I can’t believe that it’s been only six months since I first learned about Steven Savage. He’s the man behind Fan to Pro, a blog that promotes his signature idea that fans can use their fandom to find and create jobs they are passionate about. In other words, he believes that anyone with passion can become a professional geek! A prolific writer, he has self published three books and is currently working on a fourth.

I had never heard of Steven last November when I was idly browsing my “Recommended For You” list in the Kindle Store. It was in the midst of my job search, so aside from the academic anime studies I’d been reading, I was also reading several books on careers. On this particular day, the book at the very top of my list of suggestions was Fan to Pro: Unlocking Career Insights With Your Hobbies. I bought it and devoured it in days.

Before I read Fan to Pro, I kept quiet about my interests on the job search front. I didn’t want to scare any of my employers away with my geekiness. But after this book, I began to relax a bit. In fact, would you believe that this blog helped me get the job I have now? I started including a link to my blog when I sent out my resume. Amazingly, my current boss clicked and was impressed with the site design and the infographic roundups I sometimes feature. My passions let her know that I would do a good job. Basically, you could say this book helped me get employed. I think it should be recommended for geeks looking for a career or a career change everywhere.

One thing I love about Steven’s books is that he centers each one around an easy to recall acronym, and Fan to Pro is no different. In this book, he reminds us about our special qualities as fans with the memorable PEAK: Passion, Experience, Access, and Knowledge. Steven himself thinks these anagrams are a bit silly, but I think they’re vital: How else could I have remembered this message months after reading it?

Steven’s no-nonsense writing style makes it easy to apply the tenants to your own life. My favorite parts are the exercises at the end of each chapter. It’s easy enough to read a book, but completing his checklists help you internalize the message.

Now here’s the best part: I am giving away two paperback copies of Steven’s book, Fan to Pro. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post about why you want the book. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the United States or international, anybody can enter.

I’ll choose the winners with a random number generator announce the results one week from today. Good luck!

I really wanted to blog about something more exciting today. I’m in the midst of several graphic and web design projects that I’m dying to share with you, but unfortunately, I don’t have any finished products yet. So let me introduce the newest addition to my technology arsenal: my Amazon Kindle.

Before I get to that, let’s address my intense love affair with real life books. I have a TON of them, and that may be literal. According to my last count, I have 227 at least. If you’re interested, you can check out my personal library database in Google Docs and be exposed to my questionable taste.

Part of one of my four bookshelves.

I love everything about books — the smell, the feel of the pages, the way they look lined up by author and subject on my shelf. I take good care of my books, make sure they have breathing room (did you know books need to breathe?) and annually sort them out and give some away to the library. But it’s clear that if I don’t want to end up on Hoarders, I have to admit that I no longer have the space for more books. Though if you want to encourage me into self-destruction, here’s a shameless link to my Amazon book wish list.

Enter the Kindle. It’s NOTHING like a book. It doesn’t have a smell, and there aren’t any pages to make a satisfying ripple under your fingertips. For a long time, I was completely adverse to owning one — will digital readers lead to the death of books? I couldn’t live in a world without bookstores. But after a year living in D.C., I grew accustomed with the concept after spending my daily Metro commute reading classics on the tiny screen of my Droid. (I use the Wordplayer app.) And as you might expect, I eventually grew tired of squinting and wanted an upgrade.

And thus, I ordered my Kindle on Amazon a couple weeks ago, and it has quickly become indispensable. It’s light and sleek, which appeals to the design enthusiast in me, plus, it doesn’t have the (excuse me, purists) negatives of books. For example, I am currently reading Vanity Fair, a 19th century novel that has been compared to War and Peace based on how lengthy it is. Seriously, this would be 900 pages or so in print. Think of how hard that would be to carry around! However, on my Kindle, it’s less than an ounce.

Not to mention, just like on the Droid, I’m able to read my favorite classics for free! Since it’s so old, Vanity Fair is in the public domain. If I bought the book, aside from having nowhere to put that mammoth, I also would have to fork over $10 or so to pay for the printing. But without printing fees, in digital form, it’s absolutely free.

Like the case? It’s Moleskine’s official Kindle case. Yes, like the stereotypical former English major that I am, I am also a big fan of Moleskine. I love the pocket that fits a Moleskine reporter’s notebook, so I can still make notations on the book I’m reading even though I can’t underline the words anymore. For someone who had a hard time letting go of print, the case comfortably blurs the line.

Do you have a Kindle? Would you buy a Kindle? Or are you too attached to the feel of a book in your hand?

Did you know that May is National Short Story month? Neither did I, until today. Apparently it’s been going on since 2007.

Just a few of my short story collections.

As a  former English major (and forever book lover), short stories are my favorite genre of fiction to read and write. They’re perfect for reading before bed — each night you get a new tale. They’re exceptional at creating a lasting feeling in a way that novels, which span multiple scenes and moods, never can. As a perfectionist, I love to write them because it’s easier to polish each aspect of a short piece to gemlike flawlessness. I actually paid for part of my senior year of college on a scholarship for writing short fiction. In college, I was an editorial intern at a Southern literary journal called Peeks and Valleys, where I read ten to 15 short story submissions a week, and still never got tired.

In other words, I like short fiction a lot. Even though Short Story Month is over, I still want to celebrate. So in no particular order, I’ll share some of my favorite short fiction authors with you:

1. O. Henry. You’ve probably heard of The Gift of the Magi, but Henry wrote lots more than that. A writer at the turn of the 20th century, his short stories were known for clever twists, or as we call them, “O. Henry endings.” His legacy is the O. Henry award, given to excellent short fiction.

2. Jhumpa Lahiri. She’s better known for her novels like The Namesake, which was made into a movie, but I think she shines brightest with her short fiction. As a woman who is neither an immigrant nor has ever been to India, I can’t say for certain how accurate her topics are, but her tales are certainly compelling.

3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I could read Doyle’s tales of his master detective protagonist, Sherlock Holmes, for hours. The stories are perfect for reading on the Metro — just long enough to get me from the top of the Red Line to the transfer point. Probably the oldest short stories on my list, the Tales of Sherlock Holmes have aged well.

4. Philip K. Dick. I may be biased, since he is my favorite author of all time. Known for his science fiction short masterpieces turned movies like Minority Report and Total Recall (though Dick’s title for the latter was We Can Remember It For You Wholesale), Dick’s grasp on human psychology and creating tangible otherworlds is most powerful in his short fiction.

5. Flannery O’Connor. Her short stories perfected the Southern Gothic style. I remember how upset my sister was after she had to read Good Country People for class. All I could say to comfort her was that it was one of the least disturbing of her stories, I thought. Really, O’Connor’s penchant for the disturbing and grotesque sets her stories apart.

6. Joyce Carol Oates. Oates is an interesting writer for me because I am not fond of her novels, but her short fiction is irresistible. In my opinion Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is her masterpiece. If you haven’t read it, click the link. It’s the perfect kind of disturbing that makes you wonder what happened after the story’s end.

Next year, I’ll be sure not to miss it!

Readers, do you have a favorite genre? Do you have any short stories to recommend? I’d love to know.

I was struck by the beginning chapters of the novel, The Left Hand of Darkness. Though its a science-fiction novel (albeit a classic), I think this has some interesting implications toward the way journalists tell stories. I thought I’d share it here:

“I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like the singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.

“The story is not all mine, nor told by me alone. Indeed I am not sure whose story it is; you can judge better. But it is all one, and if at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them are false, and it is all one story.”

– Ursula K. Le Guin