a Good Play...

I rather like this article by blogger David Jays. Smell-O-Theaterama. You are THERE.

He mentions the scents of toast and thyme and blood... I have to admit, the last time I smelled something at a play, it was the actors sweating through their shirts in a claustrophobic black box theater... but it was good clean sweat, well-earned through hard work, and I didn't mind it.

I draw the line at spit, though.

Bold Blogging...

...from my friend, playwright Stephanie Alison Walker. She and her husband, Bob, have been caught in the economic downturn -- but are boldly moving forward through the world together despite everything. She's a brave writer, and I admire the heck out of her. Check out Love in the Time of Foreclosure here.