With a lot of road behind her and a lot of road left to go, Rose Marshall—the Shadow of Sparrow Hill Road—is only starting to understand just how the stakes are capable of getting. The darker story is beginning to show through, and even the dead may not survive it.

Issue 51 of The Edge of Propinquity is live, and with it, the third of the Sparrow Hill Road stories is available. "Tell Laura I Love Her" offers a glimpse into Rose's past, and the way that it can echo forward to destroy her future. But how much future is there, really, for someone who died more than fifty years ago?

There are a lot of stories trapped and tangled in the twilight. This is only one of them. But it's the one I have to tell.

Give a girl a ride?

You may have heard me raving about an anthology called The Living Dead [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], a collection of some of the finest zombie fiction I've ever seen. I read it, I loved it, I told everyone I know who likes zombies that they should join me in buying, reading, and loving it.

Skip to the present, where John Joseph Adams—the original anthologist—has been putting together a sequel, The Living Dead 2, featuring still more of the finest zombie fiction around. The official announcement of the book's table of contents is here, along with the book's truly awesome cover art. The preliminary cover copy:

"Two years ago, readers eagerly devoured The Living Dead. Publisher's Weekly named it one of the Best Books of the Year, and Barnes & Noble.com called it 'The best zombie fiction collection ever.' Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams is back for another bite at the apple—the Adam's apple, that is—with forty-three more of the best, most chilling, most thrilling zombie stories anywhere, including virtuoso performances by zombie fiction legends Max Brooks (World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), and David Wellington (Monster Island)."

Pretty exciting, huh? But maybe my excitement seems a little odd. After all, I love David Wellington ("Good People" in this volume), Robert Kirkman ("Alone, Together"), and Jonathan Maberry ("Zero Tolerance"). And yes, there's a new Kelley Armstrong story in this book ("Last Stand"). So why am I so thrilled?

Because Mira Grant's new short story, "Everglades," will be making its debut in this volume. Oh, yeah. Not only am I going to be in the sequel to the best zombie anthology ever, I'm going to do it on a table of contents with Kelley Armstrong.

I win at universe.

The Living Dead 2 will be out in September, or you can pre-order your copy now.

Zombies!

So I'm existing on a diet of Diet Dr Pepper, canned peas, and plain-baked chicken breasts with way too many mushrooms, and I'm waking up earlier every morning (new record: 5:02 AM). I thus figure it's time to give the general status updates, before I'm too fried to think straight.

Books. I have three coming out in 2010: A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] and An Artificial Night as me, and Feed [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] as Mira Grant. I have one currently due in 2010, Deadline (the sequel to Feed).

In addition to the books that are already sold/slated for publication, I have one finished October Daye book, Late Eclipses, and one finished InCryptid book, Discount Armageddon. I am currently working on The Brightest Fell (Toby five), Midnight Blue-Light Special (InCryptid two), and Sit, Stay, I Hate You (Coyote Girls two). In 2010, I'm planning to finish all three of these, start on Blackout (Newsflesh three), start on Ashes of Honor (Toby six), and start on Hunting Grounds (InCryptid three). I am not planning on a particularly large quantity of sleep.

There's currently a contest running to win an ARC of A Local Habitation. Drop by and give it a shot!

Short Stories. I'm one of the 2010 universe authors for The Edge of Propinquity, which is running my Sparrow Hill Road series for the rest of the year. The second story, "Dead Man's Party," went live earlier this week, and I'm working on the fifth story, "El Viento Del Diablo," which should be finished in a week or so. After that comes "Last Dance With Mary Jane," which will answer a lot of questions people have been asking for a very long time. This is a series heavily influenced by the mythology of the American highway, and with a very strong soundtrack accompanying every story. There will be playlists! Much fun.

I have various other short stories out on secret missions, including two Fighting Pumpkins adventures ("Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" and "Gimme a 'Z'!"), my first-ever steampunk piece ("Alchemy and Alcohol," which comes complete with cocktail recipes), and an actual Mira Grant short story ("Everglades"). I'm noticing a high level of dead stuff in my recent short story output. Somehow, this is not striking me as terribly surprising.

Non-fiction. My essay in Chicks Dig Time Lords [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] will be available later this month, along with, y'know, the rest of the book, which includes an essay from my beloved Tara O'Shea. So if you've ever wondered why I love math and have trouble with linear time, you should probably pick up a copy of this book. (You should do that anyway, because the book is awesome, but that's beside the point.)

My introduction for jennifer_brozek's In A Gilded Light will also be available with the rest of the book, sometime in mid-2010. I plan to finish the "On Writing" series by the end of 2010.

Albums. Work on Wicked Girls is proceeding apace, and beginning to pick up speed as we get deeper into the process of mixing and arranging songs. I'm scheduling my various instrumentalists to come into the studio and get their parts recorded, and some of the arrangements are just going to be incredible. I still need to confirm the covers for this album, and start thinking about graphic design, but I'm still really, really pleased. There's no confirmed release date yet, and there's not going to be one until we're a lot closer to done: as I've said a few times, as soon as there's a deadline, this ceases to be fun and relaxing, and right now, we're too far from finished for that to be a good idea.

I'm within a hundred copies of being entirely out of Stars Fall Home (my first studio album), and right now, I couldn't tell you if or when there's going to be another printing. I'm doing a little better for Pretty Little Dead Girl, but at the current rate, I'd estimate that I'll be out (or very close to out) by this time next year. Red Roses and Dead Things, being my most recent release, is also the one with the most remaining stock (paradoxically, it's also my fastest seller, since a lot of folks don't have it yet). In summary, if you're missing any of my first three albums, you may want to consider whether you're going to want them, because when they're gone, they're gone.

Cats. Alice continues to steal mass from the very center of the sun, growing at a rate usually seen only in big green dudes who have been exposed to Gamma radiation. She's pissed at Cat Valente, who keeps showing pictures of a very enticing kitten, and then not sending the kitten through the screen. Lilly, meanwhile, has taken to jangling her bell right next to my ear in the middle of the night to express her displeasure with the state of the food supply. Lilly wants to be mittens.

And that's the local weather report. Back to you, Ken.

Rose Marshall, also known as the Girl in the Diner, the Shadow of Sparrow Hill Road, and the Lady in Green, has had a pretty rough road of it so far...and things aren't getting any easier from here.

Issue 50 of The Edge of Propinquity is live, and with it, the second of the Sparrow Hill Road stories is available. "Dead Man's Party" takes us deeper into the twilight, and a few miles further down the ghostroads, where vengeance sometimes comes with a price that's a little bit too high for anyone to pay.

There are a lot of stories trapped and tangled in the twilight. This is only one of them. But it's the one I have to tell.

Give a girl a ride?

Title: Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division.
Summary: The life of a retired superhero is definitely refusing to get easier. Especially when you're just trying to get to Oregon already, and now people from your past that you've done your best to put behind you seem bent on tracking you down...

( Oh, it's hard as hell to be a hero these days. Especially when they just won't leave you alone...Collapse )

Ever wondered what really happened to Rose Marshall, the pretty little dead girl who started it all? Well, you can finally find out...starting today.

Issue 49 of The Edge of Propinquity is live, and with it, the first of the Sparrow Hill Road stories is available. "Good Girls Go to Heaven" introduces you to Rose Marshall and the ecology of the ghostroads, where death is not forever; it's not even for tonight.

