Over at the League

I have a post up over at the Women's League of Ale Drinkers today on Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. It's a fascinating book on why people who can synthesize information across borders of various kinds, find the narrative hooks and figure out what people really want and need in their lives will thrive in the new information-saturation world.

I woke up this morning dreaming I was walking in Lady Gaga's shoes. As if! You will recall how badly I inured myself on perfectly flat shoes and a very small hill; imagine me actually trying to clomp around in these. Even Gaga took a spill in the middle of Heathrow.

Grading this morning; revising this afternoon. I got my contract for Craft Critique Culture at U Iowa. Now I have to decide some things about next summer: what do you reckon? Iceland or New Zealand? Iceland could be combined with England (the Great Writing conference will be in London this year), but I've never been to New Zealand. Of course it's a lot more money too, unless I can get someone else to foot the bill (when's that grant deadline?). Hmmm.

UPDATE: Part 7 of La Ronde over at Eric Beetner's blog.

Publications: High Plains Lazarus / Fear and Loathing in Deptford

I'm pleased to let you know that the zombie anthology, Rotting Tales, is now available from Pill Hill Press and it features my short story "High Plains Lazarus" -- obviously influenced by spaghetti Westerns as well as Joe R. Lansdale his own self, but with a mystical twist.

The book will be available on Amazon soon, but until Thanksgiving, Pill Hill will be selling the collection for a discounted rate of $15.49 so if you're thinking of picking it up, that's a great reason.

The story has a funny history, having been written at the last minute as I headed off to Trinoc-con one year and hated everything I'd ever written (it happens) and so started writing something just for fun. It was a big hit, with one exception: I'd only got half the story written. People were ready to kill me for stopping in the middle, but that's all I had. I finished (and read the rest the following year at Trinoc-con) and sold it to an anthology, who then proceeded to slowly reel out the days while contributors waited, and waited, and were reassured that it was coming, it was coming -- and then after two years, they just stopped responding. Sigh. Unfortunately, that's the life of small publishers. I'm glad it's got a home at last.

Over at the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, where the first issue of the journal is available for a mere 99¢ (such a bargain!), you can get the lowdown this week on our design director, Stephanie Johnson AKA the Queen of Everything, editor Vicky Squid and, er, me. We'll be getting to know many of the contributors to the first issue throughout the month. Enjoy!

WLoAD #1 and a Book Trailer Review

Hey kids, get yourself a fine publication for just 99¢! Yes, it's the inaugural issue of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers journal featuring some wonderful art by pal Stephanie Johnson (who designed the whole issue) and a whole lot more -- like my long unplaceable story, "Fear and Loathing in Deptford," in which I imagine how Christopher Marlowe's last night might be if he wrote in the style of Hunter S. Thompson (albeit with Elizabethan sensibilities). I got lots of compliments on the story from editors who nonetheless did not buy it because it was too this or too that (too obscure, too much strange vocabulary, and -- oh no! -- even some Latin!). Check out the table of contents for more delights including some familiar names.

My book trailer for Pelzmantel received a review over at 1st Turning. I'm learning a lot from people's comments -- things that never occurred to me. It's hard when you know the story inside out to think about how to introduce it to someone unfamiliar with it. Feel free to add your comments as well. I need all the feedback I can get as I'm starting to think about the trailer for The Mangrove Legacy: whatever will that have?