Deadlines are kicking my butt, so this space will be quiet until Monday. (I will be on facebook for fun, though.)

In the meantime, tell me what you’ve been up to.

What’ve I learned the last couple of weeks?

—We need more, and more varied, best-of and reprint anthologies, with as much difference of approach in them as possible–not fewer. These are the arks of our common reading culture and outlive the magazines they often cull from. Without past anthos, the book of the weird would be impossible. Even with the internet, these anthos are crucial. The fewer we have, the more of an oligarchy of taste, and the more good work we consign to history’s dustbin.

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Yes, it’s been pretty quiet here. It may continue to be sporadic the rest of this month as I work on various deadlines.

BUT Jeremy L.C. Jones has been collecting writing advice from a variety of sources. Go check it out. The great thing about writing advice? A writer benefits from taking advice, yes, but also from analyzing and then rejecting advice that doesn’t work for them. So you win either way.

My blurb for Brian Evenson’s latest, and the initial description, with cover.

“Immobility is a shock to the system. It makes you wonder why you ever read any other noir. The style is brilliant, becoming strangely less concrete the more we find out, as if the words are somehow disintegrating with the character. The inversion by novel’s end, the so-called twist, is perhaps the most perfect and natural I’ve ever read—so good that no matter how hard you try to figure it out ahead of time, you’ll fail. Immobility confirms Evenson’s ability to colonize your brain much like the best visionaries, from J.G. Ballard on down.”

The Hugo nominations are out, and my wife Ann and Stephen Segal are up for Weird Tales again. Congrats to all of the nominees.

Because I’m just that fast, there’s an Omnivoracious feature up already with an interview with novel finalist Catherynne M. Valente.

(Ann’s on facebook–go give her some luv!)

(My crappy photo of the totally awesome ARCs for the British Commonwealth edition of Finch.)

Ann and I have had to deep-six the European travel this summer because of book deadlines, but we’re still going to have a pretty active year. In addition to teaching at Clarion San Diego and Shared Worlds, which will include readings, you can find one or both of us at these events (details listed in the sidebar):

- University of Central Florida Literary Festival, April 16-17, Orlando (Ann and I are both guests, participating on panels)

- Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century conference, May 22-23 (I’ll be one of the keynote speakers and Ann and I will run a workshop, etc.)

- Comic Con, July 22-24, San Diego (Ann and I are both special guests of the con)

- James River Writers’ Conference, Oct. 9-10, Richmond (I’ll be one of the featured guests)

- Capclave, Oct. 22-24 (Ann and I are two of the guests of honor)

This is a pretty light schedule for us, but considering I was on the road about 12 weeks last year, total, let’s consider that a blessing.

In other news, the audio rights to Finch have sold to Audible.com and we will soon be able to announce a couple of anthology sales and foreign rights sales.

Ann and I are guests of honor at Capclave this year, along with Connie Willis. More information when I have it.

I’m a featured guest speaker for the James River Writers’ Conference in October. I’m very much looking forward to a return to Richmond.

I will be teaching at Shared Worlds, Wofford College, this week. That will no doubt include a reading with Kathe Koja, among others.

Ann and I will be reading at Mysterious Galaxy in the evening. More information when I have it. This may be the first time Ann and I have read together!

Ann and I are guests of Comic Con this year and will be participating on panels, among other events. More information when it becomes available.