Ooh. Spooky.

January 11

Various bits of news...

Got a 2-month rejection from Asimov's, and the "it was well crafted, of course" took the sting out a bit.

Thanks to Mike for all the mad props about Rangergirl! And he makes a good point, in one of his comments threads, that people don't use the Strange Horizons comment board enough. Get over there, stir up some discussion, people. What it is is, it's too quiet, and what it should be is, is a dialogue.

So my review of Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is going to appear in March. But you don't have to wait for my advice! Oh no! Because Cory's giving away the book for free in a variety of formats, including plain-old text (my flavor of choice).

A couple of anthology projects I'm involved in are coming to fruition. The Modern Art Cave, edited by Erin Donahoe, was delayed for various reasons, and lost its publisher, and suffered other such setbacks, but Erin has published it herself via iUniverse. If you want to buy it (or just read bits of it online), go here. Erin put a lot of work into this project, and it's full of good stuff, including a poem by Heather and a few poems by me.

Also, Fresh Blood, an anthology of up-and-coming horror writers that includes two reprints and an original story, "Stray", by me, is coming out later this year from Double Dragon Publishing in various e-book formats and in trade paperback. Details to follow when details are known.

See, I'm keepin' it real in the small-press world, yo.

Also, my story "Bone Sigh", which has received a few Stoker recommendations, is now online on my website, here. It was up on Twilight Showcase, but their archives are no longer online, so I decided to put it up myself, since there are still five weeks of Stoker-recommending left. If you haven't, you should read the story -- it's a bit grim, but I like it a lot. And if you're in the Horror Writers Association, and think it's worthy, consider giving it a recommendation.

The Campbell Awards Website, maintained by Jim Van Pelt, has been updated, and I'm one of the many new eligible authors. Whoo!

Today Heather and I went into the city, to Spookycon, armed with our mighty press passes. Heather was all gothed-up, very hot in a black skirt, babydoll t-shirt, and stockings. Yum. We wandered in the dealer's room, took photographs, got our t-shirts complimented, saw readings. Poppy Z. Brite read beautifully (I like her new, non-speculative stuff, I must admit), and Ramsey Campbell read a very good story. David Schow did a crazy multi-media show, giving us an advance look at some of the behind-the-scenes footage that will be on the new The Crow DVD and showing a hilarious camp sci-fi installment of the gradually-growing film Book of Dreams by Alex Proyas (warning: Flash-heavy, broadband-loving site!). Good stuff. In the dealer's room later, I met Brian Callahan, former publisher of Deep Outside, now owner/operator of Sigh.co, a cool t-shirt company. I chatted with him for a while, met his lovely wife, and bought a couple of t-shirts (I got the Legba véve shirt, Heather got the "Sin like you mean it" babydoll). Then we got hungry, and left, and sat on a bench outside to figure out where we were going to eat. David Schow was there, having a smoke, so I introduced myself, and we had a longish conversation (admittedly it was mostly him talking about the stuff he's working on lately -- he's writing novels again!). Pretty cool. Heather and I wandered off, had dinner at a fabulous Italian place in North Beach where the waiter danced and the whole staff seemed happy to be there. Amazingly yummy food, too.

Then home, for a nice evening of watching Oz, and Buffy, and frolicking. An altogether marvelous Saturday, I must say.

Tomorrow it's work-work-work. I have three stories to read/crit, and we're taking down Xmas-tree decorations, and I have a few Star*Line things to finish for the next issue. Not to mention that I need to write a novel synopsis, and I should read books and write reviews for A Certain Magazine, and it might be nice, sometime, to do some writing of my own...

Ah, well. It's good to keep busy.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 204,600

Words written since last entry:
Not a blessed word. I appear to be taking a few days off.

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