As has been reported elsewhere, the groovy folks at Farrago's Wainscot have sold an anthology to Drollerie Press -- Crawlspace: Selections from the 2007 Farrago's Wainscot Exhibition -- to be released in Fall 2008. darinbradley has flattered me immensely by selecting my story "One Less" for inclusion.

Here's the final Table of Contents, and wow, is it a whopper:

• "The Yellow Baron" by Forrest Aguirre
• "Bird of Leaves" by Jay Lake
• "The Snooted One: The Historicity of Origin" by Nisi Shawl
• "The Drowning" by Bruce Bond
• "Charades" by Jeffrey Barnes
• "Half-Alphabet Nursery Rhymes" by A. Ross Eckler
• "The Ballad of Matelotage and Mutiny" by Hal Duncan
• "Apple Magick" by Paul Jessup
• "One Less" by Jason Erik Lundberg
• "Chrysalis" and "Sand" by Ryan Cornelius
• "Five Million Years to Earth" by Bryan D. Dietrich
• "Shifty (A Puzzle)" by Will Shortz
• "Oma Dortchen and the Pillar of Story" by David J. Schwartz
• From Source of Gravity by Ekaterina Sedia
• "The Return of Lazarus" by Phil Sueper
• "Rampion" and "The Immigrant" by Catherynne M. Valente
• "Notes on the Necromantic Symphony" by Yoon Ha Lee
• "The Miraculous Nature of Everything" by Timothy S. Miller
• "Portrait of High Window with CEO and Booze" by Mark Cox
• "Space Age" and "Thanatos" by Lise Goett
• "A Walk in the Snow" by Marie Prior
• "Liberty" by Adrienne J. Odasso
• "Detail from a Painting by Hieronymus Bosch" by Rudi Dornemann
• "The Proslogium of the Great Lakes" by Catherynne M. Valente
• "The Histories of Now" by Jonathan Wood
• "Mountain-Hunting for Beginners" by Yaroslava Strikha
• "Shadow Box" by Esther Bergdahl
• "Refraction" by Becca De La Rosa
• "Living Inside the Box: Three Thought Experiments About Your Life (And Mine)" by Angie Smibert

Talk about kick-assery. I'm very proud to be in such company.

Look for the book later this year.

N.B. I should say that darinbradley has given "One Less" a life far beyond what I expected. When it was first published at Americana (NCSU's student arts journal), and then, a few months later, when the site revamped and the story vanished into the cyber-ether, I thought, okay, well, not my best story, but it had an okay run. But then along came Darin, who not only bought the story for Old Man Farrago, and chose to reprint it in ink and paper with the above anthology, but also seriously examined it in his doctoral thesis. He validated the story in three incredible ways, and I can't thank him enough for that.

Been offline for a few days, so I missed the celebration yesterday of the second annual International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day (ipstp). However, I am belatedly participating nonetheless.

For your viewing pleasure, I have posted my short story "Most Excellent and Lamentable" (originally published in Text:UR - The New Book of Masks, ed. Forrest Aguirre, March 2007) for free on my website.

Not only that, but I am releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Which means that you can "remix" the story (i.e. convert it into different formats, such PDF or TXT or MOBI, or scrawled by hand on papyrus with a quill pen), and create derivative works from it (a short film, a dramatic podcast reading, a song with lyrics based on the prose, artwork based on the characters, &c.) just as long as you give me credit as the original author, you don't take any money for your efforts, and you release your own work under a CC BY-NC-SA license. You don't have to ask my permission to remix the story or derive your own creative work from it, but I would appreciate receiving an email about it, so that I can link to your groovy reworking on the M.E.A.L. page.

For a story that does quite a bit of ShareAliking of its own (it relies heavily on the Commedia dell'Arte and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and there's even a tiny reference to Neil Gaiman, as well as other little bits and bobs), it seems wholly appropriate to have others try and make something of their own based on it.

Whenever I can find the time in the near future, I'll be recording the story for my podcast Lies and Little Deaths: A Virtual Anthology, accompanied by music from the Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV (which was also released under a CC BY-NC-SA license).

Nota Bene: Most of my published fiction can be found online for free; links to these stories are at the bibliography page on my website.

