Steven Harper's Blog, page 55

Last Day of School, 2019

Today was the last day for us at Wherever Schools.  In my case, it meant reading two sets of freshman final exam essays all at once.  I read until pencil lead leaked out of my ears.  However, the vast majority were quite good, and I was pleased with my students' progress.

It was rainy and cold out, a strange last day of school. However, it kept a lid on the more extreme behavior.  At the end of sixth hour, they stacked the chairs and tables--an end-of-year ritual.  The last bell rang, and they all stampeded for the exits.  I followed them into the hall to do a bit of patrolling.  One student was whacking walls and other students with a pool noodle.  I was just about to lunge for him when one of the assistant principals rose out of the crowd and snatched it from him.

"It's mine now," he announced.  The student stomped away, grumbling.  There's always one.

And then the building was empty.

I finished grading essays over a lunch of microwaved pizza--the life of a teacher--and finished tidying up my room.  This involves putting everything into a cabinet and dismantling my Frankenstein of a computer system.  (My computer setup is the bane of the district's IT people.  My chief goal is to get my hands on an admin password so I can load some actually useful programs onto my hard drive for once.)

By the time I was able to go home, it was pouring rain and bloody cold out.  I meandered out to the parking lot and drove off--another year ended!

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Kevin Review

 Publisher's Weekly reviewed THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING KEVIN as "a beautiful yet heart-wrenching story of overcoming tribulations with the power and strength of loving oneself." https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-64405-257-0

The book comes out July 2! You can pre-order now, though. https://www.amazon.com/Importance-Being-Kevin-Steven-Har…/…/

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Enforcement Claws

I've written a lot of fantasy humor for Esther Friesner. This one appeared in STRIP MAULED and it a Pride story of a different kind. Go see!

https://curiousfictions.com/authors/560-steven-harper



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Impossible Burger: A Short Food Review

 Yesterday, Darwin and I had supper at Red Robin. A new part of their menu is the Impossible Burger, a burger made of plant protein that's supposed to be indistinguishable from real beef. I decided to try it and see.

Total win. The patty was tender and juicy, with the taste and consistency of beef. If you served me this without saying anything, I would have thought it was real beef. And it had fewer calories.

The manager stopped by our table and asked how the meal was. I gave him my opinion of the Impossible Burger. He asked me to fill out the customer survey on my receipt and mention this because he's trying to make the IB part of their regular menu. (Currently, it's a special item.) So I did.

I think this and lab-grown meat will have a big role in saving the planet. Go try an Impossible Burger! See if you agree with me.

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An Interview With Octavia E. Butler

In 1997, I learned that my favorite author Octavia E. Butler was teaching at the Clarion workshop in Lansing, Michigan, only half an hour's drive from my house. I reached out to her and arranged an interview for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. It was one of the highlights of my career--I got to spend an hour talking to the best SF writer in the world and got paid for it! I was shocked and deeply saddened when I learned she'd passed away from a stroke in 2006, and I shouted with joy when I learned Amazon Prime had greenlighted a series based on her Patternmaster novels.

Last year, I learned that very few of Butler's speeches or interviews had actually been recorded. I still had the tapes I used for the interview--a fiercely-guarded souvenir. But I realized they weren't doing anyone any good sitting in my desk. I asked the museum if they would like to have the tapes, along with a copy of the original transcript. They readily agreed, and the interview is now enshrined with the rest of Butler's work and papers at the museum in Pasadena. Scholars lined up to request access to these papers before they were even cataloged, and the collection is now among the most-accessed in the museum.

I posted the transcript of the interview at Curious Fictions. Go see!





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So Long, Seniors!

My seniors are done now.  Their last day of exams was Thursday.  Friday morning they came in for their caps and gowns.  A number of them dropped by my classroom to say good-bye and tell me how glad they were to have me as their teacher.  Yay!

And now I have a sharply-reduced schedule.  (!)  What will I do with all this time?

Concentrate on my freshmen, of course!
 

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Final Darkover

Look what came in the mail! This is the 19th and final anthology of dark over stories. My story "Sacrifice" appears in it.

I'm glad I got to write it. It allowed me to bring the story of David North and his friend Loret Castamir to a satisfactory conclusion. I think I'm the only author ever to write noir detective fiction for Darkover!  




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Pre-Ordering Portals

My story "Brick and Mortar" appears in the upcoming anthology PORTALS.  It's all about the gateways to another universe!  You can pre-order at https://squareup.com/market/zombies-need-brains-llc   

PORTALS: What mysteries…or horrors…await you on the other side? The lure of an open doorway is hard to resist. What lies beyond? Where will it take you—and how will you be transformed? Will it lead to paradise…or a living hell? You’ll never know, unless you have the courage to take that first step. In this anthology you will find sixteen stories of portals to exotic destinations, whether it’s a doorway in the desert that appears out of thin air, a fairy ring of mushrooms in the backyard, a crack in the road, or a train headed straight to Hell. Science fiction and fantasy authors Nancy Holzner, Esther Friesner, Ian Tregillis, Jacey Bedford, John Linwood Grant, Kate Hall, Gini Koch, Violette Malan, Juliet Kemp, James Enge, Steven Harper, F. Brett Cox, Jaime Lee Moyer, Jason Palmatier, Andrija Popovic, and Patrick Hurley invite you to step through a host of doorways to other realities with infinite possibilities, some horrible, some comic, and some just plain weird. So take my hand—not too tight!—and let’s journey into another world. The door is open. The portal awaits.




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Stress Running

There's been a fair amount of stress in my life lately, and I've been waking up early with migraine headaches.  I take meds, lay back down, and totally fail to fall asleep.  The meds take away the headache, you see, but the slight buzz from them keeps me awake.  So what I've been doing is making use of the time.  If I'm going to be awake, I may as well do something useful.  In this case, I do an early morning run.

I'm not a good morning runner.  I do better, both speed and time, in the afternoon or evening.  But I make myself get going.  The advantage here is that I can burn the meds from my system faster AND get my run out of the way first thing.  I do have to run outside instead of on the treadmill, since the treadmill and TV would wake up everyone else in the house.

Today, I had the Morning Migraine again, and the Morning Meds, and the Morning Sleep Fail, so I got up at 6:00 and went running.  It was a lovely day for it, actually.  The quintessential Michigan spring morning.  All the trees are blooming and scenting the air with sweet blossoms.  The birds were singing.  The lawnmowers hadn't started up yet.  I had the streets and trails to myself.  It was delightful.

I just hope this doesn't become a habit!



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Morning!

This morning I woke up at 5:00 and couldn't get back to sleep. At 5:30, I gave up and went for a run in the early spring day, with the birds singing and the sun peeking through the trees and me feeling virtuous. And now I'm paying the price with evening lethargy. At least I'll sleep tonight! 

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