Jason Heller

Machine Readable interview

2012-01-29T09:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a lengthy interview I did with Arapahoe Library's awesome Machine Readable podcast. I manage to sound simultaneously spastic and tranquilized. Topics covered: Taft 2012, my beef with steampunk, what I had for lunch. Thanks for putting up with me, Nick and Jason!

Me on Morning Edition

2012-01-23T06:11:00.000-08:00

Here's an interview I did about Taft 2012 that ran on NPR's Morning Edition today. I haven't yet mustered the fortitude to listen to a word of it. I hope I bleat and chirp coherently.

Studio Tulsa interview

2012-01-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

Here's me being interviewed about Taft 2012 by Rich Fisher of Studio Tulsa (which appeared on KWGS, Tulsa's NPR affiliate). We had a great chat. Thanks, Rich! KWGS: "Taft 2012: A Novel" (2012-01-20)

Taft: TwenTYTwelve

2012-01-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

Here's an interview I did about Taft 2012 for The Young Turks Network's TwenTYTwelve. Many thanks to host Michael Shure for being patient with me and my nervous nerdiness.

Ain't no party like a Taft launch party

2012-01-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night, Denver's best independent bookseller, Tattered Cover, hosted the official launch party for my novel Taft 2012. I posted about the event on the blog of Quirk Books, my esteemed and wonderful publisher. Despite my abject fear of public speaking, I somehow managed to string untold dozens of sentences together in some semblance of coherence. Or at least some pitying souls in attendance (i.e. my mom) were kind of enough to say.

PW + SFWA + BBC

2012-01-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

A few fresh pieces of Taft 2012 press hit the webs today: a guest post I wrote for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (of which I'm a member); an interview with yours truly for Publishers Weekly; and a lovely chat I had with BBC Scotland's Comedy Cafe radio show (I come in around the 19:30 mark). And so the deluge (hopefully) begins...

2011: My year in rear-view

2012-01-13T10:39:00.001-08:00

Every January 1, I usually work up a little list of the things I accomplished, writing-wise, in the previous year. As you can tell, I'm a bit late. I have a good reason: I've been too busy writing. No matter how busy we all get, though, it's always good to stop, take a breath, look back, and see how far we've traveled over the past twelve months--if for no other reason than to make sure our trunks haven't sprung open and our luggage isn't strewn all over the highway. So, a mere two weeks delinquent, here it is: my 2011 in rear-view, a list of some stuff I did.

1. Finished my first novel, Taft 2012. It's been getting decent reviews so far, and the advance interest from the press, fellow writers, and my mom has been overwhelming. And the best part? The book doesn't actually come out until next week--so I get to trumpet its publication again on my list for 2012. Way to milk it, right?

2. Saw the publication of my first book, The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: big whoop. A Pirates of the Caribbean tie-in? Puh-lease. But here's the deal: For being a licensed Disney tie-in and all that, the book was very fun to write. I was given a lot of creative leeway. It helped me pay some bills and get my foot in a really worthwhile door (that door being Quirk Books; see above and below). And I love those dark, weird, silly, fantastical Pirates movies--yes, even the last two--so it's not like I was compromising my integrity and writing an Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel book or something. The bottom line, though, is this: It's a book. With my name on the cover. On the shelves of every bookstore in America. Without me smuggling it in and clandestinely filing it there.

3. Signed a contract with Quirk Books for three more novels. The project is still top-secret (okay, more like mid-secret), so I can't divulge all the details yet. But I will say this: They're the first three books in a kids' horror series, and they're set loosely within the mythos of one of my favorite authors of all time. (Okay, so I pretty much just gave it all away right there.)

4. Got an agent. And not just any agent: Jennifer Jackson, Vice President of Donald Maass Literary Agency, who also represents a slew of great science fiction and fantasy authors--including a handful of my favorite writers working today. I'm not worthy! But with a little luck and a lot more hard work (not mention Jennifer's kind and expert guidance), maybe I eventually will be.

5. Became the nonfiction editor of Clarkesworld Magazine. Clarkesworld, hands-down, is my favorite publisher of SF/fantasy short stories--and it's got the awards to prove just how many readers share that opinion. But the magazine's nonfiction has always been fantastic as well, providing a much-needed thoughtfulness and depth when it comes to analysis of the genres. I feel incredibly honored to be part of the team.

6. Launched Loud, my monthly column on punk and metal for The A.V. Club. For five years now, I've gotten to review all kinds of stuff for The A.V. Club, and I'm eternally grateful to them for the ongoing opportunity. But to have my own little corner of the joint that I can stink up with my unholy love of hard, heavy, dark, weird, nasty, violent, uncompromising, beautifully ugly music? Heaven.

7. Appeared on my first convention panels. Even if you know me personally, you probably have no idea how terrified I am of public speaking. That's because I've successfully avoided it for so long, you've likely never had the misfortune of seeing me sweat, stammer, and shake in front of a live audience. I knew I needed to change that, though, especially if I'm going to be an author for a living. So after attending Worldcon in Reno this summer--taking careful note of what I liked and didn't like about convention panels--I returned to Denver and signed up for three panels at MileHiCon in October. And what do you know? I actually pulled it off without making a total doofus of myself. Partial, sure, but not total.

8. At long last, found a publisher for "Other Gray Things." Let me tell you a little story: In January of 2008, I resolved to start writing fiction. The first short story I completed was "Other Gray Things"--a science fiction tale set in a world where a mysterious, omnipresent hum has led to the outlawing of any audible frequency that clashes with it. Somehow, this very first serious short story I ever wrote snagged a semifinalist slot in the Writers of the Future contest. But that didn't include publication. So I started submitting it to various magazines. It was rejected. And rejected. And rejected. But every time it came back, it was accompanied by some great constructive criticism from an editor. So I kept revising it and sending it back out. In the meantime, the other stories I'd begun to write were getting published all over the place. I could have given up on "Other Gray Things." But since it was the first story I'd ever finished, I was determined to place it somewhere. Finally, Christopher Fletcher--the editor of the excellent SF magazine M-Brane--accepted it, and it was published in January of 2011. It was a great way to ring in the year. And now, one year later, it's a great way of driving home the point that, holy hell, did I have a crazy 2011.

SST and me

2012-01-12T12:07:00.001-08:00

I just wrote an article about SST Records for The A.V. Club -- a piece I've inadvertently spent the last 23 years of my life preparing for. If you're ever curious about some of things that help make me the whatever-it-is I am today, here's a good place to start.

Taft 2012 excerpt

2012-01-10T03:05:00.000-08:00

The A.V. Club just debuted a three-chapter excerpt of my upcoming novel, Taft 2012. If you like what you read, feel free to order yourself a copy! And don't forget: VOTE TAFT.

And they go tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, like little birds

2012-01-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

So I totally screwed up: I should have read Will Hermes' Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever before listing my favorite books of 2011. I'm as tired as the next guy of NY-in-the-'70s mythologizing, but this is something altogether deeper, messier, and meatier.

Post pre-press

2012-01-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

Denver journalist and author John Wenzel wrote an article about me for the Denver Post in advance of my January 17 book signing for Taft 2012. Came out pretty good! And by "good," I mean I managed to avoid sounding like too much of a crazy person.

It clogs to The Cure, or else it gets the hose again.

