So, Radium Girls is 99cents on Kindle and $9.99 for Paperback through the rest of May, but I forgot that I didn’t already do a blog post about it… So here it is! Click that pretty green book to the right of this post and it’ll take you there.
Also, to add to the promotion that I forgot to follow-through with (this can be further explored in my previous post under the confession about my lack of ambition – once the creative act is over, it’s really hard for the Push to hold my attention span, hence not doing any of this last year), I collected a bunch of pretty words from people. Ben Whitmer gave me some which immediately began transforming themselves into a story which isn’t finished, but will eventually see the light of day. For now, the beautiful words:
Radium Girls is like a midnight visitation from the ghost of that corpse you thought you had buried out under the honeysuckle, the night your brother told you that thing about your mother. It’s a brilliant collection, word by perfect word.
– Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike and Cry Father
Ben and I share the same hometown. Which is really odd. He (along with several other amazing writers I know) makes me better, because I have to live up to that confidence in my ability to line up words.
To share this post, I also know today that Leah Rhyne‘s self-published Jo just got picked up and is becoming Heartless, Richard Thomas just released Disintegration, Letitia Trent is coming out with a new book but I don’t know anything else about it because I found out about it on my weekly Twitter-check last night and she was mid-ramble about many things and probably doesn’t think anyone read all those tweets but I totally did, Tracie Morell‘s book of poetry Matilda’s Battle Waltz comes out in June (I always feel pretty dumb about poetry, but Tracie transcends the “getting it” idea of poetry and just goes right for your guts), Stephen Graham Jones has been granted his werewolf-book wish has come true and Mongrels is Big News for next summer, and of course Exigencies is coming up on June 19th. There’s other stuff but it would require use of search engines and maybe even pen and paper, and that’s a lot of work to put in for what is essentially a catch-up post.
And I write these little…capsules, little punchy paragraphs sometimes, where I try to distill a distinct sensation or feeling. Usually I just store them in documents and pull from them for story prose, but I sent one that seemed particularly apt to the Response column prompt in Nailed Magazine – “SKIN“ – and I’ll be damned if I didn’t sorta kinda just get a poem published. Click this – and keep in mind the magazine’s called Nailed, if that’s not your thing, then don’t click – mine’s at the bottom: Response: SKIN – Nailed Magazine Editor’s Choice
I hope anyone who reads this had a fantastic weekend, and is kicking their summer off with sunshine and sloth. I’m going to eat leftover grill-food, fold laundry, and continue to avoid shoes. Happy beginning-of-summer!
the video!!! took forever to get this mess uploaded. i realize it’s an hour long, but at least stick around long enough for the church fire anecdote… plus i read a story. mainly i ramble. but i think it turned out pretty well!
Gayle Towell started this thing, and basically it’s about squeezing out the excess, and leaving only the essential behind. Micro-fiction as it should be. Not just about “short,” about “important bones.” This is only her third week open to outsider stories, and she’s going five a week.
So far she’s gotten work by Stephen Graham Jones, Suzy Vitello, Caleb J. Ross, Michael DeVito Jr, and whoever the amazing Angela Maracle is (her piece is ‘Romania 1989’), and on and on. I’m not even linking the issue I’m in, I’m just linking the main site page, because I really don’t think you can go wrong here.
World Book Day??!! hell yeah. awesome excuse to make book lists.
Top 5 Go-Tos for Random Infusions of Beauty
Sometimes I need icebears and sometimes I need Mario to tell me about the fans’ sounds at night… these are my shelf-grabs for snippet reading or total re-ingestion
1. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
2. The Strangeness of Beauty – Lydia Minatoya
3. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
4. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
5. East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Top 5 Quickest Reads in the Past Year
There’s no way to list the best things I’ve read, there are WAY too many. But for what it’s worth, I devoured these in just a couple days apiece, and I think that says plenty about them. In order beginning with the speediest:
1. Growing Up Dead In Texas – Stephen Graham Jones
2. Full Dark, No Stars – Stephen King
3. Nod – Adrian Barnes
4. Murder and Other Distractions – Michael Estrin
5. The Sound of Loneliness – Craig Wallwork
5 Self-Pimps Because Why Not? I’m Proud to Be In This Stuff
1. Warmed and Bound – “The World Was Clocks” available now
2. In Search of a City: Los Angeles in 1000 Words – “Gilded Bones” available now
3. cutaway – “The Cabbage Muse” available now
4. Cipher Sisters – “Asymmetry” (and co-editor) coming very soon
5. The Booked. Anthology – “Short Tendon” coming very soon
P.S. to this list, still a year in the future so can’t really gloat about it just yet – Burnt Tongues – “The Line Forms on the Right” coming summer 2014
how long since i updated here? How long is a piece of string? Too Damn Long. yeah, i’m full of movie quotes this morning, but i’m also full of UPDATES. first, let’s do a little Curiouser and Curiouser Recap. below are the links to ALL of this spring/summer’s interviews so far:
And stay tuned!! i’ll be closing out July with Gordon Highland and opening August with Monica Drake!
that’s a lot of bold lettering. but you know what? you’re too hungry. worry not, my lovelies, the interviews just keep on coming. and i just met you and and i love you.
too much quote plagiarism? groaning, yeah. it’s all right. just click the links.
all right. i’ve run in circles, peed a little, danced the dance of Cinderella’s stepmother in the hot iron shoes – only, if that were a happy experience – carried the kitten to the bathroom because she’s afraid of the dark, put the kiddo to bed and sang Suzanne Vega to him until my throat is ragged, planned the things i want to say to my husband at 2am about his unwavering faith in me … i think i’m ready to sit still for a moment and say “Holy shit. This book. How the hell did I end up in this book?”
it will be available FRIDAY JULY 22nd for $15.95 on amazon.com (ebook details soon)
under the photos in this post lives the little acorn of misery, love and inspiration that led to the girls that led me by the hand into this book….
i’m going to be doing a few questions for Jay Slayton Joslin (along with the other amazing people in this list) but here’s the extended and sappy answer to ‘the’ question:
Where did I get the story?
the answer is ugly. think a new baby and insomnia and a sister you rarely see but miss painfully – and think total seething anger for this sister, because in your head is this beautiful ethereal duo tapping their toes and waiting to be drawn in the shapes of letters. they have nothing to do with your family issues. all you can do is resent the bitterness you do NOT want to bleed into this innocence. so you miss your sister. and bite your cuticles and have recurring dreams about peculiar trees. what happens? giving in, what always happens…. you can tie off your fingers at the first digit but the story will only hold so long. the twist ties and kite string snap and through the blood under your fingernails, you watch the core of a something indescribably beautiful take shape in the hate and love and need – and the trees. “The World Was Clocks.”
three years later, everything has changed – but Heather, this story was always for you.
Miss Ohio 