Hey, Dunkin, “Medium Hot” means what exactly?
Most reasonable people who see this sign at a Dunkin Donuts will probably think, “Hey, a medium coffee for just 99 cents? What a deal!”
Me? I had the hardest time getting beyond the line that says “Medium Hot.” Isn’t “medium hot” just “warm”? Should it be “Medium, Hot”? And why is almost every word capitalized?
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Here’s a detail shot of one of my wife’s paintings that shows a passage I hadn’t noticed during the opening of her show at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts (when the gallery was crowded). Enjoy!
(Detail) Deborah Zlotsky, Tulips and chimneys, 2014, at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts through Oct. 11
Deborah Zlotsky, Tulips and chimneys, 2014; Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 in.
This is cool. My words have made it to the bright shining lights of Broadway.
My former Times Union colleague Steve Barnes (thanks, Steve!) sent me a photo from outside the Lyric Theater, where a revival of the classic show “On the Town” has just opened in previews.
The photo shows a poster that quotes the Times Union (alas not my name, but those are my words) from a review of the musical that I wrote when the same production was presented last year at Barrington Stage Theater in the Berkshires.
Pretty cool, to be blurbed on Broadway.
My globe-trotting sister in law brought back some great coffee from Uganda.
Full bodied, rich and sweet, the Big Gorilla is among the best if not the best coffee I’ve ever had. Even better than Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee.
Anyone else try it?
I’m not in the habit of fact-checking family stories, despite the countless times (as a journalism student and journalist) I’ve heard: “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”
So it was more of a fluke than a deliberate act when I came across a document linked to what I’ve come to think of as the precipitating moment of my family’s coming to America.
A google search led me to the digitized book “Official Register of Officers and Cadets: United States Military Academy,” which included not only my grandfather (a cadet from 1926 to 1930), but also the conditions upon which he became a cadet.
The stories in Long Hidden summon the fabulist landscape of remote lands and rare creatures of myth, give or take a zombie and a couple of werewolves. For all its rollicking and twisting plots, most of the stories are embedded in critique: confronting and overturning the notion that magical agency belongs only to those who are male, straight, gender conforming, able-bodied, and white.
The theme of transformation is prevalent throughout the anthology. The use of magic as an agent for personal change or awareness isn’t homogenized. Instead, magic is applied as a spring of enlightenment not a fix-it tool for plot holes. The resulting stories are fresh rather than…
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Bartleby Snopes 12, which includes a short story, “The Duck,” by me
Earlier this year, you may have been among the few hundred (OK, maybe thousand) people I bombarded with emails, posts and pleas to vote for my humble short story “The Duck” in Bartleby Snopes’ monthly fiction contest. The winner of each month’s contest is automatically included in Bartleby Snope’s semiannual print journal.
Alas, despite all my outreach and your kind votes, my simple story of young love (or is it lust?) was not victorious that month, coming in second place; however, many of you did send me kind words of delight and enjoyment at my story.
You, dear readers, were not alone. The good editors over at Bartleby Snopes, led by the indomitable Nathaniel Tower, have seen fit to include “The Duck” in the semiannual print journal, despite its lowly second-place finish.
You can buy the book on Lulu and get a print copy.
You can download a PDF version of it right here for the low, low cost of free.
Or you can get a Kindle copy sometime soon, just check this site to see if it is available.
So thank you Bartleby Snopes, and thank you dear readers. I hope you enjoy the fine collection of fiction in Bartleby Snopes 12, which includes work by Damon Barta, Andrew Bockhold, Jackson Burgess, Christopher Cassavella, Heather Clitheroe, Dusty Cooper, Rob Essley, Chris Fradkin, Jon Fried, Jill Gewirtz, J.D. Hager, Laurie Jacobs, Michael Janairo, Anna Lea Jancewicz, Mark Jaskowski, Danielle Kessinger, Edward Lando, Greg Letellier, Amanda Hart Miller, Michael Morshed, Justin Nguyen, Hun Ohm, Ryan J Ouimet, June Sylvester Saraceno, John Timm, Ian Woollen, and Leslee Renee Wright.
Me, the author, autographing my story in “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History”
Readercon is awesome. The conference for speculative literature is always worthwhile, as it offers a deep dive into issues and concerns that are at the forefront of literature.
So I got to hear luminaries like Michael Dirda and Peter Straub talk about their development as readers and writers. (Dirda doesn’t have time to reread books; Straub is rereading Iris Murdoch right now.)
I got to hear Samuel Delaney read for a work in progress that is from the point of view from a young Herman Melvill(e), and includes scenes during his life and times in Albany.
I learned a lot about the difficulties of living in space (the weakening of the body in low gravity; the politics of funding); about how authors try to strike a balance between fulfilling and subverting readers’ expectations (though one panelist argued that very little writing is truly subversive); and that some Readercon attendees bring really killer bourbon and are very generous with it, late into the night.
Most of all, though, I met some great people — writer and readers — but people who share my values for the importance of story.
The highlight, though, was the group reading of seven writers whose works are included in the much-praised anthology “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History.”
Even better, was being asked to autograph my story. This is something that I have never done before. With the journals and anthologies in which I have been published before, I never had a chance to attend any of the events related to the release of those publications. Mostly because they were far away: in Japan or on the West Coast; or my day job and life made it too hard for me to be there. Continue reading →
