Book Trailer! Unspeakable Horror

Dark Scribe Press has just published a book trailer for their upcoming LGBT-themed short story anthology, Unspeakable Horror.

"A Night at the Empire" in Apex Magazine

An upcoming issue of Apex Magazine will feature my award-winning short story, "A Night at the Empire." I'm excited about the magazine's new format, and hope you'll head over to take a look at their site and the exciting fiction they have to offer.

ted kosmatka

I think most writers are guilty of talking up their friends sometimes, even to the point of "good-Christ-I-wish-you-would-shut-the-frack-up-about-so-and-so, to whom you bow in obeisance every second sentence until we all want to barf." I don't tend to do this myself, but occasionally, I will grab someone I know and turn their head toward something I like, and say, "If you want to know what I like to read, read this." It's possible that we see ourselves in art that touches us, that someone with a different psychic landscape will look at the recommended work, and then look at the foaming fan askance, wondering why he or she is making such a fuss.

Oh yeah, right, they say. This is the guy you think is going to Make it Big, they say. This is the guy you think will be raking in all of the awards someday, until everybody's kind of sick of watching him accept the rocket ship. This guy, really? I say, maybe, maybe not. I don't pretend to understand the caprices of fandom or the publishing industry. But in my opinion, Ted is a writer who will one day write a story so strong, so gut-wrenchingly true, it'll send readers like me scuttling into dark attics and basements all over America, looking for our lost hearts. Ted writes those kinds of stories, for the most part. The kind that neatly cut a y-incision in your chest and break out the rib-spreaders.

Here's a sample of Ted Kosmatka's work. I haven't had time to post anything on my blog lately, because my life has exploded with several delightful complications (may everyone be so wonderfully distracted as I have been lately), so instead, I'm going to point you to Ted's short story, "Deadnauts" so you can get a load of that rib-spreader sensation yourself.

Here's a man who knows how words should feel when let loose in the wild.

"The Shape of Her Sorrow" in Shimmer, Spring 2008

Another beautiful small press magazine (which comes in both print and e-zine flavors) is Shimmer, with Beth Wodzinski ably at the helm. In conjunction with their inclusion of my short story, "The Shape of Her Sorrow," in the Spring 2008 issue, they have published an essay, in which I try to avoid discussing what the story is about.

Shimmer is one of my favorite small press 'zines. It has a nice variety of stories, and it's always, always beautifully designed by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Puccini for Beginners

As a love triangle film, this one is deliberately improbable: a lesbian, Allegra, separately meets and falls in love with two people simultaneously: a man named Philip and his girlfriend, Grace. Full of pretty people (especially the very charming Gretchen Mol) and full of amusing, though well-worn romantic comedy filming tricks (snarky narration in freeze-frame by random passers-by to advance the plot), I could have wished for a less mainstream-happy ending for this film. True to formula, the heroine learns her lesson, and lives happily ever after, and the couple learns their lesson and lives happily ever after, but part of me wonders why the return to traditional social groupings was necessary for the ending of Puccini for Beginners to be satisfying. I found myself wondering, "Why can't these people just all love each other?" Is pairing off two-by-two the only configuration allowed in the happy ending of a romantic comedy?

Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done has lit a fire under me. I've always loved lists, just didn't know what the heck to do with them. It seemed my lists just spawned other lists, and then I'd lose the lists, and rarely did I ever check anything off of any of them. Rather than empowering me, the lists just made me feel more helpless. David Allen's system is simple enough for even me to understand, and includes stuff like the 2-minute rule (if you can't deal with a thing in under 2 minutes, you get to choose what to do with it, and one of the valid options is to decide it's not worth your time and toss it out. I mean, you just huck it over your shoulder and forget about it. Other options include putting the task into the system to be dealt with later, sticking it a tickler file to be dealt with at some determined future time, etc. The idea is to create a system the stupid part of your brain can rely on, and spill your whole life into organized lists, identifying "next action" items to keep even the largest, hairiest projects moving. I've grossly over-simplified the system, but it's already been working for me.

I've gotten more stuff done in the past week and half than I've done for most of 2008.

My gratitude goes out to the Allen disciple who loaned me the book. You done good.