Reprints are cheerful!
Thanks to
Adam Mills, managing editor of
Weird Fiction Review (brain child of that energetic duo, the
Vandermeers), for asking for a reprint of "An Incident at Agate Beach." The story first appeared in
James A. Owen's gorgeous, short-lived
Argosy Quarterly, and went on to a second life in the
Northwest Passages anthology and a third in
Year's Best in Fantasy and Horror, edited by
Ellen Datlow and
Terri Windling. An appearance in the online
Weird Fiction will mark its fourth publication and be its home on the web.
I've also been asked for another reprint story for an anthology, tba.... I'm pleased about that one as well.
Thaliad
I'm still working out how to describe the new book.
My latest suggestion from Gary Dietz is that a summation of the book mention "dystopian," "story,""teens," and "in the future." Any thoughts? I find that
Thaliad tends to exceed any description of it, and so any any attempt to describe it in a few words is insufficient. It's easier to depict in 500 words than in 20. So far. Also, everybody suggests not using possible "turn off" words like "apocalypse" or "epic."
My feeling is that after a while, the whole attempt feels de-natured. I never have liked summaries. If I wanted to write a book in 20 words, I would do so and be done. I tend to like other people's descriptions better than my own for that reason.
In THALIAD, Marly Youmans has written a powerful and beautiful saga of seven children who escape a fiery apocalypse----though "written" is hardly the word to use, as this extraordinary account seems rather "channeled" or dreamed or imparted in a vision, told in heroic poetry of the highest calibre. Amazing, mesmerizing, filled with pithy wisdom, THALIAD is a work of genius which also seems particularly relevant to our own time. --novelist Lee Smith
New page, also thanks to Gary Dietz--
Gary is a former student of mine (from another life, almost!) who gives me advice about the internet and other things. He's a creative sort and a good writer. Here he is:
http://about.me/gdietz. Here I am:
http://about.me/marly_youmans. Most compact. So now I have a kind of complicated signpost...
1 + 1 + 1
If you're interested in my poetry and fiction, please take a look at the pages (see tabs above) for my three 2012 books--the new
Thaliad, the almost-new
The Foliate Head, and the slightly less new novel
A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. Every now and then publication dates collide, and those books are a challenge.
