Category: articles
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Spotify Earnings VS. 45-RPM vinyl singles in 1967
Working through dad’s estate has made me radically reevaluate Spotify earnings compared to the last 50-60 years of music, particularly when you consider 45-rpm vinyl singles in 1967. Side note: the idea of calling it an “estate” seems, still, rather ridiculous to me as the author of Bell Hammers. But in any case, something stark…
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For Luck — Tap and Die 003
Frey didn’t think Jack would show. Jack hadn’t shown for nine months now: she could have been pregnant and had a baby in this time. He was always helping everyone else but her and Dövë. Or it felt that way. She saw the painting of the three of them surrounded by grandparents and cousins, and…
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The Guest in 22b
The motel on the corner of Cedar and Broadway had been a decent stopping point between Memphis and Tulsa on Route 66. Once there had been a fresh coat of paint and nights when the blinking “No Vacancy” sign lit up the neighborhood. But now the salmon pink exterior was nothing but an eyesore and…
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Hollow Needle — Tap and Die 002
The Hollow Needle did not rise above the horizon, but sank into the great peak of Weststool, steam and smoke heralding it in a great circular halo. One of five new taps in Gergia, the opposite of towers, it drilled down into a too-wide hole. Seven carriage bridges—long stone pathways lit by gas lamps—led from…
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Honorifics — Tap and Die 001
The driver looked cockeyed at Black Jack Dawes’s half-frozen hands that held the other reins. The driver took kings and nobles all over the Ivrian side of the world, not crusty old tradesmen in khaki dusters, range hats, knee-high boots slathered in mud, and that black cloak with those unfixed stars on it. And no…
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Where do your ideas come from?
When someone asks me “where do your ideas come from?” I often experience this high-functioning autistic shut down I experience with many questions. I am rather obsessed with speaking to the question someone’s asking. Dinosaur that I am becoming, my mind works almost in complete opposition to the way that most moderns think. “Where do…
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Disrespect Hard Copies of My Books, Please
Recently someone I care for witnessed their young child snatch this copy of Little Women I had on hand — they took it away from this child, reasoning that this child might disrespect hard copies of my books. My response, immediately, was, “It’s really okay.” This person said, “He’ll tear it.” I said, “That’s okay…
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Nebula Award Winners
Nebula Award winners are a bit difficult to find gathered all in one post on the SFWA site, no offense to them. If you go to the SFWA site — for whom I remain obviously grateful — it’s several extra clicks to get to the proper year, which makes it rather difficult to search by author. I…
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Braver Than You Think
When I sat down to write this reflection on the book Braver Than You Think by Maggie Downs, it seemed to me a really weird thing to do. I almost never review books on the site anymore and I’m not really reviewing one now. I almost never — in a decade of doing this stuff — do…
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Book Agents Near Me
Fourteen years ago in 2008, I searched for book agents near me and found out two things: It’s rather hard to go door to door (sorry, Jennifer DeChiara, but luckily for both of us I never got past your doorman). They’re not necessarily receptive to folks just saying, “Here’s my property, where’s my money?” It’s…
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Bad Intellectual: The Houellebecqian Case of Catherine Perez-Shakdam
Alors, les Français sont en train de flatter l’islam bien.Sadegh Hedayat Once, one of the Iranian politicians in the Parliament of Iran during his speech accounted a brief conversation with arteshbod Hossein Fardoust, some years after 1979. Fardoust was a friend of Shah and one of the most influential figures of SAVAK—in the last meeting…
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Poezak : a Manifesto
Poetry has been afflicted with meaning for too long. Certainly, there have been stabs at meaninglessness—dada, language poetry, flarf—but without a sustaining podium, without a venue, these movements have flared and died like matches struck and cupped in the general dark of meaningfulness. But the podium has been awaiting us, brightly lit and stark. The…