Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

I have been sitting on this good news, and now it can be told! My short story, “The Hanged Woman’s Portion,” will be included in the anthology Not Our Kind, along with other cool stories by other cool people, and you can see all the information about it here on the antho Kickstarter page.

Because yes! It is a Kickstarter! It needs kicking and starting, and the publisher asked if we could talk a little about our stories. So first of all, when Nayad asked me to be part of this project, I was thrilled, because for all the stories I have published, no one has ever invited me to be part of an anthology before this one. The theme is outsiders of various kinds, and I immediately thought of a human woman in an alien jail. It can be hard enough to navigate a criminal justice system in your own country, but as a foreigner, how much harder–and then a literal alien, a person of a different species from a different biosphere–how much more difficult would that be, trying to figure out the rules, the norms, the customs? Human assumptions about how we relate, how we gain sympathy or lose it, become even more important in that setting. I had a great deal of fun writing this story, and it was great working with Nayad on it. I haven’t read the others, but the experience of working on this one makes me expect great things of the rest.

In the Kickstarter rewards, there are critiques from me and brownies from me and many other cool things from other people, as well as the anthology itself. Go have a look! I hope you like what you see. I think you will.

Today is Sunday, and my birthday is Saturday. I have already read two books (one paper, one ebook) that were early birthday presents, because I am spoiled and because apparently the concept of delayed gratification is not a strong suit at the moment. Anyway, in making a dinner reservation for this evening, I got asked, is it anybody’s birthday? and usually I lie and tell them no, because I don’t want to make the waitstaff feel obliged to sing as well as their real jobs, and I worry that they will give me a nasty piece of white cake instead of letting me decide whether I want good dessert or no dessert. But this time I chirped, “Yes, it’s mine!” Because this year, honestly, with all the horrible and disappointing news the world has brought us in the last week, I kind of feel the need for all the birthday assistance I can get.

This post is a list of things you can think about getting for yourself–or just drooling over if you don’t have the spare cash–as presents for yourself for my birthday. Sadly, I can’t get them for all of you. I am not that much of a wealthy hobbit, to be able to buy all of you these lovely things as presents for my birthday. But I will at least show you the shinies that I would get you, if I could have a proper hobbit party and give you all the proper hobbit presents that I would like to give you. (Please note that this is the opposite of the usual wishlist: I am not asking you to get this stuff for ME but for YOURSELVES. Not that I wouldn’t like it also, but some of it–like the Kickstarter stuff–I already have, and mostly: the point is you, not me.)

1. Nerd coloring books. Specifically, Dinosaurs With Jobs. Mostly I would get this for my old college friend Scott, but the rest of you might want it too.

2. Chad Jerzak Raku ceramics. Saw these at the St. Kate Art Festival. Very cool.

3. Fresh Mud Pottery. Also at the St. Kate Art Festival. So many things in the gallery, be sure you look at the slide show.

4. Elise’s Current Shinies. Ooh. Shiny. So many shinies, so few body parts to hang them from.

5. Tim always has lovely things. Here are two of his newer ones (that first link was from the Pop Art Minneapolis series, the second the newest Reader photo).

6. Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky are doing a Kickstarter. For those of us who have been yearning for another Cry Cry Cry album, even two-thirds as good will almost certainly be good enough. (Did you miss out on Cry Cry Cry? Here they are singing Northern Cross. The third member is Dar Williams. Oh, fine, here’s another: By Way of Sorrow.)

7. Julie Dillon, who has done the gorgeous art for my Tor.com stories, is also doing a Kickstarter. Many ways to support her art; go look.

Any other loveliness you want to share with each other? There’s a whole week before it’s my birthday, and the comments section lies before you.

1. With the Reader: War for the Oaks Kickstarter closing at 4 Central Time, I hear that it now has a Pamela Dean essay included in the photo book. Very, very cool. Go, little Kickstarter, go!

2. You can add to the pool of dragons in my friend Marie Brennan’s Memoirs of Lady Trent series if you want to design your own. Write up a description of no more than two hundred words of your new dragon or draconic cousin sub-species, send it to dragons.of.trent@gmail.com with the subject line “DRAGON: [your dragon name here],” and if your dragon is among the chosen ones, you’ll get an ARC of the new book, which is full of sea serpents. I should totally do this, because I can easily be bought with sea serpents, but since I often get ARCs as a reviewer, I’m going to leave it to those of you who imagine draconic species but don’t usually get sent free sea-serpenty books. But think of your 12-year-old self (or if you are 12, think of yourself): “you just write a short description of a new kind of dragon, and if they like it, they send you a free fantasy novel.” That’s a pretty good deal.

(If you start noodling with dragons and writing it up and think, “Wait, this new kind of dragon is too awesome to give to Marie Brennan, I will go write my own dragon story,” I bet she would consider that a pretty nifty outcome too. More dragons for everybody! But no free book in that case.)

1. My writing partner Alec Austin has a story up at BCS: Atonement. Go, read, enjoy.

2. Elise has new shinies. Oooh, shinies. Some of them are star-themed. I do like stars. You might too. It seemed worth mentioning.

1. Elise has a bunch of new shinies! I am particularly fond of “Young Midgard Creationism” and “Hidden Folk in Plain Sight.” Those are the ones I look at and think, oh yes, I know this story.

2. Tim has an Etsy store for baby tapir photos. Things are somewhat cheaper if you order from his website, but sometimes people find Etsy convenient, and the tapir cards are grouped in sets (which I expect you could get through the website, too, but I’m not sure where yet), so: voila! Now you know, and knowing is some fraction of the battle. Possibly a large fraction. Who knows. Wait. That’s circling back on itself. Maybe I should get some rest….

I’ve talked off and on this year about Tim’s War for the Oaks project–how he was taking a series of photos of people reading Emma Bull’s seminal urban fantasy War for the Oaks in the locations from that book. Well, now it’s done! And you can see it all online here. You should go look, it’s very cool. He’s still working on the details of how to make the whole thing available in more concrete form, so stay tuned.

(Or Ooh shiny! bargains!)

Elise is having a birthday sale on her shinies. Do you want some shinies? I bet you do. Go look.

Me, I made a list of shinies I like in case anybody in my family is feeling like buying me shinies. I like lists. And these often have stories in them–I’m still wrestling with “King of Flowers, King of the Sea” for the latest, but I’ve gotten over a dozen pieces of fiction out of Elisian inspiration over the years, including several novels. Even if you don’t write, the titles are charming and evocative, and the work itself even more so.

So go on, shoo, go look.