Caitlín R. Kiernan

It's bright out there. Cold, but bright. And there's another storm on the way, as I'm sure at least half the country is aware. The snow should reach us by morning. I'm thinking of all those six-foot heaps made by the snowplows, and wondering how they'll look as seven- and eight-foot heaps. We have to get out of here this evening, before the weather starts deteriorating. I have a 7 p.m. (CaST) doctor's appointment, and we'll need to make it to the market.

---

Something happened yesterday that's never happened before. It's remarkable, I suppose, that it's never happened before, given I've been writing pretty much full-time now for nineteen years. I'm hesitant to even speak of it here. But given how this journal is meant to be an honest record of my experiences as a writer and author, I would feel dishonest leaving it out. Yesterday, first time ever, I found myself crying because of what I was writing. It came on very suddenly, and I had to stop and step away for awhile before finishing the scene. I know I was crying for Imp. There are other reasons, too, which I'm not going to spell out. But, later, I found myself thinking that this has to be the last novel of this sort I write, at least for the foreseeable future. It's too terrible and too personal. I find myself not wanting to let anyone see this one, ever. I felt that way a little with Daughter of Hounds, then even more so with The Red Tree. But it's never been this strong, the urge to lock the book away and not subject it to editors and reviewers and Amazon reader comments and people mouthing off on their blogs. It's just too personal, and I suppose I have no one to blame but myself. No one forces me to write these particular stories, to keep picking at these particular scabs. But, yeah. Last time. And then I'm going off to write YA, and tell wondrous stories, and they'll be dark, sure. They'll be true. But they sure as fuck won't be this. It sounds melodramatic, I know, but the truth is I'm making myself sicker, writing this novel, and it's not worth the toll it's taking.

It's okay if that didn't make much sense. Like Imp's story, it's mostly just for me.

At best, I'm halfway through the novel.

Yesterday, I wrote 2,106 words on Chapter 5, and finally reached the end of the longest chapter I've ever written.

--

Not much else to say about yesterday. We watched the new episode of Fringe, which, of course, was very good. Then we watched the first two episodes of Season Two of Spartacus. Gods, I'd forgotten how much I love this show. Sheer and utter fucking debauchery and depravity, unabashed, unapologetic. All fucking id, top to bottom. It's nowhere near as well written as was Deadwood, but I think it has much the same appeal for me. Later, we played a little WoW. I think I got to bed about 3:45 a.m. (CaST).

Gonna go now. Comments would be especially welcome today.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,840 words on Chapter Two of The Drowning Girl. I think I am amazed at how this narrative is unfolding. Amazed and unnerved. It's a calculated tumult. And, too, the prose in my novels continues to grow airier, looser, more open, more conversational. That began with Daughter of Hounds. It's occurred to me that readers who liked the denser prose of my earlier novels might not be so enthused by the "new" direction, but it's not like I'm going to purposefully stall what seems to be a natural progression.

Very cold here in Providence (32F, 20F with the windchill). Cold and sunny.

Sirenia Digest #60 went out to subscribers late last night. I'd love to hear feedback on "The Prayer of Ninety Cats."

Today is Goblin Day in WoW. Well, if you're a Horde player. Which is to say the Cataclysm expansion goes live today. We've got a team of five lined up to play goblins, leveling more or less together, which is something I've never done before, playing with so many other people.

Not much to Monday except the writing. We listened to more of Madeline L'Engle reading A Wrinkle in Time. Spooky made a trip to the post office. I've lost track of how long it's been since I last left the House.* I read about Devonian tetrapods, and had a short nap in front of the fireplace. There was chili for dinner. We leveled our orcs to 40, which was my target level before switching to goblins, but I hadn't thought I'd make it. I read another of blackholly's stories to Spooky, "The Coat of Stars." It a wonderful, wonderful story. That was yesterday, pretty much.

I took photos all day long, for another "Day in the Life" sort of thing. Only, this time I restricted myself to macro shots. Here are the results:

( 6 December 2010 )

* Just checked. Last went Outside on November 23rd, which makes thirteen days. I've almost broken my record of fourteen days without even realizing it.