Postscript: NIN just today released a new single, also as a completely free download, called "Discipline." Pretty groovy stuff, and free!

marrael just sent an email via our mailing list to all of the Surreal Botany contributors, with a link to be able to proof their entries. If you're a contributor and you're having trouble accessing the info, please let her know.

For everyone else, this means that the anthology is dangerously close to completion. Obviously, it won't be done by the end of March, but it's looking very likely that we'll release it next month. I can't wait for y'all to see it.

A spectrum of stories and poems from the past, present and elsewhen. It is intergalactic love ballads, evil supermarkets, the bad girls of myth, and nostalgia for things that never were. It is our largest issue yet, with ten stories of fiction and eight poems, and everything else you'd expect from the magazine that Behind the Wainscot calls, "a saturation tank of isolation and the sublime."

Sybil's Garage no. 5 is now out and available for ordering. Included in its awesome pages of awesomeness is my bizarre little contribution, "Wombat Fishbone," which was my literary response to Steve Sullivan's NSFW (but hilarious) short film "A Heap of Trouble." Of course I have to go all deep and thinky and unfunny, but hey, if you don't like my story, you have a lot more to choose from, such as:

Poetry:
Elizabeth Barrette - “With Every Fine and Subtle Sense Perceive”
Amal El-Mohtar - “Orpheus”
Miranda Gaw - “Last Supper”
Aaron Leis - “Glass”
Pam McNew - “No Word for Goodbye”
Adrienne J. Odasso - “River Girl”
David M. Rheingold - “Macduff’s Lament”
Eilyahoo Talgam - “Look Away”

Fiction:
Samantha Henderson - “The Ballad of Delphinium Blue”
Vylar Kaftan - “The Girl Next Door”
Barbara Krasnoff - “All His Worldly Goods”
Caspian Gray - “Waiting for Spring”
Jason Erik Lundberg - “Wombat Fishbone”
Alex Dally MacFarlane - “Tattoos of the Sky, Tattoos of the Days”
Gary Moshimer - “Salesman”
Hazel Marcus Ong - “Roses”
Daniel A. Rabuzzi - “Last and First”
Veronica Schanoes - “Lost in the Supermarket”

Non-Fiction:
Dinner with Lauren McLaughlin, an Interview by Devin Poore
The Best-Dressed Man on the Court, a memoir by Mercurio D. Rivera

Not bad, eh? Sybil's Garage just keeps getting better and better, and I'm very excited to be a part of Number 5. My contributor copies should be arriving soon, and I can't wait to see.

Bill Schafer breaks the news that Subterranean Magazine no. 8 -- the final print issue (although the magazine has already, for all intents and purposes, gone online for a year) -- is now available for preorder, "as it's out being designed, and will head to the printer shortly." This issue will debut my longest published fiction to date (at around 10K words), the mid-1800s Southeast Asian pirate clockpunk novelette "Bogeymen"; on the preorder page is the table of contents, and wowie wow am I in some damn fine company:

• "The Seventeenth Kind" by Michael Marshall Smith
• "Vale of the Blood Roses: a Tale of Noreela" by Tim Lebbon
• "Redemption Center" by R. Andrew Heidel
• "Bogeymen" by Jason Erik Lundberg
• "Why Do You Linger?" by Sarah Monette
• "Questions for a Soldier" by John Scalzi
• "Waltz with the Echoes" by Darren Speegle

I almost feel like singing, "One of these things is not like the other . . ."

John Scalzi just blogged the news as well, and was nice enough to mention me by name, rather than lumped in with "a bunch of other folks," which was surprising and flattering, mostly since my name isn't on the cover, and most of my fellow ToCmates are much more well-known. Thanks for the egoboo, Scalzi!

During sabbatical week, I talked about experimenting with narrative, that a story doesn't have to be linear, or told by a reliable narrator, or even presented as a narrative. A story can be told through a shopping list, or a multiple-choice test, or a series of encrypted numbers. Experimentation is certainly nothing new, but I think a lot of them had a very standard definition of what "story" is, and it was fun to break them out of that a bit.

