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    Saturday, July 5th, 2008
    michaeljasper
         		10:46a
    Got a spare laptop?
    from http://albionidaho.livejournal.com/85598.html:
    This morning someone came into the Clarion West house where we're staying and stole four laptops, some bags, clothing, and possibly other items.

    Of course, these are our lives, especially right now.

    We are all okay, and the house is secure, even more so now, but I was like to ask the SFF community for help.

    Those who lost their laptops will not be able to replace these without detriment to their financial situation. These are essential for our writing, particularly over the next four weeks.


    If you would like to help donate laptops or funds to those students who had their laptops stolen, please contact Leslie or Neile at infoATclarionwestDOTorg. More donation information may be forthcoming.

    Thank you.
    You know, stealing a laptop is one of the dumber things to steal. Just logging in will probably be impossible, so all you're going to be able to do is sell the thing for parts. Idiots.

    I'm wondering if I can get one or maybe both of my old laptops up and running today... Later.
    haddayr
         		8:46a
    Do you have an extra laptop?
    Some asshole stole four laptops at Clarion West from students. Not only did they, presumably, lose the work on those laptops, they also lost their laptops which are expensive and nearly impossible to replace when you're at a 6-week residential program.

    Clarion West is a 6-week residential program for Fantasy and Science Fiction writers that costs about $3,000. Many of the people there have taken unpaid leaves of absences from work or even quit their jobs in able to attend. These aren't folks who can just order another one and pop it on the credit card. And they need laptops in order to finish this program.

    Clarion West is asking for help for these four students. If you have (or know of anybody who has) a spare laptop that could be permanently donated to one of them as a replacement, please email one of the administrators at info @ clarionwest . org (remove spaces). Or, if you're able to donate something towards the cost of replacements, no matter how large or small, you can donate directly through this page, making sure to mark your donation "for Computer Replacement." All donations are tax-deductible.

    http://www.clarionwest.org/donate
    shunn
         		9:20a
    Thefts from Clarion West
    [info]albionidaho reports laptops and other items stolen yesterday from students in one of the Clarion West houses. Not a happy Fourth for them. I can only imagine how that would affect the Clarion experience for the theft victims, especially if there was work-in-progress on the machines. What can you do to help? See her post for more info.

    Current Music: The Alan Parsons Project, "Time"
    markedformetal
         		4:40a
    tweets for the tweet!
    ( Cut for the tweet-phobic. )
    ktempest
         		2:10a
    More help for Clarion West (of a different sort)

    Just found out yesterday that someone broke into the Clarion West sorority house and stole 4 laptops, some clothing, and other stuff. Apparently they broke a window and grabbed everything they could. There are many times I wish I had the power to send down lightning on someone, and this is one of them. If this had happened to me at my Clarion I would have been just devastated. I also could not have afforded to replace the laptop. This is the situation 4 students find themselves in now.

    They have temporary computers, I hear, but will definitely need some replacements. Clarion West is collecting donations toward that end. I know many of you have pledged or donated for the write-a-thon and may not be able to spare anything. But if you can, please do. Having a laptop stolen, no matter who you are, is heartbreaking. But when you’re a writer and your laptop is your livelihood, it’s indescribably horrid.

    If you can, please donate here (be sure to put in the notes that this is for laptop replacement and not the general fund) and contact the workshop admins at info -at- clarionwest.org if you can help by donating/selling at low cost a spare laptop. Thanks.

    Comments | Permalink
    ktempest
         		1:44a
    Where do the candidates stand on superheroes?

    Randy Henderson has a very funny take on what McCain and Obama would say about the destruction of cities by superheroes fighting villains.  In some alternate universe, these things are being said, I swear.

