Angry Robot seeks unagented YA MSS for friendship, possible publication.

If you’re sitting on a finished YA novel manuscript of the SF or Fantasy flavor, Angry Robot’s imprint Strange Chemistry wants to see it.  Until the end of April, that is.  That’s a two-week window–long enough to hammer out your 60,000 word draft and send it in?  Probably not.  But if you’ve already got one on the go, it don’t hurt to try.

Angry Robot has some really good cover art going on, by the way.  A few of my favorites:

One Story

The new One Story came in the mail yesterday, with Alethea Black‘s “You, on a Good Day.”  It includes the sentence,

On this day, you wake up and remember the sight of your four-year-old nephew aiming all of his fire trucks at the television during the coverage of the California wildfires because he wanted to help.

It’s a great story.  And a good sentence for a day like today.

Let’s help PANK raise money!

Just a quick note for a Friday afternoon:  literary journal, collective, cabal, or whatchamacallit PANK is raising some funds.  Their goal is a cool $4K, and they’re about a quarter of the way there.  If you like free online stories, essays, and poems by interesting people, about interesting things, perhaps you’ll toss a few bucks in their kitty.

Look, here’s a link to their Crime Issue, which has a story by Chris Offutt.

Look, here’s a story by Rachel Swirsky.

And look, here’s a whole issue called Science and Fiction.

Also, I recently invited myself awkwardly into a green room kind of thing with Roxane Gay, one of the PANK editors, and she was beyond gracious and sweet.  I had no place in that room, is what I’m saying.  But I went in anyway, to say hello to her.  And she had no problem with that.

Donate!  And read!

 

 

 

Innsmouth Free Press issues 1-4 free for Kindle

…for a little while, at least.  Grab the collection here.

LOVE that cover.

To Logger or Loggernaut

The hosts of the awesome Loggernaut reading series have most graciously asked me to join in at their next event, this Wednesday at 7:30 pm at Ristretto Roasters (3808 N Williams, PDX OR).  The line-up is Michele Glazer, Leni Zumas, and me.  Needless to say, I’m a little overawed.  The theme for the night is “Lost,” which is maybe a good description of what I will be?

I have no good image for this post.

 

Eighteen things I thought about the Hunger Games movie, in order of thinking them.

Spoilers!  Maybe!  I don’t know!

1. I hope this movie is good.  I mean, I hope it’s not boring or embarrassing or anything.  Whatever, it’s at the local, we’re going.
2. There are more people in this theater than I’ve seen in this theater since…well, ever.  Also, that dude just yelled something at one of the trailers.  This is going to be like that time I saw Species on opening night at Lincoln Center, isn’t it?  All riiiiiiight.
3. That’s the wrong font.  (Actually, wife said this.  But she was right.)
4. Jennifer Lawrence is sort of awesome.  White, but awesome.  I wonder if they skewed District Twelve Appalachian because of her Winter’s Bone associations.  I’m probably overthinking.
5. Elizabeth Banks WHOAH.
6. I am loving the utilitarian survival clothes.  Chambray and leather!  I am also seeing plenty of these clothes on Pinterest already, as well as lots of Katniss braids.  I am wondering if I can rock that.  I am thinking I will try.
7. Hi, Woody!  I remember when you were the goofy kid on Cheers!  Now you’re the alcoholic shell of a former champion, embittered by the hypocritical excesses of the society that surrounds you!  Strangely, you’re also likable and funny.  And you can punch people with your feet.
8. Dammit, Lenny Kravitz, stop winning me over!  With your flawless gold eyeliner and awesome hair and your free and easy affection.  You are a clever counterpoint to Katniss’s otherwise fraught relationships with menfolk.  Which are the least interesting things in this story, for me.
9. Those are some realistic wounds, for once.  Yiiikes.
10. That Rue kid is pretty clean, for someone who’s been living in the trees for three days.  She’s also, apparently, magical.  Suzanne, I know you had good intentions and you didn’t even really make Katniss white…but isn’t it lame how this stuff always seems to play out?
11. I am just now realizing that I don’t actually remember how this thing ends.
12. Man, that is a lot of dead kids.
13. Peeta, that is some Bob Ross-caliber work on your rock-and-bark disguise.  Decorated some cakes, my ass!  You are an ARTIST.
14. It strikes me as slightly hand-wavy to say that a dictatorship willing to publicly murder innocent children in an eternal punishment cycle would allow itself to be undermined by a spontaneous Romeo-and-Juliet plot by a couple of seventeen year-old upstarts.  Just sayin’.  Please don’t stone me.
15. Lucien’s beard cracks me up.  I find myself wondering what kind of tiny shaving tools were necessary to accomplish the effect.
16. Re: Muttants, I think they did the best they could, given where we are with CGI budgets these days.  They reminded me of the Rat Things from Snow Crash.  Sad, pit-bully constructs.
17. That dress they put Katniss in, in the final interview.  HORRIBLE.  I know, it’s supposed to be.  But still.  MY EYES MY EYES.
18. I wonder how they’re going to end this…oh.  It ended.

Mostly, I thought it was better than I expected it to be.  And I thought Suzanne Collins must be a pretty happy woman.  Not just because of the crazy enthusiasm of the fans and the huge success of the books, but because how amazing must it be, to see your book made into a movie?  Even more, to see it made into a pretty good movie, pretty true to your vision, with actual actors and a promotion budget?  It must feel sort of like winning the Hunger Games.