Behind the Wainscot no. 13 is now out, and it includes my own experiment-in-form "Phonological Restructuring and Broca's Aphasia as a Function of Cultural Assimilation: An Annotated Bibliography," as well as pieces by Ivan Faute, Samantha Henderson, and Louise Norlie. "Phonological Restructuring . . ." was originally written for an anthology of experimental spec-fic that [redacted] and [redacted] were trying to put together, but it wasn't clear whether the antho would see the light of day, so I withdrew my contribution and Paul Jessup was nice enough to take it for BtW. I'm unclear whether it succeeds as a story (I guess you'll have to make up your own mind about that), but I do hope you'll go take a peek at it. If you don't like it, there's three other stories in the issue, and you might have better luck with one of those.

***

Because teaching at a secondary school pretty much eats up all my free time, I haven't been keeping up with world events as much as I used to. This past week, the term break, was the first time I read a newspaper in months. I read the ol' friends list when I can, but find myself skimming and skimming and skimming, which is starting to make me feel that it's barely necessary to check. The entries that catch my eye, more often than not, are related to politics or civil liberties issues, but there's a lot to skim there too.

I'm trying to avoid getting sucked into the Obama/Hillary/McBush slapfights, because it seems to have devolved into the same old ugly mudslinging that is de rigeur for political elections in the States. My students, who didn't know much about their own political system until I taught the unit in class, have asked who I'd vote for, and most of them rightly assumed I support Barack Obama. We're not even at the general election yet, but teenagers on the other side of the planet know who are duking it out for the Democratic nomination.

And I think it's safe to say (though you may disagree) that if Obama doesn't win the candidacy, there will be no good options for the country. I probably won't even bother to trundle down to the US embassy to vote in that case.

Hillary Clinton, even more than before, has proved through her tactics and her rhetoric that she's no better than the Republicans. I don't think that she'll bomb Iran into dust like McCain wants to, but the feeling I get is that it'll be more of the same for the next four years. More time in Iraq, more domestic surveillance, more people dying because they can't afford to see a doctor, more of a gap between rich and poor, more crumbling infrastructure. Experience means nothing if it isn't coupled with wisdom, and so far, she has not shown herself to be wise in her decisions.

Dammit, I said I didn't want to get sucked in, yet there I go.

I've also been skipping over the news about NY Gov. Spitzer's sex scandal and subsequent resignation. The US media time and again reinforce the idea that illegally invading other countries or spying on your own citizens or kidnapping anyone you want and having them tortured elsewhere is no big thing, but going to a hooker or getting a hummer from your intern is worthy of the utmost condemnation.

The slapfights, the sex scandals, the inordinate focus on celebrities, it's all so much distraction, a grand circus, handwaving of the highest order. More people know the current exploits of Paris Hilton than know that their phone lines and internet traffic are being monitored by the NSA. The major imports that we get in Singapore from the States are TV shows, Hollywood films, and junk food. It's a disturbing trend.

And before the reactions of "why do you hate America?" come flooding into the comments, just think about what has been criticized here: the government, the media, and the political circus. Do these things define the US? Certainly not. There are a lot of things I love and miss about my home country (freedom of speech, a rich literary culture, and a profound optimism and enthusiam, not to mention that most of my family and friends live there), but all this distraction is taking away from what makes the country great.

The US, and the whole world, needs a big change. And I'm becoming increasingly cynical that we're not going to see it anytime soon.

Just found out that my weird little experimental piece, "Phonological Restructuring and Broca's Aphasia as a Function of Cultural Assimilation: An Annotated Bibliography," will be appearing this month at Behind the Wainscot. Not quite long enough for Old Man Farrago to host it in the exhibition, so it'll be at BTW instead, along with all the other bits and bobs from other people that wouldn't fit anywhere else.

W00tage.

Neil Gaiman, on giving away American Gods for free, in response to an indie bookseller worried that this would hurt sales at his store:

I don't see this as either they get it for free or they come and buy it from you. I see it as Where do you get the people who come in and buy the books that keep you in business from?

The books you sell have "pass-along" rates. They get bought by one person. Then they get passed along to other people. The other people find an author they like, or they don't.

When they do, some of them may come in to your book store and buy some paperback backlist titles, or buy the book they read and liked so that they can read it again. You want this to happen.

Just as a bookseller who regards a library as the enemy, because people can go there and read -- for free! -- what he sells, is missing that the library is creating a pool of people who like and take pleasure in books, will be his customer base, and are out there spreading the word about authors and books they like to other people, some of whom will simply go out and buy it.

