I'm back from Readercon -- which was really fun. It was good to see everyone I did see, and I was sad to miss those I didn't see. There was also much delicious food, including a great lunch with arcaedia and mcurry.

I'll be home until Thursday when I fly to South Carolina, to participate in Shared Worlds workshop under the leadership of Jeff VanderMeer. So if you need something from me, now's the time for reminders! I'll be back Saturday, after which my normal travel-free routine will resume.

You know how some of you were complaining that TPB of The Secret History of Moscow was too affordable? Fear no more! There will be a hardcover limited edition (750 copies) extra-fancy, numbered and signed; I am considering including a free rat with each copy.

Now, who will be releasing this expensive marvel? Find out soonish!

Also, fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com reviewed The Alchemy of Stone. I think he liked it.

Dear People on the Internet,

Some of you seem to have this weird habit -- the moment someone says that they disagree with or disapprove of something you say, you get all defensive and start accusing that other person of violent behavior. It is really really weird -- terms like PC Nazis? PC police? PC witchhunts? All are extremely inaccurate and, well, dumb. People disagreeing with you on the internet, even if they do so en mass and vigorously, is NOT equivalent to being put to death in a gas oven, arrested, or burned at the stake. Really. Neither is the term "lynch mob" especially helpful or all that well-advised -- you are not being strung up on the tree because of the color of your skin. You're sitting at home reading the internet where women and minorities have the gall of not liking gender- or ethnicity-based slurs. Presenting their disagreement in violent terms is misleading, foolish, and makes you look just a tad hysterical. So you know, ease up with the whole violence metaphor. And yes yes, I know, you like your slurs. It feels awfully unfair when someone tells you not to use them. But you know, some of us like being treated as human beings.

Kthxbai!

Early birthday present from Bill, my colleague:



A shirt you can write on! And it washes off! And it's from here

Suggestions are welcome. In fact, I trust the flist to keep me in witty comments.

(Brought to you by many many books and movies.)

Talking to Genevieve (glvalentine) about the unfortunate tendency of many writers to deal with trauma of female characters. Or just knee-jerk to rape as the only bad thing that can happen to a woman. Apparently, the thinking goes like this: "She needs something bad to happen to her. I know! She'll get raped!" And that, of course, gets repetitive. So for writers everywhere, here's the list of traumatic events that can happen to novel/movie heroines to traumatize them, in rough order from most to least traumatic:

losing a limb
being punched in the face

death in the family

contracting a serious disease

losing a pet 
being robbed

stolen identity

betrayal of a friend

losing the ability to communicate

not being believed about something important

mental illness

dog bite

dairy allergy

poison ivy

restless leg syndrome

uncontrollable hiccups

bug bites

humidity

weight gain

dry mouth

diarrhea

obnoxious colors

large prints

smearing pen on an envelope you've already put the stamp on

high heels

Feel free to add your own in comments!

Clockwork Phoenix is out! Buy a copy, it's really good. There also will be a reading at Readercon -- I think.

Also, I am a meme. No, really. It was all Matt Staggs' idea.

I feel like I should have things to say, but I'm such a nervous wreck before the book release it's not even funny. So, who will be at Readercon? Who would like to get together for a meal/drink/chat?

(Lifted from thexmedic) Average adult blee only six books out of one hundred blah, and who picked these books anyway. 

The obligatory rules:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE -- not doing this. Why? That lazy. 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 

67 or 2/3. This list exposed some curious gaps in my reading habits.

PW gave The Alchemy of Stone a starred review

*Is ded*

ETA: Thank you everyone for your kind words; they are much appreciated.

Working on a YA book, thinking about books for younger readers in general and considering things I enjoyed reading when I was, say, 12. Dark and subversive seens to be the best way to describe the books I used to enjoy at that age, and as a result this is what I'm aiming for. Not quite how to make your own nuke of the very lovely Under My Roof by Nick Mamatas, but how to make your own hand of glory.

I don't really have a point, but I am just thinking about how to write about moral choices in such contexts and how to write really irresponsible adults. I really need a test YA reader.

Pat's Fantasy Hotlist is kindly doing a contest for The Secret History of Moscow here

Go enter!