I slept more than eight hours last night, which was a great relief, as I was stupid and useless and somewhat ill all day yesterday, due to the two nights before. And I did it without Ambien. Whenever I happen to note that I'm not sleeping well, I'm often met with advice which I understand to be well meaning. But sometimes it can be unintentionally funny. For example, chamomile tea is frequently suggested. Which, if we're talking about run of the mill sleeplessness, the occasional night when it's a little hard to get to sleep, fine. But my insomnia is like unto the Godzilla of insomnia. When even the Ambien's not working, it's a safe bet chamomile tea won't, either. Or hot baths. Or warm milk. Another commonly suggested remedy is the hormone melatonin. And I know melatonin can be a useful sleep aid. Problem is, melatonin use may worsen depression (which I am being treated for) and cause vivid dreams and nightmares (which I am being treated for). It also has the potential to interact with certain drugs I've been prescribed. So, not an option.

Yesterday was, not unexpectedly, and as predicted, a lost cause. Maybe this falls under the heading of self-fulfilling prophecy, but given I was having serious trouble walking in a straight line, I rather tend to doubt it. I spent the first part of the day listening to the audiobook of The Red Tree from Aubile.com. I finished it (first ever audiobook I've listened to start to finish, by the way). Overall, I'm very pleased. The voice of Sarah is not the voice I heard in my head as I wrote it, but it works very well, regardless. After The Red Tree, I downloaded Daughter of Hounds and made it through the prologue and the first two chapters. And then I got dressed and we headed to the Athenaeum.

I had it in my head that I'd get some research done for a short story I need to start, but soon discovered I was too sleep deprived to focus on much of anything. I wound up just sort of groggily prowling the stacks, randomly reading bits of this or that. Books on fish of the Atlantic, the great white shark, sea monsters, the Farallon Islands, Steinbeck's The Log of the Sea of Cortez...well, okay, that doesn't sound nearly so disconnected as it seemed at the time. Though I can't really fit the Tsavo lions in there. At some point, I pulled from a shelf The Story of the Sun by Sir Robert S. Bell (D. Appleton and Company, NYC), published in 1893. I could see from a spidery bit of handwriting on the endpapers that the book had been entered into the Athenaeum's catalog on January 29th, 1894, some one hundred and sixteen years ago. And I imagined all the people who have opened this book in that time, and taken it out, and read it. How many in all that time? It occurred to me that the book was there in the Athenaeum for all of Lovecraft's life, and given his love of astronomy, that he very probably at least thumbed through it at some point in his forty-seven years. It's almost like time travel, moments like those (especially when you've not slept). We left the Athenaeum just before closing (at seven p.m.), stopped by the market, then headed home.

After dinner, we watched three episodes of Glee (the new one, plus two older ones Spooky had seen, but I had not). I love "Britana." And we learned last night that the episode which airs in two weeks has been written by Joss Whedon. Later, I went into WoW for the first time in two or three weeks and did a very satisfying battlefield, just Alterac Vally but it went on for almost an hour and felt more like an actual battle than WoW battlefields usually do. After WoW, we read more of Patti Smith's Just Kids, and then I managed to fall asleep watching a comfort movie, Jack Arnold's Revenge of the Creature (1955). Whatever I dreamt, it's mostly forgotten now.

The latest round of eBay auctions will be ending this afternoon (between 3:07 and 3:31 p.m. EST). My thanks to everyone who has bid, or who might yet. Also, Spooky has added a few new pieces of beach-glass jewelery to her Dreaming Squid Dollworks Etsy shop.

Anyway, time to make the doughnuts. I took one photo yesterday morning, from the front parlor, just before six a.m. Yesterday was the first time I'd ever watched the sun rise over Providence:

( 5 May 2010 )

1. Most of yesterday was spent looking for a new short story. I haven't yet found it. I sat here at the keyboard, allowing my mind to wander wherever it seemed to need to wander. At some point, I ended up reading S.T. Joshi's The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos (2008, Mythos Books). Around 5 p.m. (CaST) my agent called, and we talked a while, mostly about my health and how I'm not making progress on The Wolf Who Cried Girl. She was both understanding and encouraging. "You'll get it written when you get it written," she said, which is a truism, sure, but one of the comforting sort to hear from one's agent.

