“Everything Dies Baby” is now live at Strange Horizons.

Besides the Bruce Springsteen song “Atlantic City,” I’d also like to point to “Behind Closed Doors,” the brilliant episode of Air Crash Investigation that spawned this story.

Put your makeup on

Fix your hair up pretty

And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Actually, I didn’t.  But here’s a book review of How I Became A Famous Novelist, by Steve Hely (review by Janet Maslin, NYT).  Judging by this, I will probably never be a famous novelist, but I’ve almost made my peace with that.

Here are some sample titles from Mr. Hely’s version of the New York Times best-seller list, which is mimicked with particular glee: “Cumin: The Spice That Changed the World,” “Indict to Unnerve,” “The Jane Austen Women’s Investigators Club” and “Sageknights of Darkhorn.” The list also includes a sci-fi novel with the following synopsis: “In a post-nuclear future inhabited by intelligent cockroaches, Lieutenant Cccyxx discovers there was once a race of sentient humans.”

At the risk of shamelessly cannibalizing Mr. Hely’s humor, here are a few more. Sample military adventure title: ‘Talon of the Warshrike.” Sample writerly process: the author of “Warshrike” explains that he got a plot idea while in Venice with his ex-wife; while on a night cruise he looked back at the city and thought, ‘What if somebody blew this place up?’” Finally and most lovably, there is this suspenseful moment from a brisk novel in which a president of the United States is warned about a national security crisis: “Sir, how much do you know about outer space?”

That novel of Pete’s is “The Tornado Ashes Club.” It involves a grandson who fulfills his grandmother’s wish to find a tornado into which she can throw the ashes of her long-lost lover, Luke, who appears in a young, handsome incarnation during the book’s picturesquely European World War II flashbacks. “Use words to describe old ladies that make them sound beautiful (graceful, regal, etc.),” Pete tells himself about pitching his story to a book-buying audience. He also concocts many other rules, like a dictum to dream up highway scenes “making driving seem poetic and magical” in order to tap into the audiobooks market. (Most audiobooks are listened to in cars.)

He crosses paths with a businessman who has been inspired by a self-help book called “Caesar, CEO: Business Secrets of the Ancient Romans” and thus refers to a rival company as Carthage; a drab, well-known literary figure who teaches a writing class (“For ease and accuracy I’ll call her SpaghettiHair HamsterFace,” Pete says) and an editor who makes sadly apt notes about Pete’s manuscript. “Does a dying deer really smell faintly of cinnamon?” she inquires. “You use the word sallow four times, and I’m not sure you ever use it right.”

Sze Tsung Leong: Sea of Marmara

“Lake Tahoe’s Lover” is now up at Fantasy Magazine!  It’s been waiting there for a year, but I still love this story.  A little more romantic/whimsical than most of what I write, but blame it on the Hudson River and my best friend’s old lake house that I used to spend summer weekends at growing up.  I love the picture they chose to accompany it.  Exactly how I pictured the lake (except with a few less trees).

Actually, I’ve never been to Lake Tahoe.  But I think it’s a lovely name for a lake.

Little fish. Big fish. Swimming in the water.
Come back here, man. Gimme my daughter.

- PJ Harvey

Stumbled upon this neat little interview between two of my favorite film-makers, Joel and Ethan Coen, and my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy.  No idea McCarthy isn’t a fan of magical realism because “it’s hard enough to get people to believe what you’re telling them without making it impossible”.

I’m not sure he’s getting the point – at least as I understand it – of magical realism.  For me, magical realism (and a lot of spec fic in general) has always been about acknowledging the reality of the unexplained.  It creeps into so much (read: everything) of what I write because I feel like I’ve felt angker, or creeped out, by things that I can’t explain – especially when I lived in Indonesia.  Which is why I prefer the term speculative to fantasy – fantasy implies that it’s not real.

Still, it’s a cute little interview.

Alec Soth: “West Point”

“Intertropical Convergence Zone” was nominated for a Shirley Jackson award in the short story category.  Obviously it’s amazing and wonderful to get this kind of recognition.  Results are in July, although I am absolutely not hoping for anything.  It’s a cliche, but to be nominated is honor enough.  I think that “psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic” is a pretty accurate description of my so-called genre.  I’m getting more and more comfortable saying that horror’s my favorite genre to read, write, and watch (because let’s just be honest, it is).

