I was very pleased to learn that "CRACK SMOKIN' GRANDPA" a short story from my forthcoming collection IN THE CLOSET, UNDER THE BED (Dark Scribe Press), has already been picked up for BEST GAY STORIES 2010, due out from Lethe Press next year.

The TOC-in progress for Best Gay Stories 2010 is:

"In History's Vicinity" by Richard Bowes, appearing in the blog Mumpsimus (June 28, 2009)
"Theater Bug" by Jameson Currier, appearing in Haunted Heart and Other Tales (Lethe Press)
"Auntie Mame" by Lewis DeSimone, appearing My Diva (ed. by Michael Montlack).
"So Long Anita Bryant And Thanks for Everything!" by Sean Meriwether, appearing The Silent Hustler (Lethe Press).
"Metropolitan" by Marshall Moore, appearing in Ignavia 3:1
"Two Sides of the Boy" by Phillip Tang, appearing in Chroma 9
"Crack Smokin' Grandpa" by Lee Thomas, appearing in In the Closet, Under the Bed (Dark Scribe Press)

First of all, thank you so much for signing up to write a story in one of my fandoms. You rock.

Don't fret too much about what to write for me. Hopefully, the prompts on my sign-up form will give you some inspiration, but really, I'm not hard to please. I like both slash and het, but I'm really a gen girl at heart, so even in cases where I have a ship (like Steve/Tony) or where the characters I requested are canonically paired off (like Hawk and Fisher), I'd still be perfectly happy with a gen story.

I like banter, humor, hurt/comfort, clever and competent characters showing off their cleverness and competence. Since Yuletide is my holiday happy place, I'd rather not get deathfic or darkfic or generally excessive angst. But really, at the end of the day, I mostly just want to read the story you want to write. Have fun!

I have had for dinner seared pork steak with an apple stuffing and gravy, applesauce and peas, followed by dark chocolate strawberry cordials for dessert.

We did not go out for dinner. This is what Ted made.

I have the best husband *ever*.

(x-posted from the essential kit)

I can't remember at all where I was when the Berlin Wall came down but I do recall being somewhat surprised, as I spent a summer in Berlin in 1988. It was at a centre in Wannsee, studying (of all things) cad-cam systems, an area in which I took no further personal interest, and my participation had been organised by the AI department at Sussex - I think it was some spare Euro money and a whole bunch of students were sent over, from the US, and all over Europe. The only other girl on my part of the course looked exactly like Claudia Schiffer but had no conversation and all the boys gave up on her after a few days and hung out with me and the American lesbians on the Feminist History module instead, who were a lot of fun.

We were just down the road from Glienicke Bruecke, where, IIRC, they used to exchange prisoners. The garden wall backed onto the actual Wall and the wooded nights of Wannsee were occasionally broken by bursts of machine gun fire as the East German police roared up and down on motor bikes. We couldn't swim, as there was a large sign just off the lake shore that informed us that we were 'now leaving the American sector,' in several languages. I bought a pair of shorts that said the same thing.

We visited East Berlin, the first (though not the last) time I was to visit a Soviet country. I remember the 1950s shop windows and the little Trabants trundling around, a big difference from the Mercs and glossy boutiques of the western city. We also went to the galleries and clubs of Kreuzberg and did a lot of cultural stuff, including a memorably awful evening at the opera where some avant-garde Italian composer's latest work was premiered. He'd been to talk to us about it the night before, and no one understood a word of it (it was in English). At the actual performance, half the audience walked out in the interval. I remember the composer sitting with his head in his hands, while fur-clad German matrons stalked past him.

A great, if fractured, city. C and I went back some years later and it was completely changed. I hope the inhabitants on both sides consider it worth it, but I know for a fact that some people don't - missing the culture rather than the senseless levels of repression, I think.

I did a short interview and can now say I've been featured on the Huffington Post. LOL!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-remington/interview-with-christy-ma_b_352365.html

http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/400000640/post/690050469.html?nid=4381

If you tried to vote in the book club poll yesterday and got an error saying the poll had been closed, please try again; it should be working now. ...

ugh, had to write speech. hate writing speeches. this one, however, is short enough that strictly speaking (ha! pun) is more "remarks" than a speech. don't know why I agree to these things.

In Britain, apparently, the courts get to decide who is Jewish and who isn't.

I think their argument is deeply flawed, but otoh, while I can certainly accept that the Orthodox get to decide who's Orthodox Jewish, it's a little tougher when they also get to decide for everybody else as well. Kind of like the Catholic Bishops getting to decide who can have funding for abortions or not, based on their own interpretation of the law.

A few years ago, I found out that the high school I graduated from was instituting a "Catholicness test" to be imposed on the families of applicants. If you weren't going to Mass every Sunday and tithing, you couldn't go to that high school. As far as I know, the courts never got involved.

It will be interesting to see how this comes out. I wonder if there aren't some ghosts of the Nurenberg Laws that haunt some of the justices making those decisions? Wouldn't be surprised.

So the thing about the steampunk aesthetic that everybody's talking about: it's weird to me, like watching a band you've loved for years get popular.

