Seventy-six Years Ago: Claire Lui, editorial assistant at American Heritage magazine, has written an overview of the launch of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's Nancy Drew seventy-six years ago on April 28, 1930.

Nancy Drew, the linchpin of the Stratemeyer Syndicate for the next 54 years, would be Edward Stratemeyer’s last hurrah. Twelve days after the first Nancy Drew book was published, he died of pneumonia. Nancy now became the work of two separate women: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, the new head of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and Mildred Wirt Benson, the ghostwriter behind most of the early mysteries. Together, Adams and Benson were Carolyn Keene, the author listed in the Library of Congress as Nancy Drew's author. Their differing visions of Nancy would eventually be reflected in two versions of the series.

Lui believes that Nancy, who has never gone out of print, and who is now appearing in new stories will last for at least another 76 years. Read article ...

Nancy Prew: Huh? This blurb from westender.com in Vancouver tells you everything you need to know.

All-American teenage sleuth Nancy Prew (not to be confused with all-American teenage sleuth Nancy Drew, for obvious potentially litigious reasons) is transported from the 1950s to 2006, only to be faced with a dastardly group of conservative evil-doers that plans to turn back the hands of time to Prew's era of chasteness and "family values." Mmmm... that's good satire! The always disrespectful and irreverent Screaming Weenie Productions presents Clue in the Fast Lane, presented as a three-episode series April 11-29 at Odyssey Nightclub (1251 Howe), 7:30 p.m. Tickets $10 from ScreamingWeenie.com, Little Sister's and Tech Direct PC, or $12 at the door ($25 for all three episodes).

Wonder if this show will ever come east where I might have a chance to see it. I suppose I'll just have to settle for Lucy Liu in "Lucky Number Slevin" ... movie also stars Josh Hartnett and Bruce Willis ... hmmmm. Read more ...

Teen Spirit: Nancy Drew and others are used by author Ilana Nash in her book, "American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture", from Indiana University Press to show, by "illuminating oppressive patterns of representation of teenage girls in American movies, plays, novels and TV and radio shows from 1930 to 1965", a mass culture campaign intent on maintaining "patriarchal hegemony" ... sounds like serious stuff ... might be too much for me but maybe you want to learn more ... and you can in this review ... or if you buy and read the book ...