2012-01-05T19:10:00.001-08:00

Questioningly yours

2012-01-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

Do I have enough stuff to do in 2012? Of course not. Which is why I've resolved to start conducting author interviews on this here blog of mine (which will soon move to a full-blown website, honest to, um, blog). Once a month I'll tenderly interrogate some poor fuck who has a new book coming out. Those who write science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror, be warned: In the coming months I may hit you up with book requests, defamation waivers, and dumb questions sharpened by my many years of asking dumb questions for a living.

Chunks of dead trees

2011-12-31T03:52:00.000-08:00

J.G. Ballard? Philip K. Dick? Harry Harrison? Fritz Leiber? Kurt Vonnegut? Thomas M. Disch? Anyone who knows me knows I couldn't possibly pass up a book with those names on the cover. And yet, when I picked up this copy of The Ruins of Earth from a used bookstore recently, my first thought was: Why have I never heard of this? The anthology -- edited by Disch and containing his satirical short story "The Birds" -- was published in England in 1973 and features some of the best science fiction authors of the day, including a few veterans of the New Worlds-led New Wave. But the collection also runs parallel to the ecological movement of the time -- with the obvious theme being environmental catastrophe, summed up beautifully by Disch in his introduction. Sadly, Disch's own story, "The Birds," is a weak example of his otherwise incisive satire. A more noteworthy moment: the first published appearance of Harrison's "Roommates," the short story based on his novel Make Room! Make Room! (itself the basis for the film Soylent Green). Also: Gene Wolfe -- who in 1973 apparently didn't rate a mention on the cover! -- contributes "Three Million Square Miles," a wisp of a vignette that's mostly curious for this reason: Its man-caged-by-highway scenario almost seems like the seed of... J.G. Ballard's 1974 novel, Concrete Island. For his part, Ballard offers his 1962 story "The Cage of Sand" -- which, despite the title and the fact that the word "vermilion" pops up in the opening sentence, is not a Vermilion Sands story. Guided by Disch's grim, wry fatalism rather than the era's typically shrill eco-panic, Ruins is a great little slab of retro-future-shock; it's also one more reason why, funnily enough, I still love combing used book stores for chunks of dead trees.

Tintin time

2011-12-22T11:06:00.000-08:00

It'll be another few days before I get a chance to head to the theater to see Spielberg's The Adventures Of Tintin. But my mouth is watering like Captain Haddock's in a room full of rum. It's been twenty years since I discovered Hergé's original Tintin comics series, and they just get better every time I revisit them. That includes my latest rereading of the series, which I did in preparation for my latest A.V. Club article, Gateways To Geekery: The Adventures Of Tintin. Days like this, I really love my job.

Guest post up at The Qwillery

2011-12-22T07:09:00.001-08:00

The fine folks at the book blog The Qwillery have a guest post from yours truly up today. It's about Taft 2012, the novel's creation, and its peculiar sort of genre-busting. Next month, The Qwillery will also be runnning an interview with me and graciously allowing me to take part in a two-week Q&A session with Taft 2012 readers--all part of their Debut Author Challenge. Can't wait! More details as they unfold...

2011: My year in books

2011-12-19T01:32:00.000-08:00

I've just spent a solid month compiling year-end list upon year-end list for The A.V. Club. It's official: Year-end-list exhaustion has settled into my bones. But I did want to put together this quick, admittedly erratic rundown of my favorite (and least favorite) books of 2011. Please pardon my lazy lack of commentary. I'm fresh out of adjectives. And so, without further ado...

Top 15 16 books of 2011
1. Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young
2 & 3. There Is No Year and Nothing: A Portrait Of Insomnia by Blake Butler
4. Low Town by Daniel Polansky
5. The Enterprise Of Death by Jesse Bullington
6. A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
7. The Silent Land by Graham Joyce
8. Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
9. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
10. My Song: A Memoir by Harry Belafonte and Michael Shnayerson
11. All Men Of Genius by Lev AC Rosen
12. Seed by Rob Ziegler
13. Mechanique: A Tale Of The Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine
14. The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham
15. The Engines Of Desire by Livia Llewellyn
16. Joe Simon: My Life In Comics by Joe Simon [RIP]

Worst books:
Enter Night: A Biography Of Metallica by Mick Wall
Flashback by Dan Simmons

Biggest letdown:
Embassytown by China Miéville

Best old book I read for the first time:
The Inverted World by Christopher Priest

Best rereads:
Beneath The Underdog by Charles Mingus
The Adventures Of Tintin by Hergé

Best reprint:
Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island And Its People, 1602-1890 by Nathaniel Philbrick

Sequels I slept on (despite loving their predecessors):
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Book I only wish had come out:
The Republic Of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Book I wrote (shameless, I know)
The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook by Jason Heller

Interview @LibraryThing

2011-12-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

LibraryThing.com just ran an interview with me about Taft 2012. It's a pity my Herman Cain reference is already obsolete... The entire satirical community is still reeling from his criminally premature exit from the campaign trail. It looks as though William Howard Taft will have to fill the gap!

Taftination

2011-12-14T07:32:00.000-08:00

Goodreads' The Next Best Book Club is hosting a giveaway of my upcoming novel, Taft 2012 -- plus a two-week, online Author/Reader Discussion in January! Check out TNBBC's blog for all the details.

Raised on promises

2011-12-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

Up now at The A.V. Club: My latest fit of rambling about tradition, recession, depression, dreams, decay, and the unwritten rule of manual labor (with a little bit thrown in about Tom Petty's "American Girl"... okay, so the whole article was supposed to be about that).

Taft 2012 trailer debuts on Huffington Post

2011-12-08T08:27:00.001-08:00

Huffington Post has just debuted the second book trailer for my upcoming novel, Taft 2012! And here it is, in all its Taft-tastic glory.

New Clarkesworld

2011-12-02T04:32:00.000-08:00

The new issue of Clarkesworld is live! Fiction by Ben Peek and Chris Stabback. The conclusion of Catherynne M. Valente's "Silently and Very Fast." An interview with Aliette de Bodard by Jeremy L. C. Jones. Nonfiction by Blenta Blevins. And the ever-excellent podcasting of Kate Baker. Also: Farewell, departing nonfiction editor Cheryl Morgan. Thanks for setting the bar so high.

Taft teaser

2011-12-01T11:30:00.001-08:00

The first teaser for Taft 2012 has debuted! I just peed a little. Okay, a lot.

RIP Anne McCaffrey

2011-11-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

Word is going around that Anne McCaffrey has died. What can I say... I was nine when I started reading Pern (the Dragonriders omnibus from the Science Fiction Book Club!), and it forever altered the way I view books--not to mention the way genres can (and should) be warped and juxtaposed. Above all, though, her stories took me to a different place when I really needed to go there. Thanks, Anne.

Subdivisioning

2011-11-15T17:26:00.000-08:00

I somehow managed to work Rush, the Arcade Fire, and the Descendents into the same A.V. Club article. My head hurts.

Exhibit A

2011-11-10T16:21:00.000-08:00

The mailman just dropped off a boxful of my first novel. Is this what euphoria feels like?

Liberation songs

2011-11-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite writers working today, Brian Francis Slattery, recorded an album. In it, he and his band interpret excerpts from his brilliant post-collapse novel, Liberation. Friggin' awesome. And it might just be enough to hold me over until his new book, Lost Everything, comes out in April.