Maybe I've just been writing steampunky stuff for too long now (I think I started AtWS in 1993 or 1994, and the idea for the city of Eiledon dates back way before that), but it seems to me that the aesthetic roots here have been around for a long time. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, of course, but we've been mining that field for a long, long time. Castle Falkenstein and Brisco County, not to mention the venerable The Wild Wild West. (Non-Will-Smith edition, although I am a Giant Spider In The Third Act apologist.)

There's a whole world of Beyond Thunderdome postapocalyptica in the grunginess of it, but the color scheme is different, resulting in brown leather and brass fittings instead of black leather and tattered chainmail. (Seriously, run Master Blaster through a couple of filters and see what you get...)

Which is not to say the steampunk thing isn't cool. I've been playing with technofantasy since I was in high school. I'm pleased to see it finally becoming an overnight success, after twenty or thirty years of obscurity. And besides, it's nifty looking.

...Maybe it's just what happens when kids who grew up on Krull and Labyrinth get jobs and money and a little bit of time on their hands.

Or maybe we just finally figured out how to run the 80s through Photoshop to achieve a sepia tone

I do think it's interesting how trends and fashions work. They're a way of skinning reality, of creating an aesthetic that reflects a worldview and vice versa. Time periods look like themselves, and there are all sorts of visual cues there as to what's important and what's the focus in any given era. I find it all intensely cool...

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/agents/literary_agents_bah_who_needs_them_142764.asp?c=rss

CrainsNewYork.com reports that Amazon.com wined and dined a number of prominent literary agents at their home-base in Seattle, Washington to convince the agents that they are not the "evil empire" but rather willing to work with them as the publishing industry makes its full-fledged transition into the digital revolution.

The fact that Amazon.com had to have this discussion with literary agents brings up the question, will literary agents even exist in the near future? Are literary agents even necessary nowadays when a writer can upload their manuscript to the Kindle service or Smashwords and sell their books directly to the consumer?

"There will be a need for literary agents," says Nicholas Croce of The Croce Agency, "Agents ... offer informed advice and camaraderie during the inevitable ups and downs that all writers experience. I don't think technology will ever put this human element on the extinction list."

continued...

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/amazoncom_sponsors_literary_anthology_142760.asp?c=rss

This week Open Letter Books used a $20,000 grant from Amazon.com (AMZN) to help publish and promote the new book, "Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain."

Published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall, the anthology collects fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Conceived by the editors of Words Without Borders, the anthology contains work by 30 authors, including Milan Kundera, Ryszard Kapuscinski, and Victor Pelevin. The grant will also help fund the Wall in My Head blog.

Here's more from Open Letter director Chad W. Post: "Our goal with Open Letter Books is to increase the access American readers have to the best works and ideas from cultures around the world, and he Wall in My Head is a perfect example of how we achieve this. It's especially gratifying that Amazon.com is interested in helping us to achieve this goal. heir
support will definitely help us strengthen our efforts and reach a larger audience than we otherwise might have."

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Breaking news--

Mass market paperback Trade hardcover* edition of METAtropolis. Or however you capitalize that.

*Yeah, I don't even know what paperwork I'm signing. I'm writing a book.

Or goats?


moar funny pictures

WIRED.com has posted an article titled…

10 Geeky Laws That Should Exist, But Don’t

My hands-down favorite:

Peet’s Law: C₈H₁₀N₄O₂, better known as caffeine, is the most wonderful chemical compound known to humankind. If the field of chemistry had never identified or produced a single other useful compound, caffeine alone would be justification enough for its existence.

Mirrored from davidmack.pro/blog.

As America's self-proclaimed favorite lower midlist urban fantasy author, I don't get to travel and do signings as much as I would like.  This means y'all can't personally shower me with adoration, PEZ or bacon chocolate bars, and I don't have a chance to sign books for you.

That changes TODAY!  (At least through the holidays, that is)

Naturally, I think I'm the perfect gift for the holidays (my books, not me personally.. that would just be... weird).  Maybe you have a friend you were thinking of giving books.  Why not hook them on my series?  Why not hook them on my series (Oxyclean voice on)  BY HAVING A LOVELY HOLIDAY MESSAGE INSCRIBED IN THEM BY YOURS TRULY? (Oxyclean voice off)

If you'd like to have any of my books personalized as a gift for someone through the holiday season, I've come up with a few ways to make this possible:
- I will arrive with Santa, sneak into their house, sign the books, have some milk and cookies, steal a prezzie or two for myself, then leave
- I can sign book plates and send them to you for affixing to the inside of my books
- Send me the books themselves so I can sign them and I will mail them out.  I'll cover that part of the postage

I get into the holidays so much, I'll even wrap the books up before sending them off to their soon-to-be happy new owner.

The address for shipping books:
Penguin Group USA Inc
375 Hudson St, 5th floor
NY, NY 10014
Attn:  Anton Strout

Make sure to include who you are, who the books should be signed to, and an address to ship them to.
All queries should be sent to anton.strout@gmail.com with the subject line Holiday Signing.

So spread the word and bring on the holiday cheer!