See me, hear me...

...touch me, feel me. OK, don't actually touch me or feel me. But you are invited to see the Phantom Prof in the rosy flesh when she and other women bloggers appear on a panel March 11 at the South By Southwest Interactive Festival at the Convention Center in Austin, Texas. Title of our session is "We Got Naked...Now What?"

We'll be talking about what it's like to reveal yourself--and get revealed by others--for blogging about things other people don't want you spilling to the world. Some of my fellow panelists write tell-all blogs based on their personal lives, real diary-type stuff. Since my writing is mostly about stories of other people and not myself so much, I'm there for balance--and to talk about what it's like when the press suddenly discovers you. Should be lively.

I'd love to meet Phantom Prof readers from Austin, if you want to make the scene. More about this event as we get closer to it. The whole fest is really packed with juicy stuff, not just about blogging, but web design, marketing, wireless technologies and new media entrepreneurship. Oh, there's also this film festival thing going on. Think there'll be any Sundance-stype swag?

On that subject, a friend of mine, an indie filmmaker and screenwriter, called from L.A. over the weekend. "I had lunch last week with Joe Fines," he says.

"Joe Fines? Who's that?"

"You don't know Joseph Fiennes? Shakespeare in Love? Ralph's brother?"

"OH! HIM!"

"He just got back from Sundance. He said the swag was unbelievable. He came home with about 30,000 bucks' worth of stuff--phones, cameras, clothes, boots. He said he'd be on the ski slopes and somebody would come up and hand him a card that says `Free weekend' at so-and-so spa or resort. It was ridiculous! It's all about the swag now. The films sucked, he said."

My friend had a film at Sundance in the days before the swag parties. "What did you get at Sundance?" I asked him.

"A Writers Guild coffee mug," he said, not without a little bitterness.