I received my contributor’s copies of the October 2006 issue of Realms of Fantasy magazine, which contains my story “Blood of Virgins.” Watch for it at a bookstore near you.
Archives for July 2006
Confluence Photo
Here’s a pic from Confluence of me looking whimsical. Or perhaps I’m thinking grand and noble thoughts about the future of human space exploration. Or maybe I’m just watching somebody stand up. I don’t remember. At any rate, I kind of like this picture. Photo by
Confluence
I am now at the Confluence convention. For anyone else who’s here: I’ll be reading my story “Blood of Virgins” today at noon.
Reading
This week I’m in Pittsburgh teaching at the Alpha Writers Workshop. Tonight I gave a reading at Barnes & Noble alongside Timothy Zahn. Zahn wrote Heir to the Empire, the first Star Wars novel to continue the story past Return of the Jedi. That book was HUGE back in the day, so it was a lot of fun for me to be able to appear with him. I read “Blood of Virgins,” which seemed to be very well received.
October = August
I guess I should mention, for readers who may not be as familiar with the vagaries of publishing, that you won’t have to wait until October to read my story in the “October” issue of Realms of Fantasy. The August issue has been out for a while now, and since the magazine is bimonthly, the October issue will be the next one to hit newsstands, probably sometime in the next month or so. Of course I’ll mention it here when I know it’s out. If anyone sees it, please drop me a line and let me know.
“Blood of Virgins” in Realms of Fantasy, October 2006 (Maybe)
I got my contract today from Realms of Fantasy for “Blood of Virgins.” The contract indicates that my story will appear in the October 2006 issue. I’m not sure how certain that is, but I thought I’d pass it along.
Friday
I hung out backstage at Conan O’Brien again on Friday. I actually got to see Conan this time. Before he goes out in front of the crowd/cameras, he goes through a ritual to psych himself up. He reviews the monologue jokes off of flash cards while hopping up and down, busting dance moves, and mugging outrageously. Then, during the drumroll, he rips out the beating heart of an intern and eats it. It was pretty intense.
After that I had dinner with a bunch of friends. At one point, the conversation had covered both China Mieville and Blade (yeah, it was those kinds of friends), so I tossed out my recent observation that China Mieville is like the Blade of geeks — “All of their strengths, none of their weaknesses.”
Then Saturday morning I was on the radio. Check out my site’s new and improved Media page.
New Radio Interview
Listen to some of the highlights from my appearance this morning on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York here.
More Readercon Photos
Here are some more Readercon photos, from
Awesome x 2
Readercon was AWESOME. Awesome, I tell you. I always have fun at cons, but I had a particularly good time at this one. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the guests of honor were two of my favorite contemporary writers, James Morrow and China Mieville. (Just imagine if they’d had George R. R. Martin as a third guest of honor … but then my head probably would have exploded, so perhaps it’s just as well.) Overall it was just a great group of people, and small enough that it felt like a family gathering. By Sunday afternoon some of us were too exhausted/wound up to sit still anymore, so we blew off some steam with a no-holds-barred round of frisbee tossing. Check out the photos.
Something else cool happened this weekend. Back in the spring, I had a few classes taught by director Ted Post, whom you can see has had a long career in Hollywood. I had just finished writing “Blood of Virgins,” so I gave him a copy to read. He said he’d call me with his comments. I didn’t hear from him, and figured he was busy, and sort of forgot about it as I wrapped up the semester and packed to go to the Netherlands. My cell phone didn’t work in the Netherlands, but when I just got back to New York I found a message waiting for me. It was Ted Post. He’d read my story and was extraordinarily enthusastic and complimentary. He said, “Do you have an agent? Have you done anything with this? What about Disney? I think they might really be interested in this.” I called him back yesterday and chatted with him, and he suggested a few things I should try to get my stuff read by the right people. He said, “With your talent you should be being read and reviewed by all the top critics. You should be making lots of money and spending every day telling stories.” I promised I’d call him back in the fall and let him know what I was doing with myself. Overall it was just a tremendously exciting and motivating conversation.
I Love Savage Critiques
Via The Slush God:
My buddy Chris Cevasco is off at the intensive six week Clarion writers workshop. Some of our other New York friends got together and gave him a little present to take with him:
The Greatest Threat in the History of the World
In principle I have nothing against the idea of dating websites, but I’m starting to get really annoyed by the constant barrage of patronizing, intrusive, and prurient ads for such sites, which all suggest that if I sign up I’ll instantly be deluged by sultry, cleavage-baring vixens. (I’m annoyed because I think they’re misleading me. If by some chance they’re not, somebody please let me know and I’ll sign up.) One recent ad I saw said “Find True Love” and featured a shot of cleavage. Just cleavage. I mean come on.
But that brings me to a serious issue. A gathering storm. Certainly the greatest threat in the history of the world. Forget terrorism, global warming, nuclear proliferation, or an avian flu pandemic. We can’t waste any time on crap like that with this other threat looming over us. I think you know what I’m talking about.