There are a lot of stories trapped and tangled in the twilight. This is only one of them. But it's the one I have to tell.

Give a girl a ride?

Or, well, a message from one of my many editors. In this case, Jennifer Brozek, one of the editors from Grants Pass:

"Members of the HWA may recommend the anthology "Grants Pass" edited by Amanda Pillar and Jennifer Brozek to the Stoker Committee for its consideration in the anthology category. It is currently tied for sixth place. The short list has only five slots. We need at least three more recommendations to get into that top five nominations. Active and Associate HWA members may recommend, while only Active HWA members may vote in the final ballot. I am happy to send out a PDF of the GRANTS PASS anthology for HWA members' consideration. All recommendations must be received by January 15th on the official HWA site."

So there you go. If you belong to the Horror Writers of America, and would like to consider Grants Pass for inclusion on the Stoker ballot, please feel free to contact jennifer_brozek to request a .PDF of the book. It really is an excellent anthology, and I had a fantastic time with my story ("Animal Husbandry," which involves plague).

Thanks, all.

First up, my short story, "Let's Pretend," will be appearing in the anthology Ladies of Horror, coming out in 2010. "Let's Pretend" originally appeared at The Edge of Propinquity (where my Sparrow Hill Road series will be launching in January). It's one of my rare vampire pieces, and is...nasty.

(It's also one of those stories that really makes me want to write "DVD extras" for a lot of my work. The first draft was written during a game of Three Beers and a Story. How do you play? Well, you drink three beers. And you write a story. Personally, I prefer Three Long Island Iced Teas and a Story, but that's sort of the X-Games variation.)

Secondly, the Orbit catalog for Spring/Summer 2010 is live, and includes the official press release on Feed. The book is available for pre-order now, and I am beginning to accept its reality, which is both exciting and terrifying. How did I get here? Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?

Finally, because it is THE MOST AWESOME OMG, Barnes and Noble has named Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] as one of the best urban fantasy releases of 2009. You'll pardon me while I scream like a girl, won't you?

2009 is drawing to a close; the number of days it has left to present me with awesome things is dwindling steadily. But this is a year that brought me my first anthology, my first novel, my first book release party, the first gathering of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show, my first Maine Coon, my first solicited artwork-for-pay that wasn't a personal commission, my first solo guest of honor slot, and so much more. 2009 is going down in the record books as a pretty good year to be a blonde.

Thanks for being here.

So in the last seventy-two hours, I have...

...finished "Good Girls Go To Heaven," the first Sparrow Hill Road story, and returned it to my editor for review. (I like to be early, so that there's time for me to be thoroughly edited.) I'll probably be starting "Dead Man's Party" in a day or so.

...finished "The Alchemy of Alcohol," my first-ever steampunk story (also my first story about Mina Norton, alchemist, bartender, and exceedingly cranky native of San Francisco). It was ludicrously fun to write. Mina is refreshingly annoyed.

...started "Gimme A 'Z'!"—which, as you can probably guess from the title, is the next adventure of the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad. The wearing of little pleated orange and green skirts is clearly dangerous, given the trouble these girls manage to get themselves into.

...started "Slow," a much more viscerally upsetting zombie story. It's a zombie week here at Casa de Blonde.

...written way too much of Blackout, which probably explains why I have so many zombies on the brain right now. I love this series a lot. I'll love it even more when I get about another five thousand words on in the current book, since that will mean it's time to pause, consider, and process edits. (Yes, I really do schedule everything.)

...finished reviewing my page proofs for Feed. Alive or dead, the truth won't rest. Rise up while you can.

My new website will be going live real soon now, which means new material, including the Toby FAQ and the Sparrow Hill Road landing page. Watch this space for details. I am now going to go extract my Maine Coon from my purse.

Good girls only make the news one way.
Special reports when the kids go to bed
And the ghouls come out to play.
Good girls make their marks and fade away,
People say their prayers and they shake their heads
And they bury them anyway,

And they'll tell you "she was lovely,"
Though they all forget the names
Of the ones who pay the good girl's fee
Down the rocky road to fame—

        So when the crossroads call and your faith is thin
        And you're afraid you might explode,
        Go and talk to the girl in the green silk gown
        Who walks on Sparrow Hill Road...

Rose Marshall was sixteen the year she died: 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt began his fourth term as President of the United States and World War II came staggering to a close. A lot of people have said a lot of things since then. She's been called everything from angel to devil. Some people say she makes men race with her and drives them to their deaths. Some say she's trying to save the drivers from that same fate. They whisper her name everywhere from Michigan to Maine, from Wyoming to Washington...but no one really knows the truth. No one knows what really happened that long-ago night on the blind curve at the top of Sparrow Hill Road.

Not until now, anyway.

I am pleased as punch to announce that I will be joining The Edge of Propinquity as one of their 2010 Universe Authors. Starting in January, I'll be inviting you to ride along on the way to Sparrow Hill Road, where a girl named Rose Marshall raced, and died, and rose again to walk the world as an urban legend of a very special kind. I've been looking forward to telling her story for a long time. I finally have the chance to do it. Here's hoping you'll come along for the ride.

Come on, now; let me tell you about Rose Marshall, the sweetest girl that you'd ever see. They always say that the good die young...

Nominations for the 2009 Nebula Awards have opened. To quote Wikipedia (source of all knowledge, "The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year." Since everybody seems to be putting up lists of their qualifying material, I thought I'd do the same. I'm generous like that.

First, of course, the novel. Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was published by DAW Books in September 2009, putting it well within this year's window. Urban fantasy, fairy tale noir, and the beginning of my first series. Yay!

Short stories, I have several that appear to qualify quite nicely under the current rules. "Animal Husbandry" is a story of post-apocalypse survival and psychological horror, originally published by Morrigan Books in Grants Pass (August 2009). (Amazon says the book is out of print, and Amazon lies, but if you're a SFWA member and want to see the story, I'll happily send it your way.)

"Lost" is a sad, sentimental fantasy piece, originally published by The Ravens in the Library Project in the anthology Ravens in the Library (February 2009). This book is out of print, but again, if you're a SFWA member and want to see the story, I'll happily send it your way. The story will be reprinted by Wily Writers this coming December. You might also want to look at "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," which is not quite a companion piece, but might be, if you tilt your head and squint. It was published by the Book View Cafe in October 2009.

Finally, although I have other stories that technically qualify, I want to point out "Knives." This is a sort of modern-day revisiting of "The Little Mermaid," and was also originally published through the Book View Cafe, in August of 2009/

I find it almost terrifying that I have this many things that even technically qualify. And next year, I'll have two things to list as potentially qualifying novels.

Sometimes the world is amazing.

Title: Velveteen vs. The Old Flame.
Summary: The life of a retired superhero is definitely refusing to get easier. Especially when you're just trying to get to Oregon already, and now people from your past that you've done your best to put behind you seem bent on tracking you down...

