Reading for the Apocalypse

In a parallel life I would have been an epidemiologist. Ever since I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, I’ve been fascinated by the interaction of plagues and society. (Another book along the same lines that has been in my library for years is Plagues and Peoples, along with Ken Alibek’s book about the bio-weapons lab he ran. It’s called Biohazard and it will keep you up at night.) Laurie Garrett’s book The Coming Plague is a sobering, informative read. You might have seen her interviewed on The Rachel Maddow Show recently. She did not have good news about COVID-19. And the Band Played On, the monumental work about the AIDS epidemic by Randy Shilts (who died of AIDS at 42.) is a must-read.

I’ve been thinking of fictional plague books lately. I’ve read a lot of them, and am wondering what else is out there that I haven’t read. I subscribe to the service K-lytics, which tracks genres in books, and a few months ago dystopian books—particularly ones featuring disasters like plagues and EMP episodes—were all the rage. I’m wondering if people are still fascinated by those “what if” books now that we’re in a real-life plague crisis of our own. Would reading those books now allay anxiety or make it worse? Could anything be worse than refreshing news feeds every two minutes?

Saturday Self-Promotion

It's the last Saturday of the year, and the last day of 2011 and there's a lot going on.
First, the new story for NoHo Noir is up, a day early. Check it out here. Mark Satchwill and I have big plans for the series, so we hope you'll check it out if you haven't already.
And for those of you who are following our saga, we're still waiting to hear from AOL's lawyers about the disposition of NoHo Noir volume I. It'll be a year in April since we first started inquiring about reprint rights.
Thanks to Joy Sillesen, a properly formatted Twelve Nights of Christmas is now up at Amazon. The cover is by Joanne Renaud, so getting this collection on line was a real Dark Valentine effort.

Copyright: FoldOut Creative

And speaking of covers...a new company called FoldOut Creative offered a Craig's List contest to design a free book cover as part of their opening marketing splash. I won. (You know my love for the Craig's List.) Here's what they came up for as a cover for The Poisoned Teat (a collection of short fiction coming this spring).
The company officially launches next month, but I couldn't wait to show off the cover. I'l let you know when they're up and running because if you're looking for a great cover, they can deliver.
The Poisoned Teat is one of two fiction collections I hope to publish next year; the other is Twelve More Nights of Christmas. (Once I started coming up with twisted variants on the "twelve days" of the Christmas song, I couldn't stop at just one!
I might squeeze in another compilation of "Tales of the Misbegotten," (aka L.A. Nocturne II), but honestly, I have people in my life who will start to mock me if I do not buckle down and actually finish Misbegotten this year. ("Think of a chapter as a short story," they tell me. I'm going to try that approach.)
I have stories in three 2012 anthologies so far, and stories under consideration at several more places. And I'll continue to submit to the contests and the online fiction sites. I have a list of places I'd like to crack. And in the meantime, I will continue to read and learn from all the short-story practioners out there. I'm participating in the 365 story challenge and while I'll be revisiting some of my very favorite stories and favorite authors, mostly I hope to discover new (to me) writers over the course of a year. (Otherwise it would be too easy to simply reread Harlan Ellison and Tanith Lee and Shirley Jackson and Stephen King and Katherine Anne Porter and Saki.)
I've got big plans for 2012 and I know you do too.  I look forward to reading your work. I hope you enjoy mine.
Happy New Year.