Nipples. Yeah, that’s right — nipples. Just the word sends terror down the spine and makes the blood run cold. Nipples are everywhere. Everywhere. You probably know people with nipples. I’ve heard rumors that some people even have two of them. Maybe you’ve even seen nipples and lived to tell of it. The most insidious thing about nipples is that it’s so hard to see what’s so bad about them. That’s just what makes them so dangerous. But some people are fighting back. Take for instance this judge in Lincoln who may send a woman to jail for 8 months for having an insufficiently opaque coating on her nipples. I fear it’s too little too late. Nipples will probably soon overwhelm all of North America, and we will all be forced to flee to Europe, where no one has ever even heard of nipples.
World Cup
Whew. I’m glad France won. I really wasn’t looking forward to seeing a final match showdown between Italy and Portugal, two teams composed entirely of players who fake death throes every time someone so much as breathes on them. Sorry if you were really looking forward to seeing that game, but here, you can get much the same effect by simply staring at this photograph.
Public Service Announcement
“Hemingway” is spelled with one m. Seriously. I’m not kidding. You can look it up. I only mention this because out of the last twenty times I’ve seen him mentioned on the internet, his name has not been spelled correctly once. This includes many articles by professional writers. Though most of these people misspelling his name are people listing him as one of their favorite authors(!). I don’t know whether these people are all just extremely oblivious or whether they’re only pretending to be literate (“Okay, gotta put something for ‘Books’ on MySpace. Hmm, let’s see … geez, man, the only thing thing I’ve read in the last ten years was the name of the contestant at the bottom of the screen on American Idol. Um … hmmm … how about that ‘Hemmingway’ guy. I’m pretty sure he was a writer. I think we were supposed to read something by him back in middle school. Okay, he’ll do.”), but in any event it needs stop. Please. Just stop.
Writers Writing About Writers
I’m now planning on going to Readercon, so if you see me there say hi.
The prospect of seeing so many writers together in one place has gotten me thinking about some of my favorite movies about writers. Books on writing always tell you to “write what you know,” but then they also tell you not to write about writers, because writers writing about writers is bad. Personally, I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m fascinated by everything having to do with writers and writing, and personally I love writers writing about writers. In fact, possibly the only thing that I would love more than writers writing about writers would be writers writing about writers writing about writers. Actually, my biggest complaint with stories about writers is that the stories always try to include romance and conflict and tragedy and boring stuff like that rather than focusing on much more interesting things such as writers dreaming up ideas, writers constructing plots, and writers rewriting sentences.
Anyway, without further ado, here are my Top 10 Movies That I Thought Up Off the Top of My Head Just Now About Writers:
1. Wonder Boys – A college professor struggling to finish his novel gets caught up in a madcap series of events involving his brilliant but troubled student.
2. Shakespeare in Love – Shakespeare is inspired to write Romeo and Juliet when he falls in love with a noblewoman masquerading as a boy actor.
3. Throw Momma From the Train – A writing teacher tries to teach one of his students how to write a mystery, then finds himself caught up in a situation right out of Hitchcock.
4. Adaptation – A writer struggles to adapt a bestselling book into a unique screenplay, while also humoring his brother, who wants to write a thriller.
5. Shadowlands – C.S. Lewis, author of Narnia, has his worldview challenged when he falls in love with an American poet and divorcee.
6. Finding Neverland – Playwright J.M. Barrie meets the family that will inspire him to create Peter Pan.
7. The Whole Wide World – A young woman befriends the awkward and troubled young writer Robert E. Howard, author of Conan the Barbarian.
8. Quills – The Marquis de Sade clashes with the church and society over his scandalously perverse writings.
9. Swimming Pool – A mystery writer staying at a French villa tries to get an idea for her next novel while dealing with the increasingly outrageous behavior of the owner’s daughter.
10. Finding Forrester – A young basketball star and writer befriends a recluse who turns out to be a famous novelist.
Well, that’s my list. Any terrific movies about writers that I’m missing out on?
Assault Rifle Basics
I’ve become weirdly enamored with the Assault Rifle Basics podcast that I found randomly in iTunes. Basically it’s these two gamers who play a lot of first person shooters, and they got curious about the real-life weapons featured in the games. They talk to gun owners and retailers, who show off different gun models and configurations. If, like me, you’re sadly bereft of an actual Bushmaster M-16 (Now that’ll keep the neighborhood kids off your lawn), you can watch the videos and get a decent idea of how it works. Handy for writers who might want to feature an assault rifle in a work of fiction. (And really, what work of fiction wouldn’t benefit from the inclusion of a few assault rifles? Take The Grapes of Wrath. Pretty decent story, right? But throw in some assault rifles and … bam! Now we’re talking. See what I mean?) What these podcasts lack in professional polish they make up for by being free. (Go to the iTunes music store and search for assault rifle basics.)