HB MES and Publications

Back from a fantastic trip to P-Con. With luck I can get a con report up soon, but I have to give a talk to the digital humanities doctoral students at the Moore Institute tomorrow, so I better get that completed first. Many thanks to Pádraig, Catie, Deirdre and all the organisers as well as to Maura for taking me under her wing, the lovely Sarah for all the laughs, Suzanne and Juliet for great craic, the Talbots for my signed copy of Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, John Connolly for buying us all dinner, the tango dancers for giving us a cause -- oh, and so much more. Anon.

My publication: I have a piece "Before the Watchmen Palaver" in the latest issue of Drink Tank (309). The editors have turned the entire issue over to discussion of the proposed Watchmen prequels. There's a wonderful and terribly unsettling cover, too. Read the full issue in PDF form here: it includes Pádraig and Laura Sneddon, too. Thanks, James, for asking me to contribute. UPDATE: I don't think I remembered to post yet that the collection that includes my essay on reading Lost Girls as post-Sadeian text is also out:



Last but very much not least, fifty-five years ago in a dark corner of Manchester, the lighting flashed, the skies opened up and Mark E. Smith was born. All right, I'm only guessing about the lightning and rain, but it's bound to be likely. My muse, my role model (LOL) -- well, he has inspired me in several stories of late and what better example of sticking to your guns and succeeding on your own terms do you need? So while I might post perennial favourites like "Bill is Dead" or "Touch Sensitive" or "Tempo House" I'll share this instead for those not yet up to speed on The Fall or if you'd prefer a story, snuggle in for storytime with MES and Lovecraft.

BitchBuzz: Penguin's Vanity Press

Great night out with colleagues at the tapas restaurant and then the French bistro. It's supposed to get very cold tomorrow, so an excuse to hide inside. At least we're not getting the much worse storms that are hitting Scotland -- take care up there!

Today's column takes up the latest cynical move to fleece would-be writers:

Vanity-Publishing vs Self-Publishing

By K.A. Laity

The digital revolution continues unabated, or perhaps it's just the grumble heard round the world as writers feel their words devalued again.

Penguin started up their very own "self-publishing" business. The "self" is optional, of course. As the coverage in The Wall Street Journal describes it:

In a sign that major book publishers are now recognizing the potential of the digital self-publishing industry, Penguin Group (USA) on Wednesday is launching a service to help writers publish their own books. For a fee of between $99 and $549, plus a cut of any sales revenue, Penguin's subsidiary Book Country will offer an array of tools—ranging from professional e-book conversion to a cover creator—to help a writer make their work available through digital book outlets and print-on-demand services.

So, it's the kind of "self-publishing" that you actually pay for, between $99 and $549. This is the kind of thing that's generally known as vanity publishing, not self-publishing. It's fine—there are all kinds of reasons to pay for publishing like wanting to see your work in print even if no publisher wants to print it. It might be too edgy and revolutionary for them, or it just might be crap, but you're an adult. You can make choices...

Read the rest over at BBHQ.

I have a couple of acceptances, but they're a ways off: one is reprint news for "Fear and Loathing in Deptford" which hasn't really got enough of an outing, I think. One of my favourites anyway, but that usually means it's something that only makes me laugh. There have been a couple of reviews for It's a Curse but as one was written by someone close to me, it may not be entirely dispassionate. :-)

Converting Galway

Thanks to Michael, there's a photo of me giving my talk at the Moore Institute yesterday. There was quite a good turnout! I suspect it was the sandwiches. The audience seemed to be receptive and laughed in the right places, always a good sign.I will put the talk on line when I get a moment. I went out to the pub with Leslie and Michael after the talk and then ended up tagging along to dinner with some of Michael's colleagues later. They're sad as their time in Galway is nearly over. I'll miss them.

They're asking me to teach a creative writing course in the spring, so now I will begin brainstorming about what tack to take for that. I suspect I will use it as an excuse to get some of my colleagues to Skype with my class :-)

Krampus and Digital Monks

Did the Krampus visit you last night or did Saint Nicholas fill your shoes with gifts? Happy Independence Day, Finland (let's have a little Värttinä for that).

My talk is today at the Moore Institute. It's an update of my keynote address from April; I wanted to hit a lot of the same issues, but I've also cut it a bit as well. Mostly the jokes: different audience. Not all of the jokes, of course. But I figure some of the offhand popular culture references won't travel well.

Writers: have you taken my survey about writing in the digital age yet?

No idea what kind of audience there'll be. Some friends have promised to show and there will be sandwiches. We'll see. And no, I didn't go through with my plan to graft a Guy Fawkes mask onto the Moore Institute logo for one slide. Coward.

News, a Wish and BitchBuzz

Criminy: it's December! How the time has flown by this semester, even though I haven't been in class. My sympathies to my colleagues knee-deep in exams and grading. I know how it feels -- and couldn't be happier that I am not.

Sorry! But it's true.

NEWS: 

It's a Curse: Drunk on the Moon, Book 7 by moi should be about tomorrow from Trestle Press. Thanks again to Mr B for inviting me to have fun playing with his werewolf PI, Roman Dalton. I hope I did him justice -- it sure was fun :-) I will have a book trailer up soon: just waiting on the cover art.

I'll be on the G-ZONE blog radio show, AKA Gelati's Scoop tomorrow night to talk about It's a Curse. You can listen live and call in, or listen to it later online. I'll be on about 4.30 pm Eastern time, which is about 9.30 pm here.

I'm interviewed in the latest Broadly Speaking from Broad Universe which is about mentors and teachers in literature, so I talk about Owl Stretching and Pelzmantel a bit and my own teaching experiences a little bit.

Next Tuesday is my talk at the Moore Institute at NUIG. I keep thinking about trying to add a Guy Fawkes mask to their logo just for a lark, but I lack the requisite skills.

My column for BitchBuzz this week is on gifts that won't steal your soul. Give something genuine if you're gift-giving this holiday season.

WISH:

It's my birthday month, so I want to ask you for a gift. Nothing expensive -- all it costs is a little of your time. I don't need stuff: I spent some harried weeks this summer trying to get rid of a lot of my stuff. What I would really like is some attention: not for me, for my books. My wish is for any who have the time to "like" my books on Amazon, Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing etc. and offer them reviews. They need not be elaborate; they need not be glowing. But books without reviews seem chancier to potential readers. No one wants to be the first to do something; they want to see that others have trod the path before them and it's safe. So if you have a few spare moments, can you help out a fellow American who's (okay, not really) down on her luck?

Friday's Forgotten Books: Saint Patrick's Confessio

People ask me what this "digital humanities" business is that I'm supposed to be engaged in for the coming academic year; the answer is long and complicated (but if you bring me a cuppa, I'll tell it to you). Among the kinds of activities that very big umbrella covers is one of the projects developed here at the Moore Institute: the Confessio of Saint Patrick.

You can look at digital renderings of the eight surviving manuscripts; you can read the text in English, Latin, Gaeilege, Italian, German or Portuguese; you can read a lot of essays that tell you about the context of Patrick's time, the manuscripts, the world he lived in and get a full bibliography of the sources. All from the comfort of your computer!

This is the sort of thing that shows you why medievalists, despite our reputation as people only to be found in musty libraries among handwritten tomes, tend to be geeks of the first order and interested in the latest technologies (okay, this does not apply to Fred Biggs ;-). The most plenteous text from the Middle Ages, The Prick of Conscience (not as racy as it sounds), boasts just over a hundred copies. Many exist in a single copy (e.g. Beowulf). Digital copies are so helpful!

For more FFB, drop by Patti Abbott's blog.