Category Archives: Blog

Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 Now Out!

By | |
Comments Off on Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 Now Out!

Happy June! A little flummoxed that May is already over, but to temper that, I saw that The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 anthology is now officially out. Can’t wait to get my contrib. copy!

With this inaugural volume at Tor, the annual Nebula Award collection is reborn as a fiction-only anthology. This collection of nominees for 2010’s Nebula Awards includes all of the prior year’s most celebrated stories…2009’s award winners, announced in May 2010, include Kage Baker’s novella “The Women of Nell Gwynne’s,” Eugie Foster’s novelette “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast,” Kij Johnson’s short story “Spar,” plus Paolo Bacigalupi’s novelette, “The Gambler.” Continue reading →

Outlantacon, Sale to Women Writing the Weird anthology, and Aurora Ballot

By | |
1 Comment

Outlantacon was, as always, a  fabulous time. Met Amber Benson, who is a complete sweetheart, and managed to not dissolve into utter fangirl incoherence. Got to meet in actual person—not just pixels—JoSelle Vanderhooft; finally got to hang with the lovely and talented Shae Connor, who helps keep me sane at Dragon*Con with her invaluable assistance on the Daily Dragon but who I never get to see elsewhere; and even managed to exchange sallies with Steve Berman, who I haven’t talked to in years. Also caught up with Lee Martindale and Davey Beauchamp, as well as all the many other convention-family-types who, despite my best intentions otherwise, I only seem to encounter at these sorts of events.

An excellent reminder that there’s much to commend in having a low-key, laid-back convention schedule.

Other good weekendness:
• Sold a reprint of one of my favorite stories, “The Bunny of Vengeance and the Bear of Death,” to Deb Hoag’s Women Writing the Weird anthology.
• The 2011 Prix Aurora Awards final ballot has been announced, with two major squeeworthy nominees:

The Aurora is presented by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, nominated and voted on by attendees of the annual Canvention convention. *squee squee squee*

OutlantaCon/Gaylaxicon 2011 Schedule

By | |
6 Comments

I’ll be a guest again this year at OutlantaCon, which is this weekend. (Gah! How did it get to be mid-May already?) Got my schedule this morning from the convention folks, and I’m only doing one panel:

  • “Marketing and Publicity” – A look at how to make the public aware of your work and create an audience. With Keith Hartman. Sun (5/15) 11AM-Noon, Centennial III.

The programming director originally had me doing a solo panel/Q&A, but I bowed out of it. I hate those. Public speaking trepidation and anxiety notwithstanding, I never know what to say or do when it’s just me up there. Plus I can’t imagine why anyone would come specifically to see me mumble and fidget for an hour. So this will be a nice, low-key convention for me. Looking forward to some good ole-fashioned hanging out.

Hope to see folks there!
Continue reading →

When the Cosmos Drops Anvil-sized Hints, I Do Yoga

By | |
Comments Off on When the Cosmos Drops Anvil-sized Hints, I Do Yoga

I’m not one to scan the skies for mystical planetary alignments or scour my daily horoscope for helpful hints or seek out signs and portents in my everyday life; however, I think the cosmos wants me to resume my long-neglected yoga practice. Yes, the bathroom scale has been mercilessly mocking me for a while now, and I’ve noted how ascending the three flights of stairs to my office always makes me out of breath these days. But I normally just put from mind such human suit issues, because that’s really not where my priorities lay.

But, due to an odd confluence of events, I’ve had yoga at the forefront of my consciousness:

  • At my dentist appointment, my dental hygienist strikes up a (mostly one-sided) conversation about his daughter starting a yoga class and wanting him to join in, with him being dubious about it being a beneficial form of exercise and not some flaky new age pastime. I felt compelled (after rinsing) to chime in my endorsement of it which dovetails into a discussion of stress, teeth grinding, and relaxation techniques. It seems I’ve begun grinding my teeth. Minor now, but not healthy, and indicative of possible underlying stress issues.
  • While I habitually gate out superfluous auditory stimuli, a radio ad espousing the virtues of exercise, particularly yoga, in combating various and sundry health issues, including stress, catches and keeps my attention during my morning commute.
  • And the clincher, as I’m musing on stress and teeth grinding—and that I’ve written less than 1,000 words since the legislative session ended—I get an email at work about a weekly yoga class for state employees starting up right here at the capitol in June. After a bit of waffling, I email a “sign me up” confirmation. I mean, it simply can’t get any more convenient than yoga at my workplace. I won’t even have to set foot outside the building to attend.

    Then, after three weeks of unproductive writerly floundering, the words, they come, as I’m galvanized to write a training scene for Dragon Queller.

Okay, I get it already. The cosmos has spoken. Yoga good. Ohhhmmmm.

Short Story Sale to Daily Science Fiction: Requiem Duet, Concerto for Flute and Voodoo

By | |
4 Comments

Just got an email from the editors of Daily Science Fiction letting me know that they’d like to buy my short story, “Requiem Duet, Concerto for Flute and Voodoo.” This is my first sale to these folks, but I’ve been impressed for some time by the quality of the fiction they’ve published. Yay!

New Favorite Apps: Part 3 – Most Fun Apps Redux

By | |
1 Comment

As I promised yesterday, herein my three new favorite Most Fun Apps:

  1. 2player DLNA Music Player – A music player that acts as a remote control for DLNA and UPnP devices on your home network. I can play music from my Droid on our home entertainment system, stream music from our media server to play on my Droid, and play music from my wireless data station on either my Droid or our home entertainment system. All controlled, wirelessly, by my Droid.

