My friend Maura alerted me to the fact that my story “The Country of the Young” (in the current issue of Interzone, ie. issue 219) got a really positive review from Ziv Wities over at The Fix. I’m very happy to hear it, and more than ever I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the issue. For those of you in the UK, it should be in shops. For the rest of the world, I don’t know whether a Fictionwise edition is forthcoming (Interzone 218 doesn’t seem to have been posted at Fictionwise yet either), but …
Tag: WRITING
[redacted] and the Blowfish
Yet more good writing-related news: the Machine of Death anthology is going to be illustrated, and (I think this is firm) I’m chuffed at who they’ve chosen to illustrate my little yakuza story! (Which some might remember is titled “Improperly Prepared Blowfish.”) (NOTE: I noticed that the guys over at Machine of Death is not publicizing names for a bit, so I’ll let them announce it first when things are finalized. But it’s cool!) The comics world is a foreign land to me, as is probably evident from the fact I used the word “comics” just now, but I had …
Praise and [Mild] Guilt and Back to “…Burma”
I was feeling chuffed a couple of days ago, and it continues. A couple of mentions of me have slipped onto my radar lately, and both of them made me go Woah. If you’re interested in seeing nice things written by esteemed people, they’re in the extended section of this post.
Korea Herald Essay — Published?
UPDATE (17 Sept 2008): Aha, I’ve just gotten an update and the series of which my article is a part will run from the 23rd-25th of September, that is, next weekend. Keep your eyes peeled, I guess! An edited version of these posts (mostly the first one) was supposed to appear in the Korea Herald around the end of last week. I check the editions for the dates I was told, and there was nothing. Anyone seen it? If you have a copy lying around, please don’t toss it. I’d love a copy. It was supposed to be in the …
“Realer” vs. Real Life
Real life is nuts, is screwy, and I just don’t feel like writing about it now. Except to sigh. But I did get some editing done, and finally, a story I started in 1999 is ready to go out the door. The title is “Realer,” and it’s a far different story than it was when it started out–but better, at once more brutally real and more hopeful. I think, anyway. That’s one more story to put into my send-pile, I guess. Since it’s appropriate for all ages, I think I’ll be saving it till I hear back about “Vortex, Inverse” …
“Dhuluma No More” in the Current Asimov’s SF…
“Dhuluma No More” is the second story I’ve published in Asimov’s SF so far: it’s in the October/November double issue which should now be on newsstands, if I have my information. Here’s the advance notice of the issue, and the Table of Contents for the issue. As usual, I won’t be seeing the issue for a while, but a few of the things in it look interesting to me, according to this review of the issue. I’m curious especially to see what my Clarion West instructor Ian R. MacLeod did with his alt-history of the Sepoy Mutiny set in England …
The Hustle and Bustle of Everything Thinging
A sunburn in a place that was previously impervious to sunburn is a big hint. Yes, the hairline, she is a-receding… Ah well. I know enough about heredity to have failed to imagine myself impervious to it… All the men on both sides of my family had that going on. I do wonder if a bald spot is on the way up upon the crown? Meh. Hair… whatever. Sunburns do suck the glee out of things for a while, though. Nonetheless, the trip I made to the beach with a co-worker and her husband was cool and worth it. I’ll …
Yay for Subs!
I rarely stop writing for long. Sometimes it happens — a lot of this summer has been a dry spell for me, partly because I’ve been ridiculously busy with a bunch of other things — but usually, what does shrivel up is not the writing, but the submitting of work. It takes constant energy to do final edits and proofreads, to check where you’ve sent things and where else you could try, and to actually send them. This week I really need to print a few things and send out some print submissions, but I’ve taken advantage of places that …
XY
By the way, I forgot to mention this when it went up, but my column over at the Canadian women’s magazine Cahoots is different in nature than it used to be. In the old days, I wrote about blogging women, basically reviewing interesting blogs by women with quotes and praise and so on. However, I ran out of steam on that — reviewing blogs is just not interesting work, I think, and I prefer to just splat praise on my own site when I find a good one — so I talked it over with the editor and, inspired by …
The Imo Incident (or, The Incident of the Imo Year, or maybe just Eight Days, or Eight Days in the Imo Year)
Whew! Well, I’ve just about finished the finishing touches on a story I’ve been on-and-off working for a long time, my Sado Seja story…. which wasn’t originally a ghost story. Actually, I have heard a few people claim that there were ghostly happenings at Changdeokgung, and even Lady Hyegyong mentions palace ghosts — some poor woman who was executed for necromancy against the queen a generation or two back, for example, was thought to have left an evil spiritual residue behind — but strictly speaking, I’ve never encountered the story of Sado Seja as a “ghost story.” And yet Sado’s …