Out of the Shadows: British novelist Salman...

Out of the Shadows: British novelist Salman Rushdie says he wants to “wake up from the nightmare” of his life in hiding, so he was a guest on a radio program in London Monday, one day after an Iranian minister said his death sentence must stand. “Here’s a tiny inch forward,” he said of his appearance. “There may well be two steps back.” He has been in hiding for nearly two years since Iran’s late spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called his novel “The Satanic Verses” a blasphemy against Islam and ordered Muslims to kill him.

* First-Timer: Media magnate Ted Turner and activist-actress Jane Fonda will be married about a year from now. Turner himself confirmed it recently in Atlanta at a private reception. Fonda flashed her engagement ring and said: “I’ve been married twice, but I never had one before.”

* Belated Bash: After 100 years, reclusive poet Emily Dickinson got the book party she never had--and the kind of attention she might have hated. “I guess we’re safe in doing it at this time,” said organizer Martha Ackmann of Monday’s celebration at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., which marked the publication of the bulk of Dickinson’s poetry in 1890--four years after her death. The poet might have deplored all the fuss at her alma mater, but Ackmann likes an old college try: “We kind of think of it as the publication party Mount Holyoke never gave her.”

* Two-Timer: A Marine married his sweetheart in Lolo, Mont., over the weekend--even though he was thousands of miles away in the Persian Gulf. Sgt. Paul Flemmer married Rhonda McWilliams when Flemmer’s father, Del Flemmer, stood in for his eldest son under the Montana provision that permits proxy weddings. Flemmer had a military leave to get married Aug. 30, but it was canceled after Iraq invaded Kuwait and Flemmer had to ship out. The bride says the couple will “do it the right way” when Flemmer gets back.