The Delights of Inefficient Travel

Sean and I are not efficient travelers.

Some people get in the car and drive until they get to their destination. We wander a bit. We just spent two days driving from Tahoe to Salt Lake City; apparently this takes normal people about 9 hours.

Our itinterary:

12:00 Leave the house where our friend’s wedding was held. (Very nice ceremony; everything went gorgeously.)

12:02 Stop at a scenic overlook.

….and so on.

It would make other people crazy, but we enjoy the ride — and the scenery between here and Tahoe is spectacular, in that empty Western mountain way.

And on the way back, Sean got a call: he’s got a job now. Yay!

Now to get caught up on all the Stuff that accumulated while we were gone…

New Shimmer Awesomeness

Two quick Shimmer updates!

First, check out our interview with Shimmer editor emeritus Lisa Mantchev; we’ve also got a review of her book Eyes Like Stars.

Next, we were delighted to learn that no less than ten Shimmer stories made it on to Ellen Datlow’s Honorable Mentions in Year’s Best Horror. That’s really terrific. You can see the full list at Ellen’s blog; it offers a wealth of wonderful stories t0 read.

The Shimmer 10:

Slatter, Angela “Dresses, Three,” Shimmer 8
Slatter, Angela “The Hummingbird Heart,” Shimmer 9
Marchand, Joy “The Shape of her Sorrow,” Shimmer 9
Hobson, M.K. “The Hand of the Devil on a String,” Shimmer 9
Wallace, Tinatsu “Chimera and Qi,” Shimmer 9
Genge, Sara “Counting Down to the End of the Universe,” Shimmer 10
Wilson, Alex “The Spoils of Springfield,” Shimmer 10.
Lalumière, Claude “What to Do With the Dead,” Shimmer 10.
Paxson, Caitlyn “The Carnivale of Abandoned Tales,” Shimmer 10.
Yaniv, Nir “A Painter, a Sheep, and a Boa Constrictor,” Shimmer 10

Congrats to the authors!

Clockwork Jungle Book Is Here!

Yanno, I never thought it might take me two years it release an issue. We were supposed to be quarterly! Fast turnaround, having everything together, a well-oiled machine.

Yeah.

It’s been a long time in the making, but it’s here at last, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out: The Clockwork Jungle Book. 175 pages, 20 stories, chock-full of fabulous steampunk animal parables from Jay Lake, Jess Nevins, Lou Anders, Shweta Narayan, and a dozen others! And it’s a gorgeous lovely book, too, with wonderful illustrations from 6 artists, and photos of the contributors decked out in their steampunk finery! Grab your copy today. OR ELSE! Sales have been brisk so far; get your copy before they run out.

Watch the Shimmer site over the coming weeks, as we bring you special treats: the authors reading from their works. In some cases, they read the whole story! It’s always cool to me to hear what an author sounds like, whether it’s Jay Lake’s authoritative storytelling or Vince Pendergast’s Australian accent.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

And so we start again…

Back from a glorious but exhausting World Fantasy, and trying to get things back together. It’s hard, after spending most of a week in another world, an exciting and inspiring world, to get back to the ordinary work of chopping wood and carrying water.

It doesn’t help that I’m a little sick and the antibiotics I’m on are making me sleepy and dizzy. Sean’s being very solicitous but still it pretty much sucks. Gives me time to think, I guess, about ways to make sure all the important and exciting projects get done, instead of getting caught up in just feeling overwhelmed with how much work there is to do (my usual pattern).

So, faithful readers, how do you get it all done?

World Fantasy: We Have Arrived!

“Let’s just drive to San Jose,” we said. “Flying sucks and it’s not that far.” Famous last words, etc. Probably the most horrible part was the death-defying narrow concrete chute of construction I had to drive through at dusk on Donner Pass, but there were dozens of other annoyances.

There were some bright spots. We had a lovely lunch at the Winnemucca Pizzaria, an unexpected oasis in the middle of Nevada. Our hotel room is very nice. And best of all, the Fairmont offers free parking if you have a hybrid (regularly $26 a night! Eeek! Or the hassle of finding other parking.).

So I’m even more delighted than usual to have arrived at World Fantasy, and am eager to take on the world tomorrow — after a nice long sleep.

“Munsil and the Minotaur” in Escape Clause

Escape Clause

The  Escape Clause anthology is out, and it’s got one of my stories in it: “Munsil and the Minotaur.”

The story was written in a series of flash challenges over at Liberty Hall. My thanks to the real Munsil for providing a great space to play, and for letting me borrow his name. (I swear the real Munsil is nothing at all like the one in the story!)