Pictures from a Liberation by Brian Francis Slattery and the Slick Six Five

Clarkesworld editorship

2011-11-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

Clarkesworld Magazine has a new nonfiction editor, and I am it (unless I'm dreaming or something, which wouldn't surprise me). Seriously, I feel incredibly honored, and I'll be doing my best to expand the scope of Clarkesworld's nonfiction while staying true to the magazine's award-winning integrity and awesomeness. Publisher Neil Clarke has a few words on the subject in his announcement today.

Okay, now back to pinching myself.

Like an iceberg starting a band with the Titanic

2011-11-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

My review of Lulu, the morbidly anticipated collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, is up at The A.V. Club. Commenters are going nuts. Rock may be dead, but at least its corpse is alive with hosts of vermin scouring it clean.

New review

2011-10-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

Taft 2012 just got reviewed by Sarah Ann Noel in 303 Magazine. Some positive words were said -- as well as an acute observation that, despite my best efforts, my personal politics may have leaked into Taft a little. Oops.

Taft swag

2011-10-28T16:24:00.001-07:00

Just got a package of promotional material for my upcoming novel, Taft 2012. Posters, campaign buttons... Quirk knows how to work it! As does Taft himself, that most dapper of chief executives.

Zzztazzzizzz

2011-10-27T18:27:00.001-07:00

Couldn't sleep. Opted to start reading Blake Butler's Nothing. Best worst idea ever. Lidded and loaded. Coldly caging in poetry what it means to be lodged in that liminal holding pattern of unsleep. Plus, it cites both Brian Eno and Anton LaVey. No mention of J.G. Ballard's insomniac hymn, "Manhole 69," but I can live with that.

Agent announcement

2011-10-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am somewhat deliriously giddy to announce that I have an agent: Jennifer Jackson, Vice President of Donald Maass Literary Agency, is now representing me. Her list includes some of the best names in science fiction/fantasy, including Jim Butcher, Elizabeth Bear, Anne Bishop, Cherie Priest, Jay Lake, Ekaterina Sedia, and geez I should probably just stop before I blow a gasket. Okay, deep breath. Time to go make some more books!

This Weekend: MileHiCon 43

2011-10-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be attending MileHiCon 43 at they Hyatt Regency Tech Center in my hometown of Denver this weekend. Feel free to stalk me anytime, Friday through Sunday. Just to make it a little easier, here are the panels I'll be appearing on:

Friday at 3 p.m.: Exploding Writing Myths (Chasm Creek A)
Saturday at 10 a.m.: How to Interview (Mesa Verde A)
Saturday at 4 p.m.: Sounds Like Steampunk (Wind River A)

I'll also be part of the group event, Can't Stop the Prose: Late Night Readings/Discussion at 10 p.m. on Friday in Mesa Verde B.

When not fielding yawns from the audience, I'll probably be hanging with my pals and fellow programming participants Jesse Bullington and Molly Tanzer (check out their schedules). I also hope to catch up with Carrie Vaughn, Mario Acevedo, and Warren Hammond, three great local authors who have given me all kinds of generous encouragement over the past couple years.

So, yeah, that's what I'll be up to this weekend. That and sampling the exotic cuisine of Southeast Denver.

An open letter to My Blog

2011-10-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

Dear My Blog,

Sorry I've been neglecting you. Things have been crazy. My novel, Taft 2012, comes out January 17. That's been keeping me busy. I've been writing scripts for book trailers, beaming over my first review (starred on Publishers Weekly), and trying to overcome my morbid terror of public speaking in advance of my book-release event at Tattered Cover Book Store on 1/17.

See, it isn't just you. I don't like talking to anybody. That's why I'm a writer.

What else has been going on? Well, I finally got around to setting up an author's page on Amazon. I'm still writing a bunch for The A.V. Club. I've been working on my dark steampunk novel, Ocean of Bone. And there's other awesome stuff cresting the horizon. Don't want to jinx it or anything, though.

Oh, yeah, and Facebook. I've been spending way, way too much time there. I know that must make you feel kinda crappy, My Blog. Again, my apologies. You know what? Maybe you should just start your own Facebook page. At least we'd keep in touch better that way. I mean, some of my friends' cats have their own Facebook page. I don't see why My Blog can't.

That said: I'll be trying to stop by more often to visit. What kind of beer do you like again? I totally forgot. I didn't mean to be away so long. Forgive me, ol' buddy. I'm a jerk. But you knew that already.

Regards,

Jason

Headstone for the 20th Century

2010-12-14T04:26:00.001-08:00

Comics 2010

2010-12-12T10:30:00.001-08:00

1. BodyWorld
A graphic novel that straddles dimensions as radically yet effortlessly as it does genres, Dash Shaw's BodyWorld feels like an artifact from an alternate reality—one in which post-apocalyptic teen drama and telepathy-inducing drugs magnify a deeper narrative about the malleability of symbols, logic, and consciousness. On a strictly visual level, though, it's stunning: With a dizzying command of paint, pixels, paper, and sheer spectacle, Shaw writes and draws rings around not only his competition, but the very fundamentals of comic-book linearity and language. Even better: It's a hell of a flesh-crawler.

2. Artichoke Tales
In clear, unfussy green-and-white, Megan Kelso depicts the fictional world of Artichoke Tales as an agrarian, allegorical land scarred by war but gripped by deep roots and desperate love. That love—romantic, familial, ecological—is played out in quiet, graceful episodes that somehow encompass everything from cooking to lovemaking to childbirth to military campaigns. But amid the epic and cyclical turmoil, Kelso's intimately soft yet barbed storytelling renders her elfin Quicksand Family potently, poignantly human.

3. X'ed Out
X'ed Out, the first installment of Charles Burns' new, not-yet-collectively-titled project, sees the Black Hole mastermind branching out into an even eerier domain, one that mixes his horrific surrealism for what appears to be hard science fiction—that is, with a heavy dollop of dream-logic and shout-outs to Burns inspirations like Hergé, Moebius, and William S. Burroughs. But rather than simply namechecking these influences, he works them into the fabric of his warped and hyperlinked narrative. And then applies some gorgeous full color.

Prose bath

2010-12-02T11:31:00.001-08:00

Seriously, I could take a long, hot soak in Catherynne M. Valente's prose. Her latest, fragrant vat of verse-worthy fiction: The Habitation of the Blessed, the first installment of a new trilogy titled A Dirge for Prester John. Shimmering, poetic, and approaching the alchemical, her language spreads through my skull like blood through water. Sheer fucking magic. Cat, you're a demigoddess.

Dispatches from the Land of the Steroid-Eaters, Day 3

2010-11-30T12:15:00.001-08:00

Shorn of circadian regularity, my hypothalamus now bobs upon the gentle breezes of synaptic backwash (i.e. the jasmine in my mind). Times passes. Events occur. The two phenomena even seem to somehow eerily correlate.

Piratical Agenda

2010-11-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

The cover to my very firstest book of all time -- Quirk Books' The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook -- is now up on Amazon. Color me stoked. It's giving me some much-needed fuel to push through and finish this novel manuscript for Quirk that's due at the end of January. My first novel... When that cover finally gets unleashed, I'll probably just fucking pass out.

Hey Hey, We're The Solipsists

2010-11-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

A minute ago I dropped the remote on the floor and, lo and behold, that sage little device decided I needed to be watching The Monkees. And it was right. It's been far too long... How could I possibly measure the effect this show had on my when I was a kid in the '70s? I had no idea what the fourth wall was when I was five, but I knew something was getting broken. For sheer absurdist subversion, I rank The Monkees right up with Captain Beefheart. Or maybe even this guy.

