Random Acts of Literary Vandalism

I’ve done a short guest-post over at Lee Battersby’s blog to kick off a short retrospective about Clarion South 2007. I talk a little bit about what makes clarion great and a lot about the influence one of my classmates had on the first draft of what would eventually become Horn (formerly known around these parts as the untitled Unicorn novella). Go check it out, if you’re so inclined.

The rest of the day was pretty busy, by my standards. A trip to the Gold Coast to discuss a subject I start co-teaching in a couple of weeks, a brief fight with the university library about fines for books I’ve already paid fines on, and a trip out to the movies to see The Wrestler. The latter really deserves a post all on its own, since it’s a solid and enjoyable movie (and I say that rarely), but suffice to say that I’d recommend it. Micky Rourke is as good as you’ve heard, the film itself is very engaging, and it’s probably the first film about wrestling ever that didn’t make me furious by condescending to either the sport/performance or the fans.

A few weeks ago we lost The Years Best Fantasy and Science Fiction, a book with a twenty-year history and a mainstay of my to-read list every year. Today I discovered that Realms of Fantasy is closing its doors after a fifteen-year run. It’s looking like a dark time to be a writer of short fantasy fiction,  but I think the reader in me is far more bothered by the loss of these publications.