Glimmerglass by starlight

Click on the picture for a larger version
of the catalogue page.

STARS

I ended the day last night with stargazing... The brilliance of the sky lured us to wander down to Council Rock park and use the ipad to identify constellations hanging over Otsego Lake aka Glimmerglass. The lake looked especially glimmerglassian by starlight, quite smooth with very slight motion and one little fish making an ecstatic jump from the water and back again. The hills made black shadows on the lake, the edge of the lake and the surface punctuated by pinpricks and smears of pale yellow light from lawn and lake-edge lamps.

SO SWEET

I was so very pleased to be on novelist-and-more Midori Snyder's facebook list of 10 books that made a lasting impression that I'm going to post the whole list:

So my friend Terri Windling-Gayton called me out to pick 10 Books that have made a lasting impression on me...which is rough because there are just so many, many books! And by lasting, I think I should include the books of my childhood too...So here goes in an approximate chronological order from younger to older of just the fiction:

Half Magic by Edgar Eager
Once and Future King by T. H. White
Everything by J.R.R. Tolkien
100 Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ingledove, by Marly Youmans
Just about every short story by Flannery O'Connor and her letters
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urea
St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

I liked and was interested in her reasons for picking the book, and think it was a good pinch of attention for me--I need to get that one back into print.

THE OTHER GLIMMERGLASS

Tomorrow is pub date for the new novel. It managed to sneak up on me because I forgot the old verse beginning, "30 days hath September." [Addendum: No, it's not! I finally got the rhyme to go right, and pub date is Monday...] Those of you who have been friends to my writing and helped get the word out, thank you. Word of mouth is a great thing for a midlist writer, and I am grateful. If you are so inclined, please share the news. That's the best kind of launch for a book. You have my once-and-future thanks!

I'll be doing various sorts of events in Virginia, New York (including the city), North Carolina, and perhaps Georgia (working on that idea.) More are in the works. You can see current plans here.

"The Beastly Bride" NYC Reading

Reading from "The Beastly Bride," an anthology from the mythic fiction series edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

June 7 Monday
7-8 p.m.

McNally Jackson Bookstore
52 Prince St.
(between Lafayette & Mulberry)
New York, NY 10012

Readers: Jeffrey Ford, Carol Emshwiller, Rick Bowes, Nan Fry, Gregory Frost, Steve Berman, Rick Bowes, and me

Host: editor Ellen Datlow.
She edited SCIFICTION and Omni and has won a raft of awards.

The Beastly Bride approaches!

It's almost time for The Beastly Bride--and definitely time for a pre-order. Kirkus has given the book its blessing, saying that it "fits" the familiar, much-desired pattern of a Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow anthology with its Charles Vess illustrations, notes, biographies, bibliography, and solid introduction.

Here's what the reviewer notes about the contents: "The 22 writers include Jane Yolen, Ellen Kushner , Midori Snyder , Tanith Lee and Peter S. Beagle, among others. Delia Sherman ’s 'The Selkie Speaks' allows a seal maiden to tell her own tale; Terra L. Gearhart-Serna brings a trickster’s sly voice and a little Spanish into her first published writing, 'Coyote and Valarosa.' Marly Youmans turns to glassmaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains for the intensely romantic 'The Salamander Fire.' The three interwoven motifs of these tales, inspired by many cultures, are beings who shape-shift between animal and human of their own will, who are transformed as a curse or enchantment and who are both human and animal yet wholly neither. Rich reading that meets the editors’ high standards." Catch that? "Intensely romantic." That's with either a small "r" or a large "R."

So if you're somewhere between about 12 and about 112, you might just like it! Available for pre-order now and with a pub date of March 1.

The Beastly Bride and Other Tales of the Animal People

Preface by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Introduction by Terri Windling

Island Lake by E. Catherine Tobler

The Puma’s Daughter by Tanith Lee

Map of Seventeen by Christopher Barzak

The Selkie Speaks by Delia Sherman

Bear’s Bride by Johanna Sinisalo

The Abominable Child’s Tale by Carol Emshwiller

The Hikikomori by Hiromi Goto

The Comeuppance of Creegus Maxin by Gregory Frost

Ganesha by Jeffrey Ford

The Elephant’s Bride by Jane Yolen

The Children of Cadmus by Ellen Kushner

The White Doe Mourns Her Childhood by Jeanine Hall Gailey

The White Doe’s Love Song by Jeanine Hall Gailey

The White Doe Decides by Jeanine Hall Gailey

Coyote and Valorosa by Terra L. Gearheart

One Thin Dime by Stewart Moore

The Monkey Bride by Midori Snyder

Pishaach by Shweta Narayan

The Salamander Fire by Marly Youmans

The Margay’s Children by Richard Bowes

Thumbleriggery and Fledglings by Steve Berman

The Flock by Lucius Shepard

The Children of the Shark God by Peter Beagle

Rosina by Nan Fry

And see just below for some of the online things I've found interesting lately... I'll be back to talking about friends with new books just as soon as I wallow through the taxes-and-documents slough.

New anthologies & Val/Orson special

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Postscripts 19: The PS Quarterly Anthology (P. S. Publishing) contains my story, "The Red King's Sleep." The publisher says that "this Postscripts anthology is probably the best yet, containing gripping, stylish stories by some of the finest genre writers around . . . Marly Youmans enters the world of Through the Looking Glass from a terrifying angle."

Editorial - Nick Gevers
Daniel Abraham - 'Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance'
Andrew Hook - 'Bigger Than The Beetles'
David T. Wilbanks - 'The Cacto Skeleton'
Matthew Hughes - 'Enemy of the Good'
David N. Drake - 'A Life Cliched'
Marly Youmans - 'The Red King's Sleep'
Tim Lees - 'Meeting Mr. Tony'
Scott Edelman - 'The World Breaks'
Justin Cartaginese - 'The Portrayed Man'
Chrs Beckett - 'The Famous Cave Paintings on Isolis 9'
Ron Savage - 'Famous People'
M.K. Hobson - 'The Warlock and the Man of the Word'

http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/acatalog/Postscripts_19_ltd.html

In addition, P. S. Publishing is running a special on the four P. S. books reviewed recently in "Black Static," including Val/Orson. You may find that offer at the P. S. website: http://news.pspublishing.co.uk/2009/08/24/special-offer-the-black-static-foursome-for-just-45/. If you want to see a clip from my "Black Static" review, sail to http://www.marlyyoumans.com/ and check out the Val/Orson page.





















Available for pre-orders at your friendly neighborhood bookstore or elsewhere: The Beastly Bride (Viking), another marvelous anthology from Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

My story is "The Salamander Fire," in which you may find a young glassblower, a lawyer who is busy turning into a demon, fire bathers in an underworld, a salamander, and much more. I like the anthologies in this series and am pleased to be in this one.

Author list: Christopher Barzak, Peter Beagle, Steve Berman, Richard Bowes, Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Gregory Frost, Nan Fry, Jeanine Hall Gailey, Terra Gearheart, Hiromi Goto, Ellen Kushner, Tanith Lee, Steward Moore, Shweta Narayan, Johanna Sinisalo, Lucius Shepard, Delia Sherman, Midori Snyder, E. Catherine Tobler, Jane Yolen, and Marly Youmans.


Upcoming is Jeff and Ann Vandermeer's anthology, Last Drink Bird Head: Flash Fiction for Charity (Ministry of Whimsy). The author list is nigh-infinite: here. The tale (and the picture) behind this curious anthology can be found at

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/06/10/last-drink-bird-head-an-october-surprise/.