renaissance2010
Turning to photography as a creative outlet during a valiant fight with breast cancer at age 34, renaissance10 survived and set up a photo contest to help raise funds for the Lavender Trust, a nonprofit that provides information and support to younger women with breast cancer. In the first two years, the competition brought in over £65,000 (that's $107,260.73 U.S.!), with entries from 130 countries last year. Renaissance10 recently joined LiveJournal to meet other passionate photographers and find supportive friends.

Tags: cancer, renaissance2010

curiouscupcakes
Holy buttercream frosting! If you have a sweet tooth for sugary goodness or a wandering eye for whimsical confection, this is pure ecstasy iced in deliciousness. Hailing the beloved cupcake as the artisinal canvas of choice, you'll enjoy recipes, photos, and bountiful tips to bake up a batch, whether your taste leans toward French classics or funky and flavorful.

Tags: cupcakes, curiouscupcakes, desserts

mission101
With New Years in the offing, it's an ideal time to reflect on past accomplishments, make peace with disappointments, and refocus the lens on future goals. This community welcomes you to create a bucket list of 101 things you plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. Offering support, guidance, and inspiration, this is a great way to jumpstart those pesky resolutions.

Tags: bucket list, mission101

Kij Johnson's Fudoki: think Lian Hearn's Tale of the Otori except it doesn't FUCKING SUCK ROTTEN, BLOOD-ENCRUSTED, WORM-RIDDEN APPENDAGES.

( Actually, it's really quite good. Good? Excellent, even. )

i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

Tags: i_hope_that, support, wishes

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

Tags: crafts, diygifts, do it yourself

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

Tags: cooking_club

The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman and various artists. 10 Volume compilation of the comic book series.

Living in the boondocks as I do, I missed these comics when they were originally published-probably the only goth who didn’t read them back then. In one way I’m glad: I would have hated waiting between issues. I devoured these books over the course of a month- I resisted the urge to grab all 10 at once when they showed up at the library, even though I wanted to just scream “All mine!” and run cackling out the door.

These are the most sophisticated comics I’ve ever read. Gaiman mixes his own creations, The Endless Ones (who include Dream, Death, Delirium, Desire, Destiny and Despair), with the pantheons of Greece, Egypt, Norway, the Bible and adds the world of faerie for good measure. Dream’s world is seductive and coming up out of it after a thorough immersion- reading a whole volume in one sitting- requires some adjustment of thought, so total is Gaiman’s world building. These aren’t happy little stories, though. There are no deus ex machine endings here; things come at a cost. Excellent writing; if you like myth you’ll like these, even if comics aren’t your usual reading.

stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

Valente's Under in the Mere was an interesting read. I'm familiar with the source material (well, not the Vulgate Cycle, but Malory and Gawain the Green Knight, which in any case appear to be the primary source here) though I'm no medieval romance expert. It let me "get" the references, which for the Green Knight chapter I think is essential, since the allusions to the seduction/hunting game would probably not make sense otherwise.

I'm not sure I can give much of a critical thought about this book, since for the most part the Athurian framework seems to serve as a canvas for prose-poetry and not much else, though I appreciated the imagery of knights as automata and the Dagonet chapter (more Idylls of the King than Malory, though the specifics are mostly Valente) was my favorite. The rest are a bit hit-and-miss, and my interest flagged entirely while going through Pellinore's and Galahad's sections. I enjoyed the familiar Valente theme of monsters' perspectives (Bertilak, Pellinore, arguably Mordred) and her Morgan is quietly excellent, but on the whole I came away from Under in the Mere a little unsatisfied. I should say, though, that I'm not a reader of poetry: I like pretty language as much as anyone, but without substance to hold it together it's harder to appreciate.

What did everyone else think? I'm especially interested in how people unfamiliar with Malory/et al responded to it.