Hangovers

I’m home with some sort of truly nasty crud, currently watching an episode of the A-Team on Sleuth, which bears the following description: "The team works from a pub to stop a loan shark from terrorizing small businesses; guest Wings Hauser." (The commercials they show on this network are terrible, sad and funny.) Next I’ll watch Rosie on The View. A few things:

• Liza Palmer has ended her fabulous personal blog, but will still be posting at The 5 Spot group blog. I linked to Liza as recently as yesterday, so this makes me sad. But let’s hope there’ll be more writing advice and Poet pictures anyway.
• Matt Cheney on why we should all be happy that about Michael Palmer winning the Wallace Stevens award. After reading several of his exceptional poems here, I’m convinced.
• Justine divulges the secretest secrets of how to write a novel.
• Niall Harrison with a whole bunch of links related to Slipstreamy goodness and debates thereof. Meanwhile, Graham Sleight continues Strange Horizons slipstream-themed week of reviews with a look at The Vintage Book of Amnesia, edited by Jonathan Lethem, which came out in 2000. This is one of my favorite anthologies and my only quibble with Sleight’s review is that it doesn’t mention Shirley Jackson’s "Nightmare," one of my favorite stories in the book (and of Jackson’s). (But I’ll grant that it’s far too rich an anthology for every story to get its due; especially when how these stories might speak to definitions of slipstream is the main concern.)
• Take the Fantasy or Football? quiz. (Via Rarely Likable.)

Now I go back to collapsing. Emails I owe you will come soon. Promise.

I’m about a bajillion years behind on email, but am slowly catching up.

• There’s an excellent interview with Sara Zarr at Cynsations.
• A new Ben Rosenbaum story, "The House Beyond Your Sky," is up at Strange Horizons (which is having a great year). He talks about the story here.
• Liza Palmer on knowing what’s at stake for your characters. And also, on playing god: As a writer, you have to have the bawls to cut and add and re-name and kill people off and get raw and honest and admit when you’re wrong and laugh when you’ve taken the easy way out. And do it without looking back – know and trust that you’re right and that you know what’s best – even though that character phenomenon is nowhere else in your life – that steely cocksuredness – it has to be in this part. There is no room to be indecisive or apologetic in writing.
• Padgett Powell interviewed in The Believer. (From all over.)
• Andrea Seigel on being on tour. It sounds more fun than most. Hotel love helps, I’m sure.
• The Watcher on the new season of The Wire, the beginning of which is imminent.

• Jeff VanderMeer visits the Bat Segundo podcast.
• David Moles asks for some recommendations for and opinions about what writers writing for adults can learn from YA books. And the SF Signal is discussing similar issues.
• Copy editor Deanna Hoak, who witnessed the grope, has a very thoughtful post on social pressure and why nobody really did anything during the ceremony.
• Erin meditates on the things that one person in a relationship will just never do to make the other happy — hers is camping. It’s one of mine too! (Hiking a Very Long Way would be another, related one.)
• Chris Payne’s amazing gothic photos of old insane asylums. He also photographs substations. (Via the Witty Staircase.)
• Bones comes back tonight, the first returning show I actually like. It makes me very happy. I am SO in the mood for a night of TV sloth.

• "Once More With Hobbits: A Lord of the Rings/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Adventure." (Via Largehearted Boy.)
• Adults reading YA. This is news? Yay, nonetheless. (Via TEV.)
• Bennett Madison on Cookie Mueller’s under-recognized work. (Note: This is a fantastic post.)
• New Alan DeNiro poem "The Were-Koontz." It joins "The Were-Crichton."
• The goods on a call for YA book proposals on girls and science, over at Moles’ digs.
• Erin and the InKY reading series go legit. This is the awesomest of awesome news.
• John Green on the lonelygirl15 and danielbeast youtube saga and how the taste for "realishness" may affect books.
• J.D. Daniels’ essay on Philip K. Dick at Kitchen Sink magazine. (Via Jenny D.)
• Over at Maud’s, Sean Carman on Andrea Seigel’s To Feel Stuff and Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics. (I’ll have a post on To Feel Stuff soonish; loved it.)

