Sparkling Cider Wishes, Down-to-earth dreams

Photo by PerfumeLa.com

One of my clients gave me a basket of extremely high-end bath products for Christmas, and I broke them out New Year's Eve. They smell fabulous...a sensual "oriental" fragrance that reminds me of some of my favorite perfumes, including Halston Night, which they no longer make. (You can buy used bottles of it on eBay if you want to spend $100 plus.) I used to wear perfume a lot, but now I work at home and it seems kind of silly to fragrance myself up when I'm wearing bike shorts and oversized t-shirts belonging to any number of my friends and family.  (I hate shopping for clothes.) 
The shampoo lathered up creamy but not bubbly, like the generic brand of shampoo I usually use. And as mentioned, it smelled terrific. As I soaped up with a washcloth I bought at the 99 Cent store (three for 99 cents), I couldn't help but laugh.
The conditioner smelled good too, but left my hair incredibly tangled, so it took me about an hour just to comb it out.  That made me cranky, because the conditioner I buy in quart-sized bottles makes my hair soft and extremely comb-able.
What amazed me was that when my hair was blown dry, it looked like spun silk. I'm not kidding. I didn't have hair that beautiful when I was a baby.
So the rich are different from you and me--they have nicer hair products.
I'm not a vain person, usually, but I found myself staring at my hair throughout the day. (I know what you're thinking--good God woman, get a life.)
But here's my point...I can't imagine a level of personal income high enough to make me feel comfortable spending that much money on shampoo.  I wash my hair every day--I'd be going through the bottles at a rate of two a month. And there's another problem. A lot of the stories I write are about class warfare--the kind of "us against them" mentality that seems to have infected American politics in the last decade. I'm not sure I could wash my hair in the morning and then come to the computer to write if I used shampoo like that every day.
It was a lovely gift and appreciated but I'll be happy when it's all used up because it's way too easy for luxuries to become necessities. And you know, I don't need shampoo that costs more than a meal for two at a decent restaurant.

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.

Feminist Fiction Friday: Tanith Lee

Tanith Lee. Isn't that the best writer's name ever? When Joanne Renaud, Joy Sillesen and I created Dark Valentine Magazine, Tanith Lee was our muse. We were all big fans of the writer, whose "dark fiction" we all admired. The cover of our first issue was a painting of the sky goddess Tanit, and one of our fondest hopes was that we might entice Tanith to send us a story. Sigh. Some dreams die hard.
The very first thing I ever read by Tanith Lee was Kill the Dead, a novella that was packaged with another story (Sabella, or the Blood Stone) in an omnibus edition titled Sometimes After Sunset. I liked Sabella but I loved Kill the Dead.
I loved the way Tanith wrote, her love of language was extravagant and she piled up words like a painter piles up pigments and the result was always gorgeous.
By the time I read Kill the Dead, Tanith had already written dozens and dozens of short stories and novels, so as I began making my way through her oeuvre, it seemed like I was always a couple of books behind.
Lee's slowed down a bit of late--I've heard she hasn't been well--but her output still dwarfs most writers.  She published her first book, The Dragon Hoard in 1971, when she was 24. Four years later, she published Birthgrave, which is considered her first "adult" book and is the first in a trilogy that concludes with Quest for the White Witch.
She writes series (I'm fond of the books in the Flat-Earth Series) and she writes stand-alones. She writes historical fiction and gothic romance and reimagined fairy tales. (She also reimagines Shakespeare.) Her Silver Metal Lover is a tale of forbidden love that makes Twilight seem like a Jane and Dick reader. She was writing vampires and werewolves long before it was trendy and she plundered Babylonian myth when everyone else was still regurgitating Tolkien.
Her characters are fierce and full-blooded, the women as well as the men. Her fantasy creations have a reality about them that is both otherworldly and ordinary.  (Ordinary in the sense that we feel the "rightness" of the characters, even if they aren't the characters next door.)

