“There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir, / We must rise and follow her; / When from every hill of flame, / She calls and calls each vagabond by name.” ~William Bliss Carman
Here are some shiny things that caught my eye recently:
♦ All Hallow’s Read.
When we think of Halloween reading, we almost always think of prose first—scary stories, horror novels, terror tales. So this week I’d like to recommend some books of disturbing poetry for you to consider, two in fact (though both, alas, are out of print). First is Now We Are Sick: An Anthology of Nasty Verse, edited by Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones. As the title suggests, the poems contained herein are pretty gruesome stuff, but also a lot of fun. Sample this short verse by Kim Newman, “You Always Eat the One You Love”:
You always eat the one you love,
The one you shouldn’t munch at all,
You always take the sweetest rose,
And chew it till the petals fall,
You always gulp the kindest heart,
For that tasty snack you can’t recall,
So if I ate your heart last night,
That’s because I love you most of all…
Tom Piccirilli’s poetry in This Cape is Red Because I’ve Been Bleeding is likewise disturbing, but beautiful, too. Here are the first few lines from from the title poem:
Don’t ask me that again
You’re eager with death and muscle, choosing to place
your damage up against mine, our arms thrusting together,
the burns bright and pink, stab wounds healing but not closed,
never filled—we’ve stepped on the same nails, chewed the same gravel,
bitten off the tips of our tongues….
I like the way his language is both musical and visceral at the same time. Do check out the collection for more poetry that gets under your skin.
♦ The Monster Mash.
Mike Walton is illustrating the 31 Days of Halloween with some truly scary/creepy/disturbing images. Check out Day 8 below, and don’t forget to check out his False Positive webcomic, which is perfect for Halloween.
More monstrous lists for your perusal: 10 legendary monsters of Australia and Antarctica and 10 of the grossest & most grotesque vampires from folklore.
Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins. Check out these intricately carved pumpkins by Ray Villafane, which require some serious carving skill, and then get ready to sigh over the adorable vampire pumpkins below, which seem pretty easy to make if you follow these direction from Martha Stewart (thanks to Ruth for sharing this picture on Facebook):
Check out these 10 clever and creative Halloween costumes. I think my favorites are the Weeping Angel and the Plastic Army Man. (And, Cameron and Daniel, you can see a couple of good Walter White costumes, too.)
♦ The Reading Spot.
Some lovely story-shaped morsels for you:
Falling Kingdoms (excerpt) by Morgan Rhodes at Tor.com (I love the cover to this novel, at left)
Mama’s Science by Shane D. Rhinewald at Daily Science Fiction
What the Sea Wants by P. Djélì Clark at Daily Science Fiction (I wrote a story with the same title, so when I saw this story I had to do a double-take! Clark’s story is really wonderful, though)
Not the Destination by Richard E. Gropp at Daily Science Fiction
Scraps by Michael Haynes at Daily Science Fiction
The White Hart, chapter five of Edward & Amelia vs. The Vampire King by Russell Hinson
The Last Sunflower, latest flax-golden tale by Erin Morgenstern
Nathan and the Amazing TechnoPocket NerdCoat by K.J. Kabza at Daily Science Fiction
The Consultant (a poem) by Jessy Randall at io9
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (excerpt) by Robin Sloan at io9
Krampus: The Yule Lord (excerpt) by Brom at Tor.com
And why not listen to Christopher Lee read the original version of Tim Burton’s poem, The Nightmare Before Christmas? (Via)
Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling discuss the Big Idea for their new YA dystopic anthology, After.
This past week AlphaBooks, an alphabetical tumblr exploration of fictional characters curated by Ben Towle, moved to the U’s. I had three favorites this week, but I think I’ll share the scariest one since it’s the season. Below is U is for Ungoliant (mother of Shelob, the giant spider in The Lord of the Rings) by Sam Wolk. I also really enjoyed Kelly Williams’ Dolores Umbridge, from the Harry Potter series, and Marc Basile’s Sir Uriens, from Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory.
♦ She Blinded Me … with Science!
To start with something a little different, here’s a book trailer for The Where, the Why and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, and Jenny Volvovski, out now from Chronicle Books (via):
Neuroscience: We now know why coffee helps to stave off Alzheimer’s disease; The most cringe-inducing sound of them all; A handy guide to lucid dreaming, with additional tips from Richard Feynman
Psychology: The pediatric psychiatrist whose job was to scare the crap out of people
Biology: What happens when you get the wind knocked out of you; Why we crave chocolate
Forensics: The Nutshell Studies: How a wealthy grandmother revolutionized crime-scene investigation (I’m a big fan: I have the book The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death and the documentary Of Dolls & Murder).
Evolutionary: The evolution of kissing
Eschatology: 7 signs we are heading for a mass extinction
Pseudo-zoology: Indisputable facts about the hedgehog, “mother nature’s cruelest predator”
Aesthetic: Even Victorian microscope slides were beautifully ornate
♦ Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah (Shore).
Want to know how to make a sandwich caddy from a milk jug? Check out the image below (the fastener is a Velcro dot). Via.
Check out 11 foods inspired by candy corn (with links to recipes!). I think the pudding below is pretty sweet-looking.
If food that looks disturbing interests you, check out 11 disturbing cakes that look like body parts (mostly internal body parts) and STD cupcakes—if you dare!
♦ The Horns of Elfland.
At Radio Free Other, my friend Andy has added two more atmospheric-music reviews to his 31 Days of Halloween, Delta Rae and Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. Below is the video for Delta Rae’s “Bottom of the River,” which I like both for the song and the witchy theme (every time I see/hear it, I can’t quite get it out of my head):
♦ The Ninth Art.