If readers find (for free -- in a library, or on-line, or by borrowing from a friend, or on a window-sill) an author they really like, and that author has a nice spanking new hardback coming out, they are quite likely to come in to your shop and buy the nice spanking new hardback. You want that to happen. You really want that to happen a lot, because you'll make more in profit on each of the nice spanking new hardbacks than you will on the paperbacks (or, probably, on anything else in the shop).

I don't believe that anybody out there who can afford a copy of American Gods is going to not buy it (or another of my books) because it's available out there on line for nothing. (Not at this point, anyway.) I think it's a lot more likely that some of the people who read it will find an author they like, and buy more books. Which is good news for people who run bookshops.

Link to the rest. It's just too bad that HarperCollins released the book in such a horribly unreadable format (as detailed by Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing).

From German publisher (and novelist) Michael Kruger, ten rules of independent publishing:

1. Publish only the books you really love.
2. Publish only the books you love to read yourself.
3. Never publish more books than you can read.
4. Never publish a book that bores you, even if you think that you can sell it.
5. Only publish books that make you wonder.
6. Do not publish only fiction.
7. Never think that books make people better.
8. Always be happy that you do not have to publish the books of your competitors.
9. Always be aware that too much reading is bad for your eyes and bad for your back.
10. Publishers who are only interested in books, are dangerous.

I would debate points #6 & 7, but other than that, a pretty solid list.

Via Critical Mass.

Update: raw_dog has posted his own list, and it's frankly even better than Kruger's.

Last month, Jeff VanderMeer interviewed me via email about the transition to living in Singapore, cultural differences and misunderstandings, how my writing has been affected, the Surreal Botany antho, and much more. Jeff's a fantastic interviewer (I can't count how many he's done over the years), and he asked some tough questions, ones that really made me exercise the ol' noodle. Despite the fact that he's on deadline for something like 40 different writing projects, he posted the interview up at his blog today, for all to see.

So if you're interested (it's quite long), go check out "Letter from Singapore: An Interview with Jason Erik Lundberg" at Ecstatic Days. Here's a snippet, including the "Hollywood pitch" for my novel-in-progress:

You’ve written quite a bit of short fiction–are you also working on a novel?

I am, although I’ve been stuck about 25,000 words into it for almost a year now. The preparation and move to Singapore put a stop to the novel’s forward motion, and I’m just now getting it started up again. I’ve written a few short pieces in the meantime, but I’m hoping to properly get back into the book soon; ideas and images have been coming to me lately, which is a good sign that I’m starting to think about it more.

It takes place in a Singapore-esque country, and shares some similarities in culture, ethnic makeup, and government, but I’m also borrowing heavily from the rest of Southeast Asia and the USA. It’s about dislocation and the absence of “home,” and trying to make a home not just in the place where you live, but with the people with whom you choose to share your life. It’s also about oppressive political systems, redemptive love, the value of art, flying fish, cloud fortresses, gigantic spider golems, eco-revolution, and the realities of living in a world of everyday magic. Think Salman Rushdie plus Milan Kundera, with a dash of Terry Gilliam, and you’ve got a starting point.

Link to the rest of the interview. Feel free to comment here or there.

1. Neil Gaiman's Birthday Thing. It's been seven years now since Neil started his online journal (and prompted me to start mine (and, I'm guessing, a lot of other people as well)), and to celebrate, he and HarperCollins have decided to post one of his books online for free (as in gratis). Click on the link above to vote for your choice (American Gods is currently in the lead), although Neil does have a request:

What I want you to do is think -- not about which of the books below is your favourite, but if you were giving one away to a friend who had never read anything of mine, what would it be? Where would you want them to start?

2. The rise of the genre ezine: Will it ever find a profitable model? Simon Owens at Bloggasm provides a comprehensive history of successful online genre fiction magazines, and wonders whether the models out there are sustainable and can ever again boast the readerships of the pulps. He also brings up where e-zines may be going next, and cites ChiZine, Fantasy and Clarkesworld Magazine as new examples of single-sponsor branding.

3. Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money. The inimitable John Scalzi provides an incredibly practical list of rules, aimed at newbie writers, but applicable to, well, anyone, really, about the business side of being a full-time writer. His discussion about working as a freelancer is mixed with common sense financial advice, mixed throughout with his unique brand of snark, such as this jewel:

[T]he reason that Americans are as generally economically screwed as they are at this moment in time is because they bought into the fundamentally insane idea that buying tons of shiny crap they didn’t need on a high-interest installment plan made any sort of rational sense at all. And as completely idiotic as it is for the average American, it makes even less sense for a writer, who often doesn’t know when or even if they’re going to paid again. Committing to a non-essential monthly cost when you don’t have to is stupid. You need somewhere to live, so a monthly rent or mortgage payment makes sense. You don’t need a monthly charge for two years to pay for that 42-inch 1080p TV. Use your brain.

But you want that 42-inch 1080p TV! I understand; I want it too. What you do is save for it. When you save for something, it’s like you’re making a payment on it, except that you don’t have an evil credit card company charging you 19% for the privilege. I realize it’s condescending to put it that way, but, look: If people actually knew this, they wouldn’t have thousands in credit card debt, now, would they? And yes, it’s true that while you’re saving for that HDTV (or whatever), you don’t have it, and we as a nation are no longer used to the idea of not having what we want now now now now now. Well, get used to it, you insolvent jackass. Otherwise some bank owns your ass well into the next life. Really, that’s all I have to say about that.

4. Did I Miss Anything. A poem by Tom Wayman that I am so printing out and taping up at my desk. Teachers anywhere and everywhere are nodding their heads at this, and so am I.

Looked over the PDF proofs for "Wombat Fishbone" (appearing soon in Sybil's Garage numero cinco), and in addition to drooling over the fonts and graphics that MattK and Co. have chosen as part of their unique design sensibilities, I also got to take a peek at the table of contents. And I can tell you, this is going to be a damn good zine issue.

Fiction from Samantha Henderson, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Vylar Kaftan, Caspian Gray, Daniel A. Rabuzzi, Barbara Krasnoff, Gary Moshimer, Veronica Schanoes, Hazel Marcus Ong, and yours truly. Poetry by Elizabeth Barrette, Adrienne J. Odasso, Miranda Gaw, Aaron Leis, Amal El-Mohtar, Eliyahoo Talgam, David M. Rheingold, and Pam McNew. Non-fiction by Mercurio D. Rivera and Devin Poore.

I also notice that, once again, my story is the last in the issue. This happened with Text:UR - The New Book of Masks, Electric Velocipede no. 9, and The Third Alternative no. 42. This makes four print publications in a row (I've had stories published in between some of these, but they were online, which is different). Just call me Anchor Man.

Thanks to the sharp eyes of David Langford at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I now know that Janet and I aren't the first to come up with the whole weird/surreal botany idea. Italian children's author, Leo Lionni, did it first with Parallel Botany, thirty years ago:

FIRST published in Italy as La botanica parallela, this illustrated "non-fact" work is presented as popular science. It earnestly expounds the oddities of an elusive, frequently invisible, and wholly imaginary plant kingdom that coexists with botany as we know it.

Parallel plants exhibit "masslessness," seem frozen in time, lack internal structure, and generally collapse to dust at a human touch. Some defy the laws of perspective. When visible, their coloration tends to be "a gamut of blacks." The latest, still unclassified discovery is black but casts luminous shadows.

Tirils, resembling dense-packed fields of grissini, include species that emit strange whistles, strangle one another, or implant themselves disturbingly in the memory like Jorge Luis Borges' Zahir. Woodland Tweezers' distribution patterns echo positions in the game of Go. Giraluna the moonflower, once perhaps "an aerial plant," is naturally visible only by moonlight.

Link to Langford's "Curiosities" column in F&SF. Link to the 31 October 1977 book review in TIME.

I'm now very keen to get my grubby little mitts on this book, to see how Lionni pulled it off, although it won't affect the design or content of A Field Guide to Surreal Botany one bit. It looks as if the book has been out of print for some time, so it may take a bit of effort on my part. I'll let y'all know if I find it.

At first I was dismayed to read of its existence, with our concept being so shiny shiny and all. But Janet and I were talking about it last night, and both agreed that it wasn't all that surprising, and didn't really change anything about our own project. There are differences as well: Parallel Botany was all written by one person, while Surreal Botany has about 50 different contributors; hopefully, this means that there will be something new on every page, and not a sense of sameness as you progress through the book. It also seems as if Parallel Botany was written as a faux-academic text, with footnotes and arguments between botanists that never existed, while Surreal Botany is more of a straightforward layman's field guide; there are definitely some academic in-jokes with some of the entries, but on the whole, I think it can appeal to a broad audience.