( Velma Martinez -- occasional reluctant superheroine, former child star, bitterest of all bitter twenty-somethings, and prime candidate for therapy -- stepped out of the Chevron Extra Mile, arms loaded down with road snacks and half a Twinkie still sticking out of her mouth as she tried to figure out how to chew, swallow, and find her car keys all at the same time...Collapse )

Come and get it while it's hot! The Edge of Propinquity is one of my favorite online magazines, featuring a monthly mix of ongoing, or "universe" stories—sort of like the classic old movie serials of the 1940s and 1950s, only without quite as many Rocketman cameos—and one-off guest stories, showing you the freaky side of the fictional world. I was a guest author for TEoP in 2008, with a gory little story called "Let's Pretend." Feeling the sting of my long absence, I went crawling back to their door, and was rewarded with the chance to be a guest in their home once more.

Ladies and gentlemen, my story for the November 2009 issue of The Edge of Propinquity:

Inspirations.

This is me enjoying the glories of being a horror girl, pure and simple. It's dark, it's squishy, and it makes me very happy to be able to get it out there and share it with the world. Blood stains and all.

Enjoy.

Here's this week's Book View Cafe short story, "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," which is available for free reading and enjoyment and all that jazz:

"A Citizen in Childhood's Country."

For all the Lost, and all the Found. I love you.

So—as you know, Bob—I belong to the Book View cafe, a truly rocking collective of writers offering free fiction and freelance fancies to the world. It's a really fun group of people, all professionals in their own right, and they do some really strange, really exciting stuff. Really!

Today, the results for my first Twitterfic contest were posted. Our theme was "fairy tale noir," and the entries were so stellar that I really wished we could have ten winners instead of two. Check out the results for a grin. They're really awesome.

As part of what we do over at the Book View Cafe, we all offer short fiction for free reading and enjoyment. My story for this week just went up. It's a fun short piece called "Indexing," and it introduces Henrietta Marchen and the Marchen Containment and Control Agency (MCCA). I really enjoyed this story, and this world. I think I'll probably wind up going back there a time or ten, just for fun.

As an interesting bit of trivia about "Indexing": this was my original concept for Ravens In the Library. I decided it was too frothy at the last minute, scrapped it, and wrote "Lost" instead. So it's a fairy tale flash from the files, and I hope that you enjoy it.

Dear Great Pumpkin;

With Halloween fast approaching, I felt it important to write and let you know that I have continued to be a very good girl. I have offered advice to people who asked for it, and not offered advice to people who didn't want it. I have allowed others to sample my candy corn without removing their fingers. I have hugged my friends and told my loved ones that I love them. I have not invoked any ancient evils to rise from their graves in the great corn maze and destroy an unsuspecting populace. I have made all my deadlines, even the ones I wanted to miss. And the swine flu still isn't my fault. So you see, I have been a very good girl, especially by my standards.

Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:

* Wonderful, easy, successful book release parties during which no one sets anybody else on fire. Please, Great Pumpkin, grant me two glorious nights, filled with wonder and joy and lots and lots and lots of book sales, because it turns out that I'm very nervous about this whole thing. Please let me be a Halloweentown Cinderella at the October Ball, only without the glass slippers, and let it all be wonderful. Also, please let there be lots of cookies. I'm a big fan of cookies.

* An easy, or at least not insanely painful, editing process on The Brightest Fell, which is definitely going to need a lot of editing before I hand it over to The Agent, much less The Editor. My first drafts are always excitingly messy, so I'm not particularly worried—the fact that it's book five, and book one just came out, means I have some breathing room—but I really would like breeze through the rewrites, just this once, so that I can get on to Ashes of Honor, preferably before A Local Habitation hits shelves. I will find it much easier to sleep once books four through six are put safely down, and when I sleep, I'm not destroying the world. You like the world, don't you, Great Pumpkin?

* Once again, I must request continued health for my cats, without whom the entire universe would be at risk from my unstoppable wrath. Alice is growing up gloriously beautiful, Great Pumpkin, although I continue to suspect that you may be her actual father (it's either you or an otter, and I oddly find you substantially more plausible). Lilly is continuing to do well with her new "sibling," and seeing the two of them rampaging through my house, destroying things at random, fills my heart with joy.

* Clean, timely page proofs for A Local Habitation and Feed, since right now, I am a blonde without deadlines. I do remember that I promised you three short stories with the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad, as well as the origin stories for Hailey and Scaredy, in exchange for the trilogy sale. I keep my promises. Watch this space for further developments, Great Pumpkin, and thank you again.

* A beautiful fall season. You like the autumn as much as I do, Great Pumpkin, because it is in the autumn that the world truly honors and appreciates your glory. So please, talk to the weather, and make sure that this autumn is one that we'll remember for years to come. And not because the entire state falls into the ocean, or catches fire, or is invaded by flesh-eating locusts from beyond the veil of time. Make this a beautiful, wonderful season, Great Pumpkin, and make it a treat without any tricks. Please.

* Please help me to finish Discount Armageddon in a satisfying, respectful, ass-kicking way, hopefully involving lots of explosions and snappy one-liners. I really want Verity and her family to find a home (and not just so Alice can finally find Thomas), and that means I need to get past the first chapter of their story. What I have so far is actually pretty solid. Please make it amazing.

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.

PS: You really did amazingly with the house for the Newsflesh trilogy. Thank you so much. You da squash.

1) A lot of new folks have been wandering in over the past few days, probably because of this wacky thing I did called "releasing a book." Hi, new people! If you're wondering just what the hell you've gone and gotten yourself into, I recommend either hitting the "welcome post" tag, which leads to my semi-regular welcome posts, or wait until next Wednesday, when I'll be putting up the September welcome post. Yes, I really am that organized. The alternative is hysterical flailing, and that thread is useless without pictures.

2) Tangentially related, I have my 2010 Franklin-Covey planner pages! There was very nearly hysteria in the Franklin-Covey store, as the clerk who was helping me responded to my request for the Simplicity 2010 daily pages with "Oh, that's been discontinued." When I started to hyperventilate, he mysteriously located my pages in the stockroom. Perhaps he should consider that when you take a job in the OCD porn store, it's not nice to taunt the people who shop there. We're likely to flip out and beat someone to death with a hole punch.

3) The invasion has begun! Amy has been at my house since last week. Over the next few days, Brooke, Vixy and Tony, Betsy, Sooj and K, Rebecca, and Mia and Ryan will all be arriving. (No, they're not all staying with me. I have insufficient house for that sort of invasion.) Alice and Lilly have handled things well so far, what with the pre-invasion cleaning and the imported fiddler. Alice is especially fond of the imported fiddler, and has abandoned me heartlessly to hang out with Amy.

4) When looking for details on upcoming appearances, please remember that all confirmed appearances are listed in great detail on my website Appearances Page. I don't mind answering questions, but especially right now, there can be a pretty lengthy delay between you saying "hey, are you going to be...?" and my actually getting a chance to answer you. Since appearance questions are innately time-sensitive, please, please check the website first. It may save you missing a really awesome party.

5) Again tangentially related, since it's been asked several times: the raffle is Saturday night, at Borderlands. There isn't a raffle scheduled for Friday night, because it wasn't arranged ahead of time (we weren't aware of how many raffle prizes we'd actually have available to us until very recently). So if you want to participate in the raffle, you need to come to the Saturday book party.

6) If you're planning to come to the Saturday book party, remember that you can get an extra raffle ticket by bringing delicious baked goods to share with the rest of the class! Mmmmm, delicious baked goods.