She has a number of collections of short stories, including one called Women as Demons, which I haven't read. Nor have I read her novel The Blood of Roses (1990), which is one of the hardest to obtain stories out there next to Shiny Metal Grin.  Amazon.com has seven used copies of the book available for $47. One of these days I might splash out and buy one.  (It's marketed as an epic erotic fantasy of blood and love and vanpires.  And how could anyone resist that gorgeous cover?)
If you aren't familiar with Tanith's work or you want to make sure you've read everything there is, check out "Daughter of the Night," an annotated bibliography put together by Jim Pattinson and  Paul A. Soanes and continued by Allison Rich. (The most recent update was December 18.)
Here's a link to an old (1994) interview with Tanith.
I'm participating in Brian Lindenmuth's 365 Story Challenge in 2012, so I'll be revisiting some of my favorite Tanith Lee short stories. If you haven't read her, you have a treat in store.

Schedule for Six Questions

Jim Harrington's Six Questions for...is always a great source for info on markets. Check out who's on tap for January:

Below is the schedule of posts for January at http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/.

1/02—Six Questions for Mandy Ward, Editor, Welcome to Wherever
1/05—Six Questions for Nicolette Wong, Editor, A-Minor Magazine
1/09—Six Questions for Chris Rhatigan, Editor, All Due Respect
1/12—Six Questions for John Kenyon, Editor, Grift Magazine
1/16—Six Questions for Alec Cizak, Pulp Modern
1/19—Six Questions for Editor, H.O.D. (A Handful of Dust)
1/23—Six Questions for Josh and Jane, Editors, TheNewerYork!
1/26—Six Questions for Krishan Coupland, Editor, Neon Literary Magazine
1/30—Six Questions for Bradley Wonder, Editor-in-Chief, 5X5

If you stop by, leave a comment for the editor/publisher. If you’re an editor or publisher and would like to participate, or know of a publisher who might be interested, please contact me at sixquestionsfor@gmail.com. Finally, please share this information with your subscribers, authors, Facebook and Twitter followers, and writing friends.

--

Jim Harrington
http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/
http://jpharrington.blogspot.com/

More Reading Challenges for 2012

So  you've signed up for Brian Lindenmuth's 365 Story Challenge and you're still looking for a challenge of the reading sort? They're everywhere. For example, over at YA Bliss, there's the YA Historical Fiction Challenge with three levels--the first requires you read five books; the second requires you read 10 books, and the third is for readers ready to tackle 15 books. Books don't have to be 2012 releases, but they do have to be YA or MG.
Just to get you started, there are several lists of YA Historical Fiction available.

 Over at Historical Tapestry, they're hosting a 2012 challenge in all categories of historical fiction, including fantasy and YA. This challenge offers five levels of participation, for readers who only have time for two books up to readers who plow through 20.
The International Reading Challenge began earlier this year but runs through June 2012, so there's still time to participate. Check out the video for the event here. One of the sponsors is The Breathless Quills, which reviews books from different countries. Check it out here.

The coming year, 2012, is apparently the "National Year of Reading," so do your part!

Consider it a Christmas Present for Writers

Joy Sillesen sent me the link to SuperEReads, a new site that promotes ebooks of all sorts. Authors who sign up get a page per book, and authors can add reviews, videos (book trailers) and what not to the page. The pages look great.  Here's the link to my Toxic Reality page and to my L.A. Nocturne page.  Right now the service is free in return for spreading the word.  Check it out and follow them @SuperEReads.  I've seen Allan Guthrie, Kaye George, Christine Pope and half a dozen other colleagues there, so all the cool kids are participating.

Merry Christmas

The run-up to Christmas this year was fairly exhausting with the three-week catering gig and the deadlines, and so now that it's actually here, I'm enjoying it even more.
Yesterday I sacked out in front of the television, mainlining the Food Network and eating quesadillas.That's festive for me.
Today will be even more relaxing. I wrote the new installment of NoHo Noir (read it here) and then went online to spend the amazon gift card I got late last night. (Thank you Cormac!!)
Later I will make Christmas dinner, and sit down to watch a double feature of Cowboys and Aliens and Fright Night. I'm a traditionalist, as you can tell.
Thank you for being a part of what was a fantastic 2011. I look forward to whatever 2012 brings.
Joys of the season, whichever season you celebrate, and a very Happy New Year.
And let me know if you're participating in the 365 Story Challenge!