The Sea-Torn Heart

Issue two of Inkscrawl is up today, featuring my little poem The Sea Torn Heart, along with work from Sonya Taaffe (sovay), Alex Dally MacFarlane, Alexandra Seidel, and many others. Inkscrawl focuses on minimalist - i.e., short - poems; some of you will be shocked to find out that I could write anything brief, but it happens, as you'll see here.

Have I mentioned how much I love this zine, as well as the proliferation of zines that either sneak some speculative poetry in or drown in it? Such a marvelous change from the days when finding these sorts of poems was a rare event, something that left me hungry for more, without knowing where that more could be found.

And speaking of Alexandra Seidel, she's also the poetry editor over at Fantastique Unfettered, whose third issue should be coming out this week. I just got a sneak peek of the issue emailed to me, and I can say it looks awesome (PLUS MY STORY HAS A DRAGON ILLUSTRATION and WHY YES I'M SHOUTING ABOUT THIS BECAUSE DRAGON=AWESOME!) and I'll have more to say once I've had a chance to read through it.

Subterranean Press and Hamlet's Father

I suspect quite a few of you have already seen the reaction to Subterranean Press's decision to print Orson Scott Card's novella, Hamlet's Father, reviewed here. To sum up, the novella, which I haven't read because I've stopped reading Card, rewrites Hamlet, saying that the tragedy happened because, to quote:

Old King Hamlet was an inadequate king because he was gay, an evil person because he was gay, and, ultimately, a demonic and ghostly father of lies who convinces young Hamlet to exact imaginary revenge on innocent people. The old king was actually murdered by Horatio, in revenge for molesting him as a young boy—along with Laertes, and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, thereby turning all of them gay. We learn that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are now "as fusty and peculiar as an old married couple. I pity the woman who tries to wed her way into that house."

And here I thought Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were just dead.

Anyway. Subterranean Press has posted a response here, a response that led me to a couple of other comments on this novella. Publisher's Weekly called the work "anachronistic and absurd," and not in a good way, and even that "I love everything" reviewer Harriet Klausner appears to have been underwhelmed, although the Booklist reviewer appears to have enjoyed it.

Just cause:

:: singing ::

"How do you solve a problem like MARIA!!!"

(Yes, yes, I know I already said that on Twitter, but I've been waiting WEEKS to say that extremely bad joke.)

Meanwhile, I repeat my earlier observation that with 13 named storms, this is a busy Atlantic hurricane season in terms of the number of storms. Since the initial storms were relatively weak, however, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy for the season has been relatively low given the number of storms.

This is changing. Hurricane Katia has accumulated quite a lot of energy; Maria has plenty of time to do the same, and if my physical oceanography email feed is anything to go by, what is currently 96L may very well turn into a tropical depression later today or tomorrow, increasing the chances that this hurricane season will be hyperactive, but having no impact on my continued tendency to tell very bad jokes about it.