    Comments | Permalink
    Friday, July 4th, 2008
    rsheslin
         		10:15p
    Tweets for Today
    • 22:58 -- using the tomato led my husband to make an inadvertent salmon-ella joke :P #
    • 00:09 just finished writing her second flash vignette of the evening. #
    • 08:55 is writing out those stories in long-hand for a communal project. #
    • 11:48 is concerned because the top of my left thumb has been numb for no apparent reason for over an hour. #
    • 13:26 still has a weirdly partially numb thumb, but is getting ready to provide salad for BBQ and gaming party before going to watch fireworks ... #
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    time_shark
         		11:45p
    How 'bout that!
    Book publicist Matt Staggs says he can't put Clockwork Phoenix down...
    jonhansen
         		10:00p
    Letters to Myself: God Bless America
    nihilistic_kid
         		7:25p
    Brother can you spare a laptop?
    [info]spitkitten writes:

    So, sometime this morning (YES, DAYLIGHT), while we were in class here at Clarion West, someone broke into the sorority house we are staying in and stole 4 laptops, clothing, and other personal possessions from 4 rooms on the 3rd floor.

    I was not one of them, but my classmates are absolutely gobsmacked. Those of you that are familiar with Clarion know it is neither easy nor cheap to attend, and while we can get some temporary computers for these folks, they won't be able to replace them anytime soon. We and Clarion West are soliciting donations of either good used laptops or cash for laptops via the Clarion West administration. If you can help, let Leslie or Neile know at info@clarionwest.org

    I have no further information -- I've just known Caren for a few years, and have even read her realist books (sssh, don't tell anyone she's published two titles) and am passing on this plea at her request. Please send ALL queries to the email address above.
    jlassen
         		3:59p
    Honoring the life of a dead man...
    AmericaBlog successfully captures the life of Jesse Helms:

    Jesse Helms on "negroes":
    As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)

    The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

    Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)
    Helms on "degenerate, weak, sick homosexuals":
    Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)
    Helms being a racist:
    And the man ABC News now describes as a "conservative icon" (8/22/01) in 1993 sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries." (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/5/93)
    Helms filibusters making Martin Luther King day a national holiday:
    A year before the election, when public polls showed Helms trailing by 20 points, he launched a Senate filibuster against the bill making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday. (David Broder, Washington Post, Aug, 29, 2001)
    On cutting AIDS funding:
    Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct," The New York Times reported Wednesday....

    "We've got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts," Helms told the Times.
    And before anyone says that Helms came around on AIDS in his later years. No he didn't.
    haddayr
         		4:46p
    I hate the 4th of July
    It isn't because I'm some irritating liberal who's embarrassed that I'm an American. I admit that I got all choked up when I went to Philadelphia and stood in the actual room where they signed the Declaration of Independence and argued about the Constitution.

    But I'm a proto-Aspie. And I hate loud noises.

    A lot.
    kest
         		1:24p
    spiders on my porch, a photographic series
    ( arachnophobes should NOT click here )
    alexotica
         		2:00p
    400TH REJECTION CONTEST (2008 Submission Log Weeks 25-27)
    (scroll down for the contest)

    Submissions 530-544

    No brain power for links, maybe I'll add 'em later.

    Weird Tales (9th)
    The Colbert Report (1st)
    Drawn & Quarterly (2nd)
    The Believer (1st-5th)
    Abberrant Dreams (1st)
    Writers of the Future (20th!)
    ChiZine (7th)
    Supergrrrl Adventure Comics (1st)
    Asheville Film Festival (1st)
    Light (5th-7th)

    Rejections 393-397

    F&SF Haiku Contest (date not available)
    The Believer (8 days on three poems)
    Asimov's (15 days)

    Hold Request

    From Fantasy, 18 days. Here's hoping.

    Acceptance 74, Tentative Acceptance 75

    Sale of "Dry Frugal with Death Rays" to Futurismic, 42 days.

    Tentative acceptance from Supergrrrl Adventure Comics (1 day) pending a rewrite. This is a new, nonpaying zine from Rachel Edidin and Jen Vaughn.

    Of Interest

    Yes, I entered the McCain greenscreen challenge thing. Don't know what I was thinking other than I needed to finish a project I could actually finish. A couple of bad PCS weeks, last month.

