When I met Hillary Carlip for lunch last week to talk about her delightful memoir, Queen of the Oddballs, little did I know that our conversation would become a gateway into the world of MySpace author pages. It all began when Carlip mentioned that she's part of a loose band of writers called "The Memoirists Collective," along with Danielle Trusoni, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, and Maria Headley. As an act of group promotion, the "group of hot, desperate writers who are looking for that special someone who understands the complexities of their troubled, often misunderstood genre" have been running a string of contests where readers could win a chance to hang out with the quartet after Carlip's NYC B&N reading or have their own memoir proposals looked at by a literary agent.

And once you start looking at the Collective's friends, and their friends' friends, you realize they're only the tip of the iceberg. There's Janice Erlbaum, Tania Katan, Michelle Embree, Lisa Carver, Jolene Siana, Becky Garrison, Jen Sincero...mostly (but not exclusively) memoirists—although it looks like Gena Showalter's page is a quick shortcut to the ranks of YA writers playing on MySpace as well.

But Carlip isn't just relying on MySpace to get the word out online. In addition to a website for her book, she's also got FlyHC.com, a home page that encompasses all her careers from author to web developer and performance artist—don't miss her juggling on The Gong Show...