For those of you who have just arrived at Laura’s Website, you might want to read her Homepage and her Bio to see what she’s all about these days (self-promotion).

Up until now, Laura considered such public displays of self-absorption — PDSAs — completely unseemly and she refused to engage in anything which could, even remotely, be considered self-promotional. Of course, when invited to do a reading, or attend a book group, or give a lecture, Laura would always gratefully accept. Why? Because she hadn’t generated the attention; the attention had come to her.

But when it would come time to generate attention to herself for herself by herself — the way all authors are supposed to — she refused. Which is why, at this late date, 2006, years and years after every single Tom Dick and Harry has their own website and blog and newsletter and podcast, she is finally joining the pack.

Yet even though she is indeed joining the pack, Laura refuses to follow the herd. This has always been both a positive and a negative in her life. Because instead of just blogging away on a blog, she felt the need to create her own specialized forum of communcation — one she has renamed BRANT. Brant, she feels, better sums up exactly what this sort of activity is really all about — bragging and ranting — and now that she has her own brant she will be branting away as much as possible.

And so, Laura welcomes you to the introductory post for her brand new brant. She hopes you like it! (But if you don’t, please don’t tell her. The last thing she needs right now 24 days away from publication is a whole bunch of “honesty” from people she doesn’t even know. That would be a huge buzz-killer.)