• Tod Goldberg offers his opinion on whether writing can be taught.
• Philip K. Dick interview from 1977. (Via Maud, who also transcribed some of Ray Bradbury’s comments on writing a screenplay of Moby Dick.)
• Midori Snyder on noir and fantasy, in which she links to Raymond Chandler’s "Realism and Fairyland."
• La Gringa has all the relevant links to the uproar over GalleyCat’s celebration of publishing hotness.
• One Story has a blog now (and they just took a story from Matt Cheney: yay!).
• Associated Press profile of Ms. Kelly Link. (Via Largehearted Boy.)
• Rebecca Skloot extracts some ways writers found their muses from Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses. Dame Edith Sitwell: What a drama queen.
• Finally, the LBC has announced the next three nominated titles (yep, we’re going to three, which makes me very happy), which will be discussed in October. I’ve read Manbug and Firmin so far and would recommend both happily. (And hey, another good thing: all three are SHORT. As is time.)

• Clearing out open tabs this morning and I can’t remember where I first saw many of these, so apologies if I snitched a link from you sans credit.
• The fabulous Meg Rosoff interviewed in the Guardian. Interviewer falls in love with her.
• Sarah Monette on the categories of science fiction, fantasy and horror and whether we need them.
• Japan makes rules about robots to prevent future Cylonalypse. Yeah, right. (Via Maud.)
• "Life According to Women’s Magazines."
• In defense of MFAs. (Via Rarely Likable.)
• Canadian BookTelevision has named its finalists for the 3-Day Novel Contest. This actually looks like great fun to watch; sad we don’t get to. (Via Cecil, whose amigo made the cut.)
• 10 Overlooked Odd Spec Fic Classics. (Via Matt.)
• Finally, make your own On Notice board. (Via Erin.)

• Bennett Madison weighs in with the most sensible (and entertaining) reaction so far to the latest chick lit vs. "serious" lit dust-up.
• Scalzi vs. Westerfeld on the topic of Pluto and whether it’s a planet. I actually agree with Scott on this one, but Scalzi totally wins. That video = to die for.
• The Seattle library is offering free music downloads — sadly, only for those with Seattle public library cards. We still have to request and rip. (Via Maud.)
• George Pelecanos is guest blogging over at Sarah’s this week. One of his posts asks whether writers are anti-social in a similar way to criminals. In another, he discusses what it means to be "successful" as an artist: I was on a panel once with a novelist who bragged to the audience about his ranking on the New York Times Bestseller list, and, in the same sentence, described his recently purchased yacht. A writer friend who had witnessed this later said to me, "He doesn’t get it. This is a competition. But it’s not that kind of competition."
• Online web comics are retelling fairy tales like gangbusters. The Endicott Studio blog has the goods on some notable and one new.
• If I haven’t answered your email, my apologies. I’m barely keeping my nose above the water this week. See as proof my ghostwritten Contributor’s Note.

• One lost thing from the Lost Post of last week (the bedroom furniture is all rearranged now, so it shouldn’t happen again) was a pointer to news about the big shindig for Jeff VanderMeer’s Shriek: An Afterword at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn on August 20. There will be burlesque performances, readings by the likes of Ellen Kushner and Scott Westerfeld to name but two, and, of course, a screening of the Shriek short film. I would so be there if I were anywhere close by.
• Megan at Bookdwarf kicks off an interesting discussion with a post about the dueling Chick Lit (Or Not) anthologies. See also: Ed’s take. And related: Understanding Curtis Sittenfeld.
• Will we finally stop pretending that Pluto is a planet instead of Mickey’s pet?
• Colleen on bookish girls in YA fiction at Bookslut.
• Review cliches that should be banned.
• Alan DeNiro joins the Slipsteam Debate of August Aught Six.
• Anyone want a big, heavy Quixote head? Free to good home. Must pick up.
• Artist John Baldessari recently chose some works from the Hirshborn’s permanent collection for an exhibition called "Ways of Seeing." The WaPo runs photographs with commentary by Baldessari.
• I’ve been terribly absentee for this round of the LBC, but I do plan to join in the meta-meta fun going on around Michael Martone by Michael Martone this week. I suggest anyone who wants biographize themselves in the comments or on their own sites.