I believe, at this point, finding my way into the book may be a matter of taking a rather complex plot— which I worked out back in December and January —and tearing most of it away until only the most central and essential elements remain. I want a novel less like, say, Daughter of Hounds or Threshold, and more like The Red Tree. The fewest characters possible. The most personal and claustrophobic narrative I may manage. A story driven more by characterization, mood, and theme, and less by plot. It's in there somewhere, the story that I need to tell. I need only tease it free of my annoying preconceptions of this novel.

2. The postman brought me a review copy of Thomas Ligotti's forthcoming The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (Hippocampus Press)— his first work of nonfiction —which, at least from a cursory glance, seems like something I meant to write ten years farther along. Ah, well. Now Ligotti can take the heat for speaking the nihilism and for this "unsparing dissection of the sophisms spun by life's apologists," and all I have to do is sit back and nod my head from the shadows.

3. Last night, we played more WoW than I've had at a sitting in...well, a couple of months. It's a game I have to go away from and come back to every now and then, if it is to retain my interest. Shaharrazad and Suraa quested in the Grizzly Hills, and Suraa (Spooky) made Level 77. Shah is almost to 77. I hope that the great reboot of Cataclysm brings the design of the rest of Azeroth more in line with Northrend, as these environments are so much better realized than anything in either Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms.

4. The sleeplessness was back last night. I read from John Steele Gordon's A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable (2002), until I finally got sleepy, sometime after four ayem.

5. And here at four photos I snapped at Harbor of Refuge on Wednesday. They're not terribly good. It was freezing, sleeting, and the wind was so strong it actually kept threatening to push me over. The photos failed to capture the actual color of the sea, but they do capture something of the bleakness of the day:

( 3 March 2010 )

This morning, I awoke to the world gone white again. On the one hand, it ruins plans I had for tonight. On the other, the snow has smoothed off all the sharp edges of winter and decently hidden the wide carnivorous sky from view.

No work yesterday, but I knew there wouldn't be. I am going to try today.

Spooky and I spent the afternoon exploring a small bit of Providence, between the Providence and Seekonk rivers. I saw places I'd not seen before, or at least never seen up close. We started at India Point, south of Wickenden Street. But the wind was too bitter to stay out very long. We found shelter in the lee of the Hurricane Barrier, where the Providence River empties into Narrgansett Bay. The massive steel and concrete barrier was built in 1966, after two hurricanes flooded the city, and guards against storm surge. Later, we headed east, back towards the Seekonk. I was feeling a little intrepid, so we explored the old drawbridge and railroad across the river. These are locations from Daughter of Hounds. When Emmie goes out in the snowstorm, and ends up at the abandoned tunnel, this is the way she walked. We briefly debated looking for the tunnel entrance, but decided we weren't feeling quite that intrepid. I took lots of photos. Spooky also took a few. I'll post the best of them today and tomorrow (the photos relevant to Daughter of Hounds will go up tomorrow).

Before heading home, we stopped by Whole Foods. For dinner, Spooky made a meatloaf with gorgonzola, sun-dried tomatoes, and wild mushrooms. We read more of The Talisman. I dozed. And I'm getting these things out of order, out of the order in which they occurred, but it hardly matters.

Photos behind the cut:

( 15 February 2010 )

A few minutes ago, Spooky said, "I think if the Crawling Chaos offered me an apple, I'd have to run the other way." Which makes quite a bit more sense if you've seen my "Miskatonic Valley Yuletide Faire" T-shirt (thank you, Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs), and I know you probably haven't.

Merry Cephalopodmas, one and all.

Yesterday, I read "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics" to Spooky, and then tended to an awful lot of line edits. I think it's as good a story as it's ever going to be, so today I'll be sending it to subpress. By the way, this story will appear in an anthology of short stories inspired by the works of Robert Silverberg, edited by Gardner Doizois and Bill Schafer. Not sure of the publication date, but I'll post it when I know. My piece is a sort of "prequel" to Silveberg's Nightwings (1968, 1969). Also, yesterday I received the finished cover art for The Ammonite Violin & Others from Richard Kirk, and I'll post it here sometime in the next few days. It is truly, truly gorgeous. This is going to be a marvelous volume.

