WSS Featured Blogger:Amanda Marcote of Mouse Words

• Name: Amanda Marcotte
• Blog: Mouse Words
• Location: Austin, TX

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?

I found myself reading more and more blogs, and since I didn't want to suck up space in their comments section, I started my own. I like to rant and rave, and my poor friends are sick of hearing it. I keep at it because I found so many more blogs this way and I found that I really enjoyed the dialogue between people.

2. What are your most important issues?

Politics and feminism are the big ones, though sometimes I rant about music. I try to keep my writing about how things look from my vantage, keeping in mind that one of the important things about feminism is that it allows women to speak with their own voices.

3. What's the nicest recognition you've ever received from the media and/or the blogosphere?

Gosh, everyone is so nice and I couldn't say.

4. Who is your audience? What is unique about your blog?

Beats me. I never know who reads it, except of course those who link to me and make comments. If my friends read it, I have no idea. Well, I know my boyfriend reads it, because he will occasionally say something about it to me. My blog's not all that unique, except that I am a pretty aggressive writer and I'm from West Texas. I live in Austin now, but West Texas just doesn't have many people from it, period, much less bloggers.

5. Most frustrating aspect of blogging?

Not knowing who's reading. This is also its saving grace because it allows you to write honestly.

6. What's the one point you'd like a reader to take away from your blog- the one thing for them to really "get"?

That Texas isn't a sinkhole of conservatism, that there are strongly liberal people out here that aren't about to give up.