Digesting the insides of clocks* (and other pastimes)

2010-11-22T09:15:00.000-08:00

Procrastination isn't laziness, mismanagement of resources, or a deficit of attention. It's an eating disorder. Touch, if you will, my stomach. Feel how it trembles inside?* It isn't my stomach at all. It's my brain. And all those tubes and loops of purple-gray membrane are intestines -- plumbing through which is pushed and flushed the chewed-up pulp of stopwatches and chronology. Some time comes in incontinent trickles, others as fibrous clumps of roughage. Ticking off seconds like grams of carbs, we consume our recommended daily allowances of hours in an attempt to maximize mouthfeel and minimize absorption. Failing that, we binge and purge and binge and purge and binge and purge -- until time, late for its own demise, passes.

*Apologies to WSB and PRN.

Clash of Scatology

2010-10-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

The seventh and latest issue of the British speculative-fiction magazine Polluto has just been loosed upon the world. Within its pages squirms a short story of mine titled "The Feast of the Night-Soil Man." What secrets lurk in the shit of the gods? Find out now.

Tenured, Ten-Armed Shucker

2010-07-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

My lengthy A.V. Club interview with master cartoonist Jim Woodring just got picked up by Boing Boing. Says Woodring of the feature: "The A.V. Club pried all kinds of words out of my unwilling mouth with the skill of a tenured, ten-armed shucker." In other news: I'm putting "tenured, ten-armed shucker" on my business card.

Purple Bitch

2010-07-19T09:17:00.001-07:00

Grimace: rectal-tumor-turned-milkshake-salesman or the giggly personification of early onset diabetes?

Sold: "The Feast of the Night-Soil Man"

2010-07-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I wrote a short story called "The Feast of the Night-Soil Man." It was my first completed piece after quite a long break, and I was pretty proud of it. Then I started submitting it to magazines. The reactions I got were, um, rather confused. It seems that a post-pandemic eco-folktale about a servant of the gods who eats their shit wasn't exactly what most editors were looking for.

I'm glad to say, though, that "Feast" finally found a home. And a hell of a home, at that: Polluto, one of England's raddest, oddest, edgiest speculative-fiction magazines, has accepted my coprophagiac allegory for their upcoming seventh issue. It's great to know there are some other weirdos besides myself dwelling in the fringes of the genre -- and not afraid to own it. Here's a teaser:

I was forbidden to gaze upon Yu-in in the full light of the day, so it was only Ith I came to know. Sometimes at dawn in Yu-in's cavernous chamber He mistook me for some long-dead lover, reaching toward my manhood with languid, clanking fingers. He smelled of iron and vanilla--that is, after I had finished my work with Him. With rag and shovel I scrubbed and scraped at the thick slime and barnacle-like shingles that collected around His vast and nautiloid anus. After flushing the waste down the cracks of the mountain's glacier as I had been instructed, I would return to anoint Him with a perfume of ambergris and afterbirth, spices and sperm, that Yu-in deposited in a bedside urn daily for this purpose.

But earlier--that is, when I would climb to the slumbering, snowbound Gods in the hours just after star-rise--the smell was far less ambrosial. Like a tomb cracked open and left to fester, Yu-in leaked a black and brackish feculence that stunk of rot and waste. They wallowed in their filth, tossing and turning until even Their single, blank face--for Yu-in seemed to be possessed by none of its constituent deities as it slept--was slathered in that rank muck.

To this day I shudder to think of the dreams Yu-in must have had. Ith told me once; it was morning, and I was still wiping away the last festoons of stool that clung to Yu-in's massive hindquarters. Ith awoke in a panic and told me of a nightmare He and the Others had been having.

The mack daddy of all zapguns

2010-07-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

China Mieville has had more than just a profound influence over the SF/fantasy of the millennium -- his books happen to, quite simply, kick ass. Interviewing him for The A.V. Club was a sheer thrill, especially when he started geeking out over Star Trek phasers (a prop in his new novel, Kraken) and Pop Will Eat Itself. Following the interview is a lively comments section wherein A.V. Club readers passionately attack and defend Mieville's work. As convivial as he is to speak with, he's a pretty divisive writer. The great ones usually are.

Flannel and chrome

2010-07-17T06:12:00.001-07:00

My latest installment of Frequency Rotation -- a poking and prodding of Neil Young's bizarrely Kraftwerk-like "Sample and Hold" -- is up at Tor.com. Here's a link to it (as well as to all my installments of FR so far). Bookmarking is your friend.

What Once Was Blood

2010-07-11T06:50:00.000-07:00

We're sitting in a restaurant. Our food has just been served.

A woman to the left of me slides her fingers into her plate of food and removes a bird talon of indeterminate species, a shred of raw and fruit-red flesh still attached.

Outraged, she waves the claw in all our faces.

I'm not sure what her gesture is meant to signify, but I mimic her indignation out of deference and awe.

Slaughterhouse-Five meets the Jackson 5

2010-07-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson wasn't the only J5 member with geek cred. Read all about it in my latest Frequency Rotation blog over at Tor.com. You will never see Jermaine the same way again.

Time's Elastic and Passions are Plastic

2010-07-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

My third installment of Frequency Rotation is viewable and ready for your lewd comments over at Tor.com. The culprit: Pop Will Eat Itself, a band that did horrific things to my mind -- and enabled my geekitude to a crippling degree -- during my high school years. China Mieville also drops a couple mentions of the band in his new book, Kraken, so I took the liberty of tying all that together, you know, just for the hell of it.

Fleshing out the fleshless

2010-06-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

The second installment of Frequency Rotation -- my new science-fiction-music-blog -- is up at Tor.com. This week: the astounding and otherworldly Janelle Monáe. I've got lots of crazy songs, both amazing and entrancingly terrible, lined up for the near future, so bookmark them shits!

No descriptions for my place and mind

2010-06-05T20:31:00.001-07:00

This Mortal Coil did a beautiful version of this song, but no one could ever touch the original. Gene Clark made clocks stop, hearts whisper, words die.

Freqency Rotation live on Tor.com

2010-06-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

My new weekly blog at Tor.com, Frequency Rotation, is up. Each week I'll track down a different SF/fantasy-themed song, post the video, and talk about its awesomeness and significance (or lack thereof). Song suggestions, of course, are always welcome. Needless to say, it's an honor to be included on the Tor.com roster, and I am stoked to get the ball rolling. Plus, I'll take any excuse to inflict a Rezillos video on the world.

And I'm blogging in a most peculiar way...

2010-06-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

My new feature--a brief history of science-fiction-themed albums--just want live over at Clarkesworld. Granted, it's an extremely brief history--and I'm already kicking myself for leaving off Janelle Monae's awesome The ArchAndroid--but I think think the article came it pretty rad. Plus, I'll take any excuse to write about the Jonzun Crew.

In related news: My new blog for Tor.com will be starting soon. It's called Frequency Rotation, and it'll be a weekly rundown of a different science-fiction/fantasy-themed song. As for the first geeky jam I'll be covering, I'll give you a hint: I took the title of the blog from the song's lyrics. Guess now or forever hold your peace. No Googling! Winner gets a lovingly handcrafted wedgie.