7) Yes, I'll be at OVFF and World Fantasy. No, I won't be at ConChord or Orycon. I have no conventions in 2009 after World Fantasy, and that's a wonderful thing, because I'm intending to take a nap. I miss sleep. My cats miss me sleeping, since they don't have an electric blanket, and without a warm human, they're forced to rely on sunbeams and each other for warmth. Think of the kitties. (Even if Alice is the feline equivalent of a down comforter, she still likes snuggles.)

8) Here's some fun news for you short story and Velveteen fans. First off, I'll have new pieces appearing at the Book View Cafe soon (I had to take a week off, due to book release crazy), including more horror, and maybe even a look at the little town of Rush's Bend, Minnesota. Secondly, "Velveteen vs. the Blind Date" is finally almost finished, and your regularly scheduled dose of superhero strangeness will be rolling into town any day now. I just need to work the last of the bugs (and bears) out before I release it.

9) The turtle couldn't help us.

10) September is only three days old, and already it's been awesome and exhausting and exhilarating and generally terrifying in ways that I've been dreaming of for my entire life. Thank you all for being here, and for not shooting me for all the flailing I've been doing lately. I promise we'll return to normal levels of flail soon.

Now we must rinse.

I'm thrilled to make sure everybody knows that this weekend is the first-ever Grants Pass signing and event. Yes! Grants Pass, live and in person! The event details:

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22nd
2:00 to 4:00 PM

http://www.soulfoodbooks.com/OldRoot/
Soulfood Books and Cafe
15748 Redmond Way
Redmond, Washington 98052

...so if you're not going to be in Washington, this may not be the most helpful thing ever, but if you are, wow did you just win the jackpot!



Attending authors include me, Jay Lake, Shannon Page, James Sullivan, and the incomparable Jennifer Brozek, our fearless editor, who first said "what if we threw a plague and everybody came?" We'll be signing books (and bookplates), hanging out, and there will be cake. Also, because I am me, and I always travel with at least fifteen ways to distract myself, there will probably also be at least one copy of Rosemary and Rue to fondle and gaze upon with love in your heart.

This is really exciting. Grants Pass is the first anthology I was ever asked to be a part of, and the first anthology I ever successfully sold a story to (not necessarily the same thing, more's the pity). And Jennifer is a dear friend. So seeing both of them succeeding together is just, well...cake. And cake is good. We like cake. The cake is not a lie.

I hope to see you there!

Okay, free stuff, part one:

I belong to the Book View Cafe, a group of over twenty professional authors exploring the wonderful options available to us through the Internet. What does this mean to you? It means, among other things, "free online fiction." Yeah, I thought you might like that one. I'm a Friday girl in the rotation, which means my short stories go online (when they're available) on Fridays—and this week is no different. So take a look at this week's dark fairy tale offering...

Knives.

If you missed last week's story, a little moral fable with vampires in, it's also available to read:

Anthony's Vampire.

Go, read, enjoy, and explore the many wonderful things that the Book View Cafe has to offer.

Free stuff, part two:

There are some truly incredible new icons and wallpapers available on my website icons and wallpapers page. Seriously, these just took my breath away when Tara sent them to me. (Remember, my graphic designer, taraoshea, is available for freelance work! You just can't keep her.) I absolutely could not be happier with these gorgeous giveaways, and they're totally available for you to use on your computer, journal, or whatever.

Happy cat is happy. Free stuff is free.

Look! People are enjoying our pandemic!

Seeing the early reviews come in for Grants Pass is incredibly exciting for me, because while this may be my second anthology by publication (Ravens in the Library was first), it's my first anthology by invitation, acceptance, and—most importantly of all—"normal" publication process. Ravens was slammed together in an incredibly short amount of time, and never had the normal cycle of ARCs, reviews, and nail-biting. Grants Pass is letting me experience the process in all its glory.

This is the second review I've seen. It's also the second review to point out my story, "Animal Husbandry," as being made of win. So that's a pretty encouraging sign that perhaps my compulsive neurosis has served my short fiction well. I'm really excited to see this book. The editors were amazingly cool to work with, the entire process has been a joy, and the author list is super-exciting. I'm still a little stunned to be on it.

Grants Pass is so gonna rule, I swear.

The release of Grants Pass is fast approaching, and the first reviews of the anthology as a whole are starting to be released into the wild. Did I get name-checked as being a slice of awesome from a sweet, sweet pandemic pie? Why yes. Yes, it would appear that I did.

(Me to Brooke: "Look!"
Brooke to me: "Should I be surprised that you excel at plague?")

This book is going to be so cool, and not just because it has a truly epic body count. I'm really excited about the author list, and Jennifer has been a treat to work with. Plus, I essentially hinted my way into getting an invitation ("It's about pandemics? Gosh, what a coincidence. I like pandemics..."), so it's nice to see that I won't be dragging her nice little story collection down.

Meet me in Grants Pass, if you can.

( And now, to encourage you to show up, a poem.Collapse )

The ever-lovely talkstowolves decided to do a review of Ravens in the Library, the benefit anthology assembled for SJ "Sooj" Tucker following her sudden acquisition of several thousand dollars in unwanted medical debt. (Sometimes the medical system itself makes me ill, and then where am I?) It was a glorious idea, and a glorious reality, and it's great to see people really digging into the book enough to fully review it.

Part One of the review, in which half the stories are explored.
Part Two of the review, in which we run out of stories.
Part Three of the review, in which there is a great deal of artwork.

The sheer detail and consideration of this set of entries delights me. True critical thinking is always a joy, and even when I disagree with it, it makes me think. Well worth the price of admission.

MONDAY: Monday, Monday, Monday. Monday was a day of Getting Things Done. On Monday, I submitted my latest short story—fetchingly titled "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" (although I sadly suspect that even the most tolerant of editors may ask me to change to one of the possible alternate titles, because I am not James Tiptree)—to the anthology it was hopefully written for, chopped up lots of vegetables for stew, used an entire bottle of red wine in setting up my marinades (I felt quite decadent doing this), processed a truly epic number of edits, and actually went to bed on time (not a theme of the week). I also put my tax paperwork where I'd be able to find it again later. Behold! For now I wear the human pants!

TUESDAY: Tuesday was a "hit the ground running" sort of a day. I got up, only to start rabbit stew in the smaller crock pot, and goat stew in the larger crock pot. (I know in my heart that my crazy poacher ancestors are very, very proud of me right now. They would be more proud if I'd obtained my weird meats with either a gun or the front-grill of a moving car, but my family's ancestral spirits take what they can get.) After work, I hit the Farmer's Market for the rest of the fixings for a big dinner, and went home to wait for my house guests to arrive.

(For those who missed the memo, catvalente and s00j are currently on the West Coast leg of the Palimpsest [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies] tour, a mixture of music and readings from the book. Since they're traveling with their sweeties, as well as a large trailer, they needed a lot of house to crash in. I have a lot of house. Since I needed to do spring cleaning anyway, this seemed totally reasonable. Also, the last Bay Area stop is tonight, at the Other Change of Hobbit, and I will totally be attending.)

The drive took longer than expected, so they arrived a bit after my bedtime. I hastily showed them where the towels were, introduced them to the cats, pointed them at the stew, and went to bed. "Going to bed" has been a theme of the week, really. I like my bed. It's where I keep the sleeping.