When work was done yesterday, Spooky and I bundled up and ventured out into the snowy world. Mountains of snow everywhere. We made it as far as the house at 599/597 Angell Street that was Deacon and Emmie's house in Daughter of Hounds. I'd not visited it since we moved here last summer, and, indeed, not since June 28th, 2004, when Spooky and I first happened upon it while I was researching the novel. It sits directly across the street from 598 Angell Street, where Lovecraft lived from 1904-1924. And after I took a few photos (below, behind the cut), we stopped by the market, then headed back home as the sun was setting.

Last night, we snacked on strawberry hamantashen and fresh Mandarin oranges and a huge tin of chocolate cookies, and watched a couple more episodes of Fringe. I rather enjoyed "August," no matter how blatantly the "observers" are ripped off from Dark City. And after that, there was WoW. We're fifty quests into the Borean Tundra (out of one hundred and fifty), and I really, really hate the region. After questing at Vengeance Landing and Dragonblight, it's just too disjointed and garish and noisy and hokey, too much like Outland, and I just want to be finished with it and get back to Dragonblight, which actually feels like a place. We both made Level 73. Shaharrazad has let her hair grow longer, what with the cold and all.

Sadly, there was very little in the way of Soltice ritual. I'm afraid that the whole "solitary practioner" thing just isn't working for me (I've been at it for five years now), and in the coming year I am going to make an earnest effort to either find or found a coven. I may even resort to WitchVox. There has to be at least one good GLBT-friendly coven in the area, one that isn't all fluffy bunnies and white-light nonsense.

Anyway, here are the photos from yesterday:

( 21 December 2009 )

On Thursday, I sent the proposal for Blood Oranges (working title, and almost certainly not the book's final title) to my agent. And now I'm waiting to hear back from her. I was hoping I'd get her thoughts before the weekend, but, alas, no. So...I wait. If she likes it as is, it will be sent along to my editor at Penguin. If Merrilee says the proposals needs work, I'll revise it, then send it back to her again.

As of yesterday, it's been four years since I finished Daughter of Hounds, which I began writing in the autumn of 2004. This time last year, I'd just finished The Red Tree, late in October, and was working on a short story, "The Collier's Venus." And now, here I am trying to find my way into the Next Novel, which I probably "should" have begun writing back in June. But my novels come slowly. I seem to be good for about one every two years. Well, that depends what you count and what you don't. If we say I've written seven novels— which is what I'd say —they have been written over a period of seventeen years. Which is, what? A novel, on average, every 2.4 years. Which seems entirely reasonable to me, especially given that, since 1993, I've also written and sold something 175 short stories, novellas, comic scripts, and vignettes.

Anyway...

Yesterday, I didn't write. Yesterday was cold and windy grey, the clouds low and threatful. And we went to an afternoon matinée of Roland Emmerich's 2012. A stupid, stupid, stupid movie. But, it is enjoyable on a certain level, that level wherein I derive a perverse glee from seeing all human civilization reduced to ruin and rubble, while almost seven billion people die screaming in convulsions of fire and water. It was stupid, but it was pretty. Stupid and pretty. I found it painful watching John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor trapped in the thing. At least John Cusack was allowed to be a bit lighthearted. Poor Ejiofor had to play the whole silly mess with a straight (and grim) face. I will say that Woody Harrelson was hilarious, and if only the film had given him a larger part, it would have been quite a bit more worthwhile. Has anyone else noticed that Emmerich keeps making the same film over and over and over, and that these films essentially adhere to a formula begun almost forty years ago, with Airport (1970) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972)? The last forty minutes or so of 2012 (the film was probably an hour too long, by the way) might almost be viewed as a cynical, hamfisted remake of George Pal's When World's Collide (1951). And did I mention this is a stupid film? No? I mean, it's like Emmerich hired a team of astrophysicists, planetologists, geologists, and engineers as consultants, then did exactly the opposite of whatever they advised. I was amused with Ebert giving the film 3.5 stars (out of 4), reasoning that "2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year." Yes, it's big, dumb fun. Just check your brain at the box office, or it won't be.

