Autumn

I'm no longer living in the country, but I went to visit my folks the other day and on the way back to Youngstown, I couldn't help stopping to take some pictures out there now that it's fall, my favorite season.

What John Says

John pretty much says it all over here. I'd only add that I'm also tired of the largely indifferent masses of ordinary citizens who do have the power to change things but just don't give a damn.

Get him, Bill!

Did anyone see this clip of Bill Clinton tearing up the floor with Chris Wallace on Fox News? I know Clinton's done some stupid things and made some idioticly huge political and personal mistakes, but I so did enjoy him calling out the media thugs the right wing employs.

Salon Fantastique

The anthology Salon Fantastique, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, is now available to be purchased online and in bookstores. The anthology is getting great reviews, so I can't wait to read all the stories. I haven't received my contributor's copies yet (my story "The Guardian of the Egg" is included in the contents) but I can't wait to because the cover looks fantastic from what I can see. Check it out.

Home on the Range, Where the Deer...

I was taken out tonight by friends to a place in the foggy noman's land of Newton Falls, Ohio where karaoke is sung on Saturday nights in a countryside bar with a mounted deerhead that sings karaoke along with the singer. Unprepared for the mounted deer to sing alongside me, my immediate response was:

Did someone put something in my drink?????

Verrrrrrry scary!

But I plan to venture out there at least once more, if only to capture the singing mounted deerhead on video.

And they say Japan is strange.

Fabulous Disintegration

After talking with my friend Graham about Youngstown and what the area around here is like, he sent me this link to a really gorgeous site called "The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit". So many of these pictures could have been taken here too. And though they're portraits of the American Dream gone to rust and waste, they really are gorgeous, as I said. But I find disintegration interesting in general.

Laboring After Labor Day

Despite the long weekend, I feel behind and am trying to catch up with the courses I'm teaching, my writing schedule, starting back at a new gym I finally switched to, and trying to read and spend time with friends recreationally.

Today I turned in my short story collection, "Everything You Need", to my agent. I'm also preparing the first fifty or so pages of my third novel for him to have on file too. Hopefully by week's end, I'll have that accomplished as well.

September will be spent mostly on getting used to a schedule. For the past four months I didn't have one and now I do. Gym time, school time, writing time, recreating with friends and loved ones time, reading for myself time, and sleeping and lazing about time thrown in here and there as well. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have my time in balance again.

If you haven't read it already, go to Strange Horizons and read Ben Rosenbaum's "The House Beyond Your Sky". It's really good.