Do The Aftermath

2010-05-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

Over at The A.V. Club, we decided to quiz a few experts in various fields and ask them about the plausibility of various apocalyptic scenarios made famous by movies. My entries are the ones on Armageddon, War Of The Worlds, and The Day After. Talk about a fun project; not only did I get to interview, among others, Seth Shostak of SETI and Phil "The Bad Astronomer" Plait, I finally had a good reason to rewatch The Day After, the made-for-TV, pants-shittingly scary, nuclear-paranoia film from 1983 that horrified me at the age of 11. Maybe it's just the lingering trauma, but it still packs a horrifying punch--despite, or maybe because of, the crude, graphic special effects. (Seriously, when I was a kid I had numerous nightmares fully stocked with those iridesent skeletons.)

You make every man feel like a child

2010-05-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

When I was in sixth grade in 1984, I had a crush on a girl named Michelle. She had Velcro sneakers, feathered bangs, and a Def Leppard Pyromania T-shirt. Hipster girls of 2010: No matter how hard you try to look like her, you'll never be as cool as Michelle.

Weird Up

2010-04-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the new issue of the legendary Weird Tales I interview the soon-to-be-legendary Jesse Bullington about his book, The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart. I review it, too. It's my second byline in Weird Tales--the first being my tribute to the late J.G. Ballard in the Spring 2009 issue--and it's once again an honor to be a small part of fantastic fiction's greatest institution. (And if you haven't read Brothers Grossbart yet, it comes highly recommended--historical fantasy done scary, witty, bawdy, messy, and brilliant.)

Things Scattered

2010-04-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I haven't heard of it before, but I just stumbled across Membra Disjecta, an online genre magazine published by Drollerie Press. It's fresh, edgy, progressive, well-designed, small-press-centric, and multimedia-minded, with fiction running alongside nonfic features and spotlights on DIY music and micro-presses. And it's all good shit, too. I just submitted a story of mine titled "When Men End" for an upcoming theme issue. Fingers crossed! But even if it doesn't get accepted, I'm glad I ran into this site.

Ode to the Ugly

2010-04-21T07:58:00.000-07:00

I was probably 18 or 19 the first time I read Basil Wolverton comics. If I remember correctly, my brain caved in. Here was a guy who predated Ed Roth, Robert Crumb, XNO, Peter Bagge -- not by years, but by decades -- and perfected the fine art of the grotesque long before punk rock made ugliness sexy.

Jules Feiffer, one of Wolverton's far more urbane and successful contemporaries, said this of Wolverton's homely, gleefully damaged cartooning: "I don't like his work. I think it's ugly." Mr. Feiffer, with all due respect, don't be such a pussy. There's more craft and feverish imagination to Wolverton's work than he's ever gotten credit for, although Fantagraphics, bless them, have been going out of their way for many years to collect as much of the man's output as they can (including the brand-new Basil Wolverton's Culture Corner, a mind-melting anthology of his WWII-era strips).

To me, Wolverton's eye-gouging gags and rubbery surrealism were as as subversive in their time as was the work of William Burroughs or Lenny Bruce -- maybe more so, seeing as how that subversion was smuggled inside kids' comics, a modus operandi he carried over to his seminal work on Mad. But Wolverton never seemed like a rebel. He was more of a merry prankster -- that is, a prankster with one foot in Bosch and the other in bubblegum.

A baby, some bathwater

2010-04-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

The fact that we humans fetishize inanimate objects just as much, if not more, than those big, puffy intangibles like life, liberty, hope, happiness, and heaven is not surprising. And yet, I always thought my record-collecting habit was more than just a sickness. Yes, I used to spend hours each day working shit jobs to make money to buy records; hours rearranging and pawing through and writing about them; hours thinking about the ones I had yet to own. But I spent even more hours listening to my records. They were only inanimate objects until I put them on a spinning turntable; as soon as I dropped that needle, they unleashed a life, a liberty, a hope, a happiness, and a heaven all their own.

About a month ago I was force by circumstance to sell off a stack of my old LPs on eBay. It was easier than I thought it would be--not the mechanics of eBay, but the relinquishing of these objects I'd clung to so tightly for so long. I'd sold many of my records off in the past, but I really let go of some treasure this time around, shit that I had a personal stake in--the biggest being an original pressing of Jawbreaker's debut album, Unfun, on clear vinyl. It's about to be reissued, and I figured now was a good time to unload it for some bucks. And I did get some bucks out of it--quite a few, in fact, and far more than I'd expected--but when I packed it up and stuck it in the mail, it felt far less the amputation I'd expected.

I blame it on the mp3. I owe it to the mp3. If my younger self could see me now, he'd probably commit suicide (or at least get a lobotomy) to prevent himself from ever turning into what I've become: a dude who doesn't give a shit about vinyl. I couldn't even put my finger on the exact moment of my conversion, but sometime over the past ten years I realized I was sick of lugging around thousands of LPs every time I moved. I was sick of spending so much time, money, and energy an building and maintaining my collection. I was sick of spending 50 percent of every vacation I took combing through record stores while some exciting city lay unexplored outside. Mostly, though, I was sick of taking the medium as seriously as the message.

Even when I collected LPs like a madman, the seeds of my demise as a collector were already there. I never took particularly good care of my records. I'd leave them laying out for weeks at at time, somehow aesthetically titillated at the disarray. I was never that concerned with the condition they were in when I bought them. Even more telling, I couldn't give two shits about owning an original pressing of anything. I'd often trade a first press for a repress PLUS another LP (or five). To me, it was all about having as much music as I could get my hands on.

Now, via the Internet, I can get my hands on practically anything, anytime I want. If it's not available through a reputable vendor, there are blogs that offer free downloads of rare classics and other, ahem, less reputable sources. In this regard, the most ironic and beautiful use of the Internet is YouTube--particularly those clips that show some collector actually playing his own copy of a record from his collection and then posting a video of it, scratchy audio and all.

My copy of Unfun was a little scratchy. But not too bad; after all, I hadn't spun it in many years. I still listen to the album all the time, but I do it on my iPod. It's perfect: I listen to it while I'm riding the bus or waiting in line or walking around town (that is, when I don't have anything else to occupy my time). It's perfect; I could never cart my turntable around in my backpack, but now I've got an entire library of songs in my pocket, music that's effectively been liberated from those slabs of plastic that have sucked up so much of my cash, sanity, and living space over the years.

Before I sound like some grandpa gee-whizzing over all these newfangled gizmos, let me say that the profundity of this basic shift in music-listening is still more striking than most people realize, even after a bazillion blogs have been written on the subject. On a personal level, it's the reason I can now throw a baby like Unfun out with the bathwater of my erstwhile materialism. I may be in denial, but I've never considered myself a pack rat by nature, and I never understood my own impulse to horde shit--even good shit--while I ate macaroni and cheese until the next payday.

It's perverse, I realize, to write this on Record Store Day (which I am). Not only do I wish the best to all brick-and-mortar music shops, I used to work in one, and I believe they're subcultural institutions that no online store can replace. But it makes me even happier that I'm letting my records reenter circulation; not only do I sell off huge stacks of good shit to my local used-record store from time to time, I honestly, truly am thrilled at the thought of some young, starry-eyed collector--you know, like I how used to be--stumbling across some LP of her dreams because some old dude like me decided not to let his collection be pried out of his cold, dead hands.

I know this whole issue is tied into vaster issues like artists getting paid for their labor; whether analog sounds better than digital; if pressing LPs is a good use of our dwindling oil reserves; and even the very future of recorded music itself. For me, though, it's simple: The music I love has been freed from the grooves it was locked into, and now it exists--at least for me--on a purer, more ethereal plane less tainted by grabbiness and gluttony.

