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Watch out for the dysentery

If you're close to my age (under 80, but older than 5), you may remember one of the earlier educational games, Oregon Trail. This game possibly accurately depicted random people following Lewis and Clark in their quest for new land, gold and Texas tea. Or, wait, Texas wasn't around yet. Was there tea?

Anyway, the game taught multiple skills, none of which helped you make tea. But they did help kids make critical decisions on how best to outfit a caravan across an unknown wilderness, with food, clothing, weapons, etc.

Instant message me with questions

Because I receive a decent number of questions about a multitude of things, ranging from writing and publishing to computers and programming, I wanted to make myself a little more available to those of you who can't get in touch with me.

Starting today, I will be available on both AOL's Instant Messenger and Google Talk around the clock. So if you have a question or comment, just send it along, and I'll get back to you. It might not be immediate, but I'll try to within a day or so.

AOL screenname: WoodsBenA

GoogleTalk screenname: bwoods43

Recent publicity in the Evansville newspaper

Although this occurred two weeks ago, the Evansville Courier & Press ran a little article about me and my book, "The Developers" just before my signing down there. The paper may do a review at a later date, but I was extremely pleased with Becky Coudret's article. Here it is:

Humor/ tech writer at Border's

By REBECCA COUDRET Courier & Press staff writer 464-7509 or coud@evansville.net

January 21, 2006

Ben Woods calls himself a humor/technology writer - which has to be considered a new genre of literature.

Next stop: Destinations in New Albany

For my third straight weekend, I'll be making a book appearance, this time in New Albany, Ind. I'll be at Destinations Booksellers (604 East Spring Street) at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4. Destinations is a relatively new bookstore, but the place definitely does great work in supporting local authors. And of course, you can find a lot of main stream books there as well.

I will also be introducing my local publicist, Elizabeth Woods, for the first time. Elizabeth is my grandma, one of the main proofreaders for 'The Developers' and an avid bingo player.

Three appearances down, many more to go

I haven't quite made it as far as M.C. Hammer, from London to the Bay, but I have made it to Evansville in Indiana and Owensboro and Brandenburg in Kentucky the past two weekends. I've seen a lot of friends I haven't seen in awhile, and I've also made a few new ones.

Thanks to everyone for coming out to support "The Developers" ... and if I haven't made it to your town yet, hopefully I'll be there soon!

From the Archive

The truth is under the rug

A few weeks ago, while doing research (if you can call it that) for a column, I came across a site devoted to myths and legends. I thought I had visited just about every genre of Web sites, but boy did I miss a big one.

Paranormal Web sites seem to be fairly normal these days. Not that I'm completely surprised by this, but I was shocked to see the latest reports of phenomena. I really must be out of the loop because now there are theories on Mothman, Owlman and Goatman out there. I swear I did not pull these names from an episode of "Power Rangers."

Gates ready to get out of court, go hang with Arnold

This might be too grandiose of an idea, but I thought

I would try to explain the U.S. vs. Microsoft case in

one tiny column. So if you have been following the case

closely and do not need an explanation, feel free to

take this opportunity to play the

Lucky Dollars game.

For those of you still with me (I hope it's at least

Busy busy September

I will be making three book appearances in September, marking my first events since the early summer. Yeah, work and other things have gotten in the way! First, on Sept. 13, I will be selling books and raising money for the Waverly branch of Baltimore's Pratt Library. I'll also be there doing a little volunteer work, as I tutor at the Waverly library on a weekly basis.

Latest reviews

Since the comments page is getting pretty full, I decided that I should pull out some of the newer items on occasion. Here are the two most recent reader reviews for "The Developers."

Anyway, great book. I love any fiction books that can keep me interested in the plot and characters. Awesome pop culture references.

I'm really getting into the characters. I think you do a great job in setting up the characters, their pasts, etc. You are good at writing women, by the way. How did you learn how to do that?

BEA an interesting experience

My trip to New York during the first weekend in June was short, but overall, it was extremely productive.

I attended Book Expo America for a number of reasons, the top one being to find an agent for my new project, "Polos to Ties." I communicated with a number of agents, some beforehand on the BEA's social networking site. The biggest mistake I made was not attempting to schedule appointments with agents beforehand. But considering that I haven't completely finished the manuscript, maybe that wasn't such a big deal.

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