“Everything Dies, Baby” was accepted by Strange Horizons.  I am so happy because this story is so close to me.  It’s named for one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs (“Atlantic City”) and is based on “Behind Closed Doors,” an episode of Air Crash Investigation.  Basically, I combined the Windsor Incident (American Airlines Flight 96) with the much worse crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 981.  “Atlantic City”’s chorus is one I instinctively, immediately related to/understood as pertaining to not only grief but spirituality: ”Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact/ and maybe everything that dies someday comes back.”

Silence of the Lambs

“And When She Was Bad” is up at Nossa Morte!

This story was inspired by my A Cultural History of Japanese Monsters class and our constant discussions about the archetype of the monster, and the cultural role it plays.  As a horror movie fanatic and a feminist, the “final girl” – as I’ve written about before – is a character that’s always intrigued me.  I actually wrote an essay for the class about the strange bond between the monster and the final girl.  This story’s sort of the fictional culmination of that essay.  It’s also personal.  I’ve always felt a real sympathy, or at least empathy, for those final girls.  Have I mentioned that Clarice Starling is my personal heroine?  Well, now I have.

So though I hesitate to say that the final girl in “And When She Was Bad” is me… she may be an alternate universe version of me.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” was the original prompt.  It comes highly recommended as not only insightful, but a good read.

Also, the fact that the nursery rhyme of the story’s title was my favorite nursery rhyme from a very early age probably says something about me:

there was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead

and when she was good, she was very, very good

and when she was bad, she was horrid.

Chris Anthony: Victims and Avengers

“And When She Was Bad” has been accepted at Nossa Morte.  The web site hints that the next issue will be out February 2009.

The story actually grew out of an assignment for my Japanese Monsters class that I titled, “The Monster is a Half-Self”, all about the relationship between the monster and the final girl.  I really like the trope of the final girl, both in its affirmations and its subversions.  Then again I have always been a fan of analyzing gender in horror.

“On The Island” is up at Cezanne’s Carrot.  It also got one of the issue’s two Editors’ Prizes, which made my not-so-great first month of senior year a whole lot greater.

I’ve been going crazy reading book reviews.  I feel like I should actually read some books.

I’ve been having trouble figuring out how to focus my writing these days.

I have one more short story in the works.  After that, I think I’ll be taking a hiatus from shorts and try to go back to that fantasy trilogy of mine.  The working title for the first book is God’s Country; The Devil’s Territory for the second; No Man’s Land for the third.  Look, a theme.  The whole trilogy’s working title is Hemispherica.  I’ve made a lot of revisions recently.  Basically, I took out all that epic-sounding stuff.  It doesn’t come naturally to me.  I’m writing about America now.  I’m excited to start it up again.  One of the few things in my life that I’m excited about, I guess.  I’ve regained faith that it could be marketed somehow.  God bless speculative fiction.  God bless it for its flexibility.  People don’t give it enough credit.

All is going slowly, thanks to school.

Nick Brandt: Zebras Crossing Lake, Ngorongoro Crater 2000

“On The Island” has been accepted by Cezanne’s Carrot. Something different, but the story’s also something different, and it’s been through quite a few drafts, so I’m pleased it’s seeing the light of day. I edited the last draft at the Consul General’s Residence in Surabaya and my boss asked me “I thought you’re supposed to write about what you know. What do you know about animal testing?” Not really anything personal, of course, but it is an issue I feel strongly about, and it’s my first really environmentalist story. it’s based on the true story of Vozrozdeniye Island, which I learned about in Weapons of Mass Destruction: the USSR used this island, filled with various animals, as a testing base for various biological weapons – it is now completely contaminated and is negatively impacting surrounding areas on the coasts of the Aral Sea.

Factoid: It’s split into 4 parts, and I named all 4 parts after Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes. What a fan am I.

in pitch dark I go walking in your landscape, broken branches trip me as I speak

there’s always a siren singing you to shipwreck:steer away from these walls, we’d be a walking disaster

just cuz you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there… we are accidents waiting to happen

- Radiohead: “There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)”