WEDNESDAY: Wednesday consisted mostly of swearing at Late Eclipses and showing Cat et all around San Francisco. We went to Borderlands Books so they could meet Jude and the freaky demon alien suede kittyfaces before the show (which was last night), and from there, proceeded on a tour of weird and wonderful San Francisco, culminating in a trip to Fisherman's Wharf, during which we saw sea lions and ate tasty foods. (Also, I shattered a tooth. Not so much fun, and seeking a dentist who suits my needs is proving to be exciting. My phobia of dentists is so severe the signs sometimes make me sick to my stomach. Maybe watching Little Shop of Horrors every day for a year when I was nine wasn't such a good plan.)

THURSDAY: Thursday brought back Supernatural, gave me an excuse to go to the art supply store for actual business reasons, and tasty, tasty Indian food, followed by tasty, tasty ice cream, and tasty, tasty sleep. Also, I swung through the comic book store, and found a Tulip action figure on the discount table for only fifty cents. It will take very little customizing to turn her into an awesome Alice Price-Healy (from the InCryptid books) action figure. She will inspire me with her plastic menace!

How's been by all of you?

Look! I made a word!

I love anthologies and short story collections, and have loved them for as long as I can remember. I mean that very literally; some of the earliest books that I have a strong memory of reading are the Colored Fairy Books, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Asimov's Young Monsters series of anthologies, and the Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark books. (This list probably says a lot about the formation of my psyche.) I spent most of middle school tracking down the largely out-of-print Noun! series of anthologies—Dogs! and Mermaids! and Unicorns! and the whole super-excited bunch. There were some awesome stories in those things. Awesome, awesome stories.

I was in high school before I realized that some anthologies were write-to-request—it wasn't that twenty people just randomly decided to write stories about magic-using hyper-evolved insects, they were asked. This struck me as the absolute height of human achievement. Imagine being asked to write stories about magic-using hyper-evolved insects. Somebody comes up to you and says "hey, write me a story about a fireball-flinging butterfly," and you do, and then, if it's any good, it gets published.

Ladies and gentlemen, the holy grail.

I always said I'd know I'd made it as a writer when I started getting invited to anthologies. I got an agent. Shrieked a lot. Sold a trilogy. Shrieked even more (as well as crying, hyperventilating, and calling Vixy and making hysterical dolphin noises at her while she tried to work out whether the sounds I was making meant "we sold Toby" or "I have just been bitten by one of those nasty parasite things from Cloverfield and am about to swell up and explode"). And then I got invited to an anthology, and I just sat there and cried.

And then I got invited to another one, and I sat there and cried even more.

I love anthologies. I love the toybox fabulousness of them, the way you don't know what you're going to get, just—vaguely—what it's going to be about. I finished reading Pandora's Closet [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies] yesterday. I picked it up on a lark. I found stories that made me laugh, stories that made me giggle, and a distinct lack of stories that made me want to throw the book across the room. And I thought, "wow." And I thought, "I get to do this now."

I've been smiling for three days.

10. Betsy -- aka "the breeder from whom I am purchasing my new Maine Coon" -- emailed me last night to get the last of the information she needs to fill out Alice's health certificate. (The airlines require you to have a health certificate for any animal you wish to carry onto a plane; something about not really wanting to deal with a rabies outbreak at thirty thousand feet. This just shows that they don't want me to have any fun.) So it's officially official, and I'll be bringing home my new baby girl this weekend. Perhaps then Lilly will allow me to sleep through the night. Unlikely, but a girl can dream, right?

9. The word counts have been missing lately because I've been continuing to hammer on the reboot to Late Eclipses, trying to yank the book into alignment with the awesome I know it truly has the potential to be. I'm about a quarter of the way through the text at this point, and things really are becoming visibly more and more awesome. We haven't reached the point in the revisions process where I can no longer make fair and measured assessments of quality, and that's good.

8. People everywhere are getting their copies of Ravens In the Library, and while I haven't seen any full-length critical reviews, I'm generally seeing positive reactions to the book itself. (I am, of course, primarily interested in seeing the book do well, because it's for an excellent cause, and in being my usual neurotic little blonde self about reactions to my story. But at least I'm up-front about it, which makes it a little less crazy-making.) Remember, the book will only be available until Sooj's medical bills are fully covered.

7. I have registered for World Fantasy, booked my hotel room for San Diego, applied for professional membership to San Diego, and arranged for hotel space in Montreal. I am, in short, basically done with my convention arrangements between now and August. (BayCon is local enough to require little pre-planning on my part, while Duckon is taking care of all the arrangements for me, on account of I'm one of their guests. It's nice.) I'm always happier when I know that things have been set up as far in advance as humanly possible.

6. Zombies are still love.

5. In the last several weeks, my website has gone from "idle" to "awesome," with almost all our functionality now up and online. The only things still pending are the forums and the mailing list, and both these are being held up by issues on the server side, which we're working to resolve. (Getting the forums up and functional now gives my mods time to try to break them before I'm banned from that part of the site nigh-completely. Planning ahead. It's what's for dinner.)

4. While I'm still not sleeping nearly enough, thank you Lilly, I feel somewhat less like a corpse today than I did yesterday, probably at least in part because I forced myself to go to bed immediately after Big Bang Theory last night. Nothing says "a good night's sleep" like adorable physics geeks and inking before turning in. Although losing my pencil for half the episode really didn't help.

3. I have seriously not read a book that was anything short of awesome in the past week. They were YA and adult, mainstream, fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and all made of pure, unadulterated awesome. If all books were as good as the ones I've been reading, the bar would be set so high we'd need a telescope to see it. I couldn't be happier with my recent reading choices. I really couldn't.

2. In two days, I go to Seattle. In three days, I see my Vixy. In four days, I see Kitten Sundae live and in concert. And in five days, I get to take Alice home with me, thus ruining everything, in the nicest way. (Obligatory Jonathan Coulton reference for the quarter!)

...and the number one good thing about today...

1. My life is so wonderful right now. I'm tired, I'm grumpy, and I'm inclined to smack anyone who pokes me with a stick, but at the end of the day, even I can't pretend that my life isn't amazing. Rosemary and Rue is well on its way to publication, and according to Amazon, 90% of the people who visit the page are buying the book. Lilly and Alice are both healthy. My back is behaving itself remarkably well, and spring is springing up all around me, making my normal walking habits much less crazy. I have the best friends in the world -- everyone should have the best friends in the world, because it makes everything better -- and I own more bad horror movies than I could watch in a lifetime. The world is wonderful.

I think we're gonna be all right. So what's new and awesome in the world of you?

Yesterday afternoon, I took Jon for what is becoming my regular tour through Borderlands Books, aka 'home of the freaky alien demon suede kittyfaces.' (Tip to the bookstores of the world: if you want me to come over a lot, get yourselves a naked cat. If you want me to avoid coming over, get, I don't know, a Persian.) We arrived to find the entire hive of demon cats playing bezoar in the back room, because nothing makes a bunch of naked cats cuter than becoming an undifferentiated ball of heaving, speckled flesh. Er, wait...