I'll be at Wiscon, skipping panels/readings/signings. I expect to spend my time between dealers' room, the hotel bar, parties, and bugging Barth. Please track me down and say hello; I'll be happy to sneak you to the GC bar with free booze, go for a meal, hang out, talk about stuff, or all of the above.

Hey everyone,

If you want a pdf of The Alchemy of Stone, my next book due in July, e-mail me at katsedia at hotmail dot com.

Bibliophile Stalker (aka charlesatan) reviews... well, everything:

The Alchemy of Stone (first review of this baby ever!)

The Secret History of Moscow

Paper Cities

There is an interview with me about Paper Cities at SCI FI Wire

Then there is VanderMeer's feature on books and beer at Omnivoracious, which is a good thing too -- how would you know otherwise which beer to choose with your books?

As for other internet foolishness -- I am pointedly ignoring it.

Dear Person Who Shall Remain Unnamed,

Please keep in mind that if someone is not dealing with things the way you would, it does not mean that they are doing anything wrong. For example, grief. Somehow, 'talking about it' and 'not holding it back' became the default positions when it comes to grief. Not wanting to talk about stuff is for some reason taken as a symptom that the person is not dealing with things right or has trouble with their own emotions or is otherwise wrong.

No, really, it's ok. Some of us really do not feel better when we talk about it. We don't want to confide or discuss our feelings. We're keeping our grief inside AS A WAY of dealing with it, and it works for us, thank you very much -- some of us are adult humans with a modicum of insight, and we do things because this is how we cope. You pop-psychology encouraging us to let it all hang out and 'share' so we can feel better is not helping, really.

I have a story in the current issue of Subterranean. It has beer and murder, which is a good combination for fiction, IMO.

I'm also looking for volunteers to look at another short story of mine -- about 4.5K words. Should be done tomorrow at the latest.

I also sold another short recently, will post the details after I receive the contract. But overall, I feel like I haven't being doing many short stories lately, and am hoping to write a few more this year. I miss 'em.

I also found myself reading most of my short fiction online and in anthologies; among paper mags, only Weird Tales holds my attention lately. How do you find your short fiction? Do you even read short fiction?

On unrelated note: Lush solid shampoos and Isle of Eden scrubs = totally addictive.

Fantasy Book Critic says all sorts of nice things about Paper Cities here: http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2008/04/paper-cities-edited-by-ekaterina-sedia.html

I'll be reading at KGB Fantastic Fiction series, on May 21 at 7 pm. Please come and watch me mumble incoherently and then have a drink!

More content forthcoming. Discussion question: is plot REALLY necessary?

Today is the official release date of Paper Cities, an anthology I edited -- and it includes a bunch of wonderful and supertalented folks, like Forrest Aguirre, Barth Anderson, Steve Berman, Darin Bradley, Stephanie Campisi, Hal Duncan, Mike Jasper, Vylar Kaftan, Jay Lake, Paul Meloy, Richard Parks, Ben Peek, Cat Rambo, Jenn Reese, David Schwartz, Cat Sparks, Anna Tambour, Mark Teppo, Catherynne M. Valente, Greg van Eekhout, and Kaaron Warren.

So go snag a copy!

Thanks to a link from ellen_datlow, I've found clockwork_zero's Etsy shop, which is full of wonderful steampunk jewelry. And in an interesting twist of serendipity/synchronicity, there was this pendant, called Key to My Heart:



Which is especially striking to me, because The Alchemy of Stone actually features a key to the protagonist's heart quite prominently. So now I have a book-themed piece of jewelry! *wild jubilation*

So, what are your tales of synchronicity in the world and/or writing?

Holy smokes! Look at this. Yes, I am chuffed.

Meanwhile, reading of occult books and researching Victorian railroads FTW! I doubt I would ever use most of this stuff, but it is very fun to read about. I think it was John Barth who compared research for books with a reverse iceberg -- 90% of what the writer knows about any given topic will end up in the book, with almost nothing hidden. If that is true, then I'm doing entirely too much reserach.

So, how much research is enough? How much do you actually do, and how often do you hope to get by with a bare bones Wikipedia article?