A rather limited edition.
The hardcover “Prolegomenon,” as bound by Brenna Zedan, maker of marvels. (While you’re there, check out the juggling Griffen.)
—posted 6189 days ago
Ceci n’est pas une comic book.
In the interests of publicity and such, I ought mention the fact I’ll be at the Stumptown Comics Fest next weekend. Mostly, I’ll be running around making sure everything’s going as planned, or at least not to hell, but in the occasional quiet moment I might be found at table no. 53. Dylan Meconis and the Spouse have graciously allowed me to sprinkle some roses on a corner of their space, and this despite the lack of speech balloons in my magum opus.
(I shall make no promises, and so no promises shall be made, but. Just maybe; it might.)
—posted 6277 days ago
A lot like the girl on the soda bottle, though not so delicate and lacking wings.
It’s why some words are better left unused, except in direst need: you’ll wear them out.
—posted 6297 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of Celtic magic.
Since the time when Macpherson exploited Celtic sources to provide a public eager for Romantic material with what they wanted, it has been the fashion to think of the Celtic mind as something mysterious, magical, filled with dark broodings over a mighty past; and the Irish, Welsh, and the rest as a people who by right of birth alone were in some strange way in direct contact with a mystical supernatural twilight world which they would rarely reveal to the outsider. The so-called “Celtic Revival” of the end of the last century did much to foster this preposterous idea. A group of writers, approaching the Celtic literatures (about which they usually knew very little, since most of them could not read the languages at all) with a variety of the above prejudice conditioned by the pre-Raphælite and Æsthetic movements and their own individual turns of mind, were responsible for the still widely held belief that they are full of mournful, languishing, mysterious melancholy, of the dim “Celtic Twilight” (Yeats’s term), or else of an intolerable whimsicality and sentimentality. (Compare the opinion of Whitley Stokes quoted in his obituary in 1909 in the Celtic Review, VI, 72, that Irish literature is “strong, manly, purposeful, sharply defined in outline, frankly realistic, and pitiless in logic.”)
—posted 6304 days ago
“A hundred hundred knights have sought him out with sword and spear and hound and he has laughed at them all and sent more than a few down to dust.”
Gad, but it clunks. —So, the aforementioned deadline, not so much. Ysabel and Jo are still standing by that fence in the rain, mired in a not-argument that isn’t going not-anywhere. (She wants this person whom she’s growing to actually like not to get hurt, and she wants not to be so fucking confused, that’s all well and good, but where’s the spark, says the writer, anticipating the audience. —And do I really want to play the creepy plastic statue card?)
No promises, then, but I will have a half table at the Portland Zine Symposium (Saturday and Sunday, August 11 and 12, the Smith Memorial Ballroom at PSU) and I will have chapbooks for Nos. 1 – 5, and if this dam’ Anvil is done by then, it’ll be there, too. (And over and on to the next…)
—I’ve neglected to mention this in what is possibly the most relevant corner of my sprawling media empire: No. 1, “Prolegomenon,” has been published in the summer issue of Coyote Wild, which now bears the distinct honor of publishing the most urban fantasy stories by Portland-based authors with some little knowledge of the shadowy world of telephone surveys. Go, read, enjoy.
And, finally, for your delectation, my new logomark. A sign of quality! Look for it everywhere!
—posted 6337 days ago
Deadlines, bygones.
Okay, so now I know I need a printed copy of no. 6 in hand by the evening of the 18th of July, I’m one act into the first draft, and the Anvil (remember the Anvil? This was supposed to be about the Anvil) hasn’t even shown up yet.
I think I know where this one’s going. Just not sure how to get there yet. Because it sure as heck isn’t where I’d thought.
—posted 6388 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of violence.
There are no first-place winners in a shooting situation. When it’s over, believe me, you haven’t won. Deterrence is the only victory.
—posted 6427 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of the wych-elm.
The first—“Who put Luebella down the wych-elm?”—was followed by many other slight variations, such as “Hagley Wood Bella” found on a wall in Birmingham. As time passed the messages took on what was to be their settled form for years to come: “Who put Bella in the wych-elm?” they asked. It was thought that the original messages, carefully written in chalk in three-inch-deep capital letters, were probably written by the same hand, working at night.
—posted 6436 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of sword-play.
A dull day in London may be very sensibly enlivened by a brisk assault.
—posted 6438 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of magic.
It sounds so odd to phrase it this way that I’m a bit nervous about saying it, but here goes anyway: fantasy doesn’t make different stories possible, but sometimes it makes different outcomes possible, through the literalization of metaphor that is one of the key things fantasy does. Moral strength can change the real world—and a good thing, too—but in a fantastic story it can make dramatic, transformative, immediate changes. The idea that such transformations always have a price is what keeps fantasy from being morally empty—magic may save time and reduce staff requirements, but it offers no discounts.
—posted 6439 days ago
