I've been incommunicado for a few days, trying to finish up a story that I'm hoping will do double duty in my classes. It'll be my final project in my Shakespeare class, as well as my final story to be critiqued in my fiction workshop. I'm very excited about it; I've been on a Dave Eggers kick lately, and the story is blatantly influenced by his writing. I'm also making some connections between the main players in Romeo and Juliet and the archetypes in the Commedia dell'arte. It now has a title: "Most Excellent and Lamentable."

In the Internet Review of Science Fiction this month, Matthew Cheney has an excellent interview with M. Rickert, who wrote my favorite story in the third Ratbastards chapbook (which is really saying something; all of the fiction in there is excellent). It was really interesting to see how she came at publishing in the sf markets, that she was completely unaware of them after sending her fiction to literary journals. Rickert just sold a collection to Golden Gryphon Press, called A Very Little Madness, and I'm very much looking forward to it; the expected publication date is unfortunately sometime in 2006, so I'll have to wait. But for now, Ideomancer has a short interview and three stories online: "The Girl Who Ate Butterflies," "Night Blossoms" and "More Beautiful Than You".

Editing continues apace on the food anthology. I'm getting to the difficult part now, really narrowing down the list of acceptances. I'm lucky in that our format, not being a zine-style saddle-stitch or perfect binding, allows me to accept stories more indiscriminately, since I don't have the constraints of a page count. Though at the same time, I do have to keep the cost of printing in mind and can't go crazy. I have just accepted three more stories, from Heather Shaw, N.K. Jemison (who, you may remember, just won the SLF Travel Research Grant), and a Lovecraftian collaboration between Jeff VanderMeer, D.F. Lewis and Mike Korn. This is shaping up to be a very strong anthology, and I'm excited as hell. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow night at midnight - the witching hour on All Hallows Eve.

Janet, my mom and I went to the John Edwards rally last night. He came home to North Cackalacky yesterday to vote early and host a rally at the NC State Fairgrounds. We got there around 5:30, got seated at 6:00, and listened to bass-heavy pre-recorded music until 7:30. Then Edwards' daughter came on and introduced Jon Bon Jovi, who played four or five acoustic songs with a fiddle-player, then introduced Edwards' wife, who got us pumped up then turned it back to Bon Jovi for a few more songs, who then introduced Edwards. All in all the rally was about an hour long, and it was very exciting. I was amazed how much charisma John Edwards has in person, even from far away. Janet thinks he's pretty. He ended his speech with his famous refrain: "In four more days, hope is on the way!"

fig. 1: Thousands show up at the John Edwards rally

Afterward, we met up with my dad at Olive Garden and had a wonderful dinner, capped by decadent dessert that I couldn't even finish. The big news was when Janet revealed that she got a new job! It's at a company in North Raleigh that does online lifestyle magazines and also handles online advertising. Janet will be using both her web design and customer service skillz. And best of all, she'll get full benefits, including medical, dental, paid vacation, and 401(K). She starts on Monday. Yay!

Tonight will be a pre-Hallowe'en party with Andreas, Luna and Jamie. Much grilling of meat, toasting of s'mores, talking of writing, and possibly watching of scary movies. Should be tons o'fun.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!

Now Reading:
Leviathan 3 edited by Forrest Aguirre and Jeff VanderMeer

Stories Out to Publishers:
10

Books Read This Year:
58

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
30