Jude was in the store, and I took great pleasure in showing her the cover print for Rosemary and Rue, which she was properly appreciative of -- I figure an author with new cover art is much like a parent with new baby pictures; you can hate it, but when they whip out their wallets, you'd better be prepared to coo over the fact that baby's got four limbs and a head -- before chatting for a bit about our various cats and the fact that All Cat Breeders Are Crazy. (It's true. It's just that some, like Betsy, are good crazy, while others are creepy won't let you into the house because maybe you're carrying the plague under your fingernails crazy.) Everyone's very much looking forward to Alice's arrival. Any bookstore that invites you to bring your Maine Coon for a visit with the creepy demon cats is a good bookstore.

Jude also rousted Ash for us, so that Jon could have his proper introduction to the glorious freakiness of the Sphinx. This was deeply pleasing unto me. I adore the freaky suede kittyfaces, and any day that they choose to grace with their presence is a good day for all of me.

As Jon and I were on our way out of the store (Jon having, naturally, purchased a souvenir postcard of Ripley), Jude stopped us. See, she was on the phone with Phil, confirming that the store had received their copies of Ravens in the Library. Yes: Borderlands has five copies of Ravens! They're gorgeous. And if you go down there, thus supporting your local bookstore and your local Sooj, you can totally buy one. Better still?

After Jude got off the phone, she asked if I wanted to sign them.

Nobody's ever asked me that before.

So yes, I signed their copies of Ravens in the Library -- signing several hundred CDs really makes you good at signing your name -- and walked home in a happy haze. You should, if you're local and haven't already ordered a copy, really go and pick one up. It's a truly gorgeous book. Better yet?

It's signed.

February 22nd -- yesterday -- was the official 'release' date for Ravens in the Library, a benefit anthology to benefit S.J. Tucker following sudden, unexpected medical bills. (Yesterday was also, coincidentally, Sooj's birthday. Wonder how those two dates wound up synching up so closely...) Ravens features stories by twenty-five authors, some of whom are household names, some of whom ought to be household names, and some of whom are going to be household names if they have anything to say about the matter. I've read two of the original-to-this-volume stories, as well as several of the reprints, and I've seen some of the original interior art. This is going to be an amazing book.

Illnesses and technical issues during the layout process (read 'our editors came down with the plague' -- I DIDN'T DO IT) delayed delivery to the printer slightly, and the book's first run (comprising pre-orders and a few extra) is now at press. Barring issues with the printing, it should be flying out of that aerie in about two weeks, and landing on doorsteps everywhere. Everywhere that's ordered a copy, anyway.

To clarify one question I've seen asked several times now, yes, the book is still available for order. It will be print-on-demand when the initial 'print run' has been exhausted; how long that takes will depend somewhat on how many orders are received. Not available in any store, etc., etc. You know the drill by now!

On a more personal note...Ravens in the Library was the second anthology I was ever invited to be a part of (the first being Grants Pass, which will be out in July, from Morrigan Books). It was also the first anthology where the editors actually sought me out to invite me to participate. I am thrilled beyond all words to be a part of this project -- if, as various people have joked, writing were an RPG, this would represent leveling up my Anthology Writer character class. It makes me a little giddy. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. If you like anthologies at all, neither can you.

Words within our grasp: do we let go?
Do we fly heavily with the weight of what we know?
Words within our grasp: do we let go?
Do we fly heavily with what we know?

-- 'Ravens in the Library,' S.J. Tucker.

1. If you wander on over to my website -- which is getting shinier and more functional every day as the back-end code comes online, all hail porpentine, who has slaved over a hot keyboard for our delight -- you may find a few truly awesome things waiting for you. Specifically, we now have icons and wallpapers, designed by the splendid taraoshea. All icons and wallpapers are free for use! Print them out, stick them to things, do whatever makes you happy. Well, except for posting them to your Deviant Art account and claiming that you made them. That would make the Tara sad, and she knows where I keep the chainsaws.

2. As you explore the site, you may see that there is now a landing page for the 'Velveteen vs.' stories. Yes, the link currently takes you to the big COMING SOON graphic, but its very existence means that, before too terribly much longer, there will be an online archive of the adventures of Velma 'Velveteen' Martinez as she struggles to survive the foul mechanations of the Marketing Department without giving in to the urge to just kill somebody already. Because the best way to show you care is with random semi-comic superhero stories, you know. My comic book store tells me so.

3. Speaking of my comic book store, the new best thing ever is walking into the place where I go for my weekly fix (I am such an X-junkie) and being greeted by Joe (the owner) with a cheery "Do you have CDs for me?" That moment, right there, was enough to validate my entire musical career.

4. Oh, and as an FYI for those who share my comic book habit -- Monday was a holiday, but it wasn't a shipping holiday. So today is still new comic book day, day of comic book-y goodness. Although according to the release lists, very little has come in that holds any actual interest for me. That's probably for the best, what with Wondercon right around the corner. Ah, sweet Wondercon. I wonder how I've lived so long without you.

5. I spent several hours last night at Borderlands Books, hanging out with Ripley, the freaky demon suede alien kitty-face (aka, 'the elder of the store's two resident hairless cats'). The more time I spend with her, the more I start to think that maybe life with a Sphinx wouldn't be so bad. Sure, they're naked and weird-looking, but they're also smart, friendly, and incredibly soothing to hang out with. This is probably a sign that I need some sort of 'cats are not like Pokemon, you do not need to collect them all' intervention.

6. While I was at Borderlands, I chanced to notice their list of top sellers for January, and jimhines grabbed the #10 slot with The Stepsister Scheme! Way to go Jim! The weird naked cats were very impressed.

7. For those of you who missed the (admittedly rather quietly delivered) memo, I will be leaving California for a short time in March, as I hop on a plane and fly out to New York for more fun with my friends at DAW. I love visiting my publisher, largely because it gives me an excuse to say 'my publisher' a lot, and that's still a sort of shiny-and-new thing for me. I am assured that by the time An Artificial Night (the third Toby book) hits the shelves, I won't find it all quite so exciting, but I really hope not. We all need things that make us irrationally happy. Anyway, my schedule is pretty packed while I'm there, so I'm not going to be looking to host a meet-and-greet or anything, but it's definitely going to represent a break in my standard routine.

8. Zombies are still love.

9. I have now managed to go three months without starting a new novel. For some people, this may seem like an unremarkable 'I just went three months without bursting into flame' or 'I just went three months without unleashing a global pandemic'-type statement, but for me, it's the result of Herculean efforts in the arenas of focus and restraint. I love starting books. The freedom and the scope of it all is just a wonderful thing. But I can be strong. I can be controlled. I can keep myself from getting beaten by my editing pool.

10. This coming Sunday is the official release date for Ravens In the Library, a benefit anthology assembled to help with SJ Tucker's unexpected medical bills. It's got an awesome list of authors, and, on a more personal note, it's got my first official this-is-in-print anthology appearance: my short story, 'Lost,' will be the final piece in the book. I'm very excited.

That's my wending for Wednesday. What's yours?

Since I taunted everybody with the idea of art cards earlier today, here; have a scan of the first six. (This is the smaller version, since nobody loves a graphic the size of Kansas. If you click on it, you'll go to the fully-sized graphic. It's not massive, but it's not tiny, either. Because, y'know, that's a really exacting set of measurements.)



