The weekly web ramble (2/18)

Links from the web jungle

WEB OF INTEREST –>

– The 2010 Agatha Award nominees

– Literary agents on their chapter one pet peeves

Cindy Pon shares some of her art work, the result of 10 years spent studying Chinese brush art

– Kristen Nelson, a literary agent, breaks down what an author gets from a Hollywood deal

<– AUTHOR TALK

Craig Johnson remembers writing his first sex scene

Kim Harrison on her research road trip for Pale Demon

Stephanie Burgis on the lessons Jane Austen taught her about love

Jim C. Hines on how the media covers rape

– An interview with Greg Bear

Kathy Reichs talks Virals, her YA debut novel

James Patterson on Angel, his latest Maximum Ride novel:

WEB READS –>

Chapter five from Kim Harrison‘s Pale Demon, out 2/22/11

Peek at The Hidden Gallery (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place #2) by Maryrose Wood, out 3/1

– Check out an excerpt from The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones, out now

A thrilling, inventive cross between One Thousand and One Nights and Sherlock Holmes

In 9th century Baghdad, a stranger pleads with the vizier to safeguard the bejeweled tablet he carries, but he is murdered before he can explain. Charged with solving the puzzle, the scholar Dabir soon realizes that the tablet may unlock secrets hidden within the lost city of Ubar, the Atlantis of the sands. When the tablet is stolen from his care, Dabir and Captain Asim are sent after it, and into a life and death chase through the ancient Middle East.

Stopping the thieves—a cunning Greek spy and a fire wizard of the Magi—requires a desperate journey into the desert, but first Dabir and Asim must find the lost ruins of Ubar and contend with a mythic, sorcerous being that has traded wisdom for the souls of men since the dawn of time.

– An Excerpt from The Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles #2) by Patrick Rothfuss, 0ut 3/1

– An Excerpt from The Curse Maker (Roman Noir #2) by Kelli Stanley, out now