    OMG, geekgirl rapture. It’s so shiny!

  2. Moboplayer – An awesome video player that can handle MKV, MPV, MOV, and a bunch of other formats without conversion. I can finally watch subtitled .MKV anime episodes on my Droid!
  3. TuneIn Radio Pro – Browse and listen to radio broadcasts: live, local, and global. NPR on my Droid. Sweet!

    This was another Amazon Appstore freebie, but I believe the only difference between the pay and free version is that the free one has ads.

New Favorite Apps: Part 2 – Most Useful Apps Redux

By | |
Comments Off on New Favorite Apps: Part 2 – Most Useful Apps Redux

Continuing my new favorite apps list from yesterday, here’s three new Most Useful Apps:

  1. Fancy Widget Pro – A slick, highly customizable clock and weather widget with configurable tap actions and tons and tons of skins. As I mentioned yesterday, I got the paid version for free from the Amazon Appstore, but the free version looks to have most of the main features the pro version offers.
  2. Jorte – A really slick calendar/personal organizer app with lotso customization options. Easy to use, syncs to your Google calendar, and has a number of really nice and attractive widget options.
  3. Quick Settings – This app lets you quickly toggle and change common Android settings like GPS, wifi, bluetooth, volume, brightness, ringer, and screen timeout within another app via the status bar or a long press of the search key. It also displays memory use, battery consumption, and has a flashlight toggle.

    Ever turned on Navigation to get turn-by-turn directions and realized you’d forgotten to turn on the GPS receiver? Or wanted to download something and realized wifi wasn’t enabled? Or been in the middle of explaining some Android workings to your significant other and your screen keeps timing out? You don’t have to sigh and bring up your home screen toggle (or worse, go through Settings), before returning to your app. With Quick Settings, you can change fundamental Android settings without leaving your app. Once you try Quick Settings, you’ll boggle that you ever managed without it.

    Screenshots:

Continue reading →

New Droid in the Family. New Favorite Apps: Part 1

By | |
9 Comments

So the hubby finally relegated his stupidphone to its rightful place in the refuse bin and upgraded to a smartphone: a shiny, new Droid X. We are an Android family.

Been showing him the Android ropes and suggesting apps for him to try and, in the process, have discovered several new fabulous apps. So I figured it was time to update my list of best Android apps.

New Most Essential Apps:

  1. Amazon Appstore – This app lets you download and install apps from Amazon.com’s Android app marketplace. And to entice folks to use their appstore instead of the Android Market, Amazon is offering a different free paid app every day. Of note, once you “buy” a promo free-paid app, it remains in your app list even if you uninstall it, so you can re-install it whenever you like without having to pay for it. To date, the apps I’ve snagged include Weatherbug Elite, Fancy Widget Pro, TuneIn Radio Pro, PhotoVault, Trillian, and WolframAlpha—several of which made my new Top Apps listing. Definitely worth the download.
  2. Go Launcher Ex – After discovering LauncherPro, I thought I’d found my eternal home screen replacement app. But this baby converted me, and I am now a devotee of Go Launcher Ex. In addition to all (or most of) the awesome features that LauncherPro offers, Go Launcher Ex also provides an overhauled app drawer with a tabbed interface which you can create folders inside of, view a recently used app history, as well as uninstall, lock, and kill apps within. Due to Go Launcher Ex’s additional app organization options, I’ve dropped the number of home screens I was using from four to two. Yowza. Continue reading →

Balloon Animal Protagonist: The Life and Times of Penguin

By | |
1 Comment

A couple folks have asked me about an off-the-cuff remark I made at JordanCon at one of my panels. The question had to do with the gender of the protagonists I write, and I replied that I’ve written all manner of protagonists in my stories, including a balloon animal.

Nope, I wasn’t exaggerating. I have indeed written a balloon animal story, “The Life and Times of Penguin,” originally published in issue #18 of the Aussie ‘zine Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and reprinted in Farrago’s Wainscot, Escape Pod, and the anthology Triangulation: Taking Flight. It was actually my homage to Voltaire’s Candide.

Curious? You can read it for free at Farrago’s Wainscot or listen to the Escape Pod podcast.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy and End of an Aeon

By | |
3 Comments

In a perverse display of self-fulfilling prophecy, thus far during this lovely, quiet, stress-free first week post-legislative session 2011, I have written exactly two new words. Two.

Okay, okay, that’s net, not gross, as in I was doing an editing pass on a couple chapters and so that figure includes tweaking, cutting, rewriting, and polishing. But it’s still a far cry from “productive” and makes me want to slap myself in the face and yell, “Just get off your ass and write, you slacker!” Which would probably disconcert my co-editors.

Or I could give a gun to my muse a la this utterly apropos comic from Jim C. Hines. Just what my crack-whore-trollop of a muse needs: a firearm.

In other news, the long-awaited End of an Aeon anthology with my “Black Swan, White Swan” in it is back on track, slated to come out in July. I really like this story—inspired by one of my favorite ballets, Swan Lake—and I was worried that it seemed to be caught in some sort of publishing limbo hell. I sold it to Aeon in early 2008, then the magazine closed down but planned to release the last of its inventory as this anthology, which has subsequently been plagued by computer issues and other slowdowns. (Of note, this is not, by far, the longest lead time I’ve experienced, which is why I wasn’t actively stewing or fretting about it.) So I was greatly relieved to hear from Patrick Swenson, publisher of Fairwood Press, letting me know to expect page proofs soon and with a concrete release date. He also mentioned that it will be released as both a trade paperback and an ebook (in multiple formats). Hurray!

Shiny cover:
Continue reading →