Even better: Now that I'm selling off my LPs, I'll have tons more room in my apartment for all these massive stacks of science-fiction books I keep buying.

An open letter to gaping assholes

2010-04-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

Dear tea party protesters,

Kindly get the fuck out of my neighborhood. I just saw one of you inbred dipshits throw a full sack of fast-food trash into a bush. And what the hell are you all doing on the RTD? Shouldn't you be boycotting the socialist public transportation system?

Signed,

Me

P.S. You know, you're really not being clever with your "OBAMA WANTS YOUR GUN!" bumper sticker. It's pretty obvious it has nothing to do with the Second Amendment and everything to do with you wanting to put a bullet in a black man.

Ink Big!

2010-04-07T13:55:00.001-07:00

I wrote the cover story in this week's issue of Westword, Denver's Village Voice paper. It's about local comic-book creators and all the rad stuff they've been up to around town (and beyond). The panels here are by Lonnie Allen, one of the main artists I interviewed for the article. He does great stuff; check it out. And, you know, support your local cartoonist and all that.

The Mistake

2010-04-07T06:54:00.001-07:00

This morning on the sidewalk near Colfax and Sherman, I looked down and saw a leaf. It was deep red, streaked with snow, its thin edges wilted and curled. I thought it was a piece of bacon.

John Lydon's calming effect on the universe

2010-04-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

My interview with John Lydon (in advance of the PiL reunion tour) is up at The A.V. Club. He starts out combative, then gets surreal, then gets approachable. Kind of like his body of work.

Writer of wrongs

2010-04-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

I think I'm finally getting over my mythical notion that writing nonfiction for a living somehow saps my fiction-writing energy. Writing is writing is writing: The more you do it, the more you do it.

Zinemakers of the world, unite and take over

2010-03-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

I've been interviewing a ton of local comics creators this week for an upcoming feature in Westword, Denver's Village Voice paper. It's reminding me just how empowering and amazing it felt the day I printed up my first minicomic, all those many years ago. Mine had shitty art, a bad attitude, and the production values of a takeout menu. But it was the tiny spark that snowballed into my current career--lord, am I really calling it that now?--and I can trace a direct line from that first crappy little zine to the work I make a living off of now. I'm the last person in the world to say DIY is the only way, but it's a great way, and I never would've gotten anywhere without it. And even if I hadn't, that raw self-expression and owning of some small fraction of the media would have alone been worth it. Hats off to all you cartoonists and zinesters out there, big and small. You rule.

Fishing (for quotes) with John

2010-03-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did a phone interview with John Lydon for The A.V. Club. I asked him about the imminent PiL reunion tour. He started talking about Alcatraz and Zen rock gardens and fixing his roof and how he likes to get drunk and listen to his own records. Awesome.

The whole experience reminded me of this American Bandstand clip, one of the weirdest, coolest moments in TV history. Best part: When Lydon gets all up in the camera and uses some nasal spray. Second best part: When Jah Wobble introduces himself as THE Jah Wobble...

Spark nearer, ultoptimate!

2010-03-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

Over at The A.V. Club we do a regular series called Better Late Than Never?, in which we examine pop-culture classics that one of us writers, for some odd reason, never got around to reading/watching/hearing. This week I take on Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and ramble on about Kubrick, punk rock, being young, getting old, and how much of a difference that controversial 21st chapter really makes.

Cheerios and Dystopia

2010-03-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about post-apocalyptic pop culture, and I remembered that Thundarr The Barbarian, one of my favorite Saturday-morning cartoons when I was a kid in the '80s, was bluntly, brutally post-apocalyptic. Between Thundarr, The Day After, and NBC version of Damnation Alley, it's no wonder I grew up obsessed with the end of the world. I also never realized that Thundarr is a weird, soupy mix of M. John Harrison's Viriconium cycle, Fred Saberhagen's Ardneh books, and (duh) Star Wars.

Batman Lambert 3: City of Lost Sidekicks

2010-03-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

It takes Batman Lambert mere seconds to prepare the child's body. Squatting atop the freshly shucked corpse, he sculpts the boy's intact epidermis into a moist, translucent nest and in it deposits the eggs that will one day boil and burst and bathe Port-au-Prince in a new architecture, a new geometry, a new life. I will rename this city Robinopolis, he vows, although he can no longer remember who or what Robin was, nor why he should care.

Fiction sale: 'The Prospect" to M-Brane

2010-02-28T14:06:00.000-08:00

M-Brane SF -- a cool, young science-fiction publication -- just accepted a story of mine titled "The Prospect" for its April issue. It's got a broken-down spaceship, a JFK video, hot shower sex, and a cadaver or two, plus nods to John Carpenter's Dark Star and Ray Bradbury's classic story, "Kaleidoscope." It also might provide a sick laugh or two to anyone who's seen a certain cheesy blockbuster starring Ben Affleck as an ersatz astronaut...

Batman Lambert 2: Mimetic Boogaloo

2010-02-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

After milking the juices from a slice of body-warmed ham and dripping them with delicate care between the upturned lips of the skeletal urchin, Batman Lambert feels the pulse of history erupt beneath his feet. It is time, he sighs, to start a new colony here. With a glittery fingernail he traces the corrugation of the suckling child's ribcage, wondering how many of his brothers and sisters might one day live there.

The Pulsating Exploits of Batman Lambert

2010-02-26T18:57:00.000-08:00

So I just started working on a short story that involves Adam Lambert parachuting into Haiti while dressed in a Batman costume made of cold cuts...

Sauntering like some Venusian insect in stack heels carved from whole skulls, Batman Lambert approaches a starving Haitian boy amid the rubble of an abattoir. He peels a piece of lunch meat from his wrist, plucks an arm hair from its sticky surface. He wrings grease from the meat as if it were a damp washcloth and asks the hollow-eyed child in a voice both dulcet and deadened, "DO YOU THIRST?"

Look for the conclusion next week -- same Bat-Lambert-time, same Bat-Lambert-channel.

More Ballard

2010-02-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

My mini-primer on J.G. Ballard for The A.V. Club's Gateways To Geekery series just went up. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, and I'm looking forward to debating the merits of my favorite writer with a few readers on the comments thread throughout the day. I also think this officially puts an end to my run of Ballard features -- four? five? -- since he died last summer. Of course, I'll never stop reading the man. Dude more or less changed my life. Or at least mutated my brain.

Ballard feature in Weird Tales

2010-02-08T03:05:00.000-08:00

This news is way late, but I thought it was worth revisiting (especially since it makes me happy as hell). I recently wrote a long and very personal tribute to the late J.G. Ballard for Weird Tales #353. An article about my favorite writer for my favorite magazine? Word. (The piece isn't available online, but copies can be bought here.

Assorted A.V. stuff

2010-02-07T04:27:00.000-08:00

So I've been mega busy lately writing for The A.V. Club. CD reviews, random ramblings about movies and books and music, etc. The list is too long to bore you with in its entirety, but here are a few highlights (says me):

A guide to Northern soul.

An interview with Finch's Jeff VanderMeer.

An interview with The Magicians' Lev Grossman.

A review of the recent Jawbox reissue.

Ska ska ska.

Why I like the Eagles. (Yes, for real.)

