we went away for the weekend, I turned another year older, and when I returned these were waiting:
paperback and hardcovers of Year’s Best Weird Fiction (reprinting “Julie”); Mantid (reprinting “Pursuit of the Whole”); Spin (with the Finnish translation of “Vacui Magia”)
so an unexpected, and wonderful, birthday present: having to make more room on the contributor copy shelf.
When all your projects are long and sprawling and often getting away from you, these milestones become like resting-places during a marathon. It is out in the world and my “Julie” is in it. Ten years ago I quit writing. Six years ago this month I was trying to get up the courage to start writing again, to start finding myself again. And now this.
I don’t yet have my copy so I am rather like a child waiting for Santa Claus. You can acquire it through all the usual channels and even spring for the lovely hardcover–!
I’m still hiding out a bit (this month. THIS MONTH) but I have to post about this week, and what a week it’s been.
First off, “Julie” was accepted as part of Year’s Best Weird Fiction. I can’t even. I can’t. Even after the squeeing ended, I was still not quite understanding it. It’s given me a huge bout of imposter syndrome in the best possible way. Here’s the link to the full TOC:
And now my blog is embedding things. Hah! You go away for a week or two and everything becomes strange . . .
Second, “The Queen of Lakes” was accepted into Mosaics: A Collection of Independent Women Volume 1, which is a great anthology that will support the Pixel Project. The anthology will drop March 8, and you can read more about how the Pixel Project is working to end violence against women here:
http://www.thepixelproject.net/
All of this has prompted me to go ahead with an idea I’ve been noodling for over a year now: self-publishing my short stories in collections. There’s a lot of pros and cons, as there are to any publishing path, but I think the bottom line is I just miss making books (11 years in publishing will do that to you) and I’m of an age when the question “if not now, when?” starts to become a very real issue. Especially when you’ve just lost someone in your age group. Death is a bastard, folks.
So yeah, keep an eye out for more about BOOKS.
For everyone else: I had blog posts and freelance work and all sorts of things that I left dangling last month. I am back now and picking up all the threads. Email me if I haven’t yet gotten in touch! Time to get the train back on the tracks—I’ve got work to do.