Anyway, if anyone happens to spot a copy of Lionni's Parallel Botany in the wild, please do let me know.

Behind the Wainscot issue 11 has just been posted as well, with Paul Jessup now at the helm. Go give it a looky.

I yesterday created a Facebook fan page for A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, and uploaded a couple of images of Janet's preliminary artwork: one of a pile of paintings ready to be scanned, and the other of an exclusive unfinished illustration that will not be appearing in the anthology. The page is here:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=8661511910

Check it out and become a fan today! The page is designed to be very community-oriented, and I very much hope you all will participate during the run up to publication, and then also after the book is released in early 2008 (my apologies for the continued vagueness of the release date, but both Janet and I don't want to compromise on the quality of the book by rushing it out before it's ready).

Jumping on the bandwagon . . .

Short Fiction

• "BTW Features Jason Erik Lundberg" ("Siren," "Disport," "Banyan," "Somniloquist" and "Macerate"), Behind the Wainscot, Jan 2007 (reprint)
• "Bricolage," Behind the Wainscot, Feb 2007
• "Most Excellent and Lamentable," Text:UR - The New Book of Masks, Mar 2007
• "One Less," Farrago's Wainscot, Apr 2007 (reprint)
• "Reality, Interrupted," Agua/Cero, Sep 2007 (reprint & translation)
• "Screwhead," Hot Metal Bridge, Oct 2007

Articles

• "The Old Switcheroo: A Study in Neil Gaiman's Use of Character Reversal," The Neil Gaiman Reader, Jan 2007 (reprint)
• "Embedded Narrative in the Fiction of Kelly Link," Foundation, May 2007
• "The Freedom of Reading Aloud," North Carolina Signature, May 2007
• "Anamnesis for the Artist," Trinoc*con 8 Program Book, Aug 2007
• "A Walk in the Park," North Carolina Signature, Sep 2007
• "Think Global, Shop Local," North Carolina Signature, Nov 2007
• "Goals of a Student Essay" (Letter to the Editor), The Straits Times, Nov 2007

Reviews

• "Nothing is Inflammable by Simon Logan," The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Jan 2007
• "Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest," The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Mar 2007
• "Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America by Mark Ehrman," Vagablogging, Apr 2007
• "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang," Scalpel Magazine [defunct], May 2007
• "Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer," Vagablogging, Jun 2007
• "Patients Beyond Borders by Josef Woodman," Vagablogging, Jun 2007
• "Graffiti Travel Guide: Singapore by Lim Sio Hui et al.," Vagablogging, Oct 2007

Thirteen years ago at a family reunion in Connecticut (it may have been Christmas, or possibly Thanksgiving, or maybe just summer vacation), my uncle, musician and composer Doug Katsaros, played a tape of cartoons for us of a new show that featured his original music. The cartoon was goofy and satirical and hilarious, and we couldn't stop watching (I think he had the first six episodes on that tape). It featured superheroes, but no superheroes I'd ever heard of; sometimes ineffective, sometimes causing more destruction than the villains they were hoping to stop. A fantastic send-up of the entire genre, and it made me howl with laughter.

The show, of course, was The Tick.

After that, I followed the show religiously, first on Fox, then on Comedy Central. It quickly became one of my favorites. During a marathon, I taped something like ten shows in a row, and every so often when I needed a pick-me-up, I'd put the tape in, and the enthusiasm of the Big Blue Goon would put me in a better mood; sadly, as with many of my things, I had to get rid of the tape before the big move, although I notice that both seasons one and two are now on DVD.

Anyway, this is all to say that when Carolyn Kellogg mentioned the theme of "headless" in her call for entries for Hot Metal Bridge #2, my brain went straight to that goofy cartoon show. Thankfully, the editors at HMB took the story I sent them, and the issue went live today.

My contribution: "Screwhead."

I would often, when watching the cartoon series “The Tick,” wonder about a certain henchman, the one with a giant thumbscrew for a head. Not fortunate enough to warrant his own super-villain moniker, he is simply named Dean. Gifted with incredible strength used for the bidding of City crime boss Chairface Chippendale, Dean can go toe-to-toe with The Tick, bending a steel ladder around the hero’s frame, or holding him in a bear hug while other villains pummel the Great Blue Hope in the stomach. But Dean is always defeated, usually outwitted or outfoxed, because having a giant thumbscrew for a head is not really conducive to a life of intellectual rigor.