And coming soon: Look for a hefty primer on the dazzlingly deranged works of the late, great, J.G. Ballard; reviews of new discs by Lightspeed Champion, Xiu Xiu, Alkaline Trio, etc.; and probably some piece where I rag on indie-rock some more.

Descended from Darkness

2010-02-07T04:08:00.000-08:00

So the very first piece of science fiction I ever sold, a short story called "Behold: Skowt!" (reviewed here), was to a great publication called Apex Magazine. Not only did I make a pro-level sale my first time, I was able to spin the story off into a sequel, which was published in the prestigious (as far as I'm concerned) Sybil's Garage. Now, the folks at Apex have reprinted "Skowt" in an anthology called Descended from Darkness. Yes, it's a BOOK. A real one, with pages and papercuts and air displacement and everything. Looks damn fantastic, too -- and I share the table of contents with some of my favorite current writers of speculative fiction, including Theodora Goss and Ekaterina Sedia. DfD is available at Amazon, but if you're gracious enough to want to pick one up, you might do Apex a favor and buy one directly from their online store. They've got lots of other great books for sale, too. (If you're into the whole eBook thing, you can get it here.)

Of Onions and Inventories

2010-02-07T03:49:00.000-08:00

After three years as the editor of the Denver edition of The Onion's A.V. Club, I stepped down in June of '09 to pursue, you know, stuff. Like having a life, a negative balance in my bank account, and more time to write fiction. My old bosses, however, have graciously allowed me to continue writing for The A.V. Club on a freelance basis, for which I am perpetually grateful. And I'm even more ecstatically, convulsively grateful about being included in The A.V. Club's new Scribner book, Inventory. In it, all of us A.V. Clubbers got together and made up some pop-culture lists, kind of like how we do on www.avclub.com each week. But the book has lots of extra-special surprises -- including an introduction by Chuck Klosterman and special celebrity lists from the likes of Patton Oswalt, P.T. Anderson, Zach Galifianakis, and Weird Al Yankovic.

Yes, I have a co-author credit with Weird Al. If I could go back in time and tell my 10-year-old self about this, he'd shit bricks. As for the modern-day me, I couldn't be more stoked.

New story up at Mighty Mercury

2009-10-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

My short story "Spacesuit Day" is up at Mighty Mercury. Be warned: It's a strange one.

The MC5, Wax Trax, and me

2009-07-29T09:45:00.000-07:00

In the year 1990 a goofy little 18-year-old me went into Wax Trax Records in Denver and purchased a Headcoats LP. The man behind the counter, one Tim "Purple" Hayes, asked if I was into garage rock. He must have seen how confused I was, because he walked over to the racks, picked out the MC5's Kick Out the Jams, and forced me to buy it. It fucking changed my life. Whenever I listen to the MC5, I think of Tim. Thanks, man, wherever you are.

Catching up

2009-07-24T14:14:00.001-07:00

Wow, it's been a crazy couple months. In a nutshell:

-I quit my staff job at The Onion, Inc., in order to return to freelance writing. I'm currently contributing to The A.V. Club, Westword (Village Voice Media), Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, and whomever else will have me.

-I attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop. It kicked my ass and changed my life. More on that later.

-I went to Readercon, wound up participating in a Sybil's Garage reading (which kicked ass), and sat in on a Fantasy Magazine planning meeting (which also kicked ass). I'm still committed to writing speculative fiction, but I'm also excited to get into the nonfiction side of the genre, too.

-I'll be doing a Sybil's Garage/Brain Harvest literary reading with the awesome Vylar Kaftan at Kilgore Books on 8/15. I'll also be releasing a chapbook that night for my recent Brain Harvest story, "The Occupation of the Architect."

-The novel is going to be undertaken in earnest. Soon. It's all coming together...

-I've started DJing again, and my old '70s/'80s night, Off the Wall, will be resurrected at the Hi-Dive in Denver on Wednesday, 7/29. The basic idea: no mashups, no remixes, no irony -- a mix of '70s and '80s music that, while danceable, is like no mix you've heard before. Flipper into Journey into Eric B. and Rakim? Yeah, I go there. But it's not a joke. I love all this stuff, and I aim to make people dance to things they never knew they could dance to. (That said, I'm more than happy to throw down dancefloor staples like Michael Jackson -- in fact, my 7/29 kickoff party will be a tribute to greatness of the man, with MJ songs being played liberally throughout the night.)

-On 8/1, my old soul party Chit Chat will get a one-night revival -- me and my DJ partner Big Al will rock the back patio of the Meadowlark in Denver with vintage soul 45s under the stars. Can't wait for this.

-My band The Fire Drills is on its way back, but I've also got a new project bubbling away on the back burner. I've started jamming with my old friends Nathan Marcy (of The Risk) and Jason Begin (of Christie Front Drive, and my old bandmate in The Blue Ontario). It's really fun so far -- scrappy, old-school indie rock in the vein of Archers of Loaf and Lync. Can't wait to get this rolling. But mostly I just love making some noise with two of my favorite musicians (and two of my favorite people).

Whew. Yeah. Lots of craziness. More updates coming soon.

David Eddings appreciation up at Fantasy Magazine

2009-06-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Magazine just posted my appreciation of the late David Eddings. I know it may not be particularly hip or edgy to profess one's undying admiration for Eddings' books. But I can't deny the fact that he had a deep and profound influence on me at an early age. And he still inspires me; I can only hope that I someday write novels that touch people the way his touched me. Rest in peace, David, and thanks.

Live on Brain Harvest: "The Occupation of the Architect"

2009-05-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

I love Brain Harvest. Here's why:

1. Their flash-fiction format makes for a clear, clean layout with maximum exposure and impact for the stories they publish.

2. The stories they publish totally ROCK. Cross-genre, crazy-ass, visceral shit with no patience for stodgy tradition or cliche. It's exactly what the world of speculative fiction needs right now. A personal favorite lately: an amazingly weird story titled "Newsmaker 2049: An Interview with Rockin’ Killbot" by Van Choojitarom.

3. They just published a story of mine, "The Occupation of the Architect"!

And to top it all off: They pay good money for the stories they publish. Granted, I'm just happy to be keeping such great company. But it's nice to feel appreciated (and amply rewarded) for the work you do.

Go, Brain Harvest, go!

New sale, new publication

2009-05-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Kaleidotrope just bought my short story "Like a Cannonball" (yes, that's a Van Morrison reference) for an upcoming issue. This is my second sale (first fiction -- last one was poetry) to the magazine. Rad.

In other news, my short story "The Raincaller" is in the brand-spankin'-new issue 6 of the prestigious and amazing Sybil's Garage. Fuck. Yes. (P.S. This is the sequel to my Apex Magazine story "Behold: Skowt!" from last year.)

Sold: "The Name of Calvin" to New Myths

2009-05-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

I just made my twelfth short fiction sale -- a folk tale called "The Name of Calvin." It'll by published by New Myths on June 1. So glad this one got picked up... It's an odd little story written in a weird frame of mind after digesting too much Italo Calvino one evening (hence the title). Woohoo! The bad news is, I'm down to just five finished stories that I'm shopping around right now. A couple more are very close to being done, but I'd better get on them shits, pronto.