To celebrate the release, I’ve posted another Minotaur story. “The Minotaur’s Rabbit” appeared in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest back in 2006. The events in “The Minotaur’s Rabbit” occur many years after those in “Munsil and the Minotaur.”

Read! Enjoy! And then go grab a copy of Escape Clause for more Minotaur goodness.

Escape Clause is almost 300 pages long, with 26 stories and a lovely sprinkling of illustrations. It was produced by Kit St. Germain and Clelie Rich, who were absolutely delightful to work with.

I can’t wait to read the rest of the stories!

The Wedding FAQ

Q: Ahahaha, you got married? That’s a joke, right?

A: Nope! Sean and I really got married on Monday, Oct 5. All witnessed and photographed and legal and everything.

Q: Wow, why so sudden? Why didn’t you plan a big wedding and/or tell me? Are you pregnant??

A: We always figured we’d get married with little fuss someday when the time was right; I guess the time was right. Sean needed health insurance, so we figured we might as well.  We did not get a chance to tell everyone we wanted to, though we did talk about it on our blogs, twitter, and facebook (so follow us there if you want to know what we’re up to!). I am not pregnant.

Q: Did you wear shoes to the wedding?

A: Yes, Mom.

Q: So how was the ceremony?

A: It was really nice. We were joined by our friends Keri and Jeff, Skipper, and Chris and his lovely wife Brenda. Chris took photos for us, and Keri and Skipper were our official witnesses. The ceremony was the standard one written by the county clerk, and it was great. Afterwards, we went to Ruth’s Diner and ate way too much food.

Q: So are you changing your name?

A: No, no. I’ll retain my own identity instead of being subsumed into Sean’s. I’m casting off the shackles of patriarchal hegemony and keeping my “maiden” name, given to me by my father.

Q: You really crack yourself up, don’t you?

A: Oh, yes.

Q: So, uh, we didn’t get you any presents. What can we get you?

A: Aww, that’s sweet, but you don’t have to get us anything. We’re cool. We’ve got everything we need and a lot that we don’t need, including a hot dog toaster.

If you must get us something, Sean would love a pizza. We would also make good use of gift certificates (to pretty much anywhere, including Ikea, local restaurants, hotels, bookstores, etc).

Or, channel your generosity to people who really need it: support organizations working for marriage equality in all states, so that all couples can just run off and get married if they want to.

A: Where are the photos?

Q: Sean’s got a few up on his web site; there will be more.

Getting Married on Monday

Monday morning I’m getting married. Sean and I have been living together for two and a half years or so, and have always figured we’d get married someday. Might as well be Monday, eh?

The decision to do it now started as part of a discussion about how Sean needs health insurance — so if this doesn’t work out, I shall blame the Republicans for blocking health care reform.

So tomorrow I’ll be a boring old married lady. See you then!

Chicken salad, anyone?

We arrived at the grocery store last night, and the power was out. A grocery store on emergency power is dim and oddly quiet: no muzak, no air conditioner, none of the background noise you don’t really notice until it’s gone. The outage was expected to last another 6 or 7 hours. Employees were busy sealing off the refrigerated sections with big sheets of plastic and duct tape. They tied the doors of the freezers shut. Hope they’re able to salvage most of it!

Rotisserie chicken was on sale, half price. We couldn’t buy half the groceries we needed but chicken made a nice dinner. Ate while watching Watchmen (which I thought was terrific).

Today Sean offered to make me a sandwich with some of the leftover chicken. Yum, I said. But how about chicken salad? Sure, he said, and I took off to run some errands. I’m thinking, a few slices of chicken, diced, with mayo, etc. Came back from my errands and discovered he’d picked the carcass clean and made giant bowls full of chicken salad, and tossed the bones (no stock for me, alas!). It wasn’t what I had in mind but it sure is good.

And there’s a lot of it. Want some?

Settling in for a lazy Saturday now. I’m going to go read a book until the nap kicks in.

Best American Fantasy and Shimmer!

Woo-hoo! Big news from Shimmer. Best American Fantasy 3, edited by Kevin Brockmeier and Matthew Cheney, is reprinting Kuzhali Manickavel’s “Flying and Falling,” from our Art issue. We’re just thrilled!

What’s more, two other Shimmer stories were selected for the BAF Recommended Reading list: Aliette de Bodard’s “Within the City of the Swan” from the Art Issue, and our cover story from Issue 9, M. K. Hobson’s “The Hand of the Devil on a String.”

So we’re celebrating with a sale: $3.00 off Issue 8 (The Art Issue) and Issue 9! That means:

• Issue 8, print edition, $3.00 (plus shipping); electronic, only $1.00.
• Issue 9, print edition sold out, but you can still grab the electronic for $1.00.

Order your copies today, and read these terrific stories for yourself.

SQUEEE!