Snark Notes

My supervisor at work runs an entertaining and informative book review blog called Snark Notes. Today the blog featured an excerpt from a conversation we had about the state of YA literature:

Sums it up pretty well, I'd say.

A Decent Start

I suppose that this is a decent way to start the new year. Not too long ago, I got word that one of my stories was accepted for publication in the digital magazine Beyond Science Fiction. Yesterday, I got word that the issue containing my story has been published. Yep, those all were good words to read.

If you'd like to read a few words yourself, you can check out "Super" along with several other people's works in the January 2015 issue of Beyond Science Fiction. It's a Kindle-only joint, so e-readers, deploy!

For a few people I know, the title of this song most aptly summarized their feelings toward 2014:


If that includes you, then I hope that you're on your way to a 2015 in which you're cursing more out of a feeling of exuberance than a feeling of frustration, because we all deserve at least that kind of joy.

So happy effing New Year, eh?

Chicago Book Expo 2014

So yesterday, I ventured out from my little hermit hole and attended the 2014 Chicago Book Expo.

Matt, the coordinator of the Tamale Hut Cafe Writers Group, had gotten a table with a couple of other writers from the group and had invited me and co-conspirator Jenny to use the table as home base while we wandered the show in search of new writers to invite to the Tamale Hut Cafe Reading Series.

As a bonus, I also got to take time to contemplate new ideas for furnishing the home.

It's not quite the Scandinavian Contemporary look I was going for, but it might make a good accent piece anyway.

Going Counterclockwise Past the Mission

Currently reading Widdershins by Charles de Lint, in which one of his long-running and much-loved characters (Jilly Coppercorn) deals further with the abuse she suffered from various people in her past, including a priest. Having that story in mind while watching this video makes both a little more powerful; they echo each other well.

On a slightly different note, damned if hearing Trent Reznor's voice sneak in on the chorus there still doesn't make me smile.

Best American Nonrequired Reading/Listening/What Is Storytelling, Anyway?

This is a picture of one of the pages inside The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014. What you're looking at is a script for an episode of Welcome to Night Vale, an independently produced podcast that I would say is rather popular in that just-below-the-mainstream-radar kind of way.

Your mileage may vary; I think this is pretty neat. Either way, though, the times, they are a-changin'.

A Tree in the Forest

Well, since I last wrote, Monsters in My Backyard got put on indefinite hold. "What?" you might gasp. "Someone on the Internet stopped doing work on a blog?" I know; it's shocking to me, too.

But I was writing the text at the last minute, Wes was squeezing in the drawings between gigs for which he was actually accepting payment, and yeah. It's one thing to be disciplined, quite another to shove out work out of a sense of obligation. I like the idea too much to see it become something we half-ass or roll our eyes about whenever it comes time to do an entry, so we paused before we got to that point.

I've been working on writing stories on my own time, but that means very little to anyone, because they're not yet in a state to be seen. They need feedback, editing, a kick in the tush, everything it takes to get a story to the point at which it means something to someone reading it. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one's around to hear it--if a person writes a story, but no one else has been able to read it, is there really any sound to be heard other than the sound of said person talking out of her ass?

I don't have an answer for that; some mysteries simply are too deep. But this is an article I wrote for work, and this is the item description that's probably going to be my crowning achievement at this job (scroll down a little and check under the "Item Details" tab). And that's my life for the moment.

Woo.

Hairy, Naked Buds

That's what the descriptive URL for today's post on Monsters in My Backyard got shortened down to.

Wes and I are still going with the blog, though I switched to posting on Sundays to give us more time to produce the material needed. The image that Wes drew for today's post is my favorite of all the ones he's done so far.

Do have a look, won't you?