Ballard blog up at Fantasy Magazine

2009-05-02T07:49:00.001-07:00

The fine folks over at the fantastic Fantasy Magazine just posted my blog about the late J.G. Ballard. I've got something a lot lengthier in the works that ties together the hallucinogenic and magic-realist facets of Ballard's fiction (two elements I feel are often overlooked in favor of his more obvious social criticism/commentary). In short: Ballard the provocateur has always overshadowed Ballard the prose stylist. And that's a shame. I'll post something here when the longer essay is ready to run; until then, read some damn Ballard. Discover him. Rediscover him. Just get ready to meld brain matter (and muscle tissue and precious bodily fluids and a few other things I probably shouldn't mention here) with one of the 20th century's unique and most uncompromising madmen/geniuses.

"Behold: Skowt!" to appear in Apex anthology!

2009-04-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, I can't believe it: My short story "Behold: Skowt!", which was my first-ever sale (and a pro-rate sale, at that), is being reprinted in the upcoming Apex Magazine anthology Descended from Darkness. The book is due in December. Pinch me.

"A Voice Not Her Own" in Kaleidotrope #6

2009-04-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

A poem I wrote a while back, "A Voice Not Her Own," has just been published (in print, no less!) in issue 6 of the cool speculative fiction zine Kaleidotrope. What's it about? Pink Floyd and a ghost in a jukebox, of course.

A weekend that didn't suck

2009-04-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

Spurred, I'm sure, by the below-mentioned acceptance of one of my stories to Brain Harvest -- not to mention a writing challenge between myself and my fellow Codex member Jay Ridler -- I actually got some shit done this weekend. First I wrote a 3400-word draft of a short story titled "A Kiss for Krin." Ridler and I had challenged each other to write one hard SF story and one high fantasy story in two weeks' time, in an effort to launch ourselves (at least temporarily) out of the dusty, weird, slipstream ruts we'd dug for ourselves lately. Sometimes, when trying to write this edgy, interstitial, genre-smearing type of stuff, it's easy to forget where you came from: aliens, spaceships, wizards, and swords.

I had no idea what I was going to do for this weekend's fantasy story, but I did have a character in mind: a down-on-his luck assassin named Pinchbeck the Poisoner. The story I wrote around him came pouring out of my head in about five or six hours, and I think it might actually turn out decent upon revision. Total Robert E. Howard/Michael Moorcock/Fritz Leiber type of stuff, with a bit of M. John Harrison's Viriconium and KJ Bishop's The Etched City throw in (hey, there had to be SOME weirdness to it). I had a fucking blast writing it. I just put my head down, took aim at the screen, and went for broke.

Riding on that wave of momentum, I jumped back into a story I'd been tinkering with for a few weeks: "Octopus Factory Galaxy." It's one of those fuzzier slipstream type of things; set in 1913, it's the tale a blind man who's recently regained his site thanks to an experimental medical procedure. He slowly begins to realize, though, that his doctor has other motives for curing him after his new eyes start taking on a life of their own. I've been reading a lot of Thomas Ligotti lately, and there's definitely some of that in there -- not to mention a shout out to my boy, Giambattista Vico. And, of course, J.G. Ballard had an unwitting hand in the midwifery, as he does with most stories I write. Anyway, I finally nailed the two halves of the story together and sent it out to the slush pile! Fingers crossed.

Sale: "The Occupation of the Architect" to Brain Harvest

2009-04-17T07:57:00.001-07:00

I just made my eleventh fiction sale since starting this crazy endeavor almost a year and a half ago. The great new speculative-fiction site Brain Harvest just accepted my story "The Occupation of the Architect" (and yes, that title is another one of my odd little double entendres). It's about a city whose buildings come to life one day and demand a moral and aesthetic accounting from their architect. Then they puke and kill people. It's supposed to be published toward the end of May. I'm stoked! Brain Harvest = warped and edgy and weird, just how I like it.

Live on Atomjack: "Julie, Spirit of Laws"

2009-04-13T11:44:00.001-07:00

My story "Julie, Spirit of Laws" is now live on the speculative fiction site Atomjack. This story tied for third place in Apex Magazine's Election Horror Contest last November, which was judged by the pretty damn awesome Jay Lake. It's kinda silly, perhaps disturbing, shamelessly pseudo-intellectual, and taps into the election elation/anxiety I was having throughout 2008. Also: It has a fistfight with a talking ostrich.

New story up at Farrago's Wainscot

2009-04-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

My new, strange, fragmented, and maybe even a bit confusing story "Seven Men (in Various States of Fabrication)" is up at the excellent avant-spec-fic site Farrago's Wainscot. Watch out for that self-deprecating meta-punchline. Zing!

Live on Everyday Weirdness: "Transparenting"

2009-03-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

Crap, I almost forgot about this: My poem "Transparenting" is up on Everyday Weirdness. I don't see a permalink anywhere, so if you click on this link after 3/18 you'll probably see someone else's story! And that will ruin your whole day, I just know it.

UPDATE: Okay, I applied a little deductive reasoning and came up with the permalink. The world may now rest easy.

Ten is a magic number

2009-03-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

I just realized I made my tenth fiction sale. I've been writing the stuff for about 15 months now, and I made my first submission on June 2, 2008. Not bad for a newbie! Here's the list as it stands as of today:

"Behold: Skowt!": Apex Magazine, published 11/08

"The People Fever": Expanded Horizons, published 12/08

"The Astonishing New Adventures of Free Hot Boy Aboard the Slaveship to Venus": Pear Noir!, published 2/09

"Transparenting" (poem): Everyday Weirdness, forthcoming

"The Raincaller": Sybil's Garage, forthcoming

"Seven Men (in Various States of Fabrication)": Farrago's Wainscot, forthcoming

"A Voice Not Her Own" (poem): Kaleidotrope, forthcoming

"The Crackerjack Kids": M-Brane SF, forthcoming

"Julie, Spirit of Laws": Atomjack, forthcoming

"The Saint of the Moon": Aoife's Kiss, forthcoming

I've still got a handful of stories making the slush-pile rounds--and while my output in '09 has been s-l-o-w, I'll have two more stories finished by the end of this month. Fingers crossed on that shit.

Sale: "Julie, Spirit of Laws" to Atomjack

2009-03-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

The online SF magazine Atomjack just accepted my story "Julie, Spirit of Laws." This piece came in third place (tied with one written by my fellow Codex member Erin Cashier) in an "election horror" contest put on by Apex and judged by Jay Lake last November -- which won me a free book but no publication. I've had a hell of a time selling it since then. So glad it's gonna find a home! Plus: "Atom Jack" is the name of my favorite Drive Like Jehu song, so that's kinda cool, too.

Sale: "Transparenting" to Everyday Weirdness

2009-03-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

My poem "Transparenting" -- which is about a single mom who wakes up one day with the power to turn invisible -- was just accepted by Everyday Weirdness. It'll appear there on March 18. Sweet.

Meet the new blog, same as the old blog

2009-02-26T16:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry to pull the plug on my old blog, Puzzled Panther. It was actually, um, kind of an accident. Oh, well. In any case, here's where things stand with my writing at the moment, because I'm sure you're very curious: In the last six weeks I've sold four short stories (to Sybil's Garage, Farrago's Wainscot, Aoife's Kiss, and M-Brane SF). I've also been accepted into this summer's Odyssey Workshop for speculative fiction in New Hampshire, and I cannot fucking wait. I'm currently finishing up one bitch of a short story, "The Rise and Fall of Old Lady Coleridge and the Thirteenth Flight of Stairs," a piece that's undergone endless revisions over the past three months. Also: I think I have rabies. Stay back.