    Completely flaked on catching the F&SF issue announcing the winners of the haiku contest. Mine was an obvious joke anyway; glad it only had an audience of one.

    Wow, 20th sub to Writers of the Future. It's what I was hoping to submit the week I got in the accident, so I _think_ it's finally submission ready, six months later. Brain injury aside, this story had more technical challenges than anything I've ever written, and it's been brewing since April '05 when I pitched it to a friend as a comic.

    Guess my 400th rejection, win a prize!

    Hey, time sure flies. First (up to) THREE PEOPLE to correctly guess where my 400th rejection will come from wins:
    • a copy of the February 2007 Asimov's (includes my novelette "Outgoing"), autographed if that's of interest
    • a DVD-R with at least one currently unavailable film project of mine, and
    • my recorded narrations of seven (7) Edgar Allan Poe tales (most of 'em bestsellers at Telltale Weekly)
    Put answers in the LiveJournal Comments (LJ datestamps will have to determine tiebreakers). One guess per person. Entries accepted through July 13, 2008, 11:59PM, Eastern U.S. time.

    Currently at Rejection #397. Current outstanding subs:
    1. Paraspheres (sent 5.29.07)
    2. LCRW (sent 7.13.07 and 6.01.08)
    3. Actor's Theatre of Louisville 10 minute play (10.31.07)
    4. McSweeney's Quarterly (2.12.08)
    5. McSweeney's Books (2.12.08)
    6. A Public Space (5.03.08)
    7. OSC's IGMS (5.15.08)
    8. Tin House (5.31.08)
    9. Fantasy (6.09.08, hold request on 6.28.08)
    10. Colbert Report's McCain greenscreen challenge (6.19.08; probably won't receive a rejection or acceptance)
    11. Weird Tales (6.19.08)
    12. Drawn & Quarterly (6.23.08)
    13. Abberant Dreams (6.23.08)
    14. Writers of the Future (6.29.08)
    15. ChiZine 14th Contest (6.29.08)
    16. The Believer (7.02.08; two poems)
    17. Asheville Film Festival (7.03.08)
    18. Light (7.04.08; three poems)

    And, okay. If all of the above end up as acceptances, and my 400th sub has yet to even be submitted, I will be so happy that once I recover from the shock, I'll do my best to give everyone who enters a prize of some sort or another.


    crossposted from alexwilson.com.

    Saturday, July 5th, 2008
    jlundberg
         		1:15a
    what did we do today, brain?
    Your humble narrator...
    • 07:58 could not believe that the temp. in Singapore was only 24C this morning. Cool! #
    • 08:00 is reminded of just how much he really misses Autumn. #
    • 13:52 wishes all his USian peeps a Happy Independence Day! #
    • 18:53 sez, "W00t! Three-day weekend! Bring on the floppy underpants!" #
    • 19:22 forgot what a hawesome bouncy song "The Safety Dance" is, and is now playing it full-blast. Yay Friday! #
    • 21:54 wishes there was a pill you could take that would secrete an odor or pheromone out your pores and keep mosquitoes away. Weaponized citrosum. #
    • 22:21 thinks it's weird to have a 3-day weekend, and not because of the 4th of July. Monday in S'pore is Youth Day, and teachers get a day off. #
    • 23:34 is going down to bed, to read from Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen before nodding off to sleep. #
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    Friday, July 4th, 2008
    ktempest
         		11:30a
    This Week @ Fantasy

    This week we had a lot of interesting stuff go up at Fantasy, so you should all check it out!

    First, this week’s story, Marrying the Sun, by the writer to watch out for, Rachel Swirsky.  Rachel has also agreed to do a Puppet Strings Author Spotlight for us, so go over there and ask her questions about her story and such.

    And if you’re still in need of a fiction fix, there’s an excerpt from Seaborn by Chris Howard available.

