ajodasso

Today is the Eleventh Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

...and should be hitting the newsstands in Australia within the week!

I have to say, I've had a look through my contributor's PDF, and the layout? IS ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. I don't think I've seen a magazine with such amazing and amazingly presented content in a very long time. I'm thrilled it's going to be available in print, too, because I'm going to want a couple of copies. "The Monsters of Notre-Dame" and "Five Secret Selves" could not have found a better home.

(highlyeccentric and goblinpaladin, this should be especially accessible to you.)

In other news, I have an announcement that's way overdue, given the contract's been signed for at least a couple of months now. erzebet will be producing an edition of my Mythic Delirium 20 poem, "Journeying," as an upcoming Papaveria Press edition. The illustrations will be done by twilightgardens. I'm especially pleased that Pai is involved in this project! Her art is sublime, and well suited to medieval subject matter.

Also: I have a few new poems live in the November issue of Chantarelle's Notebook.

By some miracle, I have one story that's eligible for Nebula nomination. "Answer Me" was published in June 2009 in the Needles & Bones anthology from Drollerie Press. Sadly, it's not accessible for free (although I can still be persuaded to give away a copy of the PDF in exchange for a review of the collection on your blog - or, as cathschaffstump so put it: While it's not available for free, if you're really a SFWA member who's considering it for nomination, I'll get it to you).

Along more helpful lines, tithenai has made a post outlining and linking to Nebula's nomination guidelines, as well as listing eligible works by herself and others. Spread the word!

The move will likely take place somewhere between Christmas and New Year's. Either that or the first week of January, if we can't find someone with a car who's available over the holidays.

On Saturday evening, I saw Men Who Stare At Owls The Fourth Kind. It wasn't spectacular, but it didn't completely suck, either. In fact, I think it's curiously effective in making you second-guess your perception of the story even though you know that the "true" framework on which it claims to be based is equally as fabricated as the "dramatization."

Yesterday, on DVD: What the Bleep Do We Know? Dodgy Quantum Physics, annoying animation, and actually very good explanation of how the human brain works with respect to addictions and emotions. Also, it's not often that you see a deaf protagonist! Overall, this one's odd.

Purple Patch Small Press Best-Of Lists 2009

If you scroll down to Best Anthologies of 2009, you'll see one called The Exhibitionists from Stairwell Books. It was published by my colleages, Rose and Alan, as an anthology of those of us who read regularly at the Exhibition Hotel event in York (Spoken Word, not to be confused with the one of which I'm co-host, which is Speakers' Corner at the Yorkshire Terrier). A lovely little honor for us all!

I've sold my creepy fairytale-centric ghazal, "What They Know," to time_shark's guest-edited issue of Goblin Fruit. I am especially pleased about this, as the whole swap venture is awesome!

We've found a flat in Leeds. Or, rather, we've applied for one we saw today! Here's hoping we get it. I think it's perfect.

(Well, flat hunting. But it doesn't alliterate as nicely.)

We're off within the next half an hour or so to Leeds for the purpose of looking at four potential flats. I haven't really discussed this here on LJ, but what's happening is, our lease here in York is up on 17 January, and our flatmate, elrice79, will be staying on in this house by herself. James and I spent a few weeks looking at flat listings in York, but to no avail: there's nothing in our price range. However, Leeds, which is where James works, is a different story: there are plenty of flats in our price range, many of them literally within sight of where he works. And given he's shelling out almost a couple of hundred quid for commuting costs per month...

Yeah. I'll keep you all posted.

Under the Harvest Moon from the Summer's End 2009 series is just breathtaking! Normally, rose and vanilla don't play nicely on me, but I think the blue and white musks act as miraculous mediators...

I just discovered a mold colony growing on the upper spine of my first-edition, hardcover, cloth-bound copy of Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture. Either the little buggers were enjoying it, or had decided consumption was the best way to express their displeasure.

I don't think it's as good as the rest of her work, so maybe they were agreeing.

There were almost 30 people in the audience - one of whom was, much to my delight, concernedlily! Camilla and Paul, the other two Flipped Eye poets I read with, were delightful. I'm convinced more and more that our editor, Nii, has the best taste around.

highlyeccentric, your postcards arrived while I was out! If you want it to count as fan-mail, I certainly won't object. It's gorgeous fan-mail, for starters, and it's going on my bulletin board.

I sold a copy of Devil's Road Down, gave one away, and traded one for a copy of Camilla's book. Also, I took along one of my two remaining copies of Mythic Delirium #20, from which I read "Journeying" as my closing. A gentleman in the audience liked it so much that I consented to sell him the magazine. Then, no fewer than two other people came up and asked to buy the magazine containing my final poem. Screw my collections and everything else; I'm going to be remembered for a single piece of work that was published in a quirky American poetry magazine. Credit where credit is due: time_shark.

