Things have been super-busy! Awards! Story sales! Readings! Interviews! Trips! OMG!

Lightspeed is up for a Hugo, in the Best Semiprozine category! A Lightspeed story, “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, is also up for a Hugo, as is John Joseph Adams himself, for Best Editor, Short Form. I’ve been super-proud to be a part of the Lightspeed team since coming on board, and to see our hard work get acknowledged in such a major way is a tremendously exciting feeling. Also: big congrats to all the nominees!

World Horror is coming up. I have a reading! It’s at 9:30 on Thursday night, in Robertson, and I’ll be reading from my latest publication, my novelette in Historical Lovecraft (which launched last week!). The novelette is called “The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins” and it’s completely filthy. Before me, in the same room, Jesse Bullington will be reading from his second novel, The Enterprise of Death. I’m hoping he chooses an amusing selection, because that novel has the potential to reduce me to tears in places, it’s so fucking good.

I’ll also be moderating a panel on Friday at 11 AM, called “Why We Write Short Stories” and this terrifies me. First time moderating and all. I’m very excited, though, to meet my co-panelists Joe Hill, Brad Sinor, Orrin Grey, Suzanne Church, and Claude Lalumière. Woo!

In terms of stuff I’ve done recently, my interview with Jonathan L. Howard just went up on Strange Horizons. Lots of fun, and the interview contains the blurb for his forthcoming third Johannes Cabal adventure, Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute. I also had a few quick words with JLH over at Fantasy, as he just published a Cabal short with us, “The House of Gears.” I hear the podcast is super-good, so I’m saving it for a car trip.

I also sold a story to Megan Arkenberg’s journal of historical fiction, Lacuna. This October, “How John Wilmot Contracted Syphilis” will be going up, and I’m super-stoked. It’s about John Wilmot contracting syphilis, strangely enough! I love this story, and so I’m really happy it found such a great home.

There’s about a million shout-outs I need to give, too. As I mentioned above, The Enterprise of Death has been out for a while now, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t go buy it and read it right away. It’s seriously amazing. I liked The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart—I love this book. Over at his site, Jesse’s been doing plenty of review-roundups and providing links to the articles he’s written to go along with the novel. Some neat stuff, and worth checking out!

Also amazing: my longtime friend and ex-roommate Brad Deutsch published a totally fascinating and accessible article in Lightspeed on quantum theory, which accompanied “Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son,” by Tom Crosshill, which is probably my favorite story we’ve had up in a while. I recommend both!

In non-newsy things, I’ve seen some cool stuff recently. And some not-so-cool stuff. Re: the latter, I’ll be blogging about the completely dreadful and unintentionally hilarious Atlas Shrugged movie at some point, probably after World Horror. For now: ha ha and stay tuned. Regarding things which are actually intelligent, well-written, and watchable for reasons other than schadenfreude, holy balls the Regency-era Blackadder is like, my new favorite thing in the universe. I was underwhelmed by the Medieval ones when I tried them back in the day, probably because of the lack of fops and also I don’t get as many of the jokes. As for the rest of the things I’ve been viewing, such as oh let’s just say motherfucking Warlock, Jesse and I are allegedly going to re-start Films of High Adventure after World Horror so I’ll save up for that.

So anyhow, I feel like there’s tons of stuff I’m forgetting to mention, but I’m crazed with trying to get my act together before I leave Thursday. I mentioned a trip, and while I have one forthcoming (Austin), I also got back from one a while ago, where I heard about things like my reading (eep!) and my panel (eeeeep!). I was in Florida for a week, and got to see my family, mine and John’s both. My dad is doing tremendously well, I’m happy to report. John’s family was a hoot as always, and I was super-happy to see his cousin Grace get married to her wonderful now-husband Garfield. John’s grandmother could use some happy thoughts sent her way, though, as she suffered a heart attack while we were staying with her, and is now in hospital recovering. I’m glad we were there when we were, and I’m hoping she continues to improve!

More later, my friends—and seriously this time, I’mma be better about updating this site. . .

(x-posted to my LJ)