Probably my least categorizable piece of fiction: part-memoir, part-fanfic, part-pomo-self-examination, part-working-class-lament. And all in 1200 words! My first publication in a more "literary" venue, and it shares electrons with contributions from George Saunders, Brian Evenson, Daphne Gottlieb, Roy Kesey, Kevin Moffett, Christopher Bakken, Kate Burgo, Erin Fitzgerald, Tod Goldberg, Kevin O'Cuinn, Jack Pendarvis, Justin Runge, Richard Siken, and Patsy Zettler.

If you're interested, do that clicky thing.

Spoooooooooooooon!

This past weekend at Capclave, Peter S. Beagle (author of The Last Unicorn and A Fine and Private Place) received the first ever Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA) Small Press Award, and since he couldn't be there in person, Michael Swanwick accepted the award on his behalf. He also posted Beagle's acceptance speech at Flogging Babel:

My notion of a literary award generally involves first-class flights, lavish financial compensations, incredibly costly dinners, and four-star hotel accommodations complete with hot and cold-running groupies. The way I look at it, if it's good enough for Harlan, it's good enough for me. But I gladly make an exception in this case, because (and I know this is a cliche), far more than the mighty international conglomerate, it is the small press, the minuscule press, that remains, and will surely remain, the life force behind what we here create.

The saying, Freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one, is perfectly true; there is a reason that - even in the age of the Internet - dictatorships, juntas and fascist mobs still physically destroy every printing facility they can reach. In the end, as I'm happy to say, and as every jefe maximo knows, literature and literacy itself are always the enemy. And yet, somehow - call it samizdat, or anything else you like - the small press survives; the smudgy mimeograph, the battered copier, always rises again from the bloody shambles. Always, at whatever cost. Always.

Therefore I am grateful for this award, and will treasure it for everything it represents. Later for the Pulitzer, or the National Book Award. This will do me fine.

Awesome words.

N.B. I tend to prefer the term "independent press" rather than "small press," as the latter term has always felt a bit derogatory to me, even in its descriptive contrast to the big publishers. But "independent" also has that feel of the rebellious, of publishing what you want to publish, to do it in the way that you want, to take control over the end product of your creative endeavors.

Just got word that my story "Screwhead" (which I read aloud recently at the Singapore Art Cafe) was sold to Hot Metal Bridge for issue #2, the "headless" issue, to be published on 29 October. W00t! I previously blogged about HMB several weeks ago, and I'm jazzed that my strange little pomo piece will have a home there, especially since I wrote it specifically for the issue.

Meanwhile, you can check out all the goodness at issue #1.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the launch party for Agua/Cero, the Spanish-language anthology of the fantastic where I share a table of contents with Daryl Gregory, Jeremy Robert Johnson, James Patrick Kelly, Jason Roberts, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Bruce Sterling, released by Colombian publisher Proyecto Líquido. They apparently took over the Arts Center at EAFIT University in Medellín (Escuela de Administración, Finanzas y Tecnología, aka School of Management and Finance - Technological Institute), and presented an innovative multimedia experience.

Publishers Hernán Ortiz and Viviana Trujillo emailed today with a link to photonic captures of the event, including pictures of the book itself, which looks damn gorgeous. I'm really looking forward to receiving my contributor copy so that I can fondle it for myself. Sebastián Peláez Castaño provided the illustrations for the book, and in the image above, second from the left, is the illo and short excerpt for my story "Realidad, Interrumpida" (which you can see better at the photos page, and also at the antho main page).

I was also given a link to the music created as a soundtrack to the anthology, composed by Juan Fernando Ossa, which will be provided (via username and password) to the readers who buy the book. Very cool! I downloaded the track for my story, and I really dig the groovy ambient nature of it; I'll download the rest tomorrow. H & V say, "In the launch party's reading we mixed the music with a verbena scent, and that somehow submerged the public deeper in the story. It was a cool experiment."

Agua/Cero should be commercially available in a few weeks. So if you read Spanish and like you some skiffy, for completely selfish reasons I recommend snagging a copy.