"If forever gets lonely, take my hand."
An odd day. Not unpleasant, just...odd. The weather was great, sunny and a high of 86˚F; currently, it's 83˚F. (And if you ever wonder about such things, my ideal temperature range is low to mid eighties Fahrenheit.)
I was not unproductive. I just was not as productive as I wanted to be. I edited the introduction for Vile Affections and sent it to Subterranean Press. That part was easy. But then I turned my attention to the task of assembling the manuscript for the 20th anniversary reprint of From Weird and Distant Shores, and that was not easy (and yes, indeed, next year is the twentieth anniversary, if you can believe that; I can't). Mostly it's a problem because the contents are among my earlier stories, and the computer files are old MS Word files, going all the way back to 1993. I can open them, using the "Recover Text from Any File" option (thank fuck), but some of the formatting gets lost and has to be input manually (italics, for example). But the original manuscripts and page proofs and hard-copy story files for all these tales are at the John Hay Library at Brown University, in my archived papers, so all to work from are those original electronic files and the printed 2002 version of the book. Fortunately, I also have Spooky to help me. By the way, this will mark the first time in twenty years that six of these stories have been reprinted anywhere. Here's the Table of Contents, for them who care. Material that have not appeared anywhere in print since the original edition of From Weird and Distant Shores are followed by a † symbol.
Prologue - "Playing God in Other People's Sandboxes" †
"Escape Artist" †
"The Comedy of St. Jehanne d'Arc" †
"Stoker's Mistress" †
"Emptiness Spoke Eloquent"
"Giants in the Earth"
"Two Worlds, and in Between"
"The King of Birds" †
"By Turns" †
"Persephone"
"Between the Flatirons and the Deep Green Sea"
"Hoar Isis"
"Night Story 1973" (with Billy Martin as Poppy Z. Brite)
There will be a couple of extra pieces in the lettered edition, and I hope to write a very short preface. Sadly, the book will not include the gorgeous illustrations that Richard Kirk did for the book in 2001, as all the original art long ago sold to collectors and there are no scans good enough to use for print. There will, however, be new illustrations by another artist (TBA). Bob Eggleton is returning as cover artist, but different art than the original cover. My intent is to have the first draft of this new manuscript nailed together are ready to send to SubPress before my birthday on Wednesday (a damn dumb day for a birthday).
Anyway, I did get a little work done on Winifred and a tiny bit on one of the seven Pleistocene cave samples.
I have mentioned how much I like Lord Huron's new album, Long Lost, and how you lot need to hear it?
Surprise! The last episode of The Nevers is kind of fucking awesome. It's worth watching everything that comes before just to get to that end. And it left me really wanting Season Two, which I hear will have a different show runner than Joss Whedon.
I leave you with this photo Spooky took last night in her room. My kid sister gave her that kinky lobstah puzzle for Xmas 2019, but she only just got to it. That's Chris Ewen (Future Bible Heroes) DJing on the iPad. She says he was spinning the Sisters of Mercy's "Marian" was when she snapped the shot.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast
8:56 p.m. (last night)
I was not unproductive. I just was not as productive as I wanted to be. I edited the introduction for Vile Affections and sent it to Subterranean Press. That part was easy. But then I turned my attention to the task of assembling the manuscript for the 20th anniversary reprint of From Weird and Distant Shores, and that was not easy (and yes, indeed, next year is the twentieth anniversary, if you can believe that; I can't). Mostly it's a problem because the contents are among my earlier stories, and the computer files are old MS Word files, going all the way back to 1993. I can open them, using the "Recover Text from Any File" option (thank fuck), but some of the formatting gets lost and has to be input manually (italics, for example). But the original manuscripts and page proofs and hard-copy story files for all these tales are at the John Hay Library at Brown University, in my archived papers, so all to work from are those original electronic files and the printed 2002 version of the book. Fortunately, I also have Spooky to help me. By the way, this will mark the first time in twenty years that six of these stories have been reprinted anywhere. Here's the Table of Contents, for them who care. Material that have not appeared anywhere in print since the original edition of From Weird and Distant Shores are followed by a † symbol.
Prologue - "Playing God in Other People's Sandboxes" †
"Escape Artist" †
"The Comedy of St. Jehanne d'Arc" †
"Stoker's Mistress" †
"Emptiness Spoke Eloquent"
"Giants in the Earth"
"Two Worlds, and in Between"
"The King of Birds" †
"By Turns" †
"Persephone"
"Between the Flatirons and the Deep Green Sea"
"Hoar Isis"
"Night Story 1973" (with Billy Martin as Poppy Z. Brite)
There will be a couple of extra pieces in the lettered edition, and I hope to write a very short preface. Sadly, the book will not include the gorgeous illustrations that Richard Kirk did for the book in 2001, as all the original art long ago sold to collectors and there are no scans good enough to use for print. There will, however, be new illustrations by another artist (TBA). Bob Eggleton is returning as cover artist, but different art than the original cover. My intent is to have the first draft of this new manuscript nailed together are ready to send to SubPress before my birthday on Wednesday (a damn dumb day for a birthday).
Anyway, I did get a little work done on Winifred and a tiny bit on one of the seven Pleistocene cave samples.
I have mentioned how much I like Lord Huron's new album, Long Lost, and how you lot need to hear it?
Surprise! The last episode of The Nevers is kind of fucking awesome. It's worth watching everything that comes before just to get to that end. And it left me really wanting Season Two, which I hear will have a different show runner than Joss Whedon.
I leave you with this photo Spooky took last night in her room. My kid sister gave her that kinky lobstah puzzle for Xmas 2019, but she only just got to it. That's Chris Ewen (Future Bible Heroes) DJing on the iPad. She says he was spinning the Sisters of Mercy's "Marian" was when she snapped the shot.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast
8:56 p.m. (last night)