MAGPIE IS always thrilled when one of his own hits the jackpot. Take, for instance, Alaskan farmer turned author Kaylene Johnson.
Kaylene lives on a small farm outside the town of Wasilla (population 9,780). Her books include Portrait of the Alaska Railroad and Trails Across Time: History of an Alaska Mountain Corridor. Terrific reads, no doubt.
She also writes for Alaska magazine and does a column for The Greatlander, a shopping website run by Anchorage Printing. Recent columns have included Puppy Love, a heartwarming tale about "two Labrador Retriever puppies . . . galloping around my office in fierce mock battle"; Retirement of a Country Cat ("We are dog people," it begins encouragingly. "In fact, my husband claims that he positively despises cats." - Magpie's kind of guy!); and, best of all, there's Kitchen Table Moments, a reprise on something that happened to Kaylene last October.
What happened was that someone suggested to Kaylene that she write a biography of Sarah Palin, a cracking good-looking Alaskan gal made good who a year previously had been elected state governor. The result was Sarah: How a Small Town Girl Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on its Ear - all of 160 pages and, crucially, its the only book about Sarah Palin in the world. Anywhere.
It sold about 8,000 copies (not bad) mostly to Palin's adoring Alaskan electorate . . . until, that is, a recent announcement, one side effect of which was to push the (hastily reissued) book, now entitled Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down, into Amazon's top-20 selling volumes.
Kaylene is now well on the way to having several million in the bank. As Elizabeth Wales of the Epicentre Press (what else!?) says: "Kaylene Johnson is tapped out and her schedule impossibly full . . . " Magpie hopes success doesn't spoil Kaylene and that she keeps cranking out her homespun yarns for The Greatlander.
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MEANWHILE, over on America's east coast, there was an unusually honest ad on Craigslist, the online classified ads website, for a live-in nanny. Not so much a small ad as a 1,000-word tome beginning: "My kids are a pain."
But it worked, attracting a brave soul who's never been a nanny before.
"If you cannot multitask, or communicate without being passive aggressive, don't even bother replying," advertised Rebecca Land Soodak, a mother of four in Manhattan.
"I can be a tad difficult to work for," she wrote with commendable frankness, adding: "I'm loud, pushy and while I used to think we paid well, I am no longer sure."
"I am not looking for Supernanny," the ad also read. "I don't want someone who has a lot of theories on the right way to raise kids . . . If you are fundamentally unhappy with your life, you will be more unhappy if you take this job."
Soodak, a 40-year-old painter whose husband owns a wine store, eventually hired brave soul Christina Wynn to look after Rubin (12), Ellis (nine), and Shay and Cassie (both six).
And finally, let's keep with the all-American theme this week...
Police in Florida hope to catch a cross-dressing purse-snatcher who left a clue behind - a fake boob. Officers in Port St Lucie say it happened when the man grabbed a 74-year-old woman's purse.A water-filled condom covered by a sock popped out of the suspect's tube top during the struggle and was found by officers at the scene.Police are processing the fake boob for fingerprints and will also conduct a DNA analysis on a hair - possibly a chest hair - found on the condom.