That Time of Year - Christmas Gifts for Writers

I love blog posts this time of year, telling me what new quirky items are available for me to cut and paste into an email to my family. Last year my son bought me this Edgar Allen Poe book handbag. See that picture? See on the website where it says sold? Yup. It's in my closet, people. You can't have it.

But what else is out there? What says "I love you are a writer" to that struggling author, blogger or journalist? Try some of these:

A Spoonful of Chocolate Hope did a great job on my purse, and she'll do the same for yours. See the 80+ bags available now. Don't see what you like? Custom order one.

An Uppercase Scarf. What the heck? Yea, I did a double take, too. But once I stared at it, I realized it's a real conversation starter and sort of cool. Made and shipped from the UK from The Literary Gift Company, so keep that in mind when calculating shipping.

Jane Austen umbrella. These caricatures are striking and made by Literary Luminaries. They have Shakespeare on another one and an assortment of women authors on yet another. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotamayor was caught on the evening news toting one!

Ooh, what about a Reader's Journal? I so wish I'd been savvy enough to record all the books I've read throughout the years, noting what I thought of the writing, the characters, especially through younger eyes! It's designed to guide you in jotting down what you liked, why you didn't finish, and your favorite passages in 250 books.


I fell in love with these greeting cards from Philsophy Science Art Gift Shop. How about a set with Oscar Wilde pictured on the front, inside stating "I have nothing to declare except my genius." Or poet Percy Shelley saying "Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted." The pictures are beautiful, the cards extremely tasteful.

Then there are the less tangible gifts, those that involve more from you and are harder to wrap:

• Dinner and a book signing.
• Chauffeur a writing friend to attend a writer's conference.
• A Writer's Digest online class.
• An online subscription to Writer's Market or TOTAL FundsforWriters .
• An offer to babysit, pet sit or plant sit while the writer goes off for a weekend to write.
• A paid retreat at a state park or even a quaint bed and breakfast or motel stay.
• Editing services.
• Web design.

Know your writer, though. While writers adore writing gifts, it's easy to give a how-to book that goes unread or a fancy pen that goes unused because the writer loves a plian Zebra fine-point from Office Depot. The bottom line is to make their hard sweat and effort a little bit easier and a lot more fun.