Recently while at brunch with some good friends, one of them looked at me and said “Rhonda, why don’t you just write a bestseller and buy a villa in Tuscany already?”

Write a bestseller.

Just like that, easy peasy.

Now why didn’t I think of that?

In other news, it’s not a bestselling novel but I’m the six word memoirist of the day at Smith Mag today. That means my picture and one of my six word stories is featured on their front page at http://www.smithmag.net

My haiku, Lovers, has been nominated for a Rhysling Award!

I probably should have shared that in a more restrained manner, but I’m so incredibly honored and flabberghasted that I just had to blurt it out — especially after forcing myself to wait so I could share it first in my newsletter

Thank you so much to who(m)ever nominated it. You rock. I love you.

Congrats to everyone else who had work nominated this year, especially to my friends Greg Schwartz, Deborah P. Kolodji, Joshua Gage, Marge Simon and her husband Bruce Boston. I’m so very honored to know I will be sharing a table of contents with you all in the 2009 Rhysling Anthology.

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.

I had a good day yesterday, no, actually, it was a great day. Days like that don’t come along very often.

First, my short story Axe was chosen to appear in the first ever print edition of Demon Minds. Yay! I was very excited about having it accepted for the online version a few weeks ago, but I’m one of those writers who love, love, loves to see their work in actual print. Axe is the most disturbing story I’ve ever written, though, so it’s exciting and nerve-wracking to know it is going to print.

Also in the category of nerve-wracking is that I heard back from one of the agents I’d queried about Blood and Stone (which I’ve renamed Swamp Story). She requested a partial. *squee* I’m so excited, but nervous too. Keep your fingers crossed for me…

But wait, there’s more!

The day before yesterday I got an email from Carolyn Clink inviting me to read some of my poetry at an open mic event during World Fantasy. I don’t intend to read, but I hope to attend and listen, and I did do a little fan-girl squeal and bounce in my seat at reading the email. It was sent to me and a few other people, but we were all mentioned by name in the body of the email. Yes, I really did think ‘Oh my god, Carolyn Clink wrote me an email, she totally knows I’m alive!’. Yup. For those of you not familiar with Carolyn, she’s a very talented poet and she is married to Robert J. Sawyer. Yup. So full of awesome.

But, more about yesterday…

I’d entered a contest a few days ago and I got the email yesterday that I’d won! I would include a link here to the book I won, but um…I don’t have the link yet. Once I do, I’ll share it

Last, but certainly not least, my copies of Lost Innocence arrived yesterday. They look amazing! I can’t wait for people to see them, they are so gorgeous. Now I just need to figure out how to get them to the post office (I don’t drive and 40 books are heavy). I suspect they will be being mailed out in waves.

So yes, I had a fantastic day yesterday. Have you ever had a day like that? I’d love to hear about it.

It’s Preditors & Editors Poll time

Please pop on over to http://www.critters.org/predpoll/ and vote for all your favorite novels, authors, poets, artists magazines etc. etc.

Niteblade and I are nominated in a few categories and if you feel like voting for us, yay, if not, no big. However, I would ask that each of you consider voting for Marge Simon’s cover art for the December issue of Niteblade. Marge is a wonderful woman and a talented artist who does the cover art and story illustrations for Niteblade for far less money than she deserves. You can see her work and vote for her here –> http://www.critters.org/predpoll/zineart.shtml You will need to enter your email address to vote in order to prevent bot votes, but you won’t get spammed or have it sold anywhere.

Thank you in advance to everyone who votes

p.s. When I nominated Marge I screwed up the first time, so there are two occurances of her name there — please vote for the one where the picture link actually works

p.p.s. I apologize if you’ve read me making a similar plea elsewhere, I just want Marge to get as many votes as I can LOL