From top to bottom, left to right, you have my first Ravens in the Library art card, my first Grants Pass art card, a random drawing of my pretty little dead girl, my first Velveteen vs. art card, my second Ravens in the Library art card, and my first Rosemary and Rue art card.

I have no real idea yet what I'm planning to do with these, other than, well, apparently 'draw a lot.' I've got another Velveteen card to ink and color, another Toby card, another Grants Pass card, and two Discount Armageddon cards. Three, technically, if you want to count portraits of Antimony as a part of Verity's book.

Because all those buckets of spare time had to go somewhere...

10. I appear to have started doing art cards. (Because, as Brooke said, I need something to do with all that spare time that I had just lying around.) For those of you who are unfamiliar with the art card 'concept,' they're little pieces of original artwork, done on 2.5"x3.5" cards. Mine are Micron and Prismacolor on bristol paper. I've done three so far, one to go with Grants Pass, one to go with Ravens in the Library, and one of Velveteen and Sparkle Bright during their first year with the JSP. I figure I'll use them as book giveaways. Right now, they're just being colorful and soothing; two things that I need more of in my life.

9. My reboot on Late Eclipses of the Sun appears to have done exactly what I was hoping it would do; the new first chapter is about ten times stronger, faster, better, and generally bionic in all possible regards. Now I'm working on the revisions to chapter two, just to really lock down the changes to the continuity, and once that's done, I can start processing my editor's notes on An Artificial Night. I'm spending so much time with Toby these days that we should really start charging her rent, I swear.

8. I write more poetry than is strictly healthy, sometimes in batches of two to five hundred poems at a time. (These batches are called 'Iron Poet' rounds, and are a variation on a standard writer's workshop exercise. They make me happy. I may be crazy.) I managed to write five poems yesterday, including a counted devan (although I skipped the internal rhymes on the zipper, because I didn't feel like giving myself a migraine) and a counted technical terza rima. Take that, everyone who said there was no use for structured poetry in the modern world!

7. My story in Ravens In the Library is getting an accompanying illustration. This is...this is amazing. Not just because the illustration itself is amazing -- I saw the sketch, and it is -- but because I didn't expect an illustration at all. It made me cry. More and more, I begin to believe that 2009 is the universe giving me one big incredible birthday present.

6. It's not entirely visible to the naked eye, but my website continues to creep closer and closer to being entirely done. We should be getting the first few essays up there soon, and Chris is working on the functionality that will allow me to update and edit the front page all on my lonesome. Meanwhile, Tara works secretly behind the scenes on Wonderful Surprises that only a golden graphics girl could possibly provide. Prepare to be amazed.

5. I get to spend the weekend working on Discount Armageddon! (Quoth Dan: "I don't know anybody who gets as excited about being told what to work on as you do.") I love deadlines, I love directions, and I love Verity. She's so happy to see you. And so happy to kick you in the head. Pleasantly, I just put together my Verity playlist last night, consisting almost entirely of dance music and things with a BPM of over 120. Because Verity just looooooves the beat, yo.

4. It's new comic book day! Always the most wonderful day of the week. At least in theory -- other days are sometimes surprisingly awesome.

3. All my television is coming back on the air. I'm a huge TV freak. It's what lets me decompress after a hard day of working and writing and worrying about working and writing; it's also what I do with the other half of my concentration when I'm inking. (Most of the shows I watch are more verbal than visual, and have clear cues when I actually need to be paying attention to the screen.) I really appreciate the fact that the things I watch are staggered enough to make sure I almost always have something new.

2. This time next week, I will be heading for the airport, heading for the sky, and heading for Seattle, baby.

...and the number one good thing about today...

1. Oasis just called me, and THE CDS ARE DONE!!!!! They're mailing them out from the Oasis warehouse today, and they should supposedly hit my doorstep on Friday. This gives me time to actually arrange for CDs to reach Seattle, prep the first batch of pre-orders to mail out (probably the first twenty or so, more if I can possibly swing it), and generally get my hysteria out of the way. It also gives me time to use the CD boxes to build myself a little fort and crawl inside it to hide from the universe.

What's new and awesome in the world of you?

The Ravens in the Library Project, in connection with "Give A Healthy Dose of Sooj" and "Save Our Sooj" presents

RAVENS IN THE LIBRARY: MAGIC IN THE BARD'S NAME

A Limited Edition Collection of Stories and Art dedicated to the health of S.J. Tucker.

This special VERY limited edition has been compiled to defray the medical expenses and recovery of musician S.J. Tucker.

The collection will NOT be released in stores, and it is NOT downloadable!

It will be available only as long as those expenses remain unresolved.

After that, RAVENS IN THE LIBRARY will disappear.

Order your advance copy today... Before they fly away forever!

$25.00 includes shipping & handling within the continental United States

Anticipated Release Date*: Feb. 22, 2009

Trade Paperback format
Color covers, B&W interiors
Self-Published by The Ravens in the Library Project
With Heartfelt Thanks to Ellen Datlow and all contributors.

* - barring delays in printing or production.

* Review the proofs for my new album, Red Roses and Dead Things. Decide that they are, yes, sufficiently steeped in mad science, horror, and awesome sauce. Return them to the printer. I should be receiving my albums on January 26th, which is what we call 'cutting it very, very close,' but will still allow me to do a formal album release at Conflikt II.

* Announce the awesomeness that is Ravens in the Library, a benefit anthology for SJ Tucker. Announce this to, among other people, my mother, who responds with an hour-long rant about the state of American medicine. I could charge admission to my mom when she's worked up about something, I swear.

* Receive edits for my Ravens in the Library story. Review the edits, and determine that yes, they're pretty much all accurate. (This is why I have people who read for me. It's a vital part of not looking like a total idiot every time I turn something in.) Life is good.

* Approach the cage where the supine form of Late Eclipses of the Sun lurks, waiting to strike. Poke a stick through the bars. The book does not respond. Rattle the stick around. The book does not respond. Unlock the cage. Suddenly get attacked by five hundred pages of snarling, possibly rabid manuscript. Decide to start work on Saturday, when I have access to a bone saw.

* Turn in some website corrections to my long-suffering, utterly fabulous web dude, Chris. (Mysteriously, Chris is setting up the new interface so that I can make certain small text changes on my own. I think, perhaps, working with the world's most obsessive editor is getting to him.) (I love you, Chris.)

* Do a lot of inking to make the items listed above less aneurysm-inducing. Because nothing says 'soothing' like three panels of cross-hatching.

What's new with you?

Okay: here's the thing. SJ Tucker is a sweet, generous, talented woman who has freely given of herself and her music for as long as I've known her. Unfortunately, a recent illness (entirely unplanned, as illnesses so often are) has left her with a lot of medical bills hanging over her, and the life of a bard has never been a terribly lucrative one...not in money, anyway.

They're often surprisingly rich in friends.

Ravens in the Library is a limited edition anthology, collecting stories and art dedicated to the health of S.J. Tucker. It will become available on February 22nd, and will remain available only for as long as it takes for Sooj's medical bills to be covered. For once, I can say with the utmost seriousness that this product will not be sold in stories. It's a real book, it's going to be real and physical in your hands, but it's not going to be real and physical on the shelves of the store down the street. Which makes it sort of extra awesome, really. You can view the original press release in Phil Brucato's journal. Phil is our mastermind and ringleader, and much of what this particular gang of Lost Boys and Wicked Girls does can be blamed on him. Who's along for the ride? We-ell...