10 November 2009 - Lumen at 88 Tavistock Place, London - 6:30 PM

If you're in London and at loose ends tomorrow, come see us read! I'll be reading pieces from Devil's Road Down and a couple of teaser pieces from Lost Books (which is actually all older work than comprises DRD, which I find ironic). I'll probably toss in some Dead Zones, too.

Other news: Straying from the Path, a Little Red Riding Hood themed anthology, is now available from Drollerie Press. It opens with a new-ish poem of mine, "Fireflies Gone."

Jared and Eric have changed the look a bit over at the Gold Wake Press website, and it looks pretty sharp. Additionally, my e-chapbook, Dead Zones, now has a cover image.

What got me thinking about this, believe it or not, was the University of York immigration officer who went through my visa-renewal paperwork this past week. As it turns out, our applications were fine except for our photographs. When she told me that if she were to submit them with the photos we'd included, they'd be rejected.

"You're joking," I said. "Why?"

She grimaced. "You're both smiling too much. Believe me, you want to look miserable. As miserable as this lady right here on the guidance sheet!"

Apparently, the Home Office has been rejecting loads of visa renewal applications lately on the grounds that people are smiling too much in their photos, even in cases where the supposed "smile" is little more than a natural or involuntary quirk of the mouth. So, before the applications are submitted in earnest about a week from now, James and I had to go to the photo booth at the train station and get new photos taken. Ones where we're totally deadpan, neutral, and look sort of pissed off. Well, I was.

But the second thing I thought looking at the photos was, wow, I'm gray-pale right now. Sure, I may be generally lucky and not suffer frequent break-outs or spots, but damn, my skin looks dead and dull. Either that or it was the awful lighting. But I swear to you, in those old photos where I was smiling too much? My skin looked healthy. I had something resembling color. Ph.D. stress is apparently bad for the complexion.

By most people's standards, though, I've been told I'm obsessive. It bothers me if I can't wash my face both morning and night, and it's absolutely got to be with a proper facial care product that I know works well with my skin (something from LUSH or Simple is usually on hand). Beyond that, though, I don't use toner and I'm bad about remembering moisturizer. I've been astonished lately to notice some very fine lines forming on my forehead. Not something I obsess over on the basis of looks, but on the grounds of, huh, maybe I do abuse my skin a bit by skipping out on the other steps.

I've only had a few spa facials in my lifetime. In fact, I think I've only had two. The first one was really posh, back in the summer of 2001. I was visiting a friend in Texas, and she took me here. I mean, the facials we got were the expensive ones, and I have to admit, the results were astonishing. My skin looked fantastic for at least 2-3 weeks afterward. The second facial I had was very early this year in York, in the back room of the not-so-posh salon that's in the department store I was working for until February. What can I say: they were giving me a generous discount. It wasn't so much a facial as somebody else doing for me what I could easily have done at home with cleanser and an exfoliator, plus an upper-body massage. It was relaxing, but the result was not revolutionary.

I admit, I'd love to relive the experience I had in Austin. While babysitting last night, I chanced upon the most recent issue of Vogue, in which there's an article by a member of staff that they'd sent to get, I swear, about five or six different fancy facials at places around London. I admit that a few of them sound positively amazing, and actually not so unaffordable as long as one is earning money.

Would you pay £85 for 90 minutes wherein your pores actually get sucked clean by a little vaccuum thingie? It sounds kind of freakishly awesome. Plus all the other cleansing stuff they do after that, plus a massage. Oh, Ms. Immigration Officer, what have you done?

Two poems, "Changeling" and "Grave Goods," have been accepted for publication in December at Poetic Diversity. They'll also be posting an interview with me that month, so stay tuned.

Three new ones are now live on The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Isn't that an amazing name for a magazine?

Washington state has passed an expanded version of its domestic-partnership law. And there was much rejoicing!

And my Ph.D. is pretty much finished. Of course, this means the real fun of last-minute expansion and revision in the lead-up to January submission begins, but least it's functionally finished.

(Oh, yeah: this goes for those 29 other states as well. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Seriously, abject fury does not begin to cover it.)

More and more, I'm beginning to wonder if I even want to consider going back to a country that proves, slowly but surely, that significant portions of it don't actually believe in equal rights for all.

At least Massachusetts is still sane, but an island? Does not a nation make. I know that a few other states are still sane, too, but it's not enough sanity for my liking.

*

On the flip side, an anti-discrimination law has passed in Kalamazoo with 62% of the vote. Thank you, brigidsblest, for pointing this out. My morning is otherwise dark.

My poem, "Interment," is now up at Fear and Trembling.