mariness

Ignore the date. Mostly. The following announcements are real. Mostly:

1. Stone Telling has launched its joke issue, which includes three limericks by me. (And yes, one of those includes dinoflagellates because, well, dinoflagellates.) If the thought of limericks makes you cringe, good news: the issue also includes a considerably better villanelle by David Sklar which is definitely worth a look.

2. But if the thought of limericks doesn't make you cringe, read on. Well, read on anyway: Unlikely Story is launching Clowns: The Unlikely Coulrophobia Remix. If the project funds, it will contain a book with a little flash story by me about, natch, a clown. (Actually it's only somewhat about the clown. That is, it has a clown, but it's mostly about other things.)

Among the backer awards: limericks, by me, printed on little clown postcards. If that horrifies you, and I can't say I blame you, Unlikely Story is offering other, better awards, including microfictions, clown art, and short story critiques. Or you can just grab the ebook.

Samples of the sort of story you'll find in the final book appear here.

Two bits of small news this morning:

1) The storySouth Millions Writers Award Notable Stories List has been released, and I'm very pleased to note that my short story, Love in the Absence of Mosquitoes, earned a mention on the list.

Equally importantly, several other friends, publications and excellent work ended up getting honored. It wasn't a huge surprise to see E. Lily Yu's The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees on this list (small note: I'm really hoping this short story pops up on the World Fantasy World nominee list (hint, hint, hint, nominators currently filling out ballots!) so that she sweeps the award nomination lists. But also joining her were Aliette de Bodard (aliettedb), A.C. Wise acwise), and Kristine Ong Muslim, which is all very cool. And the Journal of Unlikely Entomology earned a nod as well.

2) Here, We Cross, a chapbook of queer and gender-bending poetry, is now available from Amazon.com. I have a poem in it, but the more important part is that sales of this chapbook are going to support Stone Telling, the little speculative poetry zine that has been producing some really marvelous work, and Stone Bird Press, the micropress currently behind Stone Telling and inkscrawl that I'm hoping will be producing various chapbooks and more in the future.