Last night, there was a fire in the house next door. Spooky and I heard an odd pop, and ten minutes or so later, the block was surrounded by fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances, and smoke was pouring from our neighbor's roof. We went downstairs. The night was cold and wet, and we watched the firemen and the chaos. It appears the fire was started by a faulty lamp short-circuiting, something like that. No one was hurt. All the pets were evacuated. Today, there's a truck pumping water out of the basement. My impression is that the damage from the fire was minimal, but the smoke and water damage must have been quite substantial. There are a few photos behind the cut:

( 13 November 2009 )

Gagh, I can't wake up today. I think there was just too much work yesterday, too many different sorts of work. We had actually talked about getting out of bed and making the 11:45 a.m. matinée of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but, well, that didn't happen. We're aiming for tomorrow, instead. And this needs to be short, because the day ahead of me is long and baffling and has many twists and turns, and doesn't even involve actual, you know, writing. The writing will likely resume tomorrow. It pretty much has to, or I'm going to find myself disastrously behind.

Quick recap of yesterday. Well, there was a piece I had to write for my editor, about the writing of The Red Tree, something for the Penguin website. That actually turned out rather well. She was pleased with it. And after that, I had an interview, which also went well, I think. The older I get, the odder interviews seem to me. The questions all begin to bleed together, and I find myself wanting to talk about quasars or stag beetles or plate tectonics or just about anything at all except my books and writing. No, I have no idea why, really. And there was a lot of email yesterday, more than usual, and it looks as though today will be much the same. Actually, I must have written at least 3,000 words yesterday, just none of it fiction. Did I say "Gagh"? Spooky and I both put in a good bit of time getting things ready for the re-relaunch of the website.

Speaking of which, here is a small but, I think, valuable piece of advice to the readers of this blog. If you don't approve of how I've done something —— the website, for example —— there is a couth and appropriate recourse which will allow you to express your opinion. Email me. It's not at all hard to find my email address, but, just in case I'm somehow mistaken on that count, I'll post it here again: greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com. Email me and tell me your thoughts, if you feel the need to do so. I'll read the email. I might even write back. Hell, I might even agree. However, if, instead, you blurt out something in the comments here on the LJ, you will discover that I am far less receptive to your advice. In fact, odds are, I will delete the comment, and if you've been rude enough, I will ban you from commenting in the future. This very scenario actually occurred on Friday morning, as I was trying to get out the door for Readercon, which is why I closed down comments to one particular entry. If the most tactful way you are capable of expressing yourself is to tell me something "sucks," and to tell me publicly, yes, you will be banned.

Now, this sort of thing has only happened a very few times. My ban list on LJ is extremely short. Maybe six or seven people, at most, over five years. I like comments. I like comments a lot, but I don't like rude and unsolicited criticism. Thank you.

A brief aside, for whatever it's worth, a shout out to ericmvan. You've done a marvelous job with Readercon, and I, for one, completely understand and sympathize with what you're saying about not being able to keep up this pace, needing to scale back for a year while a team is trained to do the job.

Also, I'm reposting the following, as it only made it into yesterday's entry as a postcript: Thanks to Franklin Harris (grandmofhelsing) for bringing this Readercon write up to my attention ("Some important things/people that I saw/met/learned/heard about at Readercon" at Time.com). I quote: "I didn't talk to Caitlín Kiernan, but I watched her swanning around in a tentacled mask and grey lipstick, and I felt awe. It is so important that cons have freakish people at them." I'm going to take this as a compliment. Did I "swan" around? There is an Old English meaning of the word, "to wander about without purpose, but with an air of superiority." So maybe I did swan around. Bjork and I, we swan. Also, the lipstick was green. Regardless, good to be mentioned, and yes, I am a freak, and I'm pleased the author included the fada in my name.

Which reminds me of something funny that came up at Readercon. Years and years ago, someone actually referred to me as "the Oscar Wilde of fantasy." Yep, they really did. As readingthedark said this past weekend, now I only have to be considered "the William Gibson of science fiction, or the Stephen King of horror."

And how come I never saw the page devoted to my writing that's up at fantasyliterature.net? It includes one of the best reviews I've ever read of Daughter of Hounds. I haven't yet had time to read their review of Silk. Actually, Spooky read me the review of Daughter of Hounds late last night, after she stumbled upon the page.

And, finally, we're trying to raise just a little cash to help out with the book trailer by beginning another round of eBay auctions. Have a look, and bid if you are able and so disposed. And yes, I'm covering all the expenses of the video production myself. I can't recall if I've said that already or not.

