Two months since I’ve done one of my iconic Chart entries. What has happened in that time? A few things. Reality Testing was released in paperback by the kind fellows at Black Rose Writing, and to date I must have sold at least 7 copies or so. Continuing to cement my name in the sci fi pantheon. In short story news, I’ve finally started submitting again after a couple of years, and my minimal effort was rewarded almost instantly with publication in issue one of a new magazine, Grim & Gilded. The story, called Pawn’s Promotion, takes place in the Sundown universe (that’s the same one as Reality Testing), and it’s 4,500 words of Lem-esque science fiction.
Elsewhere in bottom-of-the-barrel news: I reluctantly wrote a guest post for the blog Books + Coffee = Happiness about how to how to avoid the rejection blues. An excerpt of my wisdom:
“That short story you spent six months honing until it’s as sharp as a razor blade might be fantastic, but if an editor didn’t have their coffee that morning, there’s a chance they’ll punch the form rejection button just to get back at the world. Not your fault. Not the editor’s. Literature is like astrology: the stars and planets have to align. Moon conjunct Pluto, that kind of thing.”
Elsewhere, in The Avid Reader (whose ‘buy now’ button hilariously happens to be a screenshot rather than, you know, an actual button), I offer perfunctory answers to a perfunctory interview. I’m not entirely sure why I do these things. Maybe I’m a sucker for punishment.
Book of the month: Don Quixote. Yeah, that’s right, I’m reading it. And it’s just as funny as people say it is. Not in a ‘oh I just laugh and laugh at Bob Dylan songs’-pretention kind of way. More in a “this part of the story is about a man charging at a windmill with his lance” vein. I bet it’ll still take me forever to read, though.
Album (or actually a mixtape) of the month: Caprisongs by FKA twigs. I lost interest in twigs for a while after she brought out Magdalena, because I couldn’t get into it like the rest of the world effortlessly did. But this mixtape banished those January blues quicksmart. Good job, girl in the video.
Movie of the month: Rope. I haven’t seen many Hitchcock movies, and this is one that he dismissed as a failed experiment. James Stewart didn’t think much of his own performance in it, either. But I loved it. From the homoerotic subtext to the choice of cuts to the city changing in sort-of-real-time through the apartment window, I would say it is anything but a failure.
And now for tunes.
1 Nilüfer Yanya - midnight sun
2 Boys Noize, ABRA - Affection