Publishers Weekly had a nice interview with Chris Ware a couple weeks ago in anticipation of his new work, Building Stories, which came out last week. Here’s a description from the PW article (if I hadn’t already pre-ordered a copy, I would have been sold on these words):
The “book” is actually a large box with 14 different kinds of archetypal print formats—among them a hardcover book, a paperback book, a children’s book, newspapers and magazines, mini-comics, a board game and more—all of which carry a story focused deeply on the life of a young women, an amputee, and her sense of herself, her past and her future. Readers can pick up any publication and enter the character’s story at any point—there is no strict sequence. Like all of Ware’s works, he manages to peer deeply into the life of his characters while offering readers new ways to embrace his narrative.
PW also had an interview recently with Hope Larson and her editor Margaret Ferguson on how A Wrinkle in Time was made into a graphic novel. Lots of pages from the graphic novel to oooh and ahhh over.
Tim Callahan concludes his great reread of Alan Moore’s Promethea.
Check out the Google front page today; it’s an interactive tribute to Winsor McCay and his Little Nemo in Slumberland. Fun!
♦ Viewer’s Paradise.
Horror-film lovers, Cameron Cook has more fine reviews for you to savor in his Month of Horror: Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, ThanksKilling (guest post by Dorothy Booraem), Trick’r’Treat (guest post by Caroline Todd Whitney), Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (guest post by Kevin Armistead), Freddy vs. Jason, Enter the Remakes (remakes of horror films, that is), Straw Dogs, Bug, and Insidious.
As part of their twentieth birthday celebration, Cartoon Network created several mash-ups that are a lot of fun. Check out this one (via):
Babylon 5 gets a lot of slack from certain quarters of fandom (why, Big Bang Theory, do you hate this show so much?), but I think they’re all wrong. From a structural point of view alone, B5 is an amazing thing, a true novel for television. But there are so many other things that speak to me about this show, from the characterization to the thematic arcs (the treatment of the various religions still moves me, and I wrote about my favorite speech here). I’m not alone! Ryan Britt wrote All Alone in the Night: When Babylon 5 Invented 21st Century Fandom, which reminded me again of the many reasons why this show means so much to me.
I’m not sure yet what I think about this trailer for upcoming biopic, Hitchcock. Parts of it look fun; other parts of it look…. Well, I love Helen Mirren in this trailer.
♦ The Book Nook.
The Saddest Most Terrible Book is the subject of this Wondermark cartoon by David Malki !
The cover for Meagan Spooner’s novel Skylark caught my eye this week. I like the colors and the fancy scrollwork (the Victorian in me loves some fancy scrollwork).
I really liked this image by Rebecca Artemisa; check out her other photos at the link. Via.
Books by Rebecca Artemisa
♦ Writers’ Corner.
Check out Lisa Morton’s Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Primer for Horror Writers (and even non-horror writers).
NaNoWriMo is next month, people! That’s National Novel Writing Month, in case you didn’t know. Here are 11 ways to prepare for NaNoWriMo, plus seven more ways to prepare. And Chuck Wendig has a primer for NaNoWriMo you don’t want to miss.
At her blog, the inimitable Terri Windling has restarted the On Your Desk series, which I always love reading. Last week saw entries about the desks of novelist Katherine Langrish and writer/artist Josephine Pennicott. Poking around writers’ and artists’ workspaces is a fascination of mine. You can check out earlier entries in the On Your Desk series by clicking here.
How Productive Are You? asks Rachelle Gardner (suggestions on how to track and analyze your productivity as a writer or as a human being).
Here’s a story-starter photo for you, via The Hanging Garden tumblr:
I’m glad LitReactor posted about Direct-Address Commafication. That misusage does bother me, too. Also, LitReactor had another interesting writing post: Big ‘A’ Little ‘a’: Writing between the Concrete and Abstract.
Also, why it’s hard being a Grammar Nazi (via).
John Perry on Structured Procrastination (thanks to Liz Hand for sharing the link on Facebook!).
Myke Cole shares one reason to write fantasy. Go read the post; it’s short but good.
Here’s another story-starter photo for you, this one by Jessica Tremp from the series But a Fleeting Touch (via):
But a Fleeting Touch by Jessica Tremp
I really enjoyed Ali Smith’s article Style vs. Content? Novelists should approach their art with an eye to what the story asks.
Charlie Jane Anders has 10 tips for generating killer science-fiction story ideas.
If you ever wondered why Chinua Achebe has never taught creative writing, wonder no more. Here’s an excerpt from his Paris Review interview in 1994 (via):
Well, I don’t know how it’s done. I mean it. I really don’t know. The only thing I can say for it is that it provides work for writers. Don’t laugh! It’s very important. I think it’s very important for writers who need something else to do, especially in these precarious times. Many writers can’t make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don’t really know about its value to the student. I don’t mean it’s useless. But I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to teach me how to write. That’s my own taste. I prefer to stumble on it. I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done. Incidentally, there’s a story I like about a very distinguished writer today, who shall remain nameless, who had been taught creative writing in his younger days. The old man who taught him was reflecting about him one day: I remember his work was so good that I said to him, Don’t stop writing, never stop writing. I wish I’d never told him that. So I don’t know. I teach literature. That’s easy for me. Take someone else’s work and talk about it.
Go read this wonderful, heartbreaking letter that Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium novels, wrote to his partner Eva Gabrielson to be read after his death; he wrote it almost thirty years before he died.
♦ I adore this Little Sad Keanu (and I adore the tumblr Look At This Little Thing!, where I found him):
