In other news, “Omphalos” got a nice mention in a review of Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 over on Worlds In Ink.

I think there might have been one other thing I was going to blog about, but it appears I have temporarily ordered my memory off my very own lawn. Yep, I’m going with that.

“There are more than a few echoes of Alien in Llewellyn’s visual imagery, a baroque splendour that bloats and burns and rusts and that can most deservedly be called Gigeresque. But it is in the measured way her stories unfold that we sense the advent of classics in the making. Hers is a language that glows with a sense of the forbidden, that resonates with the heartbeat of the darkly divine. …Engines of Desire is the bravest and most exciting collection of dark fantasy I’ve read in some years…”

I believe the only proper response to this is FUCK YEAH!

Looking at the very formidable competition, which is sort of crushing me even now, all I can say is I’m glad I was nominated, and many thanks to the jurors for their consideration. Also, I have to once again thank Steve Berman and everyone Lethe Press for publishing Engines and “Omphalos”. I feel like I won when I first got my arcs, so everything after that has been icing on the cake.

Still, though – this is some pretty fucking great icing!

Back to celebrating this beautiful day dedicated to respecting our planet and its precious resources by beating the shit out of some silverfish. Then: dinner and cake!

I also want to mention that Brian lives with one of the biggest damn cats I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting: Max, a gigantic orange Maine Coon, who supposedly doesn’t like people in general but realized within five seconds of meeting him that I can scratch cats in all the secret places. Yep, I became Max’s bitch, and I’m completely fine with that. So, it was a really great couple of days, and Brian is a fantastic host, and I hope I get invited back someday. I think I will, because I gave him a huge bottle of bourbon. I totally know how to be a fantastic guest.

And: on the drive back to Jersey City on Wednesday, Mary and I drove through Bethlehem, PA – we were looking for a McDonald’s (don’t judge! we just really needed those fries), but in our search, we drove past one of the most awesome sites I’ve ever wanted to see in my life: Bethlehem Steel. I got so excited Mary almost had to stop the car and slap the shit out of me. Seriously, I was SO FUCKING EXCITED. Also a bit perplexed at the site of the ginormous Sands Casino built right next to the old blast furnaces and stacks. Whatever – it just makes it that much easier for me to plan my fall vacation. Yes, I’m going to go back to Bethlehem, request a room at the Sand Casino with a view of the factory, and then spend my days taking the factory tour and visiting the on-site arts center over and over again until they kick me out. No, this is not because I’m a crazy person – this is all part of ongoing worldbuilding research for my fiction set in my industrial Lovecraftian city-continent of Obsidia. Also, because I can’t afford to travel to this city. Also, I plan to gamble and buy discount purses and shoes and eat big buffet dinners and watch porn in my room. I am fairly certain that it will be the Best Vacation Ever.

I also am no longer going to work with any publisher or editor who develops what I like to call “Shockline’s Disease”. In other words, if you take on a massive project, take hundreds/thousands of dollars in money, content and art from contributors and customers, suddenly develop an incurable, terminal disease, continue to take money from people, and then seemingly spend your days/weeks/years (and document them online) in glorious pain-free, healthy comfort as you publish your projects and keep all monies, then you’re not someone I’m interested in having any kind of business arrangement with. I’ve seen many talented, beautiful people die of terrible illnesses – friends, relatives and close family members – and I’m also not interested in pretending it’s totally cool to go alone with the pretense of someone wasting away from cancer or a tumor, when they’re simply a pathological piece of shit who has absolutely no idea how to behave morally or with any kind of ethics or compassion. I don’t need to give you my fiction for free – for exposure, to help my career, or because I’m a woman and you’re doing me a favor because normally you wouldn’t publish women so I should be so lucky that you’re even considering me because we all know the bitches can’t really write. I don’t need to give anyone anything, ever. And starting today, I’m not going to, ever again.

******

In other completely unrelated news that in no way has anything to do with what I just spoke about: it would appear that the Aklonomicon anthology has been published, after all. I’ll update my bibliography accordingly, but I don’t feel inclined to link to the site where you can buy it, for reasons that have nothing to do with anything I’ve just said. Of course, if you have my email address you’re welcome to contact me, about, you know, stuff, like the weather and how I’m doin’ and shit.

Anyway! Last Tuesday, we got up at holy-fuck-o’clock and drove from York, PA (where Brian Keene graciously hosted us for the night) and drove down to Langley, where after some hilarious hijinks at the WRONG front gate involving security guards with gigantic rifles, we managed to find the right entrance to the CIA compound and check in. Scott was our very gracious (and patient) escort for the day – visitors can’t just wander at will – and gave us tours of the front entrance, the three on-site museums, the gift shop (I now am the proud owner of a CIA mug, to ensure my morning coffee is the most secretive beverage of all), and a cafeteria that pretty much drove home the point that the cafeteria at my place of employ, Wolfram & Hart, is complete shit. Yes, I’m jealous and not ashamed to admit it. We also saw a very large chunk of the Berlin Wall, and the Kryptos Sculpture, which is quite impressive up close. I was this close to solving the fourth panel, but damned if there wasn’t enough time. Maybe on my next visit…

The meeting itself? After brief intros from Scott, Mary, Kelli and I basically threw the floor open to questions, and it was as you’d expect – questions about technique, markets, marketing and publicity, workshops and cons, and talking about dealing with the same struggles all writers have with getting published. The only difference between this talk and the conversations I have with other writers was that I will never know the names of the people I spoke with, and if we ever interact online (or already are), I won’t ever know that those were the people I spoke with in that conference room. My only regret is that there wasn’t enough time to talk about all the things I wanted to talk about (we actually went half an hour over our allotted time), but that happens with pretty much every panel and talk. All in all, I think we did a pretty good job of answering questions. I mean, they let us leave the compound at the end of the day, so there you go. Success!

If this report seems a bit sparse on specific details, it’s because I’m deliberately leaving out a lot of what we saw, just to err on the side of caution. I’m really not interested in receiving one of those phone calls, if you know what I mean, and I’d like to go back for another talk with the group, so there you go. Mary Sangiovanni’s report is right here, if you’d like to read it, and Kelli’s post is here.

Ok, secret writers group at Quantico – time to step up and email me!

In the meantime: I have a small article (entry? blurb?) up at the Weird Fiction Review, which has been celebrating monsters all this week. My blurb (blarg?) is about my favorite monster in fiction. My favorite monster in the movies would of course be Ripley… There’s also a cornucopia of favorite monsters here, and another long monster entry by Rochia Loenen-Ruiz right here.

And, a bit of housekeeping: I’ll be taking down the “to be published” stories and poems that were going to appear in the anthology Aklonomicon. The website for the press has disappeared, and there’s no word on it being published. I think it’s safe to say that it was a good and ambitious dream (probably too ambitious), but the dream has obviously died. No hard feelings to the publishers and editors, as these things happen all the time.

And now it’s time for my pre-bed nap. Yep, it’s a fucking rave here.

*That’s a lie, but I’m afraid I currently can’t make public the details of my impending tiny trip. It’s nothing exciting, believe me.

I’ll post again when I’m over this clusterfuck of physical problems. Right now, I need to return to my fistful of tears and drugs…