Quick update because I’m supposed to be writing.
A couple of great things have come my way that I want to get the word out about in brief…with details to follow!
- My story Small Strange Towns finally found a home! The biggest challenge to publication is that its a monstrously short story: I got the most amazing feedback every time it was rejected with the primary criticism being its length (and no suggestions for cuts that I could live with). I’m happy to say it will be forthcoming – in it’s entirely from Giganotosaurus this spring. Date to follow!
- In other, related, entirely coincidental, and even more exiting news, I’ve been asked to be part of a reading celebrating the life of speculative fiction writer Octavia E. Butler. The MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant winner had a long relationship with the Clarion Writers Workshop, beginning with her attendance. I recently posted about a “Bloodchildren” a benefit anthology produced by the Carl Brandon Society to support the Clarion memorial scholarship in her honor. Several of Butler’s friends, Clarion classmates, and recipients of the scholarship are Seattle locals and will be putting on a reading at Wayward Coffee House in the University District on April 12, 2013 at 7pm. I was part of the last Clarion West Class she taught before her untimely passing in 2006 and I’ve been asked – as one of her students – to read with them.
The beauty in the resulting coincidence is this: Small Strange Towns was the story I wrote during the first week at Clarion West. That week will always be “Octavia’s Week” in my mind and there is a wonderful story behind how “Strange” came into the world thanks to a little prod from the great woman.
It will be an absolute privilege to read a snippet of it in front of a live audience in her honor.
Or, to put it in my native tongue (aka Valley Girl): “I am, like. so. totally. stoked.”