    On the non-fiction side, I did an interview with Gregory Banks about disability in SF/F fiction and there’s a review of Empress by my homeslice Naamen.

    And, of course, today is Fantasy Friday.  Time to Blog For A Beer!  We’re talking about superheroes and property damage today, inspired by my marathon watching of Justice League Unlimited.  Almost every show in the Bruce Timm DC Animated Universe is like crack to me, so I’m happy to get a chance to talk about it (even if this particular aspect is annoying).

    Comments | Permalink
    jlundberg
         		10:31p
    the awesomeness that is farah mendelsohn
    Back in May, I blogged about the cool donation system that Cory Doctorow had set up (with help from musician Olga Nunes) so that you could donate copies of Little Brother to schools and libraries all over the world. I also mentioned that I'd put down my school, Hwa Chong, on the list, in the hopes that someone would be generous enough to send a copy our way.*

    In the comments to that blog entry, Farah Mendelsohn (aka [info]fjm) offered to bypass the donation page and just send me a few copies of the book. I was naturally floored, and extremely appreciative, especially as the novel is still in hardcover, and therefore ain't cheap.

    Last week, the first week of the new school term, a large cardboard box encased in one of those Tyvek-ish mailing bags (like what they use(d) for M-bags in the US) was sitting on my desk as I arrived one morning. I opened it up, and inside were not just "a few" copies of Little Brother ("a few" meaning, to me at least, two or three), but FIVE copies. I mean, dude; most titles in the school library are available in only one or two copies. I couldn't stop smiling all day, and the school librarian was just as shocked, surprised, and grateful.

    I actually owe Farah for quite a bit. My first time at ICFA, after I presented my paper on Neil Gaiman's use of character reversal (a presentation that was frightfully well-attended), Farah was one of the first people to challenge some of the remarks I'd made in the paper, and force me to defend both my word choices and my academic integrity. A couple of years later, at my second ICFA, after listening to me present a paper on "Embedded Narrative in the Fiction of Kelly Link," she asked me to turn it from a conference paper into a proper academic article and submit it to her at Foundation. I did, and after several back-and-forth edits, she published the article in issue 99, her last issue as editor.

    And now I owe her once again.

    If you read [info]fjm, or have happened across a book that she has edited or written (the latest being Rhetorics of Fantasy), you will already know her to be deeply thoughtful and erudite in the examination of literature of the fantastic. But, as is evident through her actions, she is also an extremely kind and generous person, and a good one to have in your corner.

    I know I've already said this in email, but I want to publicly express my gratitude here as well. A hundred thousand thanks, Farah, from both me and my students. I bow down before your awesomeness.


    * A very nice anonymous person from Belgium, called only FoAM, was nice enough to answer the call, and I thanked him/her here.
    jlundberg
         		9:49p
    random things three
    Twitter has become doubly addictive now that I use LoudTwitter to squirt all of the day's tweets to the ol' blog once a day (usually in the middle of the night, when I'm asleep). This makes it look like I'm blogging even when I'm not; yay for faux productivity!

    Bonehead me has kept forgetting to pass along the message that [info]wheatland_press is having an awesome summer sale: "From now until Monday July 7 (at midnight Pacific Time), if you buy any two Wheatland Press titles at the regular price, you'll get one copy of any volume of Polyphony free. Just order as usual using Paypal and in the comment box of the order form for the second title, indicate which volume of Polyphony you would like to receive." [Psst! Order Volume 7!]

    Check out Project Indigo by Jesse van Dijk (via Enter the Octopus). It's fascinating architectural imaginations like this that make me want to create an entire world in words around them. Some serious worldbuilding potential there. I'd love to commission van Dijk to illustrate a limited edition of the Tower novel (though before that it would need to sell to a publisher, and before that I would need to finish it).

    ktempest
         		8:54a
    Write-a-thon Week 2 Update

    The reason for the lack of updates this week is that I hadn’t been writing much (due mainly to work and such) but I knew that this week’s chapter wasn’t going to be very long so I felt okay about waiting.  Last night, when I was very tired and wanted to sleep, I had a revelation about the chapter, switched my protagonist from female to male, and wrote it all in one sitting.  It’s only around 1000 words and isn’t likely to get much longer in revision, so I guess I have room for a longer chapter somewhere else.

    Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
    5,335 / 53,000
    (10.1%)

    Since I’m done early this week, I’m going to pause for more research. I just got a book on Egypt by Margaret Murray, one of the few early female Egyptologists, and I’m looking forward to seeing her take on different aspects of the culture and history.

    Comments | Permalink
    pgtremblay
         		8:39a
    I'm off...
    ...to New Hampshire for woods and lake. Keep the place clean while I'm gone.
    lonesome_crow
         		8:25a
    Happy July 4th
    Happy July 4th to all my friends in the States. Have a great weekend!
    Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
    rsheslin
         		10:17p
    Tweets for Today
    • 22:54 didn't burn herself too badly, thanks to quick reflexes and Hunter's Mr. Smiley Face Cold-Pack. #
    • 10:37 got up much later than I'd wanted and now need to rush to the store before pre-holiday crowds make it unbearable #
    • 12:16 is far too easily distracted #
    • 17:05 -- my gut recognized meaning of peach-colored sunlight before brain did. Fortunately, fire is in Yucaipa. #
    • 21:36 gave up attempting to artfully fillet the salmon and just stuffed the sucker with slices of tomato and lemon #

    • 22:54 -- using the tomato led to my husband inadvertently making a salmon-ella joke #
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    rambleflower
         		10:01p
    River, week 34 (and other things)
    Hey, the picture I took of sea turtles at the Maui Ocean Center is in the iPhone version of the Schmap Maui and Molokai Guide. No, I'm not sure why my last name is (the only one) in all caps. I don't think I submitted it like that.

    A very busy week for me, filling in for my coworker while still trying to keep up with my usual day job. At home, in my tiny bit of spare time, I've been keeping up with the WiiFit every day. I'm not sure how much progress I'm making, though it must be some. I cannot believe how out of shape I am! Of course, a lot of it comes from the C-section, and the fact that I still don't have good core strength. It's hard, not being able to do exercises that I have, no matter how out of shape I've been in the past, been able to do (some of them well). Or have them just wreck me like this. My lower back hurts sometimes so badly I worry, but at the same time I need to do *something* to start getting that strength back there. And then there's my hip, which I'm in physical therapy for but has not felt right (always out of sorts, sometimes very painful) since the baby was born. I don't think I've quite grokked this whole major abdominal surgery, at least not the vastness of what that means to me as a person. It's hard to accept that your fan kicks will never be able to soar over people's heads again...

    What a bummer that is! The truth is, even if my hip is never the same, River is completely worth it and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat to have him. So there.

    River's been quite the little milestone baby, and he can crawl pretty well (he doesn't pick up his legs much, but drags them now with his knees bent, which is progress) and is, I think, working on standing while not holding onto anything. He'll pull himself up and stand for awhile, just hanging out, getting used to standing. And other times he pulls himself up an lets go, clearly trying to balance himself without having to hold on (he usually does this in the big bed, where it's soft landing for his little butt as he falls on it over and over again). If you put him down in the living room or office he will crawl over to the music center, get it going, then pull himself up to standing at it. It's very cool that he can go after things he wants now. And terrifying.

    Anyway, his week 34 pictures are up at Flickr. Behold his adorableness!

    Current Mood: exhausted
    jlassen
         		8:14p
    Not within 100 miles
    No July 4th appearances by democratic party leaders, within 100 miles of San Francisco.

    I don't know weather to be offended, or relieved.
    time_shark
         		9:23p
    Blogwork Phoenix
    If you be interested in reviewing Clockwork Phoenix on your blog'r'LJ, e-mail me and I'll send you a e-galley.

    Same goes for The Journey to Kailash. I mean, why not?
    [ << Previous 25 ]
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