I’m really thrilled that a fairly self-contained portion of the beginning of my novel-in-progress Borne is appearing in the just-released latest issue of Steve Erickson’s awesome magazine Black Clock. I’m even more thrilled to find out the loose theme: “Both in its contributors and subject matter, this new Black Clock finds women on the verge: of revelation, euphoria, madness and history.” And further thrilled to see that my friend the dynamic and awesome Katherine Min is included in this issue. I’m also very much looking forward to reading the work of the other contributors, including Sarah Vap, Jazmin Aminian Jordan, Geoff Dyer, Marisa Crawford, Kate Wolf, Rick Moody, Scott Bradfield, Samantha Cohen, and more.

You can buy the magazine here, and I highly recommend that you do. (Also, Borne the novel won’t be finished until December, and might not be published for another year, so…)

Below you’ll find a short teaser from the section of Borne running in Black Clock. It’s set in a somewhat Kafkaesque ruined, nameless city after a partial Collapse. An anonymous Company still creates bioneered creatures and sends them to places not yet Collapsed. Mord, a giant bear who used to be human, terrorizes the city. The main character came from far away—in my mind she’s Fijian, but that isn’t specified on the page.

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We had a busy weekend, bouncing back and forth between DragonCon and the Decatur Book Festival. DragonCon was fun although chaotic and hectic, and the Decatur Book Festival was an absolute delight. One of the best-run, best-thought-out book festivals we’ve encountered. Great staff, great organization, imaginative panels, engaged readers attending, and they took good care of us. We’d go back in a heartbeat—might even just drive up to take it in as a reader, too.

However, one consequence of the double-booking—something that happens fairly regularly with Decatur/DragonCon–we were unable to attend the autograph session following Ann and my participation on the Pairs with Pens panel, as I had to rush across town for my DragonCon reading.

As a result, we left some readers in the lurch, something that has never happened in twenty years of signing books. We’re abjectly sorry for this turn of events and would like to say that if you were seeking our signatures on books at the Decatur Book Festival, please send us said books to POB 4248, Tallahassee, FL 32315 with instructions on how you want them personalized and we’ll absorb the shipping costs to send them back to you. In addition, I know we hurriedly signed but did not personalize a few books as we got into the taxi. If you want these fully personalized to you, you can send them as well.

Further, if you want additional copies of the Lambshead Cabinet or Steampunk Bible sent to friends or family, we’ll give them to you at cover price, shipping free. Just email us at vanderworld at hotmail.com for this offer.

Again, we highly recommend the Decatur Book Festival—a wonderful event.

Right. So. We’re double-booked for the Decatur Book Festival and DragonCon. Below find our full schedule. It’s a rather insane back-and-forth on Saturday. I don’t really know how it’s going to pan out. If you’re going to be at either and want to meet, it’s best to come to one of the events, especially one where we or I clearly have nothing happening right afterwards, according to the schedule below. Otherwise, I will be shoving you out of the way to get to the exit to run to the next event… :)

I will be updating on facebook as the weekend progresses, and you can always shoot me a facebook message during the weekend as I get that directly on my phone instantaneously.

Some events Ann and I are doing separately, as indicated. The DragonCon panels have other panelists, but you’ll have to look in the program book for them.

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