TRAVERSING Z

Julie

banner week

by

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:

Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 3 – 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.

julie.

by

as soon as I started cutting the tape on the parcel I knew. that smell. fresh ink and paper, glue and varnish. it is as beautiful and as glorious as I hoped. if the paper’s not Finch then it’s something damn close and equally delicious. embossed cover, ribbon, the works.

julie

I love the places I’ve been published, I feel fortunate in the editors and venues that I’ve worked with. but there’s something about a hardcover book. I’ve loved them from when I was small, I prized my childhood volumes along with my favorite toys; it was the one joy of my old job that never soured, right up to the end I loved to feel that finished product in my hands, the heft of it, the textures of paper and binding.

and that smell. nothing like it in the world.

Strange Tales V

by

This is shaping up to be a banner week, in a month that truly came in like a lion, but is going out like a lamb. First my story in Lackington’s, then finishing a novelette draft, then I found (and was offered, and accepted) a job that dovetails wonderfully with the writing . . . and now I can finally announce that I will be in Strange Tales V, out April 9th.

Strange Tales is Tartarus Press’ annual anthology of stories. Tartarus may be best known right now as the publisher of Nike Sulway’s Rupetta, which won the 2013 Tiptree award . . . but they are also a fine book publisher, a phrase which reminds me of the best bits of my former job: all that goes into the craft of making a beautiful book, from binding to paper to ink, headbands and ribbons, endpapers and drop caps. These words still give me little frissons of pleasure, and I now feel like a child waiting for Christmas to come, so eager am I to get my copies and see what they’ve done.

The announcement is here:

http://www.tartaruspress.com/stftfive.htm

And the jacket is here (note that all Tartarus books have this creamy jacket design, belying the glorious embossed leather/cloth underneath, which is usually a stunning reveal and probably the bit that I am most anticipating):

stftfive

At last, at last, at last. I have known about this since last fall; I was proofing my pages before Christmas. A long time for this impatient author.