The Midnight Crier (at 2:00 a.m.): Raven Review

A welcome late review--lengthy and thoughtful--of The Curse of the Raven Mocker (2003) can be found at http://www.thealienonline.net via clicking on the jacket image on the home page, or by going directly to http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=2&scid=67&iid=2787. The reviewer's stance is clear from the subtitle, A fantasy for children that provides all the disconcerting resonances of true myth.

Here's a sample from Juliet E. McKenna: "Finally she reaches the heart of the supernatural evil she must challenge, for her sake, and for her parents. And it is an evil that will send a frisson up the most urbane of spines. Furthermore, since this is myth in the finest tradition, the resolution is something neither Adanta nor the reader is expecting. There is no cosy reset button to be pressed. No one wakes up and finds it was all a dream. Adanta's life is changed for ever."

The Midnight Crier (at 2:00 a.m.): Penpal frolics

Some people I know through letters (and one I've met) have confetti-worthy news. I just received a postcard (including a Bahr headstone and truck) from Howard Bahr; Judas Road will be out in 2006. Ingrid Hill's Ursula, Under is on the list for the Orange Prize. And Philip Lee Williams has three new editions coming out: The Heart of a Distant Forest from University of Georgia; A Distant Flame from St. Martin's/Griffin; and The Silent Stars Go By from Hill Street Press in Athens.

The Midnight Crier (at 2:00 a.m.): MacAdam/Cage Blue Moon Cafe

"A Map of the Forest" is forthcoming in the anthology, Blue Moon Cafe IV (MacAdam/Cage). A fun thing about this story is that it was written in response to a story by penpal Howard Bahr; I met him at the Southern Festival of the Book (Nashville) some time after he had written a blurb for The Wolf Pit, and we have been penpals since. We'll probably do another "pingpong" of stories, eventually.

The Midnight Crier (at 2:00 a.m.): Marly on McSweeney's

My sestina, "The Nesting Doll," has gone up on McSweeney's Internet Tendency. I didn't know about the glorious role of Assistant Web Editor for Sestinas at McSweeney's when I wrote it, but evidently a lot of people have written sestinas particularly for McSweeney's, utilizing the editor's name as one of the repeating end words.

Here's the start of it:

Once upon a time a little doll
Encountered demons in the woods near home;
One took the guise of a well-bred traveler,
Smiling and chatting as he trailed her here
And there, at last jumping right into her mouth
By cunning sleight, so he could taste her soul.

For the rest, hop to McSweeney's.