Ari Berk
Francesca Lia Block
Phil Brucato
Sam Chupp
Storm Constantine
Charles de Lint
Ben Dobyns
Jaymi Elford
Neil Gaiman
Alexandra Honigsberg
Elizabeth Jordan Leggett
Shira Lipkin
Angel Leigh McCoy
Seanan McGuire
Kris Millering and Storm Wilder
Mia Nutick
S.J. Tucker
Carrie Vaughn
Catherynne M. Valente
Terri Windling
...and others...

Behold. For now we wear the human pants. There's also art! Art is key. And we have art by...

Amy Brown
James A. Owen
Brian Syme
...and others...

This volume is being edited by Phil Brucato and Sandra Buskirk, and to say 'for a limited time only' is to understate things more than a bit. It's great stories and glorious art for a good cause. Ordering information is here, in the press release.

I am so happy to be a part of this.

Title: Velveteen vs. The Flashback Sequence.
Summary: It's not easy staying a retired superhero -- but how does a perfectly normal girl from Clayton, California wind up joining and leaving The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, by the age of eighteen? It's time for a secret origin. With teddy bears.

( Click here for the continuing adventures of Velveteen, reluctant superhero and friend to teddy bears everywhere -- or rather, for the very earliest adventures of all. The way it all started is just a mouse click away...Collapse )

It's official: my short story, 'Animal Husbandry,' will be appearing in the anthology Grants Pass, to be published in July 2009 by Morrigan Books. This anthology focuses on the world eighteen months after a man-made pandemic has killed, oh, practically everybody. (We're not quite talking The Stand levels of 'who dies? Everybody dies!' here, but we're definitely into 'game over, man, game over' territory.) The world's few survivors are staggering towards the promise of a safe haven, a meeting-place for the people who made it through alive.

Grants Pass, Oregon.

I don't know about the rest of the anthology, but I can promise you virology, corpses, and big buckets of creepy. Also, a chance to get your hands on my very first anthology appearance, which is going to be awesome. Remember, your purchase prevents my mother from acquiring more than six hundred copies, and thus saves me from being forced to kill her.

Or, to announce this fantastic news in another way:



Because nothing says 'holy shit, I sold a story!' like a comic strip full of corpses.

PS: James Gunn needs to call me.

The Edge of Propinquity is a monthly webzine edited by jennifer_brozek, and is updated the fifteenth of every month. It's a creepy, atmospheric medium that specializes in stories focusing on the hidden world around the more mundane, everyday world that most people are aware of. Which is all very nice, and it's an awesome webzine, but why am I telling you this again?

Because I have a story in this month's issue. And I think that's both pretty spiffy, and something that people would probably like to know. My story, 'Let's Pretend,' can be viewed currently through the main page of the Edge, or by following the permanent archive link:

http://www.edgeofpropinquity.net/library.asp?id=202

It's a fun little slice of creepy pie, and I'm pretty pleased with it. More to the point, it's the first slice of creepy pie I've served anywhere in 2008 (which was a primarily novel-length year), so I'm incredibly delighted about that part of things. Go, read, enjoy the whole webzine, and meet my creepy friends. I think you'll like them.

I definitely do.

Yesterday, I...

...got official sign-off to turn in An Artificial Night to my publisher. This means that the entire first trilogy has now been turned in, and I can focus (at least for a few days) on the process of prepping the second trilogy, starting with Late Eclipses of the Sun. I'm deeply excited about this. I have a finished rough draft of Late Eclipses, and about half of The Brightest Fell, but Ashes of Honor is an entirely unfamiliar country. I hope my passport photo doesn't make me look like an idiot.

...finished processing some full-body machete-shot edits to Late Eclipses of the Sun, resulting in my needing a cold shower and the book needing some serious medical attention (the big baby). There's still a lot of work to be done, but the overall shape and structure of things is getting cleaner by the day, and by the draft. I'd estimate that I have maybe two or three passes through left to go before I can file it and get to work on book five. Book five lives in fear. Book five has every reason to be afraid.

...finished the next Velma Martinez installment, 'Velveteen vs. The Flashback Sequence, Part I.' (Technically, that means I need to write the second part of the story still, and I'm direly afraid that it's going to develop a third part, but we take what accomplishments we can get.) I've finally had the opportunity to fully introduce The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division. Velma 'Velveteen' Martinez, David 'The Claw' Mickelstein, Yelena 'Sparkle Bright' (no last name released by her handlers), and Aaron 'Action Dude' Frank. As a lifetime comic book girl, it's incredibly awesome to have the excuse to taunt the things I love.

...fully outlined my story for Grants Pass, after realizing that I was trying to write it from the wrong point of view. Yes, again. Only this time, I was in first when I really needed to be in third. (It seems that my novel default is first, and my short story default is third. I do not know why this is, only that it is.) I am a happy girl, full of pep and the love of horrible pathogens.

...watched an enormous amount of television.

Now we shall have victory cake and Diet Dr Pepper, for no other libation could properly match this victory. VICTORY!

Title: Velveteen vs. The Coffee Freaks.
Summary: The life of a retired superhero is definitely refusing to get easier. Especially when you're trying to hold down a day job and seem to have suddenly turned your freak magnet back on full-blast...

( Click here for the continuing adventures of Velveteen, reluctant superhero and friend to teddy bears everywhere, as she battles the mysterious Midnight Coffee Society for the future of Red Bluff, California! We're really not sure why she'd want to...Collapse )

I am primarily a writer of novel-length works. I could offer a bunch of babble about how this is due to the scope of my artistic vision, but a) a lot of my friends are short story writers, and would slap me, and b) it'd be crap. I just have trouble thinking in blocks of less than twenty thousand words. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that when it does, it's pretty rare.

The fact that I recently got a rewrite request on a short story submission that was essentially 'please increase your word count' is thus hysterical.

I'm doing pretty well, by my standards; I've actually managed to finish two short stories to the point of submission in the past month (no word yet one way or another, which is entirely reasonable and understandable), and I conceived, started, and completed 'Velveteen vs. The Isley Crawfish Festival,' which is a totally new setting for me. Super-fun. Not only that, but it's a totally new setting where I have no desire to write a novel. Practically unheard of.

(By the by, there is now a 'velveteen vs.' tag which will index all the Vel stories. Because there are definitely going to be more of them cropping up over the next few months. I stretch my short story muscles! I force cranky superheroes to do things that they don't want to do! I am maybe not such a nice girl.)

I don't think I'll ever be 'a short story writer' in the sense that I naturally think in the format, but I think I can get better at achieving a beginning, middle, and end in under twenty thousand words. And that'll be a nice change.

I'm pleased.

Title: Velveteen vs. The Isley Crawfish Festival.
Summary: The life of the retired superhero is never an easy one. Especially not when you're stuck at a crawfish festival in the middle of nowhere, and oh, yeah, you appear to have just acquired an arch-nemesis...

( Click here for the exciting adventures of Velveteen, superheroine and friend to teddy bears everywhere, as she fights against The Claw and his mighty Crawfish Minions for the sake of the Isley Crawfish Festival!Collapse )