Since Lovecraft Unbound is being published by Dark Horse -- the same company that publishes Hellboy and The Goon -- some comic sites are taking an interest. Comixology has reproduced the first four pages of "The Crevasse" (by Dale Bailey and me, in case you've forgotten) over on their ordering page. Click here and see.

Thanks to Marc Laidlaw for pointing this out.

In the same vein, the book has been garnering more good press. Blu Gilliand at Dark Scribe Magazine mentions "The Crevasse," as well as stories by Brian Evenson and Michael Chabon, as highlights. The reviewer reveals himself as someone who does not enjoy Lovecraft's fiction, but thoroughly enjoyed Lovecraft Unbound anyway. I think that speaks well of the book, and of Ellen's success in realizing her intentions of collecting stories that might share some genetic coding with Lovecraft's stories, but are not in any way pastiches. (Incidentally, some folks have raised some ethical objections to a reviewer writing about a book based on a subject for which he has a professed disinterest, but it doesn't bother me all that much.) 

Finally, Anna Tambour, at her blog Medlar Comfits, talks a little about Lovecraft Unbound, though mostly in the context of the Dark Scribe review. I just dug it because she took a moment to throw some praise at "North American Lake Monsters", my story in The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

And did I mention the starred review in Publishers Weekly, which also made special mention of "The Crevasse"? I did? Okay. I'll just get my coat.

My short story "You Go Where It Takes You" is getting reprinted in Digital Domains, an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow. She's served as editor for three online venues over the years -- OMNI Online, Event Horizon, and SCIFICTION -- and these stories are drawn from all three.

Although I sold a couple stories before "You Go Where It Takes You," they were of a different era in my life; I consider this story to mark my true beginning as the writer I am today. It's a story I felt guilty for writing, and I had no idea whether or not it approached anything like professional quality work. I was absolutely certain Ellen would not buy it for SCIFICTION; at most, I hoped that she would at least like it enough to remember me the next time I submitted a story to her.

Everything that came after was a wonderful surprise. It made me some decent money and got reprinted in volume 17 of the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. Lucius Shepard wrote an appreciation of it on the SCIFICTION memorial blog. It let me know I might actually be a writer. Ellen rejected the next story I sent to her, and I think the real testament to how confident I felt after my experience with "You Go Where It Takes You" is evinced by how unfazed I was by that rejection.

Of course, the jury's still out on what kind of writer I am. I'm still working to improve my rate of production, which is the real albatross around my neck, the one major obstacle I must overcome if I can take myself completely seriously at this endeavor. But even that's getting better. I have two stories -- "The Crevasse" and "The Way Station" -- appearing in anthologies soon; a story called "Wolves" which I feel extremely good about; and I'll soon finish a story called "Sunbleached," which might be more purely a horror story than anything I've written to date (for whatever that's worth).

So I'm proud of this little story, and it still reads well to me, and I'm happy it's getting reprinted. Thanks, Ellen.

Digital Domains, from Prime Books, will come out in February of next year. The contents follow. Again, I am in very fine company. (I'm especially pleased at seeing "Frankenstein's Daughter" here, which is one of my favorite stories from my favorite science fiction writer.)


Introduction Ellen Datlow

OMNI online: September 1996 - March 1998

"Thirteen Phantasms" by James P. Blaylock
"Mr. Goober’s Show" by Howard Waldrop
"Get a Grip" by Paul Park

Event Horizon: August 1988 - July 1999

"The Girl Detective" by Kelly Link
"Pansolapia" by Jeffrey Ford
"Harbingers" by Severna Park

SCIFICTION: May 19, 2000 - December 28, 2005

"Frankenstein’s Daughter" by Maureen McHugh
"The Pottawatomie Giant" by Andy Duncan
"What I Didn’t See" by Karen Joy Fowler
"Daughter of the Monkey God" by M.K. Hobson
"Tomorrow Town" by Kim Newman
"There’s a Hole in the City" by Richard Bowes
"All of Us Can Almost… " by Carol Emshwiller
"You Go Where It Takes You" by Nathan Ballingrud
"Russian Vine" by Simon Ings

Somewhere in the long silences and occasional chatter that made up the rest of our first evening together, my elbow brushed up against hers and stayed there. Her skin felt cool. She didn’t move away.

“So who are all these people you tend to?” I asked.

“Just one person, mostly. Danny.”

I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I did anyway. “He’s your boyfriend?”

The smile Melissa flashed then was closer to the one she used on Sherman Street. Quick and light. “Danny?” The smile vanished.

“Danny is my leatherwing bat. My black-hearted magician. My closest friend. But he will never, ever, be my boyfriend. No matter how much he thinks he wants to be.”

She went quiet again. The breeze drifting out of the pines had a furtiveness to it. By the time we began retracing our steps to the fields at the bottom of the mountain, the moon had filled the sky behind us. I’d been planning to take Melissa’s hand, but didn’t actually try to do it until the Sherman Street elms loomed overhead. Her fingers accepted mine but didn’t squeeze around them. Above us, warblers chirred and trilled.

“Okay, Paul. Time for your personality test. I’ve had a lovely night. So I’ve decided to grant you one of two wishes. You can kiss me, or you can find out what’s in my black bag.”

We were standing in front of Mr. Gene’s. For once, my eyes made no move toward the leafy canopy above.

“Is this a trick question?” I said. “I mean, is there a right answer?”

“Only your answer.”

My mind raced. My strained lungs tickled, which made me want to cough, but I managed not to. “Does what I answer determine whether I get another night?”

Melissa rose onto her tiptoes, then settled back down. “No. But it might determine what kind of night the next one is.”

