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The rituals involved in submitting work to literary magazines are almost as precise and complicated as those of the writing process itself. Most writers take great care in signing cover letters, applying proper postage, self-addressing their stamped envelopes, even patiently centering binder clips as if dressing a child for the first day of school. But a growing number of magazines are switching to an online submission process, making those rituals-not to mention the U.S. Postal Service-unnecessary.

Proponents of online submissions say the process saves money on postage and paper and cuts down on response times, since it curtails much of the administrative work involved in logging, assigning, and distributing manuscripts once they are received by a magazine. It also reduces the chances of submissions being lost. Online submission systems usually notify writers once their work is received. After setting up accounts, writers can also log on to the journal's Web site, determine whether their work is still under consideration, or review what they have previously submitted.

Last August, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) unveiled Submission Manager, an online software system that makes submitting manuscripts a cheaper, less protracted process for writers, while offering greater efficiency to literary journal staffs. Designed by One Story webmaster Devin Emke, the software allows writers to submit electronic manuscripts and enter their own contact information directly into a journal's database-in effect, logging their own submissions. A number of magazines, such as A Public Space, Fence, jubilat, and Ploughshares, are using the software. Others, like Glimmer Train Stories, use customized online systems.

The rituals involved in submitting work to literary magazines are almost as precise and complicated as those of the writing process itself. Most writers take great care in signing cover letters, applying proper postage, self-addressing their stamped envelopes, even patiently centering binder clips as if dressing a child for the first day of school. But a growing number of magazines are switching to an online submission process, making those rituals-not to mention the U.S. Postal Service-unnecessary.

Proponents of online submissions say the process saves money on postage and paper and cuts down on response times, since it curtails much of the administrative work involved in logging, assigning, and distributing manuscripts once they are received by a magazine. It also reduces the chances of submissions being lost. Online submission systems usually notify writers once their work is received. After setting up accounts, writers can also log on to the journal's Web site, determine whether their work is still under consideration, or review what they have previously submitted.

Last August, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) unveiled Submission Manager, an online software system that makes submitting manuscripts a cheaper, less protracted process for writers, while offering greater efficiency to literary journal staffs. Designed by One Story webmaster Devin Emke, the software allows writers to submit electronic manuscripts and enter their own contact information directly into a journal's database-in effect, logging their own submissions. A number of magazines, such as A Public Space, Fence, jubilat, and Ploughshares, are using the software. Others, like Glimmer Train Stories, use customized online systems.

Terrified of what will happen on New Year's 2000, Randall Knight embarks on a coast-to-coast Cassandra tour, urging his family, friends and ex-girlfriends to take the looming crisis seriously and prepare for Doomsday. The children's puppeteer throws R.K. Raccoon, Salmon Ella and a pile of paranoid, pessimistic studies he downloaded from this new thing called the Internet into his Oldsmobile. His goal is to rouse a nation that would rather distract itself with a soap opera about the president and an intern.

His first approach is to calmly present people with the facts as he sees them. But after his own family stages an intervention to stop him from being the real Y2K casualty - and Randall responds in a very funny scene by crashing a party thrown by his sister and brother-in-law, a Lewinsky-obsessed reporter for CNN - he finds himself celebrating Thanksgiving at a survivalist's camp in Texas and wondering what went wrong.

Omani writers and scholars will seek their rights and more freedom, according to the chief of the newly formed Omani Scholars and Writers Association yesterday.

"We would seek support for the freedom of thinking, encourage dialogue and support the rights of young writers and scholars," Sayyid Nameer Bin Salim Al Said, Head of Omani Scholars and Writers Association (Oswa), said at the formal launch of the association under the auspices Sayyid Haitham Bin Tareq Al Said, Minister of Heritage and Culture.

The minister said that scholars and writers will now be encouraged to contribute more to the cultural renaissance of the country. Sayyid Nameer said the idea to found the association was first mooted in the 1980s and efforts continued for years until 2000 when a law organising the activity of private associations in Oman was issued.

Omani writers and scholars will seek their rights and more freedom, according to the chief of the newly formed Omani Scholars and Writers Association yesterday.

"We would seek support for the freedom of thinking, encourage dialogue and support the rights of young writers and scholars," Sayyid Nameer Bin Salim Al Said, Head of Omani Scholars and Writers Association (Oswa), said at the formal launch of the association under the auspices Sayyid Haitham Bin Tareq Al Said, Minister of Heritage and Culture.

The minister said that scholars and writers will now be encouraged to contribute more to the cultural renaissance of the country. Sayyid Nameer said the idea to found the association was first mooted in the 1980s and efforts continued for years until 2000 when a law organising the activity of private associations in Oman was issued.

"I think everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of the boss from hell, the over-the-top person who can ruin your professional and personal life," said Clark, 29, who worked with Regan in New York for almost a year. "I'm sure this happens in many jobs, but you do hear a lot of stories about it occurring in the world of publishing."

Perhaps it was just a matter of time. If Lauren Weisberger's vicious portrait of Anna Wintour and the fashion world in "The Devil Wears Prada" could be turned into literary and cinematic gold, why couldn't the book world ? teeming with behind-the-scenes intrigue and a rogue's gallery of opportunists ? offer similar literary fodder?

For the record, Clark said her book is fiction and is not a specific portrait of anyone. But she concedes that "it's based on things I've lived and things I've imagined. It's pretty much out there by now, what she [Regan] is like. And I think the O.J. Simpson thing was truly a low point. But I don't have much more to add."

The New York gossip world, however, has been buzzing ever since galleys of Clark's 274-page book began circulating last month. The publisher, Warner Books, has openly touted the Regan connection, sending reporters a juicy item from Lloyd Grove, a former New York Daily News columnist, who described Vivien Grant, the novel's main character, as "a wildly abusive, foul-mouthed, pantsuit-wearing publisher who favors down-market bestsellers about strippers and pimps, boasts about her sexual escapades to overworked staffers and carries on an extramarital affair with a New York City public official who ? presumably unlike Regan's onetime paramour, former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik ? likes to be photographed wearing lipstick and lingerie." Claire Truman, the young protagonist in Clark's book, thinks she's heard it all as she comes to work for Grant. But nothing prepares her for a boss who calls at all hours, makes brazen intrusions into her private life and throws vulgar tantrums.