I have has a few publications this year that are eligible for Nebula and Hugo nominations, if you were, you know, feeling the spirit.
Also, Brain Harvest is eligible to be nommed for a Hugo semiprozine, and Eden, Shane, and I are ripe for the editors short form category.
Just sayin’. You know. *kicks some gravel*
Today is Support Our ‘Zines Day.
Since March 2009, we’ve been working hard on Brain Harvest. We’ve been bringing the best, baddest-ass speculative flash and micro fiction to the web while paying our writers a fair (professional) rate. We’ve been really lucky to have readers and supporters like you, and today would be a great day–if you haven’t already–to show your support for what we are doing by making a donation, posting a link to us in your blog, telling a friend who may dig what we do (and not have found us yet), or just stopping by and catching up on stories you may have missed.
Miles Klee’s “Nurse on Terror Island.” Not your mom’s Little Mermaid.
Trivia point of great interest: you can read another great piece by Miles in Birkensnake 2–we are ToC mates. It’s a weird, cool feeling when you publish someone and are published alongside them.
Anyway, go do some reading. Good stuff.
Our dutiful Mega Challenge elves are sorting out the entries to this year’s first annual contest, and will ferry them off to guest celebrity judge, Jeff VanderMeer, very soon. Thank you to everyone who played along and sent us some clever, funny (and sometimes touching) reworkings of the genre’s most exhausted tropes.
Stay tuned for the unveiling and publication of the winners in the next few months.
So, yeah. Brain Harvest is now, officially, back open to regular submissions.
I’m always, obviously, a fan of the stories we publish on Brain Harvest, but this week’s piece, “Shatter Shatter” by the awesome Sean Markey, does something especially button pushing. Heartbreak in a horrifying form–check it out.
Really? It’s been 26 days since I updated? I am ashamed of myself.
Here. Go read a new story of mine up at Abyss & Apex while I try and construct a post worthy of forgiveness.
And if you get done with that, you should check out this week’s verbal treat from Brain Harvest.
There’s still plenty of time to sponsor me. I diddled around with ideas for my first story, which I think will have to do with comedians, integrating organic and inorganic substrates, a failed love affair, and lightning.
It’s hard to think about new folks over in the Clarion West house, getting ready, setting up their wi-fi, meeting each other and their first instructor–it doesn’t feel like a year’s gone by since that was me doing all that. But I am so excited for them and can’t wait to meet them–and pass along the CW lore handed down, class to class, over beers at the weekly parties. Plus, I know what a tough, inspiring, incredible challenge will unfold for them over the next six weeks, and I look forward to cheering them on.
I get to meet them first at the first reading in the summer reading series that CW does in conjunction with the University Bookstore: John Kessel, this Tuesday the 23rd, at 7pm, upstairs in the University Bookstore. The readings are free, but everyone is encouraged to buy books to sign and to donate to CW while they are there (or sponsor a writer in the writeathon), but there is no pressure or anything. I will be there, at all of them, but especially this one–I am a wicked Kessel fan.
This week’s new Brain Harvest story, “I Like to Tease People,” by Martin Meiss is live. It’s a great piece, really clever, mean spirited with a heart of gold. Also, be sure you are prepping for the super awesome Brain Harvest Mega Challenge, judged by the amazing Jeff VanderMeer (I go all fan-girl a-flutter when I remember that VanderMeer is the judge. Hoo boy. VanderMeer is so fucking awesome).
OK, off to bed with me. I have work in the morning (A job! Me! Finally! Doing a really amazing project for a company I am so happy to be a part of–a company that values its smart, creative people–works ‘em hard, but truly supports them trying to live a whole life. I am excited to go to a day job now, for the first time in a very long time).
My natural impatience is showing, these days, like a slip I just can’t keep from sliding down. I feel like the universe set me and mine on some sort of divergent path last year, in fact, right about this time–beginning with the apartment fire (still traumatized), then Clarion West (the summer heat is making me wistful for my comrades), then the drunk driver totaling our car, then personal stuff with Chris, then unemployment, then continued unemployment, then, then, then. It’s been an intense learning experience, as times of extended crisis should be, and I feel like we are getting close to the end of it, to a new beginning. But we aren’t there yet and it’s stressing me right the fuck out.
So, please excuse my occasional bouts of radio silence. It’s better for us all, otherwise you’d have to read pages and pages of me agonizing over why.things.don’t.move.faster.because.I.want.them.to and other assorted control issues and irritations.
In other news, and there’s a bunch:
1. My short-short-short, “The Ghost of Henry’s Past” is a finalist in Fantasy Magazine’s May Madness Micro-Fiction Contest. Winner is by reader poll, so I would sure love it if you would go read it, and if you like it, vote for me (and 2 other favorites here). Go on. I’ll sit here while you do.
2. There’s a lot going on at Brain Harvest. If you haven’t read this week’s story, “Snake Eyes,” by Kevin Bishop, go now. I’ll wait again.
You should also vote (more democracy in action!) to choose which story, published in May, will be read by our voice talent for our first ever mini-podcast.
And! Visit the site tomorrow to get all the details on Brain Harvest’s first ever fiction contest. Cash prizes! Celebrity judge! Fame, fortune, adulation, envy!
3. Finally, I sure would love it if you rifled beneath your couch cushions and sponsored me as a writer in the 2009 Clarion West Writeathon. The money goes to keeping the workshop alive, as well as to pay instructors, help students with scholarships, and all kinds of really good causes. I’ve pledged to write a new story each week of the workshop, and to send a special “e-book” of all the raw, ugly, unfinished drafts to all who sponsor me (so be sure and email me and let me know you’ve sponsored).
1. Jason Heller’s very creepy, clever new piece is up at Brain Harvest this morning. I’m a fan of this up and comer: not only does he run Denver’s A/V Club for the Onion, he consistently churns out surreal–but smart–pieces of spec fic.
2. My story, “As They Get Warmer, They Give a Little,” should be launching in M-BRANE #5, which, I am informed by the editor, will be live any day now. Same editor is also collecting stories for a queer SFF anthology, deadline in July, that you should send something to.
3. Swiped from Cat Rambo’s Facebook, who spotted it on BoingBoing: Kid keeping a lending library of banned books in her locker. AWESOME. Kid, where ever you are, you’ve got my love and support.
This week’s story at Brain Harvest from Eric Del Carlo shows that a post-apocalyptic world isn’t the wonderland we all thought it would be.
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