“Get the bag,” I said.

Superblogger Charles Tan conducted an interview with me a little while ago, and it just went live. I think the only thing you really need to take away from it is that I want to write a Hellboy novel.

Here it is.

"I feel about Jackson exactly as I did when he was alive and I’m not inclined to mince words about him now that he’s dead.  He was a pedophile who had the wherewithal to build Neverland, an in-plain-view honey trap he used to screen potential victims.  He was such a hound for publicity he once thrust his infant son Blanket (there’s a name to conjure with) out of a hotel window for the paparazzi to shoot and for his fans to cheer.  He transformed himself into a gargoyle-quality freak through multiple plastic surgeries.  He was a pretty good dancer but so fucking what--I couldn’t have sat through one of his glittery, crotch-grabbing performances because his music sucked ass.  He hurt kids.  If you don’t buy that, wait and see how Blanket turns out.  And if all you care to remember are his “innocent” years and where you were when you first heard “Billie Jean,” might I suggest you make a contribution to NAMBLA in Michael’s name."

Okay, so I've let the blog go dormant for a while. Obviously I'm not one of these people who believes one should post something every damn day, regardless of whether or not there's anything to say. However, there is a happy medium between daily filler and a tumbleweed-strewn wasteland, and I will endeavor to find that place again.

So here's a highlight reel of what's been going on recently, told in an annoyingly disjointed Larry King style.

Mia is visiting her mom in Alabama for the summer. This time we're breaking up the visit into two segments, instead of one long stretch, in the interest of making the transitions a little easier for her. Summers tend to be a stressful time for the little one. So the first leg of the trip is due to end next week, and she'll be home for a couple weeks before going down there again. She turns nine right around that time, so we're going to celebrate by going whitewater rafting. Also, with kittens.

I went to the Sycamore Hill Writer's Workshop last week, and had a great time. The other attendees were Dale Bailey, Karen Joy Fowler, L. Timmel Duchamp, Molly Gloss, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Alice Sola Kim, Meghan McCarron, Richard Butner, David Schwartz, Paolo Bacigalupi, Christopher Rowe, and Veronica Schanoes. I went with a story that wasn't quite ready for prime time, called "Alpha Dog"; it got a very enthusiastic reception, and I got some killer advice. It's now called "Wolves," and is about 600 words leaner. It's out in the world again, looking for a home. Alice Kim blew everybody away with a story called "Yellow Trash," which I hope you will all have a chance to read very shortly. Since both Timmi and Paolo flew in and out of Asheville, I got to spend some time with each of them, before and after the workshop, sitting over coffee. They're both pretty magnificent people. I think I left Sycamore Hill with some new friends, which I liked even more than the constant immersion in the craft. All in all it was a great experience.

I just found out a story of mine is getting reprinted in a forthcoming anthology, but since I'm not sure I'm allowed to talk about it yet, I'll just leave it at that and announce the specifics later. Suffice it to say it was welcome news, and it's a story I'm still proud of.

My friend Alexandra Duncan, who -- along with her husband Jeremy -- comes over to my apartment on Sundays to play boardgames with my daughter and me, just made her first professional fiction sale. Her story "Bad Matter" will be appearing soon in F&SF, and you should really seek it out. (I'll let you know when the issue hits the stands.) I'm not just saying that because she's my friend. I think this story will garner her some well-deserved attention. Congratulations, Alexa. You deserve it.

Finally, I will not be able to attend Readercon this year, as I am just too damn broke. Laird, I expect you to do all my drinking for me. I like good Scotch and dark beer. Man up, big fella.

Grandpa Elliott, one of the best buskers in New Orleans


My dad sent me the link below. It's pretty damn great. I'm glad to see that New Orleans is well represented here; I listened to Grandpa Elliott on many occasions in the French Quarter, and was both surprised and thrilled to see him here, and to listen to him again. I was constantly amazed by how good the buskers were down there. Better than any record.

Follow this link!

"Good writing is not an act to excite tolerance because it is good, but anguish because it is not better. Who can swear there has not been something catastrophic to America in the failure of her novelists? Maybe we are the last liberators in the land, and if we continue to thrive on much less than our best, then the being of us all may be deadened before we are done"

Also:

"It is this necessity to travel into one direction or the other up to the end which makes the writing of novels perilous to one's talent and finally to one's health, as the horns of a bull can be doom for the suit of lights. If one explores the world, one's talent must be blunted by punishment, one's artistic integrity by corruption: Nobody can live in the world without shaking the hand of people he despises; so an ultimate purity must be surrendered. Yet it is as dangerous to travel unguided into the mysteries of the Self, for insantiy prepares an ambush. No man or woman explores into his or her own nature with submitting to a curse from the root of biology, since existence would cease if it were natural to turn upon oneself."

And a little later:

"Yet a turn into the other direction, into the world of the Self, is not less difficult. An intellectual structure which is debilitating to the instinct of the novelist inhabits the crossroads of the inner mind -- psychoanalysis. An artist must not explore into himself with language given by another. A vocabulary of experts is a vocabulary greased out and sweated in committee and so is inimical to a private eye. One loses what is new by confusing it with what may be common to others. The essential ideas of psychoanalysis are reductive and put a dead weight on the confidence of the venture. If guilt, for example, is neurotic, a clumsy part of the functioning of a great machine, then one does not feel like a hero studying his manacles or a tragic victim regarding his just sentence but instead is a skilled mechanic trying to fix his tool. Brutally, simply, mass man cannot initiate an inner voyage unless it is conducted by an expert graduated by an institution."

-- from "The Argument Reinvigorated," collected in The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing, by Norman Mailer.