Just talked to Jeremy Seton, the other East Lansing boy in the Philosophy MA program at Western Michigan. (His first semester was my last semester, in Fall 2005, so he's still there.) He just sold a poem to Dragons, Knights and Angels.

(For anyone reading this who critted my story, "Crying Wolf," Jeremy's the inspiration for the werewolf-obsessed Jeremy in the story.)

Anyway, Jeremy's poem should be "in print" sometime in October, so look out for it then.

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So yesterday I gave a Forum presentation (what we called a "brownbag" back at WMU) of my paper "Craig, the Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Instantiation of Transfinite Set Theory." (It's a refutation of a classical argument for the existence of God. Which was the kind of paper it was more fun to give at WMU, what with all the theists--like my friend Jeremy--who were in the program, making for a better discussion afterwards.) Anyway, the paper and the presentation style seemed to go over pretty well. Someone in the q-and-a referred to the argument as "violently complex," but I think in context it was meant as a compliment.

Oh, and we saw Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson yesterday. I went out a saw a movie (Talladega Nights...what can I say, I lost the vote) with a couple of other grad students, and the Rock was attending the premier of Gridiron Gang at the same threatre. He and his entourage arrived just as we were leaving. Kind of a weird aging moment too...after the VIP's were admitted to the gated-off area to bask in his presence, his security detail went through and cleared out the crowd of mostly teenagers there to "ooh" and "ah"...and of course, left the three of us alone. Felt very strange, the same way it feels strange when bartenders don't card me like they should. I always feel like I should be waving around a blinking red light on my wrist, a la Logan's Run, and pleading that I have four years left.

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I joined the Codex Writers Group earlier this week. (It's open to "neopro" writers, i.e. those who've sold at least one story to a pro-market and/or graduated from Clarion, Odyssey or the equivalent.) I'm not sure how active it is as a crit group, but it might be a useful resource to supplement the post-Clarion West crit circle, especially since I'm not sure how many of my old stories in the process of revision I want to inflict on the latter in a row.

I did find a face-to-face sf crit group (attached to SFSFS, pronounced "Sisyphus", the South Florida Science Fiction Society) that meets in Ft. Lauderdale, but I couldn't make it to their September meeting due to a screw-up with bus schedules. So I guess I'll check that out in October.

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Oh, and in Talladega Nights? There's a scene where for comic effect, Ricky Bobby's foil, the gay, French, snooty driver, is in his car reading "The Stranger" by Camus. At the risk of casting serious doubt on my manliness, I'll admit to thinking, "hey, the Stranger! I love that book!"