• Jeff on Starbucks’ first choice for its new bookselling evil.
• Geoff Ryman reviews Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart. (Via the Big Cheese Blog.)
• Terri Windling posts troubling news of Turkish novelist Elif Shafak’s being charged with "offending Turkishness" for the remarks of a character in her latest novel. She faces three years in prison. More info here.
• John Green on footnotes and the influence of David Foster Wallace on literary YA.
• The Publishing Spot interviews Christa Faust on writing the novelization of Snakes on a Plane.
• Maud on a truly exquisite piece of art, and Mark Strand.
• Bennett Madison recommends Laura Kasischke’s Boy Heaven.
• And, finally, John Kessel is one of the authors whose stories will be adapted for ABC’s Masters of Science Fiction series, slated to start mid-season. (Thanks, Alan!)

• Jeff Ford has been blogging up a storm (always an uplifting development). His commentary on the crappiness of HBO and War of the Worlds: I left it on, figuring,  "How bad could it be even with Cruise — aliens, killing, running, explosions, more killing.  What the fuck."  It was about what I expected until it got to the part in the basement and Dakota Fanning (like this is a real name — winner of the golden corn dog award) asks Cruise to sing her a lullaby.  Oaf that her old man is, he doesn’t know any, so he sings "Little Deuce Coup" by the Beach Boys.  I couldn’t fucking believe it — Cruise, breathlessly squeaking out in verbal mouse farts the lyrics to the tune.  I was laying on the bed and had to sit up straight.  He had tears in his eyes.  Oh my Christ, oh the humanity.  I knew I was witnessing film history — a bona-fide Five Star Simpering Moment.
• New SF ezine Heliotrope is live, featuring lots of interesting stuff; see here for details. A very welcome development.
• Glen Hirshberg finally makes good with the next installment on writing implements: For me, writing really is somewhere else, an island I can’t live on, but that I need to visit every single day of my life, because it resists mapping, keeps revealing itself with every new ridge I climb or cove I duck into. The challenge is getting there.
• Mr. McLaren resurrects an out-of-print friendly dictators trading card set. I choose Number 14, General Manuel Noriega, but mostly because of his pen pal.
• Justine weighs in with a fabulous post on the Tiptree bio, about how it is a book she once intended to write herself. The bio also received a very odd review from Martin Morse Wooster in the WaPo over the weekend. Odd, in that this sentence, the last in the review, is pretty much the only part that deals with Julie Phillips’ writing: "Julie Phillips does an excellent job in telling Sheldon’s story." The rest of the review summarizes Tiptree’s life. Seems ODD.
• Max rounds up the 2006 Lettre Ulysses Award longlist, which recognizes excellence in book-length reporting. As he points out, it’s an eclectic list with some fascinating-looking, off-the-beaten-review-path titles.
• World Fantasy Award noms are out and it’s a great, great list all round. Congratulations to Ms. Link, Hal Duncan, Joe Hill, Paul Park, Caitlin Kiernan, and all the other nominees! (Via Gavin.)
• Pinky, aka Carolyn Kellogg, tells the story of getting her purse stolen on NPR. Pinky has the best hair and great taste in everything. So go listen.
• And now I’ll go back to obsessively watching things on YouTube like: Siskel and Ebert bitchfighting; David Bowie and Marianne Faithful singing "I Got You Babe" from 1973 (what is she wearing?); and (this is briliant) OK Go on treadmills.