Hi John,

I found this intriguing: "If Sorcha has a doctorate, as her title alludes, where is her thesis?"

Wondering if this was always the case, I looked up my maiden name (under which my Master's Thesis was written, and my first married name, (Doctoral Dissertation.) Nada. I don't exist on the web in my former lives, so that's not absolutely true. Maybe it is different in the sciences where publish or perish is more strictly applied.

One of the (many) reasons I left academia was due to publish or perish. I was begining to feel the thumb screws being tightened. Having divorced my first husband halfway through my academic tenure, I found it was all I could do to take care of myself, two babies, AND perform all my duties as a teacher of Theater and Humanities without adding the extra stress of publishing on top of everything else.

So I resigned this plum tenure-track position after four years. Besides, I'd had it with Kentucky weather. Ugh. Move back to CA, married the Spouse, and have been happily writing for the last twenty years.

Currently, I am on chapter 4 of a non-fiction book that my agent doing back-flips over so far. She finds it "terrific, compelling, and riveting," among other nice adjectives that she has used. She wanted to send it out to publishers after Ch. 2, but I said no. I want to wait until the whole thing is done before thinkinngnn of selling it.

But writing it is taking its toll on me. The other day I wrote for 17 hours straight. Thought I'd come here for a little break from the madness. Today is an editing day, so it's not as labor intensive. And a Friday, although when I am in print out mode, not even the weekend will stop me. I imagine I will write another chapter by Monday. It's a shame that I am missing the glorious weather we are having in Northern California right now.

Now about that article Canie quoted: In it, Sorcha Faal says, "Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have found that within subduction zones, the regions where one of the earth's plates slips below another, areas where the attraction due to gravity is relatively high are less likely to experience large earthquakes than areas where the gravitational force is relatively low."

Like Peru?
Like WA state in approx. 1,700?
Was the Sumatra quake a subduction affair? (I forget.)

At any rate, that sentence made absolutely no sense to me at all given what we know of history. Opinions?

Cathryn