This evening, at 6pm – I know, I know, nothing like finding out at the last minute, right? Well, anyway, go right here to watch me stutter and stammer out various terrible anecdotes and shitty writing advice whilst flicking ants off my computer screen. Fun!
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My contribution to the Yog-Blogsoth Nyarlathotep collaborations, Sisters of the Darksome Night, has gone up – you can see it right here. Michael Bukowski has done a fantastic job of drawing the sisters, and I have to thank him again for inviting me contribute to such a great series. FYI, the excerpt I sent him is from a novella-in-progress, “Morgenstern der finstern Nacht”, that I hope to get back to working on after I’m finished with the novel. Or, I should say, after the novel is finished with me…
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The full list is here. There’s no way in hell that I’ll win, but I am really, really pleased just to be nominated. And, much thanks to Joseph S. Pulver for accepting the story for Grimscribe’s Puppets – he’s a great editor and I’m thrilled that it also picked up a nomination for Best Anthology.
I’m also thrilled to see a number of good friends on the list: Will Ludwigsen for Best Collection for In Search Of and Others, Nathan Ballingrud for Best Collection for North American Lake Monsters, Ellen Datlow for Best Anthology for editing Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, and Steve Berman, for Best Anthology for editing Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe (as well as being the publisher of Lethe Press titles In Search Of and Others and Christopher Barzak’s Best Collection nominated Before and Afterlives).
Well, it’s a bit late in the evening to get drunk, but first thing after work tomorrow, I’m getting wasted. Rum for me, honey for the bees, and sugar for the ants – fuck yeah!
Mike Davis posts five of my favorite Lovecraftian stories. This is one of a series of posts by writers expounding on their favorite HPL-inspired fiction – a link at the bottom of that page will take you to the rest of the series.
I really have nothing else interesting going on in my life at this moment, so have some skellingtons. Handy tip: watch this while listening to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”. You’re welcome.
Not much has been happening to blog about. I write, I read, I kill ants. Typical spring.
However! The artist Mikael Bukowski over at Yog-Blogsoth has started up a Nyarlathotep Collaboration project with a number of writers, including me – the full story behind the project is right here. The first of the collaborations will be up next week, and my contribution will be up the following week. I’ll post links when that happens.
And now, back to the ants.
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My extremely wrong story “The Mysteries” will be in the Ellen Datlow-edited anthology, Nightmare Carnival, coming out this fall from Dark Horse. The ToC is right here – please focus on the incredible Sandwich of Motherfucking Awesome right at the end, which I have listed below, because, Motherfucking Awesome:
Skullpocket by Nathan Ballingrud
The Mysteries by Livia Llewellyn
Screaming Elk, Mt. by Laird Barron
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Laird Barron will be reprinting my story “Furnace”, from The Grimscribe’s Puppets, for the first volume of Years Best Weird Fiction, to be published by Undertow Press. The full table of contents is here.
YAY!
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Four years ago I sold a reprint of “The Engine of Desire” to Mort Castle for his anthology All-American Horror of the 21st Century: The First Decade 2000-2010. I waited and waited, and shit happened and the years rolled by, and it finally popped up on Amazon sometime in the last month (the official publication date was last October, but you know how these things go). I got my contributor copy… today! It’s a fairly comprehensive anthology – thirty stories by some very big, iconic names in horror (who I was a bit surprised to be sharing a ToC with), and a few very tiny names, like me. (I’ll post the ToC sometime this weekend, when I have the time.) If you so desire, you can pick up a copy at Amazon or Powell’s.
Mort Castle wrote a little bit about each story, which I didn’t know he was going to do. Here’s what he said about “The Engine of Desire”:
“It’s a romance. It’s a family story. Livia Llewellyn gives us the 1975 Bruce “Born to Run” Springsteen for the soundtrack – until Patti Smith pushes him aside and her screaming engines take over.”
So true, man. So very true.
I’m horribly saddened by this. He’s long been one of my favorite writers, whose novellas – in particular, my personal favorite, “Viator” – are some of the best I’ve ever read. I never met him, and he had no idea who I was (he always called me Lisa!), but he was very sweet to me in our few interactions on Facebook, and I appreciated that.
Michael Swanwick has a wonderful eulogy here.
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1. I wore sunglasses instead of my sad dork earmuffs for the first time in four months.
2. When I ordered iced coffee at my local coffee shop, the guy didn’t roll his eyes and snort like he usually does.
3. Dudes showing off their fine carpets of chest hair that they cultivated over the long winter months. Hey, this is New Jersey, you can’t escape that shit.
4. With warm weather comes temper-tantrums! Specifically, shorties freaking out and rolling around the sidewalk because their parents won’t let them stay any longer at the park/playground. Ha ha ha.
5. This happened in my living room today:
