The Bram Stoker Award preliminary ballot is out and Abominations edited by Tim Deal is nominated for Superior Achievement in an Anthology.

Abominations.

The very same anthology that includes my short story “Spoiled Picnic”. I’m excited for him because he has two anthologies nominated. Tim was a wonderful editor to work with, always friendly, professional and friendly. I am happy that good things are happening for him

While this is, very decidedly, Tim’s honor not mine I am also excited for myself. Why? Because I’m a fan girl at heart and the fact my story is in a book that is on the same nomination list as work by people like Stephen King, Bruce Boston, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem is enough to make me go ‘squee’! I know it’s a pretty slim association, but it makes me happy just the same.

Good luck Tim.

While I was at World Fantasy I was very intrigued by a certain set of postcards on the Freebie table. They were red and black and had a picture of two zombies kissing on them. How can you not be drawn to a book cover with a picture of two zombies kissing on it? I snagged one with the intention of looking up the book later, when I was at home.

The next day a friend of mine had a friend who was doing a reading from her book (lol ah, the ole friend-of-a-friend thing, but it’s true!), so we went to listen to her. We went a bit early though, figuring we’d listen to “S.G. Browne whoever that was” who was reading before her. I’m SO glad we did. The friend-of-a-friend read well and her story seemed like one my daughter might like. S.G. Browne read from his soon-to-be-released book “Breathers” and I was blown away.

The section he read was funny, it was poignant and it really pulled me in. When I saw him later at the autograph session, even though I am really quite shy in real life and not prone to approaching people I don’t know, I went over and talked to him. I found that not only is he a very talented writer, he’s a really nice guy too! When I came home I pre-ordered my copy of Breathers and then looked him up on livejournal and Facebook.

I’ve got an interview with him coming out on Niteblade about the same time his novel does (in March) and I intended to blog about all this then, but, he’s having a contest and the prize is a signed ARC of Breathers. I’m a sucker for ARCs and I would LOVE to not have to wait until March to read this novel, so I’m blogging now

If you like zombies, dark humor and good storytelling I really recommend you pop over to Undead Anonymous and find out more about this book and its author. There is loads of great content there including an absolutely hilarious commercial for Necrobufrin (the key to a better death) on the zombie community page.

Check it out, then pre-order your copy so you can be cool, like me :-p

I mailed out the January edition of my newsletter today. It included a poem I’d written about a visit to the Residential School museum, an excerpt from my current work-in-progress “Truth or Dare” (which has Michael and Charmaine in it — two characters who should be familliar to anyone who has read “Sister Margaret”) and a bit of flash fiction called “Accidental Discharge”.

If you want to make sure you get the next version of the newsletter and don’t miss out on whatever I share next month, you should click here to sign up.

If you’re already subscribed, thank you. I hope you enjoy the reading

Eep! Dude, it’s like the 14th already. How did that happen?

I’m working on my newsletter and I think I may pull it off on time this month (yay!). There’s still time to sign up if you haven’t already –> Newsletter <– . It’s pretty fun. I include one piece that hasn’t been published before, snippets of my works-in-progress and a poem as well as just updates and such. C’mon, all the cool kids are subscribed

In other news, on the 11th my poem, Ballerina, was published on Every Day Poets. I’ve been published by their fiction site too and I have to say I really enjoy the format. I love the fact readers can comment and rate pieces — feedback from strangers is good. Good I say!

Right, I need to stop procrastinating and work on the newsletter or I won’t have anything to mail out tomorrow.

I have a new interview up at Niteblade. This one is with Jim C. Hines. He’s got a brand new book out today called “The Stepsister Scheme” that I think is going to be awesome. I’ve got my copy pre-ordered from Amazon and I can’t wait for it to arrive.

Anywho, you should head on over to the Niteblade News blog and check out the interview. Please?

Interview with Jim C. Hines