Anyway...off to milk the platypus.

Two nights in a row I've gotten a decent amount of sleep.

I managed a respectable 1,343 words on "As Red as Red" yesterday, and the story is finally beginning to take shape, after a week or so of going nowhere in particular. But my deadline in the 23rd. So, I'm a little panicked about actually getting this one done on time.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Also, you can pre-order the new trade paperback of Alabaster, due out in April. Or, for more immediate gratification, there's Daughter of Hounds, now in a convenient and cheaper mass-market paperback format. Thank you.

I enjoyed a very good evening of SL rp last night, in the Alpha Institute's library in NoR. It was one of those nights when everything just seemed to click, and the story rolled. My thanks to Joah, Beaumont, Choi, Kryss, Faye'Li, Bellatrix, Melusine, Utayo, and Sev. We're off to a good start. And I have discovered that eight people is about the maximum number of players that any scene can accommodate without spinning out of control, which mostly serves to confirm my earlier suspicions, that the stability of any scene decreases as the number of players increases. I believe I shall call this Nareth's First Rule of Roleplay. After the rp, Spooky and I watched two more episodes for Season Three of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

The platypus says shake a leg, so....

Yesterday was the sort of day I spend looking for the story, but not actually writing the story. I finally sat down and re-read a couple of chapters of Michael E. Bell's Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires (Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2001), specifically chapters 11 ("Relicks of Many Old Customs") and 12 ("A Ghoul in Every Deserted Fireplace"). It helped get my head where my head needs to be. I'd wanted to head back to Newport, back to the old library, but the weather was shit, bitter cold, and besides, this is the weekend of the big-ass Newport St. Patrick's Day fiasco. So. This weekend I try to get the story started. If it hasn't happened by Monday, we go back to Newport. Oh, I did find a title, "As Red as Red." I think one thing that I'm having trouble with here is shaping a story that's equal parts werewolf and vampire tale (and no, not in the quasi-moronic Underworld sense).

So, yeah, yesterday was mostly spent sitting in the big chair in the front parlour, in a marvelous pool of afternoon sunlight, pretending it's not still winter out there, reading.

An unexpected, but very welcome, royalty check arrived from my German publisher. It seems the German translation of Threshold is selling well. So, maybe I still have a shot at Werner Herzog.

I washed my hair. I didn't leave the house.

Last night, after dinner, we watched Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), which we'd not seen since its theatrical release. I still find it a marvelous, impressively paced, and splendidly tense film. I do wish people wouldn't think of it as a zombie film, as it clearly isn't. The "infected" are not "running zombies," as they're not dead. The most interesting thing last night was watching the various "alternative" endings. The first is, I believe, clearly the original theatrical ending (it was labeled "alternative theatrical"), the one that test audiences likely found "too grim" or some such malarky. After escaping Major Henry West's (Christopher Eccleston) compound, Selena (Naomie Harris) and Hannah (Megan Burns) manage to get the gut-shot Jim (Cillian Murphy) to an abandoned hospital, but despite Selena's efforts, fail to save his life. However, he has managed to tell them about the plane he saw before rescuing them, and the film ends with Selena and Hannah setting off into an uncertain, but possibly not hopeless future. It's just a better ending, and it fits better than the theatrical-release ending. It closes a circle. Jim awakes in a hospital to the end of England, and the film closes after he's died in another hospital. There was also another "radical alternative" ending that was never filmed, but which Danny Boyle and Alex Garland present, via storyboards, a completely different possibility for the final third of the film, one where the soldiers are not introduced. It was interesting, but as Boyle and Garland admit, never would have worked. After the movie, we read more of Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci's Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd. I neglected to mention, yesterday, that this book is actually making me miss Dragon*Con, and I thought that was impossible.

There are books I really should be spending more time and energy promoting. I mean, that is the primary reason this journal exists. So, remember that next month Subterranean Press will be releasing the trade paperback edition of Alabaster, which collects all the Dancy Flammarion stories (except for "Highway 97"), complete with all Ted Naifeh's artwork. Also, if you haven't read yet read Daughter of Hounds, well, what are you waiting for? No, it's not necessary to read the earlier books first. Daughter of Hounds is a fine place to begin.

And now, the word mines.