1) My latest "yellow house" story, "The Belated Burial," is now online at Subterranean Magazine.
2) My interview with WoW.com is also now online. I'm very pleased with the screencaps. It's official. I am an uber-nerd.
3) On Monday, Amazon.com published their Top Ten List of F&SF Books from 2009. Cat Valente's Palimpsest took the number one slot, but I was very, very happy with landing the second place slot with The Red Tree. Also, two anthologies that made the list include my fiction, Peter Straub's American Fantastic Tales ("The Long Hall on the Top Floor"), at fourth place, and Jonathan Stathan's Eclipse Three ("Galápagos"), at eighth place. An excellent list.
4. I have accepted an invitation to appear as Guest of Honor at Arcana 39 in St. Paul, Minnesota, October 15-17th, 2010. I will be doing a signing at DreamHaven Books on October 14th.
A long time since I had that many announcements to make in one entry.
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Yesterday was sunny and almost warm here in Providence, and I was lured Outside. We left the house with no particular destination in mind, but as Spooky was pulling out of the drive, I spotted our jack-o'-lantern, still on the stoop. My plan had been to carry it to the park and leave to rot beneath a tree. But suddenly I had a better plan, one that would save it from the possibility of being smashed by a passing somebody. "I want to drop it in the river," I said, though at first I was unsure which river. We decided on the Saugatucket, where it winds through Wakefield, just west of the abandoned railroad/bike path. So...we drove south to Wakefield. I carried my first New England jack-o'-lantern out onto the bridge, held it over the abyss, and dropped it into the tea-colored, tannin-stained water ten or so feet below. It hit with a terrific splash and very briefly submerged. I'd expected it to simply sink. Instead, it was buoyed back to the surface by the air trapped inside. It rolled over once, so it was upside down, and proceeded to float. Though the river flows west, the dam keeps the current to a minimum here, and the wind began moving it eastward, against the current. We watched for twenty minutes or so, until it snagged in some low branches near the shore. All in all, it seemed a very fitting way to dispose of a pumpkin. There are photos behind the cut:
Heading south into Slocum.
The last solemn seconds before the dropping of the jack-o'-lantern.
And I let go, and there's only gravity....
Photo taken seconds later, after the pumpkin has risen to the surface and rolled.
The jack-o'-lantern (orange blob indicated by the yellow arrow), having floated approximately .02 miles east of the drop point.
Back in Providence. View to the east.
All Photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac.
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